Time is Not Eternal

February 24, 2186, Mercury, Solaris system

Outside the window, the sun shone with its endless rays. They reflected off the crystal facets of the rocks and danced over a pond of liquid lead a few hundred meters from the dome. The view was breathtaking, but Kham Men couldn't possibly enjoy it - not in this place, not on Mercury. Especially not after work. And that idiot jailer could drive anyone crazy.

He had worked himself to the point of unconsciousness inside the mining dome earlier in the day. The pungent smell of two hundred hairy Jerrassians had assaulted his nose. In the dim light, he had seen the prison guards wandering around the eaves, wearing gas masks and armed with hand gasers. The work had been inhumanly difficult for him in the oppressive heat, and two hours before the end of the day, he had passed out, collapsing in a shapeless heap on the floor.

Of course, this was not permitted. This particular jailer, a Terran military man named Robert Wilson, had found him soon enough. Kham Men had awoken to the Terran's shrill cries and the suffocating smell of burning flesh, which he soon identified as his own. The anger he felt had been almost uncontrollable, but retaliating against a jailer was tantamount to committing suicide; the life of a prisoner on Caloris Base was not worth much.

He didn't do much the following night. Dreams, or perhaps nightmares, swept over him in waves of recurrence. Sure, the wound in his arm had been sterilized by the burning heat of the gaser, but it ached despite the painkillers he had illicitly obtained from a countryman in a neighboring barrack. In the nightmares, he dreamed of times lost...

...Across the blue sky, small white wooly clouds slowly drifted by. He had heard that the Terran vision perceived them as orange, but to him they were white and would have been a good omen for fishing, had he not been a captive. Around him, about thirty other Jerrassians milled about, all of whom were prisoners. The only free people here at the Reagan base were the Sunguard soldiers, who guarded the captives as if they were animals. In front of them stood a Terran transport ship with its cargo ramp lowered, and a river of Jerrassians was being forcefully herded towards it. He caught one last glimpse of the verdant meadows and fields around him before the gate closed with a soft hiss. The Terrans were harsh and inhuman, but he couldn't help but admire their technology.

A few shouts of command blared through the speaker system in the Terran language of English. He didn't understand the words, but assumed they meant the ship had lifted off. Locked in a dark room with thirty other prisoners, he completely lost track of time. It could have been a week or a month before the ship landed once more. Only once during the journey did he feel the proof of the Terrans' superior technology: a wave of nausea, a sign of the altered gravitational conditions brought on by the jump through hyperspace. Outside, Solaris I - Mercury to the Terrans - hung in space. A sharp sense of fear, almost painful in nature, swept down Kham Men's spine and made the aggression center of his brain tingle as the shock of adrenaline hit...

...He opened his eyes and stubbornly brushed away the imaginary domains of the dream. A scream startled him awake, only to realize it was his own. The wound had dried overnight and stuck to the fabric of his bed, tearing free as he moved. He had certainly woken up on the wrong side today, with no hope that the day would improve. Full of bitterness, he got up and washed as best he could with the meager amount of water he had at his disposal. When the lunch bell rang, he pawed through the gray, damp-smelling cement corridors. The dining room door creaked as Men pushed it closed. Inside, two hundred other prisoners were trying to stomach the animal food the prison cook struggled to serve them. As he calmly and methodically chewed the dry flakes, a plan started to form in his head. Thoughts, forbidden thoughts, gathered in the winding paths of neurons and coalesced into an idea of ​​a rare kind.