When
Sean Foster woke up, he lay very still on the cot, letting his eyes focus on
the wall in front of him. He felt full
consciousness returning, but he wouldn’t let himself turn over, not until he
reminded himself that he didn’t know where he was.
He rolled over and his eyes swept
the room, taking in the metallic-gray walls, the steel door, the porthole
reflecting the harsh light from the ceiling. If he could just concentrate hard enough, he might convince himself he’d
never seen this place before. His eyes
settled on the light fixture in the ceiling, a rectangle of plastic covering
the two fluorescent bulbs that simulated daylight. He tried to put all of his concentration into
staring at the bulbs, one of which was just beginning to flicker a little, but
then his ears betrayed him by picking up the faint hum of engines. Abruptly Sean saw the cell for what it was,
and he put the palms of both hands to his eyes before he sat up.
It
was stupid to think that’d work anyway, he thought as he looked down at his
dull brown uniform.
By now he knew the sequence: first
brief terror, then anger, to be followed eventually by resignation. Once he reached that point, Sean slouched
back against the wall, staring at the beige loafers waiting on the floor beside
the cot. He knew it was no use asking
the guards again for something to read; there was nothing to do but wait.
His thoughts were interrupted by a
jarring sound of metal scraping metal. The door of the cell slid open slowly and two guards appeared beyond it,
one holding a tray while the other rested a hand on his holstered gun.
“Breakfast.” The guard holding the tray was husky, with no
trace of flab, and he stood a few centimeters taller than Sean. He had a face resembling a wind-carved sand
dune, topped by short, black hair. His
dark eyes checked the cell, as they had every other time he delivered a meal
here, but the scan had become cursory by now.
Sean stayed where he was, knowing
the routine. This allowed the guard to
enter the cell and set the tray on the floor just inside the door before
stepping back again.
“Thanks,” Sean offered.
“Yeah,” the guard said on his way
out. After Sean heard the lock take
hold, he retrieved the tray and sat back on the cot to eat. It was the usual, a couple of tasteless
pancakes with a tiny squirt of syrup, a crumbling piece of toast that soaked up
the egg pretty well, a cup of orange juice, and some weak coffee, each in its
own little plastic container. Sean no
longer noticed the food; eating was merely something to do. Today, however, he didn’t do much of it,
barely managing to down the toast and juice before he had to give up. There was no use forcing himself, so he set
the tray next to the door and returned to his position on the cot. The guard didn’t comment when he came to pick
up the tray half an hour later.
A few moments after that, Sean
turned his head to look at the porthole again. He could still recall his mental images when his apologetic lawyer first
mentioned space: purple aliens, flashy spaceships soaring past brilliant
planets, glittering asteroid showers. It
had all seemed exciting enough, but he had yet to actually see any of it. From his position on the bunk now, the
glaring reflection of the ceiling light made the void beyond the porthole
invisible. He didn’t want to look out
again, but then he thought, twenty years,
and that was enough to get him off the cot and across the short distance to the
porthole. This might be his last look
for another lifetime—at least it seemed like that to someone only twenty-four
years old—so he might as well take advantage of it.
As he bent toward the small glass
circle, he caught a glimpse of himself reflected there: Sean Foster, a
medium-sized young man whose light-brown hair needed a comb and whose brown
eyes looked a little puzzled. Some hardened criminal, he thought.
His image blurred into the void
outside the spaceship. As usual, all he
could see were stars. There were
billions of them out there, more than he’d thought possible, but they were only
a temporary distraction from boredom and, especially today, dread. It was the third day, so the ship must be
nearing its destination. He pressed his
nose against the cold glass, wondering without enthusiasm if he would see the
prison planet before it became merely the ground under his feet. At the thought of a prison door slamming shut
behind him, Sean felt fear crawl up his spine and over his shoulder blades to
nestle in his hair. It didn’t matter
what space was really like because he wouldn’t see it again for twenty years,
maybe more if they forgot about him. He
was so far from his lawyer, the courts, anyone who might care about him, that
he might as well have ceased to exist. Sean had been caught off guard by his sentence, but he wasn’t going to
let the horror of the prison term sneak up on him, too.
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