Deep Space Station - Presius Sector
The walls were clammy to the touch, moist and almost soft. The feeling was not one of steel or iron, but flesh. Of course it was only the power of imagination unrestrained that gave rise to such a thought, but in the darkness one could not tell deep mold deposits apart from the wall they called home. Every few seconds light would flash into the room, a dim glow that was gone as quickly as it appeared: the remnant of a burnt-out glowpanel still trying to ignite. All in all, when the darkness returned, the room was not comfortable to be in.
Nor was it meant to be. A room perhaps was too sterile a definition, too far removed from purpose and function. True enough, it was a room, but that its design was more than a space fabricated for the holding of something, of someone. Yes, it was there not only to hold, but to squeeze. He who found himself clutched therein had done something terrible to gain admittance, something truly horrific and disgusting to the good taste and sense of the populace. The room was a cell. The designer, long dead, would have laughed, or perhaps felt some perverse tinge of pride at the success of his creation; a light that was never supposed to work, walls porous to admit humidity and spores, a floor welded together uneven with gravity-plates underneath that subtly rotated in power. Yes, the designer had done well; in the silence of darkness, his laughter was deafening.
Truly horrific...disgusting to good taste. This was the reason for being sent to such a place, such a den of effortless fear. Murder? Rape? Brigandage? The former two were common enough in the Presius Sector, even the last more and more so in a region prone to lawlessness than Hutt Space. With little authority in place, such crimes would not warrant banishment to a prison in the stars, far from the lanes plowed by merchants and pirates. No, this was not a common prison - if prisons were common in a lawless sector - this was an uncommon prison to the core. Before the Revolution it housed those wretches even scum cast out, those souls who dared defy the mighty corporations or regents or rulers, those for whom death was too good, too quick. Now, during the Revolution.....it was a place for those who dared to speak out against it. Yes, uncommon criminals who had committed that most uncommon - and intolerable - type of crime. Those who dared think.
I have done nothing wrong.
What a pathetic mantra, when spoken or imagined by a man in a cell for every government can say the same with a sardonic smile and calculating laugh: there are no guilty beings in prison. The profestation of innocence, as common as the setting and rising of the suns. As hollow as it sounded, as hollowed as he knew it sounded, he couldn't help but repeat it to himself, as if it was the source of some hidden strength, some untapped reserve.
I have done nothing wrong.
His body sucked his hand back to its side, recoiling from the soft, disgusting touch of the one wall of whose location he was now certain. Four days - maybe five, time was now meaningless - had passed with little food, little water, little reality. He was certain of nothing; nothing, save where that slimy wall was. Now the others...
Have I done something wrong?
A question now, the final straw. His mind refused to acknolwedge the possibility and closed itself off to speculation. This horror, this vile, foul smelling chamber with its intermittent light was punishment unearned and undeserved. He recoiled back into himself, plopping down into what seemed to be the floor - if the gravity worked properly. Maybe he was one the ceiling...
Madness was beginning to set in. Darkness, ennui, malnutrition - the shadow of the final act was approaching fast. Would it end, would he be delivered from the darkness, from the headaches and popping of his eardrums, if he shouted his guilt? Probably not...
Desperation was next, that he knew. But he did not get that far.
A light! Small at first, then larger and larger until it ran up and down for ever, a sliver of hope in a sea of darkness. Joy ran up and down his spine, and he stood, awkwardly. His hand shot out as his legs refused to align, the fingers jamming into a mass of slippery foam-ish stuff his mind dared not ponder the origin of. With a measure of defiant recognition, he catalogued the second wall with a mental eureka!
The light was wider now and seemed to be a door. Then a shape, then two shapes. And then, the flickering glow panel worked. Grey walls, a cold steel colour, were fleceked with green and purple splotches, interrupted here and there by a brownish blob that looked to have hardened. Unsteadily, his eyes adjusted as best he could. He looked from one side to the other, shielding his face with crud encrusted hands: two beings sat before him behind a table they must have unfolded after entering. He looked down at himself; he was dirty and disgusting. Even now, accustomed to the stench, he wrinkled his nose as one sense compounded the impression of another. The two seated beings, men from the looks of them, seemed apathetic to the melange of dirty and decay. He looked down again - he was wearing pants. The remains of pants, anyway. Looking back up, the other two were well dressed: one had a single breasted suit jacket and black shirt, the other a double breasted jacket that buttoned up almost to his neck.
" You are Orvan?"
The question hung in the air. His ears worked fine, but for some reason his mouth refused to move.
" You are Orvan?" the single-breasted jacket wearing man asked again, his tone identical to the first time. His voice was cold, emotionless. This was certainly not good.
I was. Orvan, yes, that's who he was. Who I am! Confidence, a shred or two of it at least, worked its way into the man's mind. " I am."
The double-breasted jacket-wearer looked at his colleague then back towards Orvan, the filthy remnant of a man who for several days had lived in the deplorable conditions he had imagined - and exacerbated before Orvan's arrival. Were he less professional, he might have smiled at his success. But he was professional, so he simply placed a recorder-box on the table and glared at the man. At his prey. His toy.
" Good. Then we can begin."
The walls were clammy to the touch, moist and almost soft. The feeling was not one of steel or iron, but flesh. Of course it was only the power of imagination unrestrained that gave rise to such a thought, but in the darkness one could not tell deep mold deposits apart from the wall they called home. Every few seconds light would flash into the room, a dim glow that was gone as quickly as it appeared: the remnant of a burnt-out glowpanel still trying to ignite. All in all, when the darkness returned, the room was not comfortable to be in.
Nor was it meant to be. A room perhaps was too sterile a definition, too far removed from purpose and function. True enough, it was a room, but that its design was more than a space fabricated for the holding of something, of someone. Yes, it was there not only to hold, but to squeeze. He who found himself clutched therein had done something terrible to gain admittance, something truly horrific and disgusting to the good taste and sense of the populace. The room was a cell. The designer, long dead, would have laughed, or perhaps felt some perverse tinge of pride at the success of his creation; a light that was never supposed to work, walls porous to admit humidity and spores, a floor welded together uneven with gravity-plates underneath that subtly rotated in power. Yes, the designer had done well; in the silence of darkness, his laughter was deafening.
Truly horrific...disgusting to good taste. This was the reason for being sent to such a place, such a den of effortless fear. Murder? Rape? Brigandage? The former two were common enough in the Presius Sector, even the last more and more so in a region prone to lawlessness than Hutt Space. With little authority in place, such crimes would not warrant banishment to a prison in the stars, far from the lanes plowed by merchants and pirates. No, this was not a common prison - if prisons were common in a lawless sector - this was an uncommon prison to the core. Before the Revolution it housed those wretches even scum cast out, those souls who dared defy the mighty corporations or regents or rulers, those for whom death was too good, too quick. Now, during the Revolution.....it was a place for those who dared to speak out against it. Yes, uncommon criminals who had committed that most uncommon - and intolerable - type of crime. Those who dared think.
I have done nothing wrong.
What a pathetic mantra, when spoken or imagined by a man in a cell for every government can say the same with a sardonic smile and calculating laugh: there are no guilty beings in prison. The profestation of innocence, as common as the setting and rising of the suns. As hollow as it sounded, as hollowed as he knew it sounded, he couldn't help but repeat it to himself, as if it was the source of some hidden strength, some untapped reserve.
I have done nothing wrong.
His body sucked his hand back to its side, recoiling from the soft, disgusting touch of the one wall of whose location he was now certain. Four days - maybe five, time was now meaningless - had passed with little food, little water, little reality. He was certain of nothing; nothing, save where that slimy wall was. Now the others...
Have I done something wrong?
A question now, the final straw. His mind refused to acknolwedge the possibility and closed itself off to speculation. This horror, this vile, foul smelling chamber with its intermittent light was punishment unearned and undeserved. He recoiled back into himself, plopping down into what seemed to be the floor - if the gravity worked properly. Maybe he was one the ceiling...
Madness was beginning to set in. Darkness, ennui, malnutrition - the shadow of the final act was approaching fast. Would it end, would he be delivered from the darkness, from the headaches and popping of his eardrums, if he shouted his guilt? Probably not...
Desperation was next, that he knew. But he did not get that far.
A light! Small at first, then larger and larger until it ran up and down for ever, a sliver of hope in a sea of darkness. Joy ran up and down his spine, and he stood, awkwardly. His hand shot out as his legs refused to align, the fingers jamming into a mass of slippery foam-ish stuff his mind dared not ponder the origin of. With a measure of defiant recognition, he catalogued the second wall with a mental eureka!
The light was wider now and seemed to be a door. Then a shape, then two shapes. And then, the flickering glow panel worked. Grey walls, a cold steel colour, were fleceked with green and purple splotches, interrupted here and there by a brownish blob that looked to have hardened. Unsteadily, his eyes adjusted as best he could. He looked from one side to the other, shielding his face with crud encrusted hands: two beings sat before him behind a table they must have unfolded after entering. He looked down at himself; he was dirty and disgusting. Even now, accustomed to the stench, he wrinkled his nose as one sense compounded the impression of another. The two seated beings, men from the looks of them, seemed apathetic to the melange of dirty and decay. He looked down again - he was wearing pants. The remains of pants, anyway. Looking back up, the other two were well dressed: one had a single breasted suit jacket and black shirt, the other a double breasted jacket that buttoned up almost to his neck.
" You are Orvan?"
The question hung in the air. His ears worked fine, but for some reason his mouth refused to move.
" You are Orvan?" the single-breasted jacket wearing man asked again, his tone identical to the first time. His voice was cold, emotionless. This was certainly not good.
I was. Orvan, yes, that's who he was. Who I am! Confidence, a shred or two of it at least, worked its way into the man's mind. " I am."
The double-breasted jacket-wearer looked at his colleague then back towards Orvan, the filthy remnant of a man who for several days had lived in the deplorable conditions he had imagined - and exacerbated before Orvan's arrival. Were he less professional, he might have smiled at his success. But he was professional, so he simply placed a recorder-box on the table and glared at the man. At his prey. His toy.
" Good. Then we can begin."