by Michael Penner

Created on: January 11, 2009   Last Updated: January 14, 2009

His name was Iman, but he did not know this. He had been alive in this particular body 35 years, 50 days, and 6 hours. He had no true knowledge of the passage of time, only that life seemed to have started this morning, when we awoke from a dreamless slumber six hours ago, at 6 a.m.

Iman's chambers were small but he knew nothing of cramped confinement. His clothing was bland, bright orange, and new, but he had no words for color or any knowledge of the newness of things. His chamber was a padded 12 x 12 cell with a comfortable bed, a private toilet, a shower, and a food dispenser. Somehow he knew how to use all of these things, but did not recall having ever used them before. The padded walls were mahogany in hue. The floor and ceiling a cool blue. The room felt oddly restrictive to Iman, but he did know why.

A side panel of the wall slid open and a table with a chair slid out, both bolted to the floor. He instinctively went to the food dispenser, removed his tray of the first meal he could recall of his life, sat down and began to eat it. It in fact had no taste, but he did not know this.

When he was done he stripped off his sleep wear, his thick hairless skin sliding easily out of the garments. He took a shower, washing his bald head and smooth white body without understanding why he did it, just that he felt he must. The shower gave him strange comfort, and sadness at the same time.

Stepping out of the shower he got dressed and waited for the door to his chambers to open. He did not know how he knew someone would come, and was shocked when the door opened and a strange creature stood outside. Had Iman any access to a mirror, he would have known that this person looked similar to him, but differed in one fundamental way; he was not nearly indestructible and his skin was not perfect marble white like Iman's own.

Other differences would make themselves apparent as Iman worked deep within the Martian caves, helping to mine the expansive veins of Gold and Titanium found there. As the day wore on he realized there were two types of creatures here: his kind and their kind. Their kind were like the one that had escorted him from his chamber to the vacuum car travel tube that led to this mine. They were taller, somewhat pushy, and dressed in nearly identical dark clothing. Their eyes did not glow in the dark, and they needed a portable artificial light source to see anything.

They forced Iman to work with a sort of mechanical handheld drill scoop and pick axe, even

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