Ten Hours (short story)

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It had often been cold. Today, however, it was a different story altogether. The temperature must have been at least minus five, the door was frozen solid, and icicles hung from the ceiling of the cell. Water dripped from them at two second intervals. Tap, tap, tap. It used to drive him crazy, but now he was immune to it.

Ten hours.

It was probably some time towards the end of the Dantooine winter. He wasn't sure: the last time he had had any real idea of the date was back home on Eriadu, four years ago. Then, they'd come in the middle of the night to round up the people in the human quarter and he'd been dragged from his wife and children. He had heard nothing of them since.

He was a philosophy lecturer and thought of the times when he'd return from the university to find his wife, Airam, waiting on the doorstep, the children in her arms. They'd spend the cold winter evenings on the settee in front of the coal-fire. As Airam rested her head on his shoulder, they would while away the hours talking about their day and wathcing the holonet. The children would be playing at their feet. He looked outside. The morning's clear skies had given way to a mass of dense grey clouds. The snow drifted down with ever Increasing ferocity. In the distance a dove tried to brave the conditions.

He was stopped in his thoughts by the sound of boots at the door. A key turned and three bolts were snapped back. After some shoving and kicking, the ice jamming the door was shattered. It creaked open. He prayed it not to be Tsielk. His heart was beating rapidly.

Tsielk marched in. Behind him followed a guard Issoy hadn't seen before.

'What did you say to Snah yesterday?' Tsielk bellowed as he moved towards the prisoner.

'My food?' Issoy murmured.

'F your food, you son of a...!' He was a young Rakata, in his early twenties, tall, with a soft, pleasant face. Yes, he was not unattractive, the guard with Tsielk.

Nine hours.

He couldn't have been more different from his companion. Tsielk was a portly middle-aged Rakata. A fat nose and diminutive brown eyes dominated his face.

'I can't even take a break now. I don't come for one day, one f-ing day, and you're already throwing insults at me. I'll give you some food . . .' He punched Issoy in the abdomen and he fell against the wall.

'W-What insults? I didn't,' Issoy said.

'Don't give me that "what insults"!' he snapped. 'All you f-ing humans are the same.'

'I didn't say anything!' Issoy replied. Then, all of sudden, he broke into tears. He realized what was coming and couldn't take it today. He begged the guard not to beat him: 'I'm s-sorry. Please don't hit me. I didn't mean it . . . it w-wasn't about you . . .' Tsielk grabbed his hair and flung him across the cell.

He knew the minute it had come out of his mouth he'd have to pay for it. He had meant it. Snah had brought his lunch - it was Tsielk's day off - and he had been thinking all morning about his family. Cursing the guards in his mind wasn't enough. He had wanted them to know: 'You bastard - you're all bastards!'

Tsielk pulled out a vibroblade from his belt. He slashed it at Issoy's face. Issoy managed to save himself - just - by stumbling back onto the wall. But now he was cornered.

He concentrated on the vibroblade as it closed in on him. It eyed him devilishly and moved nearer and nearer.

'Sir - don't!' the other guard pleaded. Issoy trembled. Tsielk thrust the vibroblade into him. He dropped to the floor and a thick redness flowed from his stomach.

Everything was happening so quickly now. His head was spinning, he was begging for mercy 'I'm sorry! I'm sorry!', he could see a white haziness coming down, the vibroblade was being thrust again...

'What the hell,' Tsielk muttered, 'you're not worth it,' and turned back.

'Clear the waste and let's get out of here,' Tsielk ordered his companion, gesturing to a tin box in a corner. The guard walked over and picked up the container. This, according to the rules, was supposed to be slopped out every other day, but Tsielk, who never obeyed any rules, only used to do it once a week. Recently, he hadn't done it for over a fortnight and when Issoy had complained it was overspilling and stank, all he had got as a reply was a kick in the stomach.

The guard began walking out with the box, but then his senior summoned him back.

'On second thoughts, give it to me. I'll clear it.' He snatched the box, and dumped its contents over Issoy. Tsielk's laughter echoed around the cell as the wastage rolled down the prisoner's body.

He finally stopped guffawing and signalled to the guard that they were finished. Issoy cleared his eyes and stared at the two of them as they walked out. No food. Another beating. Begging for mercy, reduced to tears again. Just then, the young guard glanced back and their pupils met for a tenth, a hundredth of a second.

'I'm just a conscript. I have nothing against humans or the other slave races,' his morose eyes seemed to be indicating, 'I want to get out of this hell as much as you.'

As Tsielk turned round to close the door, Issoy noticed the sign on his shoulder. The emblem of peace and goodwill, the symbol of hope and joy. He stared at the gold sun. It had certainly given him much joy. The door clanged shut and the three bolts were snapped back.

Eight hours.

Issoy's eyes remained transfixed on the door long after it had shut. Tsielk had hesitated. Why? Why hadn't he stabbed him the second time? Issoy wouldn't have minded. He couldn't understand why were they keeping him alive. To keep him suffering because he had campaigned against the Infinite Empire and written a couple of lousy anti-Rakata pamphlets? He smiled. He WANTED to die, but they wouldn't let him.

Were they dead? He knew the Rakata had rounded up the women and children a few hours later. But what had they done to them? One of the guards, Zawhca, said the women and children were taken to Tatooine and had been... he didn't, he wouldn't, he couldn't believe him. Time and time again he'd asked the gods about his family. Where was Airam? and Nahoj? And his dear little Aynat? But the gods never seemed to hear.

Where were they, Issoy wondered?

Where were these omniscients, omnipresents, omnipotents? True he had sinned - who hadn't? - but is this what he deserved? Airam was an agnostic and would argue the gods had deserted humans, they didn't deserve to be worshipped. But he would always defend the gods. He wasn't that strict with the rituals or dietary regulations, but he had never compromised his belief in the gods. A question entered his mind - had they forsaken the humans? Ordinarily, he would have thrown the thought to the back of his head, but today he pondered.

He asked the gods why it was always his people, the humans, who were persecuted, why they were the ones who were made the scapegoats for other peoples' inabilities to cope with the ebbs and flows of life. They had been fleeing oppression for four thousand years. Now they were being wiped out by persecutors far worse than any Duros or Hutts. Why, gods, why? He got no reply. He had never got a reply.

Issoy examined his stomach. Blood was trickling out of the wound. It streamed between his ribs and dripped onto the floor. Suddenly, he began experiencing spasms of pains in his abdomen. His chest shook violently. He dropped to the ground and a gush of vomit flowed out.

His ribs were pulling in, suffocating him. He rolled on the floor, coughing and spluttering, gasping for air. Then he stopped moving. His head dropped. His legs ceased to move. And the cell turned silent.

Seven hours.

He was brought to consciousness a couple of hours later. One by one, he began moving the parts of his body, his legs, his arms, his fingers. The pains had lessened.

He lifted his head and from his lying position looked outside. It was dark. A wonderless, unexceptional moon hung in the middle of the picture. Around it the sky had cleared leaving behind a black mass and, all those millions of miles away, hundreds of sleeping stars. He gazed at the vastness. How had this so wonderful a creation been made? For a creation there had to have been creators, creators so great they had built the galaxy. So magnificent as architects, faultless in their designs.

But then Issoy sat up. Were these the same creators who had made Dantooine and Tatooine which the guards had told him about? Were these the same creators who looked down and saw their 'Chosen Race' being exterminated, yet did nothing? These supposedly all-caring, all-protecting deities saw their suffering, heard their pleas for help, yet remained unmoved.

'The gods are funny old creatures,' Issoy's uncle, Nivel, a priest, used to say, 'Their help comes when one least expects it. If you keep your faith, in the end when you really need them, they'll come to your aid.' As the birds sang in the midnight sky, he though now questioned: did the gods hear? Did they even exist?

Four hours.

'Get up you human scum.'

Standing at his feet, wearing a grey winter's cloak, was Lhok, the camp leader. Behind him stood several men, not just guards but seniors as well. He only recognised two of them in the dimness of the cell: Snah and Zawhcs, from the morning and night shifts. There didn't seem to be the evening shift: Tsielk.

Lhok peered down at him huddled in a corner. He said, 'So you're the great Issoy are you? You don't look very great to me.' A few sniggers passed around the cell. This was only the second time Issoy had met Lhok. He couldn't make out his face in the darkness: a featureless silhouette with two impassive eyes stared at him.

He had been itching to ask Lhok a question for months, a question to which the other guards only reply would be, 'Ask the camp leader.' But now he couldn't pluck the courage. He finally mumbled: 'W-Why are you keeping me a-alive?'

Lhok didn't answer. 'Take him!' he commanded in a gruff voice. He grabbed Issoy and flung him over to two guards standing in the doorway. The guards, seeing he was in no condition to walk, dragged him out of the cell and then along a series of corridors. The air was thick in the narrow passages and there was the same nauseating stench as four years ago when he was being dragged into the cell. Behind them followed a brigade of officers, now having grown as others had been called from adjoining rooms.

One hour.

They finally turned into a vast yard blanketed in snow. Issoy half-staggered, half-crawled to the centre, where the guards dropped him. He lifted his head out of the snow and spat some dirt from his mouth. It was dawn. A biting westerly wind whistled in the air around him. The sight of hundreds of scrawny prisoners assembled at the perimeters of the yard frightened him. They reminded him of the miners at Bespin.

Nahoj had an attraction for mining. He had once said: 'Dad, do you know what I want to be when I grow up? A miner.' A miner! And what would he do with all the money he'd earn? 'I will make you and mum and Aynat happy. I'll buy you a speeder [he opened his hands out] a big, big speeder, then you won't have to get the trains every morning, and I'll get mum a kitchen with a sink and a tap like Negruj's mum's got.'

He examined the crowd.

'And I'll buy Aynat lots of dolls.'

They were all humans. They were naked but for a few rags; most were bald. From them emanated an air of empathy, as though they wanted to help him, save him. But the emaciated skeletons wouldn't be able to save themselves, what could they do for him? The pathetic creatures would be worked to death any day now.

Blood began to trickle out of his stomach wound again. He was perspiring heavily. The wound was letting out everything, it was as though his stomach was being ripped apart. He clenched his teeth. The pain! His head was aching and felt like it was about to explode. He passed out as he was kicked over to a contraption of some kind.

Half hour.

Brought to consciousness by a bucketful of water, Issoy found himself being held up on a chair by two soldiers. It was brighter now. The onlookers' attention was still on him and the few guards in the centre of the yard.

Lhok, on a wooden platform to his left, was delivering a speech. Though half-unconscious, Issoy managed to make out some of the words: '... Look at this Rakata-hater!... As the Emperor would say, better not to have been born than be born a human! I personally will make sure every one of you dies suffering, dies a death worse than that of a dog...'

The camp leader's words were drowned out by the sound of hailstones showering down. The prisoners scrambled to cover themselves with their rags. In the hubbub, Issoy's eyes were drawn to the sun on Lhok's uniform. It had given him so much pain, so much anguish. It had brought his people to their knees. But then he glanced back at the crowd. He began to think.

Hadn't the gods' book mentioned a period when the galaxy would turn against his people and persecute them just because of their humanity? Didn't it talk of a time when they would be subjected to torture and massacre on an unparalleled scale?

Yes!

This was the time his people had waited for many ages, the period before the human rule of the galaxy!. The Rakata, the work camps... they were what the book had been talking about.

Their enemies might be able to inflict cruelties on them now, but the gods would give them their just deserts in the afterlife. They hadn't betrayed them; this was a stage in their plan. The new galaxy would come and humans would finally attain the peace and happiness they had never had. Issoy felt a cloak wrapping around him; he was warm and the pains didn't hurt anymore.

Lhok got off the platform and walked to the centre of the yard. He circled Issoy, his black eyes perusing him. Issoy yelled 'You bastard!' and spat on his face.

Lhok didn't show any emotion. He wiped the saliva off and nodded to a soldier standing behind the human. A vibroblade was put to Issoy's back and pushed forward into his heart.

Zero hours.