Welcome

Corin understood perfectly well that he had to pay for his actions, but he nonetheless considered this penal transportation a bit too much.

It wasn’t the fact that he was being sent away, he really had always felt this way about the process, even before he had done anything wrong; being sent somewhere you could not return from seemed like a very harsh sentence, regardless of one’s crime.

On the journey, Corin didn’t even bother to talk to strangers, as he knew he’d have no relation with any of them once they arrived.

He considered that if he had received a proper education he would have never been sent to this forsaken place. Doctors, engineers, anyone with advanced knowledge were seldom sent there.

That, in turn, brought in another challenge: there would be no real doctors around, no real technology; it would pretty much be like traveling to the past, he imagined.

As he arrived he considered, just as the person next to him, the perils of being left in such a savage territory, away from civilization: he’d have access to no proper medical care, which meant that he could easily lose a tooth and never grow it back; if he lost a limb, there’d be no way to make it grow again or attach a replacement, cybernetic or otherwise; if he died, he’d have very little chance of being revived; and, worst of all, he would most definitely die, as he’d be aging all the time he’d be stuck in this place.

He knew very little about the prison, but he did know that it was dangerous and that it was huge. The prison had been in place for such a long time that no one had any idea anymore of how many prisoners were still alive, or how many descendants were now present.

Everything was a huge unknown.

Forget about not being able to talk to your friends or family, forget about not being able to go where you wanted, forget about all of that: he’d be in imminent danger every single day.

The officer interrupted his train of thought:

- These are your papers, and this is your standard package of information.

- Anything else I should know?

- No, that is all. Welcome to Earth.