Tatehan stood before the science fiction shelf, his eyes going through the unfamiliar titles arranged along the floating surface. But his mind drifted backward, pulled toward memories of a different time and a different world.
He'd been more of a fantasy fan back on Earth, truth be told. Give him dragons and he was happy. Give him intricate magic systems with rules and limitations, with costs and consequences, and he'd devour every page. Medieval settings called to him in ways that futuristic tech never quite had, knights in armor, castles rising from misty valleys, enchanted forests, wizards manipulating forces beyond mortal comprehension and all that.
He'd spent countless hours immersed in those worlds.
But now on Mars, impossibly far from Earth in both distance and time. Far into what was humanity's future, though he had no idea what year it actually was but all he knew was that he was a century into the future.
