Captain Miller set down his carbonized reed pen, ending the day's work.
He handed the clay tablet to his student, then rose and walked to the window, drawing aside the linen curtains and pushing open the transparent glass window that should not have existed in this era. The setting sun along Mesopotamia's coast barged in with the sea breeze, scattering fragments of orange-red light across the room.
What could a person achieve if they devoted twenty full years to a craft or calling? He felt he could now answer that question. Twenty years were enough to turn his hair gray and make his knees ache. Even a high-backed chair made from the precious timber of the Mesopotamian plains, padded with the softest cashmere, could not ease the back pain that came with age. None of that had happened to him. He still looked like a middle-aged man. His dark skin had grown rougher from years of labor, but he remained strong and healthy—this was the Emperor's gift. After becoming a priest in name, the Emperor had given him a bottle of Red Potion, a medicine that allowed him to retain his youth and life. Twenty years had been enough to turn him from an astronaut into an educator. He had organized and mastered the cuneiform writing of Eridu and its surrounding regions, earning himself considerable social standing. The children who had once been carried far from home by caravans had now become sharp, capable young adults, like the student standing beside him.
They wore simple linen uniforms completely unlike those of the local Human Race, and they thought in ways utterly different from those of this era. These children had seen the Emperor not long ago, but Captain Miller had not. It had been a long time since he had