Elendir followed Mukhtar back on the light rail subway. Together they sat quietly in the crowded rail car. The display flashed fourteen stations. Finally, Mukhtar rose and headed to one of the passenger doors. Elendir followed silently.
When the odd pair reached the main street, Elendir’s penta-chromatic eyes squinted. Here, everything was designed with tri-chromatism in mind. Elendir observed a complete absence of neutral colors in the cityscape around him. No whites, no blacks, no greys, no browns outside of the occasional outcropping of soil. A smog-like cloud filled the air. Elendir coughed. This was like no place he had ever seen or smelled before. Nodding and checking if Elendir were still following, Mukhtar headed towards a poorly constructed apartment building sixteen stories tall. A reddish black dust coated the exterior of the building. Elendir paused to scan the dust with his small computer. Orgene dust, the computer concluded…in high concentrations. “This is orgene?” asked Elendir.
“Yes! I see it as very red in color; I am sure your eyes perceive it differently,” answered Mukhtar.
“It looks reddish-black to me,” confirmed Elendir.
“What is…black?” asked Mukhtar.
“I beg your pardon?” blinked Elendir.
“Black…what is that?”
“It is the complete absence of light being reflected from an object, when all the light is absorbed. You cannot see black?” puzzled Elendir.
“Beinarian eyes have a special cone for perceiving what I understand are considered neutral colors. Exposure to high levels of orgene over a prolonged time destroys that cone in our retinas. Another cone in normal eyes sees both very high energy and low energy light…this cone too is destroyed in new residents here…or absent altogether for ten generations of such a person’s progeny. This is what Brown Eye Syndrome entails…well, in large part,” detailed Mukhtar.
“Why then have I not heard of this before? I have never heard or read anything mentioning any sort of ocular mutations among our people….”
Mukhtar put his arm around Elendir’s shoulders, “Then perhaps you should come up and all will be obvious!”