Tom had gone to work learning everything he could about the reactors and figuring out how to tune them to last as long as possible. He came to the conclusion, that under very low draw, one of them might be able to power their needs for twelve to fifteen hundred years or so. That was if nothing went wrong. He figured out how to set the defaults to the other reactors, if and when the first one failed, but that was an even bigger risk—the backup reactors might be anywhere from a few decades to a thousand years old by the time they were needed. Their cryo experiment also demanded that the computers that controlled the units continue to function for centuries, as well. The computers were all hermetically sealed and had several backup systems, but they were risking everything on the computers’ performance. In short, there was a lot that could go wrong.
*
“I’m not real comfortable with this Alex,” he said, when he had finished all the calculations and setting up all the systems. He explained the tenuous power situation to Alex.
Alex was less worried. The cryo units had a battery back-up and she had discovered that they were designed to shut down and open were there ever a permanent loss of juice. “We’ll be OK Tom,” she just kept saying to him, as he watched her carefully loading the canisters of cryo-protectant Pete had given her into each of the four beds they would be using.
She put Mot and Ara in charge of food supplies. Tom had located a bank of hermetic safes and Alex had sent the two Arzats out to find anything and everything they could that was dry to stock them. Dry nuts, dried fruit, pasta, flour, anything and everything dry was the assignment. Alex figured with their noses, the Arzats wouldn’t miss much. She was only mildly annoyed when they showed back up from their first trip with a huge load of beef jerky and not much else. She sent them out a few more times, and eventually, there was a nice stockpile of dry edibles packed into several of the safes. Alex smiled when she noticed that Mot seemed to have inadvertently brought back several boxes of pancake batter mix, until she realized that there was a picture of pancakes on the box.
Tom was doubtful if there would be anything left of anything when or if they finally awoke, but he hadn’t bothered to say it. Alex noticed that he had placed his own stockpile of duffle bags stuffed with something in the safes, but she hadn’t questioned him about them.
When they were finally finished with all of the preparations, Tom cooked the four of them another lavish dinner, mostly meat, but complete with ice cream sundaes for dessert, which Mot and Ara claimed were delicious. They chatted and laughed throughout the evening until their last bites, then the dinner table became suddenly quiet.
“It’s time,” Alex finally said, when she was sure everyone had finished.
The four of them slowly cleaned up the table without speaking another word to each other. Alex wandered off somewhere with Ara after giving Tom and Mot instructions to meet them shortly. All of them eventually made their way back to the area where the cryo units were open and waiting. Alex helped get everyone settled, double checking each of the individual cryo beds as she did so.
“What happened to your hair?” Tom asked, settling into his unit.
“Thought I would go for a new look, like it?” Alex said, modeling her shorter cut. “Ara did a good job, don’t ya think?”
“Al, I don’t care about your hair, long or short. The one thing I want you to know is that I want to be with you forever,” Tom said seriously as Alex leaned over him.
“Well, looks like we are off to a pretty good start,” she said, winking. Was it just her imagination, she wondered, or was he actually getting better looking with age. Carbon fiber beams, she mused as she gazed at him, his damn mistress had been carbon fiber beams.
“Will you ever forgive me for being such an asshole?” he said, looking up at her.
“Not in a thousand years.” Alex kissed him deeply. “See you in a minute.”
“Thank you, Alex,” Ara said, as Alex checked on her.
“For what?”
“For Mot, for bringing him to me. Without you, Mot would not have survived and I would have no mate and no chance for a child.”
“You give me too much credit. I’ll see you soon.” Now, scoot up in the bed just a bit, Alex thought, deliberately blocking her thought the way Ara had taught her.
The Arzat did not move. “You look very nice for a human Alex,” was all Ara said.
Alex just smiled, liking her new female friend very much. Gotcha, she thought, still blocking.
“Have I done something wrong again Alex?” Mot said as she approached him.
“Why would you say that Mot?”
“Oh, I was just wondering.”
Alex bent down and looked directly into Mot’s reptilian eyes amazed again that such an incredible being could exist. “No, Mot, maybe just a bit unlucky. You’ve somehow managed to show up right before the end of the world twice,” she said, smiling at him.
“Maybe next time will be better?”
“Well, we humans have a saying: ‘the third time is a charm.’”
“What does that mean, Alex?”
“Oh, never mind, Mot, it’s not important.” Alex said, her eyes were full of tears.
“Alex?”
“Yes, Mot.”
“Do you believe in the Great Creator?”
Alex put her hand gently on his forehead. “Well, I have to tell you, Mot, I didn’t before, but you definitely have me leaning in that direction. I’ll see you real soon, OK?”
“Yes, Alex, perhaps you will make me the pan cakes?”
“Yes, Mot son of Url, nothing would make me happier,” she said, gazing at the amazing Arzat that had so changed her life.
Alex did a check, and then another, as any good scientist would have done. She ran through the cryo programs according to Pete’s instructions, and she adjusted the temperature settings to -1 degree centigrade, just as Pete had suggested. The only thing left was duration of sleep cycle. The computer icon was blinking in the box, daring her.
You should be a lot more scientific about this Alex, she thought. She typed in: 10000 years 0 months 3 days 0 hours 0 minutes—ten times longer than she had originally intended.
That will give me an extra few days to forgive Tom, she thought, smiling in his direction as she key stroked the command that would begin the sequencing, hoping he was right about the reactors and the way they were linked. Might as well come back to something, she thought. She knew that one thousand years wasn’t nearly long enough based on the damage the two asteroids might inflict.
Alex walked to her own cryo bed and lay down, trying to slow down her heart, which was beating wildly with anticipation.
“Alex?” she heard Mot say quietly into her head.
“Yes, Mot?”
“Thank you, Alex daughter of Simon. Thank you.”
Alex took in a deep breath. She was going to ask Mot why he was thanking her again. But then she thought better of it.
“You’re welcome, Mot.”
The glass shields automatically lowered and Alex could immediately feel herself getting sleepy and the cryo unit cooling. Alex wasn’t worried, she was excited, like the first day of school or the night before Christmas. She was in love with Tom and someday, god knew when, she was going to have his child. And the Arzats, those fabulous Arzats—Mot and Ara and their child—would be with them when the world began again. She was absolutely sure of it.
“You’re a very lucky girl Alexandra Moss,” she could hear her father saying as she was drifting off. Yes, I am, Simon. Yes, I am.
She crossed her fingers and slipped off to sleep.
Epilogue
Last Time For Everything
At 1735 hours on the day of the blast Batter had quietly escaped the ARC through one of the emergency exits and had climbed the nearly fifty flights of stairs to return to the surface. There was no going back. He had locked himself out, purposely.
Batter pushed up a cover and emerged somewhere, he figured, on runway 03R/21L. He sat with his feet han
ging in the manhole and looked up at the sky, trying to catch his breath. The sun was just setting and the sky in the east was already growing dark. He looked at his watch—1809 hours—still 8 minutes to go. Batter fished a cigar, a short glass and a bottle of bourbon out of a small paper bag he had brought with him. He fired up the cigar, poured the bourbon straight up, and watched the horizon as the final rays of the sun disappeared. As the last of the sunlight dropped below the mountains, he looked for the mysterious green flash of sunset that everyone had reported seeing at some time in their life, and was surprised when he actually thought he might have finally spotted it for himself.
It is a profound and amazing thing, he mused, to be fully aware of the last time you will ever do something. He could remember firsts, lots of them-his first kiss, his first love, his first day at the academy, and now, even his first damn green flash-but not a lot of lasts. Batter regretted that he hadn’t paid more attention to those, because they suddenly seemed much more important. One ‘last’ he would never forget was the last time he saw Dr. Alexandra Moss and her very unlikely trio of companions as they climbed aboard the Chinook.
Batter took a couple of long puffs from his cigar and blew the smoke out into the desert air. He watched as the grey wisps rapidly faded and disappeared altogether, then raised his glass skyward. “Here’s to you guys. Hope you make it,” he said, realizing as he uttered the words that he meant them more sincerely than any statement he had ever made before in his life. Batter took a long sip of the bourbon—it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He laughed. “Fuck protocol and the horse it rode in on,” he said to the oncoming night.
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he might have seen a star falling. “Interesting.”
###
In Situ Page 29