The skin on my face was stretched outwards and across my bone structure. Even with a stiff neck I enjoyed the pure comedy, watching my fellow travellers blood drained expressions change with the alternating sensations. Jonti hollered out through a set of lips pulled tighter ‘n a dog’s arsehole, “How fast?”
Patrick, sitting next to me mouthed “Dunno” from the sides of his mouth; he went unheard.
Bram, jowl skin rippling, was sat just in front and to the left and yelled through gritted teeth, “Point seven nine miles per sec baby!” The train went quiet. It was just a speed thing that somehow tricked your brain into thinking everything was on a loud scale.
After a time - my body becoming more accustomed to the velocity - I found that my muscles compensated for the trauma I was experiencing. It was enough for me to settle and enjoy the experience. I even calculated, based on Bram’s info, that Skytrain would have us travelling the fifteen hundred miles to the space-shuttle in a shade over fifty minutes. At least I thought that, having worked out the calculation to three different results in my head.
Anyway, in less than an hour, I reckoned on seeing my first glimpse of the tiny ship that would take us to the Rubicon. We began to slow down ready to disembark. I couldn’t believe how small the thing looked set against the vast frieze of sand and more sand, in an ever-expanding desert. This tiny ship, shimmering through the heat-haze was just a tube with a few fins. This is going to transport twenty-three souls alive, more than 400 kilometres into space. OK, some of us didn’t have a choice and wouldn’t know if we’d died, but still.
The transfer went without a hitch. The ride up to the Rubicon was too exhilarating to be frightening. It felt like my body had left this universe and entered a parallel one, one where you have no control over your body. All us Scrits were going to be placed straight into cryosleep. “So much the better to be young, strong, and useful for when you arrive,” had said a young prat, during a ten-minute lecture he’d given on Tuesday. Was that yesterday? It was alright for our jolly friend, he wasn’t joining us.
I was frankly worried about the cryosleep process, who wouldn’t be, more especially so when our straight from college lecturer, all heavy smile and over-white teeth said, “It’s still being perfected, though casualties are now very few and far between.” With my life, once again being subject to vagaries of fortune, the mention of the word ‘casualties’ had me all ears. Our youthful speaker went onto explain why we must endure our space sleep. “Due to limitations of human space travel technology, any personnel on any spacecraft must be in cryosleep; or hypersleep if you like; in order to survive very long trips. Cryosleep is capable of suspending the body’s autonomic functions while maintaining the health of each individual cell during stasis, at least that’s the theory… and it seems to work.” I remember our looks, a mixture of dismay, hysteria and disbelief.
“Human cells don't survive the freezing process, primarily due to ice crystal formation, that both punctures the cellular membranes and expands the fluid with severe prejudice.” This guy was reading it straight, verbatim it seemed, from the college of good news manual. “To get around this inconvenience, experimental cryonautical engineers have just developed a new natural biological 'antifreeze', found in some varieties of bottom feeding Arctic fish. We’ll give you a serum adapted from this antifreeze that will work in symbiosis with your more complex human cells.”
“Jeez Mister,” Jonti breathed out, “thought this stuff was old hat by now? Are we the Guinea pigs?”
Not put off by J.T’s erudite observation, our chum furrowed on, “…but we are not completely certain that all the sub-molecular structures in all humans will stay intact during the thawing process, especially put under the added stress of such a protracted duration.”
What made the lecture worse IMHO, as our juvenile doctorate continued his carefully prepared script, was that, under his chin was a myriad of nasty zits. “Fuck me,” I’d thought, “If this guy’s a scientist and he can’t get rid of his own spots, then God help us.”
I picked up his monologue once again, trying to ignore my own misgivings that, like an evil genie, were jabbering away like a separate entity in my head.
“…uncertain of the effects of muscular atrophy during the long dormant phase. Artificially inducing motion to maintain tone will not be used as it leads to complications with biometrics. The body once frozen must remain rigid. This is a departure from the norm.”
I was inclined to think better tests results might be achieved by using the 'zombie' drug. I can't remember what it is made of exactly, but I think that it's something to do with a poison called curare. We Scrits had used it on a few occasions to infiltrate Vanguard positions. The main danger had been waking up too late to do anything other than burn in a Vanguard crematorium. The drug slowed autonomic functions so much that the user appeared dead. With artificial oxygen infusion and nutrient feeds, I could see it being effective over reasonable lengths of time. An exercise machine could be used to keep muscles in shape while the body was in stasis in that case. These were just my musings, nothing compared to our knowledgeable friend up front and centre, droning “…Tubocurarine chloride plus ice structuring proteins polypeptides may well be the way of the future, particularly for longer trips, but it hasn’t been properly developed yet. Cryosleep should work fine for our purposes here.” The guy’s lecture was more a practise I think, for a more discerning audience, one that wasn’t about to go through the hideous sounding process themselves.
So, upon reaching starship Rubicon, my mind wasn’t exactly in the best of places. We found ourselves in zero gravity, in a tunnel that acted as gantry and was parallel to our exit, waiting for our embarkation. No ticker-tapes, no electro-band. A voice boomed a warning: “Your behavioural inhibitors are fully activated.” My metal neck-tie didn’t change from its throbbing round of red pulses; I guess the announcement was just a reminder to behave or lose your head.
Boarding through the main hatch, we followed instructions from a uniformed Van and flew through a small cubicle with a ladder that led down through an egg-shaped hole to the floor below. “Oh, very high tech,” a sarcastic voice observed from behind my right shoulder, as I bent to place my face parallel with the top rung. Floating downward, upwards or along-ways, it was all the same in zero gravity, we perched at the next level by pulling aside of the ladder as it continued its march onward, presumably along the length of the whole craft. The floor, above which we now floated, was a peculiar grey metal, titanium at a guess. All about were panels containing banks of lights that must have indicated something, though how you could tell from the constellations of seemingly meaningless flashes was anyone’s guess. Hopefully the random flickering meant that all was well. Horizontal concertinaed pipework fed a main line of lateral hose that must have been the backbone of the ships central nervous system. Shuffling along the tight space like mechanical dummies, we drifted through an Iris-lock. Here we were told by Bram, who was using his wristcheck as a map, to stow what little gear we had in some foot lockers and then follow him to the galley. My first time in zero gravity seemed almost normal after all that I’d been through over the last couple of days. I turned my body upside down and using the foot-locker I selected - as if it were now an overhead-locker - I stowed nothing but a picture of earth I’d filched from one of the lectures. It was the only possession I had.
The galley was surprisingly light and airy, probably due to the impression of space given over by the ceiling, floor or walls that displayed a hologrammatic image of summer sky - a mixture of fluffy clouds and rays of sunshine. We graduated around two fastened, semi-circular benches that rotated below a two-tone ceramic table. Plates of sticky baby mush - that must have been screwed to the table - were waiting our perusal. A tinny voice over the tannoy system gave us the run down. “Sorry your last meal is, shall we say, less than appetising, but we can’t have pieces of undigested protein sitting about in your stomachs over the next decade, developing a life of their own.”<
br />
The meal of different coloured slosh tasted chemical and I wondered if it was simply a bacteria killer.
After our lunch – more a poor substitute for the Last Supper – which had been all subdued voices and thoughtful faces, Bram ushered us along a corridor that curled around the ship for about sixty feet, through a door and into the cryo chamber. In a circle of ten pods, our seven names allocated in alphabetical order, we hovered and shivered, but not with cold. We were asked by three suited deckhands, equipped with some sort of magnetic boots, to dress ourselves in sleepwear, including a soft face mask, the same shape as a balaclava. This we were told was to prevent space dust from becoming frozen to our bodies. With some difficulty and only with the help of the deckhands, we undressed, and then, turning uncontrolled circles, we pulled on our sleeping attire. Without further ado, we shook hands and climbed into what felt like our sarcophaguses. The deckhands strapped us down, my legs shaking like maracas. We all waited for whatever was the next process to begin. I now became rigid with fear and claustrophobia.
A few persons clad in white, full surgical face masks covering every feature, entered the space. They were as terrifying in appearance as the Ku Klux Klan, an ancient order that I’d seen pictures of. I tried my breathing technique to little effect and attempted to settle into my least uncomfortable position. Then began a process of injections. When my time came, I felt at once a mercurial cold seep through my bloodstream. I felt sleepy and unwell at the same time. A micky-finn of massive proportions. Then another injection and I might have been dead, for all the world or I cared. A hiss of gas, lid descending and nothingness, not a place where even dreams escaped.
Chapter Ten. Lazarus.
I heard air hissing and then suction. I was awake, sort of. My eyelids refused to open. They were glued by an unknown force. I tried to roll over on to my side, I couldn’t. My back felt flat, as though it had become a wooden board. What the hell? I tried lifting an arm, but the tube of flesh and bone didn’t respond. Am I dead? What the fuck’s wrong with me? A synapse of half remembered thought returned. I recalled lying down, heavy clear plastic cover descending, then what? I could hear my breathing, slow and steady and then faster. I remembered an envelopment of senses, the hiss of gas clouding a screen, and then nothing. I tried harder to open my eyes, a sense of fright giving the effort more urgency. They did open with a painful crack of pulled skin. I blinked several times to clear a filmy cataract from them. Floaters, on invisible elastic, lazily swam up and down; they might have been made from sandpaper, my eyes hurt watching them. Several minutes passed, or it might have been hours. I could eventually make out a few blurry objects immersed in a harsh white light. I sat up, like the undead, emerging from a coffin by mistake at midday rather than midnight. I saw some plastic covers on other bunks that were rising or already up. I swung my legs over the side of my bed. Bad idea. My head blossomed with vertigo and I groaned audibly. We have gravity? I put my head between my legs and blood poured into my brain. Over some speakers, an unnecessarily loud voice projected a repetitive monologue. I only realized after the third repetition that it was looped. “You are experiencing .5G. Do not try to stand until ready. The stims require a few minutes to take effect. You will find uniforms in lockers by the main door. Take them with you to the shower area. As soon as you are dressed, breakfast is being served in the galley. It’s 0804. Morning briefing is at 0900 on the mess deck.” I listened to the loop three more times till 0807, and then tried standing.
I swayed and nearly toppled; my hand grabbed at the fabric of someone or something passing. It was quickly made apparent that what I’d grabbed was the left breast of a blonde woman. She removed my hand with adroit skill and I saw her silicone name-plate reflecting NURSE, in 3D.
“Careful tiger,” she growled, “we’ve only just met”.
“True,” I mumbled, “sorry doc.”
“I’m not the doctor, he’s right behind me.” She departed to check on the next idiot emerging from the stasis chambers, and I watched the sway of her hips with appreciation that transcended present circumstance.
Dr. Strauss, according to his badge, approached, wearing a stethoscope. Who’d have thought? It was superfluous in any case, since all he did was shine a pen-torch across my bleary eyes. “You’ll live,” he said in a dull drone.
I saw Patrick across the room open a locker, find a bundle of clothing, and then head out through the door. Eager to get away from the tedious male voice over the speakers, I went to where he’d been rooting about and after a hazy search, found a locker with my name on it. My nice new clothes were inside, new to me at any rate. I’d got them only a couple of days ago, but they were now at least eight years past their sell-by date. I left the room cradling them to my head, for what I hoped would be the showers.
A short distance along a corridor, the shower room was marked by a trail of wet bare feet, marks that led from the entrance. Water and other pipes were thickly canopied overhead along with bracketed cables, which was another give-away. Steam was seeping upward from the recently opened door. The same door recognised me as friend and opened to let me in. The first thing I saw was Jenna’s arse sticking out of a shower cubicle. Her coffin-head turned, saw me and grunted a greeting. I grunted back. “Fucking 8 ball,” I mumbled below her hearing as I continued past.
Purposefully walking to an empty stall, away from misery guts, I wound up next door to Jonti, her ginger hair lathered in soap. “How long have you been up?” I asked, between her bouts of vigorous head rubbing.
“Just got up. You?
“Yeah.” I stretched. “I hope we’re at the planet, not just stopped for passengers. I feel like crap. Don’t want to do this again.”
“Stims feel good though.”
“Stims, what stims?”
Jonti didn’t have time to answer.
Bram’s now familiar voice bellowed from the other end of the showers. “Okay, enough jibber-jabber, you’re on short time. Get your ass’s in gear, I want everyone out in ten. That means David and Patrick are going to have to share, so don’t drop the soap we don’t have time for it.” I heard him laugh in his guttural way.
“What’s the rush,” I said to the steamy air before stepping into my own cubicle. I hit the pressure pad and a jet of water came out cold with needle-point pressure. I fumbled, danced about with the controls for a bit, twisting them hot and then cold, till I got it right. Finding soap, I lathered, picked the crud out my nose and snotted out what was left. I washed my hair and backside and realized, that since I’d taken the medication for worms, my bum-hole had stopped its infernal itch; it was a great relief. I got out, dried, and pulled on my clothing. I wouldn’t say I felt invigorated, but I would say I felt better.
As team Nope, we traipsed along ubiquitous corridors, all slipnot flooring, padded safety walls, the odd downlink/uplink module set flush to the curves, and loads and loads of piping ducts and hoses.
“How come we ain’t weightless no more?” a voice asked.
“Something to do with gyroscopes,” answered Bram, in a ‘can’t be bothered’ sort of way.
The dining room, which Jonti reminded me was, ‘actually called a galley,’ the place where we’d first eaten some slop before our cryosleep, was as you’d expect: just as we’d left it. Wiped clean, two-tone round tables bolted to the deck, uncomfortably hard plastic benches that swivelled - also bolted to the deck - a self-serve conveyor of trays, plates and cutlery to one side and the hologrammatic skyline, much the same scene of summer sun and fluffy clouds as we’d left it.
We sat together. “Better get used to more of the slop,” said Jenna.
“You always so happy Jenna?” I asked.
“Only when you’re around.”
More people arrived; strangers. We’d taken their seats apparently. “They’re Scrits aren’t they,” I heard one, shrill, indignant female say. I didn’t turn around and none of us moved, so I can’t say what she looked like. We weren’t shifting and the strangers, probabl
y Vans, had to make do with wall-stools. They weren’t pleased, but hey, so what!
So as not to lose our seats, Team Nope took turns going for our meals, that weren’t so bad, as it happens. I finished up my meat-mash substance that had been labelled CBH, whatever that was. It looked terrible but tasted okay; maybe because it was so salty. The orange juice was good, but the coffee wasn’t, maiden’s water would have been stronger.
We thought we’d got away with our dissent toward our betters and then a male Vanguard yelled from somewhere near my left ear, “Attention. Captain on deck!” I didn’t like this one bit, not just because I was wiping hot coffee from off my wrist, but because this sounded like military bullshit. We were supposed to be on a shake and bake colony, one that I was hoping would be more egalitarian in outlook. Cutlery made noise, feet scraped, and Vans began to rise from their seats. The captain was dressed in full rig and he lowered his hands, “As you were.” Chairs were resat upon. Everything went quiet.
The Captain I thought, paused too long after his dramatic entrance and should have sorted his makeshift microphone before he began to speak. Whilst a minion fumbled and whistled into the mike in a hurried attempt at continuity the uncomfortable silence prevailed. I was squirming a bit myself before his rather diffident voice cut through the galley. “Good morning. Ahem, everyone slept well I hope?” There were a few obsequious nods and murmurs of assent which he took to mean ‘Yes.’
Beyond the Rubicon Page 6