by A. L. Mengel
In front of the far wall was a line of rectangular pods. Long, rectangular chambers with clear covers. Just large enough to hold an average sized person. Each pod was closed, and roughly one and a half feet wide by approximately six feet long, sitting on a permanent slab raising it several feet above the floor.
Counselor Abagail hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath while they were slowly walking closer to the hibernation chambers. She exhaled. “Moses,” she said.
He looked at her and smiled. “Yes?”
“What makes you think that we can survive this?”
“Because you already have.”
Jeremiah scowled. “Now let me get this straight,” he said, looking up and over at Moses. “You mean to tell me that we will be frozen for the duration of this journey?”
Moses leaned over one of the pods and shook his head as the others looked on.
“No, no. You will be in stasis. In a cryogenic stasis chamber on Deck D. Everyone who has been selected for this journey from your planet has been selected for a specific reason. There are several exoplanets in the Lyra constellation that can be suitable for your population – but in order to get there, this is a necessary step.”
Counselor Abagail rose to her feet. Her face shifted and her face was awash with concern. “Cryogenics? Like inducing hypothermia?”
“That’s precisely what it means,” Moses said. “You will each be submerged in a highly oxygenated, super cooled breathing fluid. Your vital signs will be closely monitored. Once the chamber fills with the fluid and it covers your face, you will be instructed to take the fluid into your lungs and begin breathing normally.”
Winston, Jeremiah and Eli looked at each other.
This was sounding familiar.
“We dove under the ocean back on Earth with a highly oxygenated perfluorocarbon fluid,” Jeremiah said. “We submersed in pressure bubbles that filled with the fluid.”
“Yes, we know,” Moses said. “That is one of the reasons why you have been selected for this purpose. We have chosen you for this mission to Europa because we have the drill and the equipment. Now that we have you, we have the manpower with the skill set.”
They met in the outer chamber as the ship PA system announced departure in T-minus 30 minutes.
“But this is a different fluid than what you experienced in your deep sea exploration,” he continued. “This is super cooling. Your body will be cooled to 32 degrees Celsius.”
Jeremiah lifted his eyes and turned his head toward Nelson as the others looked on. “You’re telling us this again, I would assume. I still cannot remember anything about the journey from Earth to Mars, but am I correct in assuming that this was the same fluid that we were submerged in for that journey?”
Moses nodded.
Jeremiah scoffed. “So you’re saying that when we wake we’ll have to go through this again? The amnesia?” He shook his head and gave an exasperated sigh.
“We have been working on the side effects of the technology for your kind,” Moses said. “We are confident that we won’t have that error this time around.”
Counselor Abagail looked down at the cryogenic chamber as the fluid filled and the lid lowered. “And what happens if something goes wrong? Like a medical emergency or something? Who will save us?”
Moses nodded. “Understandable concern. You will be monitored closely. For the first several years of the mission, we – the crew – will have rolling periods of stasis.”
“Rolling periods?” Counselor Abagail asked.
Moses nodded.
“Only certain segments of the crew will be in stasis for a set amount of time,” he explained.
“And then that group is awakened, and the next group enters hibernation. It will roll that way for the first several years, and then, for the latter half of the journey, the ship will operate on its own and all essential crew will be under stasis. Only certain specific crewmembers will be kept awake to tend to the survivors needs.”
“I hate being submerged,” Eli said, removing his suit.
“So let me get this right. The liquid keeps us preserved and unaged as we head towards the Jovian system,” Jeremiah said. “At the speed they have us cruising, it’s going to take years to get there. What about our muscular definition? Will we wake up as vegetables? Will our muscles have turned to mush?”
The doors on the other side of the chamber slid open with a hiss as everyone turned their heads.
Copernicus walked over to them and stood next to the sample pod. He raised his eyes directly to Jeremiah. “We have addressed that technology concern already.”
Counselor Abagail stepped closer to the pod and looked over at Copernicus. “Jeremiah raises a valid concern.” She looked at Jeremiah and then Winston and Eli. Winston nodded in agreement as Eli bit his lower lip. She turned to Copernicus.
“What has been done?”
“The muscles are stimulated while in hibernation,” Copernicus said. “It’s actually a technology that has been in place for quite some time. And as we said before, each of you has already been in cryogenic stasis before.”
*****
The team returned to their shared common quarters just off BAY 1. They stood together in the small locker room where they would dress and prepare for their missions. Counselor Abagail leaned against the cool metal and looked out into the hanger where MACA 1 was parked and secured, its sleek, black nose pointed out towards the massive hydraulic doors.
“We could just get in there and go back to Mars,” she said.
Eli scoffed and tossed his radiation suit on the floor. He threw his boots to the other side of the room and they clanked against the steel. “Why are we even going?”
Counselor Abagail watched his interaction and pursed her lips. She folded her undergarments and reached into her locker for a fresh sachet. She snapped it around her chest and pulled her hair back and tied it behind her head. “You were listening in the briefing, right?”
Winston and Jeremiah both looked at her with blank stares on their faces. Eli was sitting on the floor next to his piled uniforms and looked up at her.
“When we arrive at Europa, we’re going to excavate through the ice,” she said. “Moses said they have these things called cryobots that we can release remotely from the ship here and it will melt the ice beneath the surface. What we find after that is – ”
“ – is the unknown,” Jeremiah added.
Counselor Abagail nodded as Winston helped Eli fold his clothes.
“We plan to melt through the surface cracks,” Winston said. “But we have to hibernate. We can’t return to Mars.
Jeremiah shook his head. “Do they even know what’s there?” His face shifted. “They claim there’s this portal. But how do they know?”
“They don’t,” Winston said. “But the only way to find it is to go there. And go into cryogenics. They say they fixed the amnesia problem.”
“And we have to trust them,” Eli said. “That’s what they said.”
Counselor Abagail sighed and kept staring at MACA1. “It’s our leap of faith,” she said quietly.
Jeremiah and Winston turned over to face her. “What did you say?” Jeremiah asked.
She turned around and looked at the other three members of her team. “A leap of faith. They have been asking me to trust. All we can do is just that. If we want to be a part of this mission. Remember what Moses has always said. We have free will to choose not to be a part of this.”
Eli stood. “Why do we need to locate this portal anyway?”
Winston looked over and faced Eli. “I visited with the crew and I saw the research and the data they collected over years. There are indicators of a portal to the Vegan star system. Like a tiny worm hole. Difficult to access, as you can see. By shuttling the survivors down to and through the portal, and having them enter through that way, they have a chance of survival on the new, habitable planet, as opposed to living their lives out on the ship just trying to get there.”
/> “They can’t be placed into stasis too?” Eli asked.
“The ship isn’t equipped to handle that,” Jeremiah said. “There are only pods for the crew plus a small percentage. This is designed to be a passenger vessel. And the journey to Vega will take far longer than a human lifetime.”
“I think they’re just as clueless as we are,” Jeremiah said. “So they harnessed antimatter. Great. Just dandy. So we can get to Vega. But it’s still going to take longer than a human lifetime. And then we have this Europa idea…no one even knows what’s under the ice anyway. It’s a moon that’s had little exploration and even less in recent years. How does anyone even know if this isn’t just an extraordinary waste of time and resources?”
Counselor Abagail raised her hands. “Now, Jeremiah. This is our mission. That is our goal. This is our purpose. You can choose to rebel, as I recall you did back on Earth with Elder Cane. But now, things are different. We don’t even know if we have an Earth to go back to. And Moses and his kind have the ability to save our race. Our human race. We don’t know if there is a portal there. But we believe that there is. Their data indicates that it leads to the exoplanet that the Vegans are populating. But none of the data is exact. It’s still a mystery. We just don’t know until we excavate and explore.”
Jeremiah leaned back on the lockers and shook his head.
“That’s the part that’s the leap of faith,” she said. “We have an opportunity here to save thousands of lives. Yes, they will be at least a decade older once we arrive at Europa than they are now. But if the portal is there…we can get them to Vega. They can live.”
Jeremiah nodded.
“And yes, there is that small seed of doubt in my mind,” she said. “About the amnesia. I feel it too. But like Moses said, we have to trust. They said they addressed the issue with cryogenics.”
Eli sat on the small wooden bench that was fixed between the lockers. “It took me forever to even remember anything beyond this ship. What I’m afraid of is waking up several years from now – deeper in space – and being the same way we were when we approached Mars. I couldn’t remember anything! It’s like my mind was…washed. Clean.”
Counselor Abagail raised her hands up. “Eli. We all had the same issue. We have the chance to be a part of something great here.” She looked at each of them. “Are you guys in? Will you come to Europa with me?”
They each looked at her, and she paused and held eye contact with each of them.
After a few minutes, Winston finally spoke. “Then let’s get going. If we’re going to do this, I want to see what’s in that ocean underneath the ice.”
Counselor Abagail smiled and nodded, and then looked over at Jeremiah, raising her eyebrows.
“I’m in,” he said. “You know I’m not going to let you go alone. We’re a team, girl.”
*****
THERE WERE THREE METHODIC TONES from behind them. They turned and saw a small, spherical drone, hovering just a few feet from their faces. A tiny red light on the side flashed and in a small screen in the center of the sphere flashed a message in white block lettering:
READY WALTER DE JESUS ABAGAIL WINSTON
Counselor Abagail felt her stomach shift into knots. She looked up at Jeremiah who leaned towards her.
Eli looked up at Counselor Abagail as the drone patiently waiting at the entry to the locker chamber. He bit his lower lip. “It’s just like what we breathed back on Earth. Isn’t it? When we breathed the fluid underwater?’”
She shook her head slowly. “No…it isn’t, Eli. You were still conscious in that breathing fluid. This here is totally different. This is going to render us unconscious and induce hypothermia.”
Jeremiah sighed and nodded. “They know what they are doing.”
She looked back at Jeremiah, who turned to follow the drone, along with Eli and Winston. They all had already stripped to their underwear, leaving their clothing in the lockers. She took a deep breath and sighed.
And as they followed the drone through the cold steel corridors, through the curve of the hull, she kept watching Jeremiah walk before her. He was brave. She would give him that. But she knew, deep inside, that Jeremiah was just as uncertain as she was.
The drone rotated in front of them, leading the way down a network of corridors, most were windowless, doors were scattered throughout, and all were closed. They followed the sphere, as it hovered to the left, into a soaring atrium with the sign that read:
HYPERSLEEP PREPARATION AREA.
Others were in the waiting area, some sitting and chatting quietly
As they entered the hyper sleep chamber, Counselor Abagail faced Jeremiah, Eli and Winston. They looked at her, saying nothing, their faces expressionless, waiting in solitude.
She took a quick breath and released it. “Here we are, gentlemen. You are three brave men. The only three men that I have come to know on this ship. I still don’t know where the others have vanished to. But now, we are at a precipice. Like you three did back on Earth, we must now, together take a leap of faith. We have to trust Moses and the others that they do know what they are doing, as you had said Jeremiah.”
He nodded.
“And it’s okay to be scared,” she said. “I know you are three very tough men. But I won’t think anything less of you if you show the emotions I know you are feeling inside. Because I am feeling them too.”
Winston nodded to her with a faint smile. But it was Eli who spoke first.
“I…” he said. There was a quiver in his voice. “I…don’t want to do this…” He looked over at Winston, shaking his head. “They can’t make me do this! I can’t…I don’t want to die!” He reached up and wiped a tear from his cheek. Winston put his arm around his back and Jeremiah turned to face Eli. Counselor Abagail raised her hand, and gestured at Eli. “You are not going to die,” she said. She placed her hand on his shoulder and spoke close to his ear. “This is sleep. Hibernation. Deep sleep, Eli. You will still be alive. And when you wake up, we will be in the vicinity of Jupiter. Do you remember looking at the maps of the solar system when you were a kid?”
He turned to face her and nodded. “I do remember. I remember seeing Mars from the telescope my Dad bought me for Christmas. But Jupiter…I have only seen from drawings and in books.”
“And so we are just going from one point on that map to the other,” she said. “When you close your eyes here, the next thing you will remember is waking up. You won’t remember anything in-between.”
“These look like coffins,” Jeremiah said as the team entered Cryogenic Chamber 17. Counselor Abagail looked up at him and glared. Jeremiah shrugged his shoulders. “Well, they do.”
Moses stood in front of the first row of cryogenic chambers, patiently waiting with a smile on his face. He was wearing a white coat and holding a clipboard. Several other medical staff surrounded him and prepped monitors medical items.
“Oh, they are not coffins, Mr. Walter. They are of the latest technology,” Moses said, showing Counselor Abagail, Winston and Eli to the changing area. “Think of these as immortality pods. When you are awakened, you will not have aged even a minute…but years will have passed. Please undress to minimal clothing. A nurse will give you an antimicrobial soap to wash with, as well as a sterilizing rinse.”
Eli unwrapped a fresh bar of bright green soap as Jeremiah grabbed Nelson’s arm as he turned around. “You’re saying we will not have aged at all when we wake up?”
Nelson shook his head. “Not one minute, Jeremiah. This ship is far too massive to operate on its own, despite having the technology to do so. As a precaution, we are initiating a rolling stasis. There will always be crew and medical staff alert at all times for the first half of the journey. During the second half, only certain crew and medical staff will roll through stasis.”
Counselor Abagail “What about the others? The survivors? All those we saw in the Town Square. What about them?”
Moses looked at Counselor Abagail. “This technology is not
available for everyone. Because the four of you are so important to the preservation of your kind, you will be held, ageless. Think of it as a gift. For the others, when we reach the Jovian system, the survivors will have aged nearly a decade.”
*****
Counselor Abagail stood naked in front of her team. She watched them. Winston stood behind his pod. He was quite muscular and strong. Eli was much smaller than he, and far more demure. He clasped his hands over his genitals and his cheeks were flushed. Jeremiah, on the other hand, was openly walking throughout the chamber, studying the monitors without regard for his nudity.
There was something about them. They had seemed so foreign, over time and then throughout the mind exploration, but now, even with her continued reservation, she felt that her team was her family.
She watched Jeremiah’s tight buttocks flex as he leaned forward, moved and studied each panel. She laughed and shook her head.
He turned around, his eyes wide.
The doors slid open.
A team of those in white surrounded Copernicus.
“The ship is about to go on lockdown,” he said. “The center regions of the ship are sealed off, and the four of you need to get into your pods. The medical team here will connect you to your vitals monitoring systems, and get you situated for your hyper sleep.”
Eli’s eyes widened and he snapped his head towards Winston. “I don’t think I can do this…”
Winston placed his arms around Eli. “It’s just like the pressure bubbles back on Earth. Do you remember how worked up you got when the fluid started filling the bubble?”
He wiped under his eyes and nodded. “Yes I do. But it was so hard to breathe! So heavy!”
Jeremiah grabbed Copernicus’ shoulder. “How is this going to feel? Is Eli going to have a difficult time breathing?”
Copernicus shook his head as Counselor Abagail eased herself into her pod. She sat with her arms draped over her knees as Jeremiah stood between Winston, Eli and Copernicus.
“How is he going to feel?”