Heart of the Nebula

by Joe Vasicek

  * * * * *

  Sara slept fitfully, tossing and turning next to James on the lumpy mattress. In her dream, she walked alone down the dimly lit corridors of the colony ship, dressed only in a thin patient’s gown. The cold air blowing through the floor level ventilators pricked her skin and made her shiver. Cryotanks lined the hallway like glass coffins, and the bodies of the people inside were bloated and pale, with frost growing across their skin like some kind of eerie white mold. She looked again and realized that they weren’t bodies, but skeletons—dead, brittle skeletons, waiting to shatter the moment the cryotanks were opened. She opened her mouth in horror, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t scream.

  The ghosts of the dead floated down the hallway, heading for the starless void of the great beyond. She recognized some of them: Alex, who had died on the shuttle; Lars, who had chosen to stay behind; and the stowaway Kyla, along with the other girls that they’d rescued. Their faces mingled with those of the Nabattan pirates, all of whom had died because of the super-intelligence Sara had released. They glared at her, making her cringe. She wanted to close her eyes to shut it all out, but her body refused to obey.

  “Why, Sara?” a voice whispered from further down the hall. “Why?”

  She turned and saw her father round the bend, his ghostly face clouded with a look of supreme disappointment. A terrible sinking feeling grew in her gut, pinning her feet to the floor.

  “I-I had to,” she said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t mean to kill them all.”

  “Why?” As he drifted closer, the air became colder, chilling her to the bone. Her gown dissipated, leaving her naked and shivering.

  “I didn’t mean to!” she cried, collapsing to her feet. “Please, forgive me!”

  But the ghosts would not stop glaring at her. They surrounded her, pulling her toward the end of the curved corridor—and the empty cryotank that waited there.

  “No!” she screamed, struggling in vain to kick against the invisible hands that held her. “Don’t take me! Don’t take me!”

  “Sara?”

  James touched her on the shoulder, the warmth of his touch dispelling the nightmare. She wrenched open her eyes and found herself lying on the cold tile floor of the empty bunkroom, the sweaty covers cast aside in a tangled mess. The gentle stream of air blowing through the ventilation shaft in the ceiling sent goosebumps across her skin. She shivered, and James gently helped her back to the mattress, draping the musty blanket over her shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Sara lied, pulling the blanket close to stop the shivering. “Just a bad dream.”

  “Must have been pretty bad.”

  She nodded, but shook him off when he tried to massage her. He hesitated for a moment, then rose to his feet and slipped into his olive-green pants.

  “If you’re not feeling well, we can put off going into cryo until you’re ready.”

  Sara cringed as she remembered the glares of the ghosts in her dream. The way they’d pulled her to the open cryotank, as if dragging her to her own coffin—just thinking about it made her want to throw up.

  “Sara?”

  What if the dream is a portent of some kind? What if we never wake up?

  “How much time do we have left?” she asked.

  “A few hours,” he said, reflexively checking his wrist console that was no longer there. He knelt down beside her and rubbed her arm. This time, she didn’t shrug him off.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” he whispered reassuringly in her ear. “When we wake up, we’ll be together in a beautiful new world. We’ll have our own house, next to a clear river of water, and we’ll grow our food in soil—not in aquaponics, but real, earthy soil. And every day, we’ll take our hovercraft and go exploring. They’ll name mountains after us, mountains and seas and islands, and we’ll come up with all new constellations, because it’ll be just us, with no pirates or Hameji or anything.”

  “And our kids?” she asked, a lump rising in her throat.

  James kissed her on the cheek, nuzzling up tenderly beside her. “We’ll have as many as you want, and they’ll all be beautiful and spirited like you.”

  She smiled, but it was a fragile smile—a hesitant smile. Though the memory of her dream was fading, the cold sense of dread had not.

  “We each need to write a letter,” she said impulsively. “A contingency letter, in case one of us doesn’t make it.”

  James frowned. “A letter? But Sara—”

  “When we left Karduna, I was recording a final message for my mother. She never received it because I couldn’t finish it in time. I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

  “Sara,” he said, caressing her shoulder. “This is different. We’re not saying goodbye—we’re just going into cold sleep.”

  “But what if we don’t wake up?”

  “We will,” he said with unshaken confidence. “You’ll see. In just a little while, we’ll both be together again and this will all feel like a bad dream.”

  “Still, we should write each other a contingency letter, just in case.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then took a deep breath and shrugged. “All right. If it makes you feel better. But you know we’ll just laugh about it later, right?”

  “I hope so,” she said, smiling halfheartedly. In her mind’s eye, though, all she could see was a long line of cryotanks full of dead bones.

  * * * * *

  The farewell gathering for the last few colonists to go into cryo was held on the mid-level observation deck of the colony ship, a large recreation room that extended around the entire doughnut-shaped deck. Kyla tried to avoid the crowd, but with all one hundred and fifty of the ship’s waking passengers crowding the place, it was hard to find any place where she could be alone. Since most of the people were focused on each other, she turned toward the window and the magnificent vista beyond.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lars asked, walking up next to her with his hands clasped comfortably behind his back.

  “I guess.”

  “It’s strange,” he mused aloud, speaking to himself as much as her. “Here we are, saying goodbye to our friends, and I can’t tell who is leaving and who is staying.”

  She turned and gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” said Lars, “from their point of view, it’s a voyage across decades of time and space, leaving us far behind. But from our perspective, we’re the ones who are building a new society, leaving the others frozen in cryosleep. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” she said after thinking about it for a bit. “Does it really matter? A goodbye is a goodbye, no matter who goes where.”

  “Are you going into cryo?”

  “Me?” she asked, surprised at the question. Jessica and Adam weren’t going under, so of course she wasn’t either. But then she thought about it and realized that her choice was kind of unusual. Almost all of the people her age were going under, since they were the ones who were most likely to survive the freezing and thawing process. For someone as young as her to refuse was strange indeed.

  “No,” she answered. “I’m staying awake.”

  Lars raised an eyebrow. “So you’ll be building a new society with the rest of us?”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. What you did back at the station was very noble. We need more people like you.”

  Kyla frowned and turned to face him, one hand on her hip. “Why does everyone keep saying that? It’s as if they think I sacrificed my life for the good of the whole ship or something.”

  “But that’s exactly what you did,” said Lars.

  “No, the people who died to rescue us did that. I just volunteered to stay behind.”

  “But the things the Nabattans would have done to you—”

  “It would have been horrible, yes, but it’s not like they would have killed us,” Kyla answered. “Raped us? Yes. Sold us into slavery? Ye
s. But honestly, that’s how I’d been living ever since the Hameji took over. Besides, it’s not like I have a family.”

  “You have Jessica and Adam. They care about you very much.”

  “Yeah, but what about those other girls? They had real families, and they didn’t know how to survive like I do. So if someone had to go with the Nabattans, it was me.”

  To her surprise, Lars’s admiration for her only seemed to grow. From the starry-eyed way he regarded her, it was almost as if she were suddenly one of his heroes.

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “You thought about others before you thought about yourself. You put the needs of the many ahead of your own.”

  Kyla shrugged. “I suppose. I mean, after you and James gave me a second chance, it was all I could do.”

  Lar’s face fell ever so slightly. “I see. Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re staying with us.”

  “What is it?” Kyla asked.

  “What?”

  “The way your face fell just now—what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Lars said quickly. “What makes you think something is wrong?”

  “It’s James, isn’t it? Your face fell when I mentioned James.”

  Lars sighed and turned away from her. “It’s fine. James and I—well, we have our differences, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  “Have you said goodbye to him yet?”

  “No,” Lars admitted.

  “Why not?”

  He folded his arms and stared out at the nebulous starfield in silence for several moments. When he spoke, his voice was low and tinged with regret.

  “James and I used to be friends, but we have very different visions about the shape our society should take. He wants to protect the people at all costs, but I feel that if we put our security ahead of our freedoms, then we’ll lose both.”

  “But you’re still friends, right?”

  Lars bit his lip. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Looking at his face, Kyla knew that if he didn’t say goodbye, he would regret it the rest of his life. She put a hand on his arm.

  “Well, now’s your last chance to find out. Come on, I’ll go with you.”

  It took a little more prodding, but with some reluctance, Lars agreed. Together, they walked together around the bend to the far side of the room. James and Sara stood off a ways from the main crowd, next to an old imitation-wood table with an empty plastic vase set on top.

  If this were the Freedom Star, Kyla thought to herself, the vase would be full of flowers, and a couple of couches or a potted plant would be next to the table. The thought made her think of how she’d first met James as a stowaway. It was amazing how much had changed since then.

  Lars stepped forward, his footsteps hesitant. For a moment, the two friends only stared at each other.

  “Lars,” said James, breaking the awkward silence. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “I know,” said Lars, his voice quavering. “Last time we met, I said some things that… well, let’s just say that it was a poor way to say goodbye.”

  “I understand,” said James. “Thanks for seeing me off.”

  They came together and embraced like brothers, warming Kyla’s heart. Neither of them spoke, but that was all right. Nothing further needed to be said.

  “I’m glad to see you too, Kyla,” James said, turning to her. “Take care of my parents—and this guy too, of course.”

  Lars chuckled. “Always looking out for your friends, eh?”

  “You know how it is. We all need to look out for each other.”

  “I see you’ve got someone to look out for you,” said Lars, nodding at Sara. “You’re a very lucky man.”

  James reached out and clasped Sara’s hand. “I know.”

  “Well, we’d better let you go,” said Lars. “Take care.”

  “You too,” said James. “And try not to screw things up too badly for us. I don’t want to wake up in ten thousand years and find this place a floating derelict.”

  Lars chuckled and took Kyla gently by the arm, leading her away toward the elevator.

  “Thank you,” he told her as the doors slid shut. “I needed that.”

  To her surprise, she saw that he was shaking. She reached out and held his hands until they were still. As she looked into his eyes, she saw reflected in them the same light she’d seen in James’s.

  * * * * *

  James’s heartbeat quickened as he stripped off his clothes and put on the simple patient’s gown laid out before him. The last few hours had been an emotional roller coaster, but all of his goodbyes had been said. There was nothing left to do except lay himself down in the cryotank.

  He stepped out of the men’s dressing room and into the long hall of the cryo chamber. The ceiling rose nearly ten meters over his head, while the honeycombed latticework of storage slots along the walls made the place feel like a mausoleum. Two elderly nurses, both women, attended a cryotank in the last phases of the freezing process. It sat at a forty five degree angle in a special machine with dozens of pipes and cables attached. The large glass window of the control room loomed behind him, engineers and technicians watching from behind the glass. Two open cryotanks sat in the center of the room, the green lights on their control panels indicating that they were ready for use.

  “James?”

  He turned around to see Sara step out from the women’s dressing room. The short gown fit loosely over her body, the hem ending midway down her thighs. The expression on her face was one of intense fear, the same as the night before.

  “Sara,” he said, greeting her with a hug. They kissed, and she held onto him for a moment after he let go.

  “Have you written the contingency letter?”

  “Of course,” James lied, inwardly cursing himself for forgetting. “I’m just not sure who I need to leave it with.”

  “There’s a little compartment at the base of each cryotank for small personal items,” she said. “That’s where the original goes, after you’ve made a copy for the main records.”

  James nodded, but said nothing more for fear of incriminating himself.

  “I spent the whole last hour writing mine,” she continued, speaking quickly. “I hope—well, I hope you’re right and we’ll just laugh about them, but in case I don’t make it—”

  “I’m sure everything will be all right,” he said, putting his hand on her arm to calm her. She took a deep breath and leaned against his chest, as if seeking comfort. The gesture was so unlike her that he wasn’t sure how to respond. He felt a sudden yearning to protect her, to make sure no harm ever came to her. As she clung to him, he gently stroked her back and shoulders until her breath became more even.

  “James,” she said, “this may sound strange, but when I go under, I want you to stand next to me so that I can see you through the glass. Can you do that?”

  “Of course.”

  “I want the last thing I see to be you,” she continued, her eyes full of fear. “It will be easier, knowing that you’re there.”

  James laughed, hoping to set her at ease. “There’s nothing to worry about, Sara. Nothing at all. Before you know it, we’ll both be awake and in each other’s arms.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder and clung to him with her shaking hands.

  “I hope so.”

  “It’s time,” said the head nurse. “Are you ready?”

  “Just a second,” said James. He kissed Sara, but she was too tense to respond. With each passing second, her anxiety seemed to be getting worse.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered softly, leading her to the tank. “Everything will be fine. In just a few moments, we’ll be together again.”

  The nurses directed Sara to the open cryotank, where she slipped out of her gown. It fell softly to the floor at her feet, leaving her shamelessly naked. As he watched her climb in, James thought she looked like an angel, or perhaps a goddess. A fragile innocence shined in her eyes, fi
lling him with a deep longing to touch her, to hold her, to be with her forever.

  She turned and settled in as the nurses slowly closed the glass front. He stepped up to the side of the tank, placing one hand on the glass to let her know he was there. She responded by lifting her own hand, pressing it up so that they appeared to touch through the glass. He hoped she found it reassuring.

  “Starting the chemical bath,” the first nurse said. “Stand by.”

  A greenish gas filled the inside of the small cryotank, making Sara cough. As the chemicals enveloped her body and began soaking into her skin, she kept her hand pressed firmly against the glass.

  I love you, she mouthed at James.

  “I love you too, Sara.”

  The chemical bath lasted nearly five minutes. When it was over, the glass started to grow cold. Sara began to shiver, and goosebumps pricked all across her skin. Her lips and fingernails turned blue, and her eyes widened as her breath grew short.

  “Prepare for rapid freezing,” said the head nurse. “Apply sedative.”

  A new gas sprayed into the chamber, this one white. Sara’s back arched, and she opened her mouth as if gasping for breath, then her eyes closed and her whole body relaxed. Her fingers stuck to the glass for a couple of moments, but her hand soon fell away by her shoulder, so that it looked as if she were waving goodbye.

  Goodbye, Sara, James thought silently. See you in a hundred years.

  “Do either of you have a pen or paper?” he asked the nurses. “I need to write a letter.”

  The head nurse looked at each other for a moment before reaching into her pocket and handing him a pen and writing pad. “Who do you want to deliver this to?” she asked.

  “Store it in my locker,” said James. “This letter is for Sara, in case I don’t wake up.”

  The other nurse frowned in disapproval, having overheard their last conversation. James didn’t care—it wasn’t like he’d be seeing either of the nurses again anyway. While they waited, he jotted down a quick note.

  Dear Sara,

  You know that I love you. We’ve only been seeing each other for a few short weeks, but it feels like half a lifetime. If you’re reading this after I’m gone, know that I only want you to be happy. Don’t let my death keep you from finding someone else to replace me.