Merry Christmas
The cryosleep tube was frosted over with delicate crystals, framing Angela’s face in a wintry Sleeping Beauty repose.
I could see the T-shaped scar on her chest, the one that matched mine. Brother and sister we were, cloned from the same person back home and implanted with the necessary pumps and valves to keep us alive for the journey.
It was a long-recon. It was found that if a person spent too long in cryosleep, they woke up considerably slower than when they went in. It was a hard two year’s hard work to get them back up to their previous levels of competence. Something about the brain needing stimulation, they said. A natural coma still held dreams, it was reasoned, while the near-death of a meatsicle was a complete state of non-being.
So for one week a year, we’d wake up. One at a time, of course, to conserve the air tanks and life support. We had one day of overlap, though, so that we could talk to each other and hang out.
Christmas.
I never knew if that was a little touch of mercy or humour on the part of the person or computer that designed the roster. Maybe it was random chance. Fitting for the temperature, anyway. It was always something to look forward to.
While never mentally aware of the passage of time, it was my aching Lazarus body that reminded me of the entire year that had passed spent still and sleeping. I was a thawing statue. I was always amazed at the drugs and machines that kicked in to reduce the recovery time of atrophied muscles and organs to under an hour.
I stood now, watching my sister take her first breath. For an hour, I watched her raisin-skinned, crumpled-paper body fill out and shudder as the trodes shivered the muscles into working order. The hydration tanks soaked her dry-sponge corpse into a semblance of living tissue. It was like watching mummification in reverse.
The last to come online were the brain and the eyes. Her crystal blue eyes fluttered open. The top of the bright white coffin broke the seal with a hiss and slid back. My sister cocked her head up at me and smiled.
I offered her my hand. I helped her out of the coffin and let her take my arm as I led her to the main dining room and viewport.
The normal smear of overspace wasn’t arcing past the viewport anymore. Instead, there was a giant planet hovering in front of us. A planet with oceans. A planet with trees and seasons.
She gasped and clutched my arm. A small squeal of delight came from her. The recon was over. We’d found one. All we had to do now was beam co-ordinates back along our trajectory to let our people know. Then we'd let loose the homing beacon satellites and go down to land.
We’d been in transit for centuries. We’d be dead long before the first colony ships arrived. We had the whole place to ourselves for the rest of our lives. This was the gamble that volunteers like us took. It had paid off for us.
We stood there and stared, smiling, tears in our eyes.
“Merry Christmas, Sis.” I said.
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I could see the T-shaped scar on her chest, the one that matched mine. Brother and sister we were, cloned from the same person back home and implanted with the necessary pumps and valves to keep us alive for the journey.
It was a long-recon. It was found that if a person spent too long in cryosleep, they woke up considerably slower than when they went in. It was a hard two year’s hard work to get them back up to their previous levels of competence. Something about the brain needing stimulation, they said. A natural coma still held dreams, it was reasoned, while the near-death of a meatsicle was a complete state of non-being.
So for one week a year, we’d wake up. One at a time, of course, to conserve the air tanks and life support. We had one day of overlap, though, so that we could talk to each other and hang out.
Christmas.
I never knew if that was a little touch of mercy or humour on the part of the person or computer that designed the roster. Maybe it was random chance. Fitting for the temperature, anyway. It was always something to look forward to.
While never mentally aware of the passage of time, it was my aching Lazarus body that reminded me of the entire year that had passed spent still and sleeping. I was a thawing statue. I was always amazed at the drugs and machines that kicked in to reduce the recovery time of atrophied muscles and organs to under an hour.
I stood now, watching my sister take her first breath. For an hour, I watched her raisin-skinned, crumpled-paper body fill out and shudder as the trodes shivered the muscles into working order. The hydration tanks soaked her dry-sponge corpse into a semblance of living tissue. It was like watching mummification in reverse.
The last to come online were the brain and the eyes. Her crystal blue eyes fluttered open. The top of the bright white coffin broke the seal with a hiss and slid back. My sister cocked her head up at me and smiled.
I offered her my hand. I helped her out of the coffin and let her take my arm as I led her to the main dining room and viewport.
The normal smear of overspace wasn’t arcing past the viewport anymore. Instead, there was a giant planet hovering in front of us. A planet with oceans. A planet with trees and seasons.
She gasped and clutched my arm. A small squeal of delight came from her. The recon was over. We’d found one. All we had to do now was beam co-ordinates back along our trajectory to let our people know. Then we'd let loose the homing beacon satellites and go down to land.
We’d been in transit for centuries. We’d be dead long before the first colony ships arrived. We had the whole place to ourselves for the rest of our lives. This was the gamble that volunteers like us took. It had paid off for us.
We stood there and stared, smiling, tears in our eyes.
“Merry Christmas, Sis.” I said.
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