Open Writing

“Doc?”

“Yes, Holly?”

“Something I forgot to ask.”

The computer waited, well accustomed to the vagaries
of human communication and the slowness of their
thought processes. After a few moments, Holly went on.

“How far are we from Procyon?”

Holly straightened, wishing she could massage her
lower back. Her suit made this impossible, of course;
bending over for long periods, she decided, was not to be
recommended. The patch she had used to cover the hole
in the hull had been only a temporary measure, and now
she was affecting more permanent repairs outside the
ship. The white-hot glare of the portable welder showed
through its attached darkshield, causing the young woman
to squint reflexively behind the faceplate of her helmet.
The Brooklyn tones of the computer sounded in her ears.

“Right now, we are some seven billion, one hundred
and forty-two million kilometers from the center of the
major star of the Procyon system. Of course,” it added
dryly, “we won’t be going exactly to the center of the
star. At least, I hope not.”

Holly smiled as she worked. “Don’t worry, Doc. I have
no desire to join the stuff of space just yet.” She was
silent for a moment, concentrating on the weld, then said,
“I suppose what I really want to know is, how long until
we have to turn over?”

This was something that had been bothering her ever
since she had realized she was alone. Without help, she
did not know how she was going to accomplish the
maneuver, and she had been worrying at the problem for
some time. The computer could carry out the actual
deceleration and turnover, of course, but the ship still had
to be established in orbit around Procyon VII. That, it
could not do itself. And neither could Holly.

“We gotta commence the procedure no later than 4:00
am on the 10th of May, 2317, ship’s time,” came the reply.

“What if we’re late?”

“Then we could be in trouble. The date and time I gave
is the latest we can do it and still guarantee no problems.
If we’re any later…well, we might find it difficult to miss
the star, or even to escape its gravity.”

Holly considered this while she worked and the starry
host glittered behind her, the empyrean a backdrop that
almost never went unnoticed. Less than two weeks, she
mused, as the white-hot line seared the alloy of the hull
and fused it to the patching material that was its mate.

Holly turned off the welder to check her work, then
lifted her head and gazed at a spiral nebula that looked
almost close enough to touch, but which could not have
been reached even if they were to travel towards it for all
of the time that mankind had been civilized.

So, she thought again, twelve days until turnover,
during which time she had to come up with a solution.
And the more she thought about it, the more she was
inclined to think that the Doctor was right. A process of
trial and error was the only way they were going to find
out who could be awakened and who could not. Holly
added a final finishing touch to the weld. Have to place
them in restraints before I wake them up, she thought.
Hell of a way to come out of cryosleep, especially for the
ones who won’t be too bad, but I’m not going to have a
repeat of the first two.

It had taken her a while, but she had finally accepted
the doctor’s opinion that all of the sleepers would be
affected in some way. How much they would be affected
was unclear, hence the uncertainty of the revival program.
Holly sighed, and with a last look at the weld, began to
pack up the equipment. Time to head back. She had
completed the patch on the other side of the ship two days
ago; now, there was no reason to further delay the start of
the awakening. Her hands trembled inside her suit gloves
as she made her way back to the airlock, and for once she
didn’t notice the view at all.

* * *

The opaque screen cleared, and Holly touched the
control that caused it to slide smoothly aside. Working
quickly, she activated the restraints; each cell was fitted
with these as a safety feature, in case the sleepers had to
be secured in their chambers. The soft plas bands slid out
of their recesses and locked into place, forming two
curved bars over the sleeping body, a body that would not
be sleeping for much longer.

“How’s he looking, Doc?”

Holly had decided to wear her suit again; why, she did
not really know. There was no precedent for what she was
doing, so she had decided to take every precaution she
could imagine.

“All physical systems normal, Holly. Alpha waves
slightly scrambled, but we expected that. Just how he will
be affected is anybody’s guess.”

Holly smiled briefly at the un-computerlike
terminology. She had discussed this and other questions
with the Doctor before beginning the wake-up program.
Between them, they had reached a kind of consensus that
Holly felt would be a model for the entire project. The
computer would record the alpha patterns of each sleeper
they awakened, the theory being that after a certain
number had been resuscitated they should be able to
determine just what constituted the norm. With no other
model to guide them, they had decided to use Holly’s own
brain waves as a template. Hopefully, they would then be
able to determine with greater accuracy just who should
be woken, and what their mental state was likely to be.

Of course, it would all be so much simpler if they were
able to awaken a trained psychiatrist, who could then read
the alpha waves and guide them in the wake-up program.
Knowing the theoretical side of clinical psychiatry, as the
computer did, was all very well, but nothing could replace
the experience and distinctly human touch that a trained
specialist would be able to contribute. Unfortunately,
there would be no way of knowing to what degree the
psychiatrist was himself affected; consequently, they were
very much on their own.

Keeping this in mind, Holly also made certain that the
computer recorded every stage of the operation. If nothing
else, it would perform a function, a social experiment that
had probably not been tried before, at least on this scale.
Others would be able to use the findings to determine the
level of brain damage by cross-referencing the alpha-
wave readings with the time each sleeper had spent
without oxygen.

Now, Holly hung suspended before the cell in Sleep
Center Four. The cell had been chosen at random from the
group of favorable profiles that The Doctor had produced.
However, she had deliberately decided not to attempt to
revive anyone she had known personally, regardless of
the comfort a familiar face would undoubtedly bring. The
training they had undergone before leaving earth had been
relatively brief, and she herself had met only a handful of
the colonists, and remembered even less. But still, she had
known Captain Patel slightly, and finding him
dangerously psychotic had shaken her badly. She had no
desire to repeat that with someone she had known,
however slightly.

Almost as if detecting a cue, the figure in cell SC4-81,
sanitation engineer Caleb Strong, began to stir. His
eyelids flickered, and his head with its close-cut cap of
woolly black curls began to move from side to side in the
cushioning gel. Then he made a soft sound, and opened
his eyes.