Star Voyager

Astral felt the light against her eyelids and knew that the final cycle of "renaissance" was about to begin. She always hated this part. Even with her eyes closed, the light felt like hot, noonday sun in the tropics. But Astral knew that a common night light would outshine it. Oh, well, when you haven't used your eyes in ten years...

The respirator pulled away from her face and Astral thought how like waking up before your alarm clock this seemed; you hear the "click", are too droopy to move, and know that the warm silence is about to be shattered by that god-forsaken buzzer--BZZZZTT!

The crew called it "the spanking" because it was like the swat on the rump which an obstetrician gives to a newborn to start her breathing. Only this spanking was an electrical jolt. Astral heaved forward, spewing the liquid from her lungs, coughing and sneezing. She blinked in the dim light and saw the clear blue fluid, almost black in the reddish glow, drift purposefully across the chamber in the gentle air current and vanish through the ventilation grate.

As the heart monitor gradually returned to normal, Astral stared absently at the fine pattern of tiny sensors on her bodysuit. Then decided that it was time to wash the bad taste out of her mouth. She unclipped the restraining tethers from her hips, checked the atmospheric integrity beyond the door, then floated out of her suspended animation chamber and into the starship proper.

*****

Sometimes advances in science depend more on the correlation of known facts than on stunning, new breakthroughs. For decades researchers had studied hibernating mammals in their quest to teach humans that same trick. The toughest obstacle was the freezing point of water; when water in cells freezes, the cells rupture and the organism dies.

Next, researchers tried various ways of refrigerating their subjects without crossing that threshold into freezing. But animals are thick in some places and thinner in others, and different types of tissue conducted heat differently. So, it was next to impossible to maintain a consistent temperature during storage or resuscitation. The lab coats even tried organic anti-freezes.

Then some bright boy remembered an obscure item from his basic biology classes. Tardigrades, also known as "water bears," were tiny creatures who could be freeze-dried for a century and rehydrated later, no worse for the wear. So what? Fleas can jump fifty times their own height because the laws of physics allow it on their scale. But tardigrades, although microscopic, are giants in their realm, and within their freeze-drying trick lay the secret to human suspended animation. If water is the obstacle, remove it!

The process was so simple that even a fairly stupid computer could be trusted to do it properly. And the biggest bonus was that the "freeze-dried" subjects did not age at all, as they did with the purely hypothermic methods. Hyperdrives be damned--humanity had a gateway to the stars!

*****

Day one is always the worst, Astral thought, because you piss like a drunkard while your body metabolizes the excess fluid out of your system. The first time out, Astral had looked in the mirror and a zombie stared back. Her long, black hair was still matted from the sleep chamber, and her slate-gray eyes looked particularly lifeless next to the pale, blue tint of her skin caused by the revival bio-fluid. She had felt like a bloated corpse.

Now, three days after her third "renaissance," Astral looked a little less anemic, and her jumpsuits were comfortably loose. But she still felt like a ghoul drifting through the silent starship with its cargo of 500 desiccated corpses.

"Venture" had almost no moving parts, although it was a good idea to have someone check her from stem to stern every so often during the long, interstellar night. The other astrogator trainees at the academy had teased her about the name "Astral." Then she and Beth had collected the data from the advance probe which proved that Barnard's star had a habitable planet. Astral excelled at engineering, as well as astrogation. And the laughing quickly died out when Astral was named First Astrogator for "Venture." Beth's engineering and piloting skills just missed placement with the astrogators, but she was aboard as a mission specialist.

At the end of the week, Astral looked entirely human, again, and "Venture" had a clean bill of health. But Astral had to wait one more endless week before she could safely re-enter the hibernaculum. She and Roman alternately shared these lonely "night-time" patrols. They had bid each other "fare well" before "Venture" crossed the orbit of Pluto so many years ago. At least Roman would be awake next time with her as they turned the ship for its deceleration drop toward Barnard's star. When the chores were done, they could "pass the time" however they wanted...

Astral smiled as she read Roman's last entry in the log: >"Venture" and Roman in perfect sych. Zero defects.<

>Tried to spot "Gateway" from the observatory. No dice.<

"Gateway" was "Venture's" sister ship following two years behind. It was difficult to find Sol in the sky at this distance, let alone one, tiny starship. Silly, charming man!

>We'll look for her together, next time.<

Roman would see Astral before he saw the log, but she left him a note, anyway. Unclipping the lightpen, she quickly scribbled on the datapad, "It's a date."

*****

Astral touched a control and her silver "jammies" slumped like a baggy sock. She climbed into the expanded neck and pulled the one-piece garment up. Another control and the bodysuit slowly contracted, again. As it shrank, Astral gently pulled out the wrinkles, and thought how the suit looked like the spacesuits from that old TV show of last century, "Lost in Space"--it even had red piping at the neck and cuffs. Although, when fully contracted, this suit was shamelessly wrinkle-free, and Astral looked like a polished, chrome statue.

Longing to see Roman, again, Astral hopped into the hibernaculum and sealed the door. She tethered herself in and pulled the respirator mask down over her face, and prepared to drift off into that dreamless sleep once again.

*****

As she struggled to consciousness, Astral knew that something was wrong. Had the hibernaculum failed? She could move her fingers, so she must have been nascent for some time, now. The "spanking" circuit must have failed, and the respirator mask was still strapped to her face. Astral tried to raise a hand to wipe her eyes, but she just couldn't make it. Why was she so weak?

Astral blinked rapidly and brought the room into focus. A creeping panic began to overtake her as she looked past the mask at herself. Something was definitely wrong--the hibernaculum was still actively pumping her full of revival fluid. She was positively turgid, that's why she hadn't been able to touch her face. The heart monitor began to race.

Then the datapad in front of her flickered to life and stabilized into the features of Beth. She was speaking:

"Well, I guess you managed to wake up just one more time. It might have been better if you hadn't because in a few minutes it will be 'lights out,' forever! I'm so sorry you won't be making planetfall with us, but First Astrogator should have been mine! Barnard IV was my discovery!"

The tiny hairs on the back of Astral's neck stood up. Beth was absolu-freakingly crazy! Astral's butt touched the floor in the zero-G room and the hip tethers began to strain. Her breasts were busily spreading under her arms and stretching her bodsuit to the ceiling, while her shoulders pressed firmly against her cheeks. On-screen, Beth continued to foam at the mouth.

"Why did you have to get everything? Beauty, brains, my ship and my planet!"

The hip tethers popped loudly and Astral's rapidly inflating body bounced gently off the ceiling.

"So, what do you get the girl who has everything? How about a little more to go around! So long, Astral!" The screen flickered into static. Then a flashing message appeared, "Auto-erase."

Astral struggled helplessly while the computer relentlessly pumped more and more fluid into her body. The pressure was increasing; it wasn't going to stop. Astral grew rounder and tighter by the second, but it couldn't go on forever. Any moment now she was going to burst!

Astral's body touched floor and ceiling at the same time, and her body grew hard under the increasing pressure. Her face darkened to a deep blue under the strain and her eyes began to bug out. This was it.

Suddenly, a hand reached in and hit the manual over-ride in front of Astral's face. It was Roman! He shuffled in behind her head and pulled the straps off the respirator mask. The bit literally shot out of Astral's mouth, followed by a huge stream of the pale blue bio-fluid.

"Hey, Chinks!" Roman chimed jovially, "You look like a Christmas ornament!"

"Fuck you!" Astral sputtered, the bright silver of her suit squeaking softly.

"Not a good idea," Roman returned, "you look like you've got too much in there already. This machine did almost as good a job as me." Then more seriously, "I heard the message. Beth played it onto every screen in the ship."

"Lousy bitch," Astral mumbled. They hung silently for a minute, and Roman brushed a few strands of hair from Astral's face. "I want two things!"

"Name it," Roman said.

"We've got some programming to do, but first bring me that zero-G vacuum toilet. I've got to take a major leak!"