Awakening

Awakening from cold sleep is always disorienting. While you're in hibernation you don't move. You don't age. You don't breath. You don't have a heartbeat. You don't dream. For all practical purposes, you're dead. At least until the cycle ends and your body comes back up to temperature, your heart and lungs restart, and your brain comes back on line. It isn't comfortable. It can be frightening. It is always disorienting.

The disorientation lasted a few minutes before I was really aware of what was going on, the confines of the hibernation chamber initially alien, then becoming familiar as my brain started to work again. It was a few moments more before I realized who I was, where I was, and why I was laying in a well padded coffin with sensors and tubes strapped to my body. That's when it hit me that I was actually still alive.

I was still alive.

It took another few minutes for the pretty moving symbols on the screen in front of me to start making sense. The colors and display patterns were intended to be soothing to someone recently awoken from cold sleep, then quickly understandable as the disorientation wore off. The display in my chamber said I was alive, in good health, and that Children of Earth herself was operating within normal parameters. Most importantly, we were backing into Sol system at the end of our long, long journey.

I tried to raise my hand to access the control menus on the panel above me, but got little. My consciousness had recovered faster than my muscles. Frustration. Not panic. My voice wasn't working yet either, but as I focused more I could feel the sensation and control returning to my body. Just a matter of time. Three minutes, and almost felt alive.

"Nora. Status." My voice sounded coarse, barely audible, but Nora should be able to determine make out the expected command. But nothing. Another moment and I tried again, my voice a little firmer, a little clearer. "Nora? Status, Nora." But still nothing. Was I deaf? Was she responding and I just couldn't hear it? No. The visual display hadn't changed. Nora wasn't responding as she should.

"Nora. Status. C'mon, girl. Talk to me." I could still hear the course edge to my voice. After all that time in cold sleep, my vocal cords were still less that fully functional. But my physical control was returning rapidly. Another few minutes and I'd be able to open the chamber manually.

"I'm sorry, Mei Mei. Nora can't speak just now." The voice that responded wasn't Nora's. The male side of androgynous, I recognized it instantly.

"Blue. . ." I said just above a whisper. A voice I hadn't expected to hear again. Ever.

"Yes, Mei Mei. At your service." The AI broke into a quiet, amused, laugh. Somehow, the Blue Man artificial intelligence was here, with us, at Sol.

"Hush, Blue. You're being all scary. Be nice. She's been asleep a long time." Another voice, a girl, no more than twelve or thirteen. Pleasant, cheerful, familiar, and thought far away across space and time.

"Aurorablue. . ." The child I'd never thought I'd see again. The Tiniest Dragon. Legally Lily's daughter and my granddaughter, though genetically . . . Genetically the result of some very specific tinkering.

"Hi, Mommy Seana! I'm sorry Blue was acting all creepy and stuff."

"But, Little One, how? How are you, either of you, here?"

"Oh, that was easy! Nora's Frame here was always big enough to support an AI like Blue without interfering with all the system and science functions. We just copied our Ghosts and uploaded them into the Frame before everyone went to sleep."

Before we'd gone to sleep? Blue, I could see transferring his essence, his Ghost, to the Sled's Frame. It was massively over-specified, given what we expected to need for the mission, and Nora was a tiny resource draw compared to some of the science and navigation programs. But Aurora'? She wasn't a machine intelligence like Blue. Organic minds couldn't live in a computer. Or could they?

"Blue I understand, Little One, but you?"

"I was made special, Mommy. My mind isn't like other people's, and Miss x0x0 figured out how to copy my Ghost so I could come with you. There's a lot I need to tell you. A lot happened while you were asleep but it's almost time for you to get up and we need to give Nora her voice back. Come on, Blue!" She sounded amused and I could almost imagine her looking at a clock, like she was late for class, calling Blue like I'd once called our Beagle, Haley.

"Ok, Little One. I'm not going anywhere." I said softly, but there was no answer. Blue and AuroraBlue were gone. Had I dreamed it? A hallucinatory reaction to cold sleep? The voices of people I'd left behind in 34 Tauri and missed saying a last good bye. But Nora's last words to me before I went to sleep. Had I imagined those too?

If it was imagination, it would almost certainly pass quickly. In the few minutes I'd been awake, my ongoing self assessment was matching closely what I saw on the readouts in front of me. Rapid recovery. My voice sounding more coherent, I tried again to get a response from the Sled.

"Nora. Status."

"Good morning, Captain." Nora's voice was back. Calm and familiar. "Children of Earth is decelerating into Sol system at seven point five two gravity. We are currently crossing Neptune's orbit. Drive performance is nominal. Navigation is nominal. Power systems are nominal. Life support functions are nominal and all habitable areas of the ship are within normal environmental ranges. Bussard Ramscoop operation during transit was partially successful. Fuel tankage is currently seventy one percent of capacity. Tank operation is nominal. Cold sleep system performance is nominal with a pod failure rate of zero point seven percent."

Better then a ninety nine percent success rate with the pods. Better, in fact, than expected. But still. I knew every member of the sled's crew. Every loss would be personal. It took a long moment for it to settle in, but I had to know. Nora'd called me Captain. It could mean only one thing. "Nora, detail the failures, please."

"Gill, Matthew, Captain. Status, deceased. Captain Gill's pod suffered a type three systemic failure, requiring emergency revival prior to refreeze. Emergency revival process failed at stage four. Protocol requires command transfer to you, Captain Kawanishi."

Nora paused a moment, "knowing" within the limits of her nearly AI code that it would take a moment for me to assimilate that I was now in command of the mission. A field promotion under less than ideal circumstances. It didn't help that Gill's pod had failed in such a way that he'd needed to be revived to correct the problem, and been lost just before the pod could release him. His worst fear realized: to die alone, deep in the Black.

"Go on, Nora."

"Wolfe, Byron, Astography. Status deceased. Mister Wolfe's pod suffered a type one systemic failure. Revival not possible. Jackobs, Sebastian, Drive Engineering. Status deceased. Mister Jackobs pod suffered a type one systemic failure. Revival not possible. Other pod anomalies were corrected in flight. Would you like me to detail them?"

"No, not now." Nora's calm voice was helping me focus, clearing the remaining hibernation fog from my mind. "Nora, I need you to alter the standard revival protocol. Essential medical and engineering personnel first as planned, but I want the ORCA's awake before you revive the rest of the flight crew."

"Understood, Captain. I will start Doctor Carver's revival process now. Would you like me to open your pod, Captain?"

"Yes, Nora," I replied, then shivered a little as the seal's popped and the ship's air hit my skin. Until that moment I hadn't really realized just how cold I was, but the contrast between the sled's shirtsleeve environment and the deep cold of the hibernation chamber was extreme. The final jolt I needed to come back to my senses.

As I worked my way out of the tank and into some clothes, I watched the displays monitoring Bel's chamber where Nora was working through the revival process. Once we had Bel back, we could revive Sabrina and a couple of her Engineers along with the rest of the medical team. Then the ORCAS. Given Gill's near paranoia before going into suspension, his loss would almost certainly strike some of the ex-Fleet flight crew as suspicious. While the early tensions had long subsided, there were still some personal loyalties to deal with amongst them. They would follow me as officers but they would probably wonder if I hadn't somehow done in 'their' Captain in order to take over the mission.

It wouldn't matter that I hadn't. The 'controlled friction' between us would put his loss in doubt regardless. His hand picked officers were unlikely to act on any doubts they might hold, but I wanted the ORCA's awake just in case.

And what of Aurora' and Blue? Had I imagined it? It was as clear in my mind as anything, but I'd chosen not to ask Nora just yet about her own internal systems. It was conceptually possible that x0x0 had managed to copy the essential neural pathways and chemical signals that defined AuroraBlue's organic mind. If she could, and could get it into the same sort of holographic matrix that made up Blue's AI, it was conceivable she'd be able to get it uploaded into the Frame. Possible. Maybe. Had it happened? I didn't know. Not yet.

But it would have to wait. Right now, I had a starship and her four hundred thirty crew to bring back to life. There would be time to search for a couple of Ghosts in our machine later. As well as checking through decades of communication from home, all while backing towards a home that may, or may not, be ready to welcome its children home.