Interstellar Caveman

by Karl Beecher

  He summed up his feelings up in no uncertain terms. “I don’t think so.”

  Keith thought for a moment. “What about our swingers club?”

  “I already tried that,” said Mildred. “Not interested.”

  Her husband rolled his eyes. “So, what are you going to do?”

  Colin frowned. “Why should it make a difference? Why should I suddenly change what I’m doing? I’ll just carry on as before—I just won’t be doing it for very long, that’s all.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “So you’ll keep playing bowls, then?” asked Mildred.

  Colin sighed and nodded.

  “Good,” she said. “It’s just that… you’re the best player on the team and…” Her voice trailed away.

  “Can they really not cure it?” asked Keith.

  Colin began to think another sherry was not such a bad idea, after all. Or maybe ten sherries. Or perhaps some crack cocaine. “No. It’s an aggressive neurodegenerative disease with no known cure.”

  “No known cure yet,” offered Keith encouragingly. “Who knows what they’ll discover in the future?”

  Colin shook his head. “I looked into it. They’re years away from a cure. I’ve got two or three months at the most.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Keith peered at his half-full glass of ale. Colin ran a finger along the rim of his half-empty glass of sherry.

  Suddenly inspired, Keith looked up and clicked his fingers. “What about cryonics?”

  “Huh?”

  “Cryonics,” said Keith. “I’ve got a client who was telling me about it. Listen to this. He’s convinced he’s going to get cancer. Runs in his family or something. He’s already registered with one of these cryonics companies. Now, if he ever gets diagnosed with a terminal cancer case, he qualifies for this cryonics treatment. The company will stick him immediately in one of their fridges… or whatever they store them in.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then, whenever they find a cure for his type of cancer, they’ll thaw him out and give it to him. Bingo!”

  “Just like that?” said Colin skeptically.

  “Just like that,” said Keith. “I had to look into it when I was doing his books for him. I couldn’t tell you the science of it, but legally and financially it’s all kosher.”

  Mildred chimed in. “There are really companies who do that?”

  “Yeah. I can find out which company this client of mine uses and get you the details, if you like.”

  “Hmm,” said Mildred. “What do you think, Colin? Maybe that’s an option?”

  To his own surprise, Colin found he hadn’t already dismissed the idea.

  “Hang on,” said Keith. “It’s not cheap, of course. We’re talking on the order of six figures, if I remember rightly.”

  Colin exhaled. Six figures? That was the end of that idea.

  Or was it? Colin remembered his imminent redundancy payout, which he knew was going to be generous. He also had a very healthy savings account—one of the benefits of being a bachelor who lived in his own house. The house! He had inherited it from his parents; he owned it outright. Perhaps, if he had to, he could mortgage it to raise the money.

  Could this really work? He dared to feel the faintest flicker of hope.

  Wait, what was he thinking? Cryonics? It all sounded too easy, too science fiction. Probably Keith was misremembering something. After all, he admitted he didn’t understand the science behind it, and Colin certainly knew nothing about it.

  However, he knew a man who might.

  5

  “Come in, Colin deary.”

  Jeremy’s mother ushered Colin through the front door and into the hallway. She was a pleasant, portly lady, never seen without a cigarette in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

  She gestured to the staircase. “They’ve started without you. Go on up, I’ll announce you.”

  When he was halfway up, Jeremy’s mother yelled out, “Jezza! Colin’s here!”

  At the top of the stairs, Colin heard a commotion from behind Jeremy’s bedroom door, hectic movements and hushed voices. He pushed the door open to reveal his tabletop gaming compatriots, Jeremy and Martin, inside the messy bedroom, feverishly clearing gaming pieces from the large table and scooping them into a box.

  Jeremy spun his head around and froze, looking at Colin like a cheating spouse caught in the act. “Oh, hi Colin,” he said innocently. “We were just… erm…”

  Martin, the youngest of the three, glanced anxiously between them.

  Colin eyed the half-filled game box in Jeremy’s hand. The reason for the guilty expressions became clear when he saw the label. They’d been playing ‘WarThrasher 9000 A.D.,’ the science fiction version of the original, fantasy-oriented WarThrasher tabletop wargame that the guys played every week.

  Colin hated science fiction, as Jeremy and Martin well knew.

  To him, the sci-fi version was an abomination. Real WarThrasher took place in a fantasy world of swords and spells. To take something as vulgar as science fiction, with all its laser cannons and starships, and bolt it onto the perfect purity of fantasy was like painting sunglasses onto the Mona Lisa.

  Colin sighed. It was only a matter of time before this happened. Nothing was sacred to young people anymore. However, given his circumstances, he couldn’t find it within himself to summon up a disapproving look.

  Jeremy finally ferreted the box away. “Um… we weren’t expecting you tonight, Colin. I thought you said you were ill.”

  “I am,” said Colin. “Don’t worry, nothing contagious. I’m not here to play. Actually, I just wanted to talk to you, Jeremy… privately.”

  “Oh. Yeah, sure. Um…. Martin, fetch us all some drinks, eh?”

  “You said those were the last ones,” said Martin, pointing at two open cans of lager.

  “Then go to the corner shop.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Jeremy fished out a five-pound note from his trouser pocket and threw it on the table. “Here.”

  Martin scuttled from the room with the cash.

  “So,” began Jeremy. “What’s up, Colin? You sound pretty down.”

  Colin took a seat and scratched his head. “It’s a little hard to know where to start. I need your opinion on something… kind of technical, scientific-like.”

  “I’m your man.”

  “Do you know much about neo-cryonics? I know you’re studying physics, and this sounds more a chemistry or biology sort of thing, but…”

  “Hey, no sweat,” replied Jeremy. “Those two are basically sciences for children. I’ve read an article on it in New Scientist. That’s more than enough for a physicist. But why do you want to know?”

  Colin explained about his diagnosis. He revealed more about his private life in five minutes than he had in the course of their five-year friendship.

  “Wow,” said Jeremy after Colin had finished. “That’s heavy, man. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “And so,” said Colin, “That’s why I’ve come asking. I know virtually nothing about this cryonics business. I mean, I always thought you had to be dead to get frozen.”

  “Oh, no. It’s not like that anymore. It used to be. With old cryonics, you were literally frozen. You had to be dead first because the freezing process would kill you anyway. This neo-cryonics is kind of cool actually. I think they made a breakthrough a couple of years ago. Let me check…”

  Jeremy rummaged on a nearby desk. Half a dozen comic books and copies of New Scientist slid onto the floor, their falls broken by empty crisp packets and plates of half-eaten sandwiches.

  “Here it is,” he said, putting his hand on a magazine. He quickly familiarised himself with the content. “Yeah, I remember now. With old cryonics, you’d die and then be put into a freezer. Now, with neo-cryonics, they don’t actually freeze you anymore. They use a combination of chemical preservatives and some kind of stasis field they put you
in. It’s an electromagnetic—”

  Colin interrupted. “So, I wouldn’t be dead?”

  “No. Well, yes. Well, sort of. You wouldn’t be alive, clinically speaking. You’d have no more bodily functions. But then you wouldn’t be dead because you didn’t die when you went under. Right?”

  Colin began to wish he was in suspended animation already.

  Jeremy continued. “You see, these new techniques only pause body functions. Think of it like pausing a video. The video’s not advancing because it’s paused. It’s not running, but at the same time, it’s not turned off. You’re still alive although technically you’re not living… you know what I mean?”

  Colin didn’t. “Yes,” he said.

  Jeremy glanced between Colin and the article. “So, are you really going to do this?” he asked. “It’s not without risks, you know. Things can go wrong while you’re under.”

  Colin sighed. “I don’t know. My head’s still spinning, I can’t think straight. I don’t think the whole thing’s actually sunk in yet. I need time before I can decide.”

  “It says here prep time is several weeks before they can put you in a stasis pod. Colin, if you’ve only got a couple of months left, you’ve got no time to think. You have to decide now.”

  6

  “Well,” said Doctor Bond, closing up a panel in the stasis pod. “Everything’s set.”

  He turned and gave Colin a kindly look.

  The time had come.

  The Doctor stepped forward. “Mister Douglass?”

  Colin stood there in his surgical gown, shaking. The heat had grown oppressive, and the earthy-smelling air overbearing. The walls felt as though they were closing in, and Colin was suddenly and unpleasantly aware he was deep underground.

  He struggled to breathe, squeezed his hands into a fist, and felt the sweat in his palms. The stasis pod sat open before him like a fly trap waiting to capture its prey. It was like standing at the edge of precipice with the Doctor willing him to jump.

  “Um… actually,” he stuttered. “I… I don’t think I really want to do this. You know, now I think about it, I… I really haven’t had a chance to think about it. These last few weeks have been a whirlwind. I never had a chance to just sit down and actually decide. Maybe there’s another option? Something I haven’t thought of, you know?”

  Doctor Bond shook his head. “There really isn’t, Mister Douglass.”

  “But why me?” demanded Colin. “Why do I deserve this? I’m a nobody, an insurance analyst. Worse than that: an unemployed insurance analyst. Look at me, I’ve got one hairy knee and one bald knee. No wife, no kids to miss me.”

  “You’re here because you paid to be here.” The doctor stepped forward again. “This is your pod, no-one else’s.”

  Colin retreated another step. He was babbling, but he didn’t care. “But nobody will notice if I snuffed it. What about all the people who actually make a difference and deserve a second chance?”

  “They’re not here now. But you are—”

  “Like Kate. My sister. She was in the Air Force, you know. Proper hero she was. If anyone deserved a second chance, she did. She made a difference. I didn’t. That’s not right, is it? She dies and I live?”

  Sweat poured down his face. He felt faint, so perched himself on a nearby table.

  “Yes,” he continued. “This is all a mistake. Besides, I’m sure there’s another way… isn’t there? Tell me there’s another option. I’ll do anything. There must be something.”

  Doctor Bond looked at him. “I can appreciate this is difficult for you,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for patients to have these reactions at this stage, particularly ones who have been through such a truncated preparation period as you have. I believe you’re currently experiencing the five stages of grief.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s just that you’re going through them all in the space of three minutes. Fortunately…” Doctor Bond reached into a tray on the stand beside him and brought out a syringe filled with a light blue liquid. “… we are prepared for such eventualities.”

  Colin was no longer shaking. His preferred explanation was that he’d conquered his fear, but it was actually due to the generously-sized shot of Diazepam Doctor Bond had given him.

  “Feeling better?” the Doctor asked.

  “Mmm,” replied Colin in a calm, drug-induced haze.

  He lay in the pod, staring up at the girders hanging from the ceiling. Just as he had suspected, all those tubes and cables had indeed been attached to his body, some stuck via adhesive pads, some injected intravenously and a few inserted into orifices he didn’t even know he possessed.

  Frankenstein’s monster was afforded more dignity than this.

  “Just a few minutes to go now, Mister Douglass,” said the Doctor. “At this point, I’m legally obliged to ask you a few final things before you enter stasis. Do you understand?”

  Colin purred. He was so stoned he would have agreed his name was Shirley Temple.

  The Doctor looked at a tablet computer he was holding. “Do you, Colin Douglass, understand that you are about to undergo neo-cryonic stasis and do so of your own free will?”

  “Yeeeaah.”

  “Do you understand that all your bodily functions will be suspended in entirety for the duration of your time in stasis?”

  “Uh-huhhhh.”

  “I am obliged to remind you at this point you have already signed a waiver immunising CryCorp against prosecution in the event of cases including but not limited to the following: loss of any bodily function evident after re-emergence from stasis; culture shock or any other failure to readjust into society after prolonged preservation; nervous shock or mental disorder resulting from realisation your children, dependents or other descendants have become older than you; irreparable brain damage; and your accidental death.”

  “Sounds greeeaat.”

  “Very well. We can begin.”

  The last thing Colin remembered seeing was the Doctor’s handsome face saying something about “anesthesia phase one.” After that, his vision gently faded to black. Then the sounds in the room melted away.

  He still felt a sort of consciousness, as though he were dreaming. His thoughts wandered, seemingly out of his control. Oddly enough, he pictured the wine rack in his kitchen and dreamed about all the evenings he’d spent home alone sipping a Shiraz or a Chardonnay. Alone, usually.

  He thought about the beach at Brighton, the town where he would spend his annual holiday. Alone, usually.

  He wondered what would have happened if he’d gone to the swingers’ club after all.

  He imagined his parents. He wished they’d lived to see him being awarded Best Insurance Analyst (South-East Region).

  He thought about his sister, Kate.

  He felt sad. Perhaps some happier thoughts would have helped? He didn’t want to be frozen in a state of perpetual depression.

  But before he could think of something cheerful, he finally lost his grip on consciousness, and all perception faded to nothing.

  7

  Colin’s belief that he would be suspended in a state of perpetual melancholy couldn’t have been more wrong. He would not feel depressed during his hibernation. He wouldn’t have any feelings or thoughts or dreams at all.

  Such things require brain chemistry churning away, but all chemical processes in his body had now been put on hold. He didn’t think, his heart didn’t beat, his lungs drew no breath. He occupied a weird boundary between alive and dead. He was neither.

  This aspect of neo-cryonic stasis had troubled a lot of humans when it was first developed.

  It caused many civil servants great annoyance because all forms and databases that recorded a person’s current status as living or deceased had to be redesigned and updated.

  Undertakers, too, were furious, and even attempted to sue the cryonics companies for unfair competition.

  A lot of religious folk were unhappy, too, but that was perfectly normal
.

  Humans are an adaptable species, you have to give them that. Like all assaults on normality and decency, everyone soon got used to it, and civilisation continued just as it had done for thousands of years.

  Life went on.

  After all, as humans are fond of saying, it wasn’t the end of the world.

  8

  Many, many, many, many, many years later

  The little ship hung motionless in deep space.

  This was, in itself, quite unusual. Starships almost never stay motionless. Picture a starship in your mind, and it’s usually streaking through interstellar space at many times the speed of light or hurtling between planets at millions of miles per hour. Even when ‘stopped,’ parked in orbit around a planet, a starship is still technically in motion.

  But to be completely motionless in the middle of interstellar space? That usually means something is wrong. On the bridge of this particular starship, something was definitely not right.

  Tyresa Jak was worried.

  Normally, it took a lot to worry her, but the image on the starmap really bugged her. The information she’d got earlier directed her towards a crappy, insignificant little star system. It was the last place she’d expect to find anything of worth. Either the information was wrong, or she was being led on a wild goose chase… or worse. She’d halted the ship to consider her next move.

  As she did so, the port-side door of the bridge slid open to reveal Ade. He walked through the doorway, as neat and elegant as ever, carrying a tray as gracefully as a royal servant at a banquet.

  “As requested, ma’am,” he said, “power couplings have been manually re-aligned. This has achieved a twelve percent increase in long-range sensor capacity.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Ade approached the map table. “On my return, I passed the galley and it occurred to me that some refreshment might be in order. You haven’t eaten today.”

  Tyresa’s stare remained fixed on the map. Going there was bound to cause trouble.