by Purple Hazel
Want to play center back in the classic North American Megaball championship game of 2078—the classic confrontation between New Chicago and Dallas where the heavily favored Wranglers clung to a small lead going into the second half. As time expired, the upstart Enforcers staged a heroic comeback, and yes, the VRC had a program for that. Practically any famous sports match was programmed into its database.
Want to act out a role in some famous action film they’d grown up watching? Sure. The system had almost every movie ever made, archived for their enjoyment. They could run through jungles on the electrified floor, feeling sensations of steaming humidity, or dive into a creek or pond to swim to safety from pursuing headhunters.
Want to cave dive through the subterranean cinotes of Mexico? Want to hike one of the three volcanic cones of Mount Kilimanjaro? Want to hunt kangaroo with aborigines in the Australian outback? You bet! They had a program for all that and more. Just select whatever was desired from the menu, enter the chamber, and watch as the screens came alive with a three-dimensional world that made one feel like they were really there, and that objects or people coming at them were actually going to make contact.
Everyone enjoyed the VRC’s immensely. Even Captain Berwick loved them. He often chose selections from the Australia program. After all, he was named after a famous relative who’d once been a British sea captain convicted of scuttling his own ship back in the 1860’s and had then been sent by prison barge to Western Australia. Therefore, it was of particular interest to a man like “Tommy” Berwick to try and replicate what his brave yet controversial ancestor might have had to endure two centuries ago.
Kelvin, of course, enjoyed the great Megaball game programs, starting with Professional Training Camp and working his way to championship game scenarios. In this, he developed a camaraderie with Ensign Guerrero and the two traded experiences regularly, trying out each other’s programs and even creating ones of their own to replicate situations they thought the other would find challenging. Often the two would be seen together during those first ten years of the mission. Kelvin never had a little brother, and perhaps Ozzie missed his twin back home on Earth.
Ozzie went through his entire puberty on board the Santa Maria. He was friends with practically everyone. And not surprisingly, the three young space twins remained very close throughout. They palled around whenever Ozzie wasn’t working out with Kelvin or finishing up his shift in the Pod Launch Chamber. And it was also during this time that Ozzie began developing a special relationship with the adorable and talented Shamiso Kachote. By the tenth year of the voyage, those two were certainly an item around the ship. Spoken about constantly, referred to regularly in conversation among the crew, speculation was almost always that the two teenagers would in all likelihood become lovers.
Young-Min was no competition for Ozzie and anyone could see that. What’s more, Young-Min was quite busy with his duties as well as his pet project of developing effective strains of cannabis for the rest of the Return Team and a hundred passengers currently in stasis in the cryogenic chamber inside the Santa Maria. That’s where Shamiso worked, and her duties, though technically not as exciting as Ozzie’s and Young Min’s, were just as crucial to the success of the mission. This had been stated in no uncertain terms by the Captain himself; and in her section, there was a level of discipline and dedication to their work which was rarely equaled.
Often referred to as the freezer by the rest of the crew, the cryogenic chamber was likely the second most vital facility on the ship. Second only to the matter pod lab which was creating Casimir Vacuums for the production of non-baryonic matter. It was guarded and supervised around the clock, security was airtight, and supervision was constant. Shamiso would report to her post and when her six-hour shift was finally finished, heave a big sigh of relief at the chamber door whenever she “knocked off work for the day.” It was quite stressful at times, even though she couldn’t have imagined how when she was first assigned duties there.
First off, it was very much like a morgue. With a hundred frozen bodies in stasis; many of them with faces she could easily recognize through the bluish lens located at about eye level, Shamiso had to care for all of them. Someone had to be on duty at all times, monitoring them and watching out for any potential malfunctions in the stasis machines, which looked like coffins, only they were about the size of a solar-powered family sedan.
It was kind of like working as a nurse in the intensive care unit of a big city hospital, only the difference was there were a hundred patients, not five or six in her care, and what’s more...they weren’t even technically alive.
They were essentially frozen corpses awaiting re-activation, sort of like undead zombies or vampires in some old scary movie. The biggest challenge therefore, in addition to constantly monitoring the machines, was in not allowing oneself to go completely mad from the boredom. It was an ongoing challenge for her; and for that matter practically no one in that section ever got over it, never got used to it either. True, it was a particularly strange ordeal for the young orphan from London.
Before departing, the cryonics team first had to remove water from the patients’ cells and replace it with a glycerol-based chemical mixture—or cryoprotectant—which became a sort of human antifreeze. Thus, the goal was always to protect organs and tissues from forming deadly ice crystals at extremely low temperatures. This vitrification, or deep cooling without freezing the body’s internal organs, put the cells of their crewmates into a state of suspended animation. A team of five could easily supervise this section of the ship, which was made up of a long, sterile chamber and a long rotating axle with racks upon it which could be turned to bring up rows of twenty stasis machines for inspection. To make matters worse, it was also a clean room, meaning they all had to wear full body suits and lensed hoods while working there. Gloves and booties too. Nothing was ever left to chance as far as bacteria existing within their work environment.
Maintaining the body at an average temperature of -130 ̊C completed the vitrification process. Bodies were placed into an individual container that would then be lowered into a large metal tank filled with liquid nitrogen which remained at a temperature of -196 degrees. Bodies were then stored head down so that if a leak ever occurred in the tank, the brain would stay immersed in this freezing liquid.
Therefore, to view the faces of her comrades, Shamiso would often have to bend down and turn her head nearly upside down to look into their eyes. Most of them of course had been placed in their chambers with eyes closed to reduce the eeriness of their appearance for the sake of their keepers during the voyage. That said, not all remained that way unfortunately. Some had their eyes barely open after the freezing process and seemed to stare out at her like cadavers in a city morgue. To say this was creepy at times would have been an understatement!
Thus, Shamiso became quite a big fan of the athletic center and of course the Virtual Reality Chambers next door. She became fascinated with death and movies about the afterlife—or lighthearted films depicting young lovers arising from a deep sleep or coma.
Zombie movies disturbed her, though. They gave her terrifying nightmares and she’d occasionally awaken with broken fingernails from scratching the ceiling of her sleeping berth—imagining herself buried alive in some moldering tomb. No, she preferred to stick with romantic comedies that replicated couples kissing outside during a dramatic scene with rainfall; or even running through the rain together to seek shelter from a storm.
Not surprisingly, her favorite diversion from work was to take young Ozzie into the chamber with her on occasion. That was also where she experienced her first romantic kiss by the way. Covered in a deluge of computer generated rain—not real water, of course, but replicated sensations of rain pelting their faces—they’d hold hands and trudge through animated floodwaters, with gravity sensors beneath their feet conjuring the feeling of feet sloshing through a deluge. It was remarkably believable, and even falling down while running or hiking gave the bod
y the thrill of being partially submerged in cool rainwater. It certainly made life a bit more tolerable, enjoying these programs inside the VRC.
She also abstained from the cannabis. She as well as Young-Min and Ozzie were forbidden to have these substances in their foods, even though their own fellow wonder-twin had helped concoct them in his lab. But Shamiso enjoyed her free time as much as anyone else. She worked out in the athletic center, experiencing heavy gravity like that of Kapteyn B, lifted weights to make herself stronger and keep her body fit, and received special treatment in the co-ed hygiene chambers whenever men were there.
They’d leave immediately and give her the entire area to herself, even if they were in danger of being late reporting for duty. No one ever argued about it, of course. She was a beautiful girl with a tough job onboard and people respected her. Her pleasant personality and bright smile, whenever she got out of that ghoulish cryogenic chamber, that is, was both uplifting and inspiring. Jokes about the freezer promptly ceased whenever in her presence. Cynical remarks about the place being filled with bodies or stiffs were rarely heard after she walked into a room. It was basically unacceptable.
What’s more, Captain Berwick, if he ever found out, would have demoted them to Seaman E-3. Then they’d be relegated to lowly cleaning crews! That, of course, was a fate no one dared imagine.
For all intents and purposes, the inside of a spacecraft was only slightly different than that of an old naval submarine. Dirty humans and their collective filth were practically everywhere. It had to be cleaned constantly, and such a job was both disgusting and loathsome.
But on top of that, if they’d have asked Shamiso just how bad their lives could get, she could have easily told them about her younger days back in that London orphanage. She could have deterred them quite quickly, no doubt. That said, Shamiso was not the willful type, like her sister had been. She’d likely just tell them, if they ever inquired, “You probably don’t wanna know, mate…”
* * * *
But during this period; as the Santa Maria completed year ten out in deep space, Rudo Kachote was still back on Earth fighting her way through life’s trials and tribulations in her twin sister’s absence. She’d turned twenty by now, and was working—as fortune would have it—as a maid in a swank London hotel. Her good looks were an asset, and yet occasionally a liability, as well.
She took up singing, mainly as a means of wiling the time away during her long work day of gathering laundry and bedding, transporting it to the hotel laundry, and viewing the comfortable life of the British elite as though looking through a window into an elegant home while standing outside in the cold English rain.
In time, however, someone heard her singing, mentioned it to someone else, then they in turn told others. Sensing she may have some innate talent and ability, a charming socialite with connections aplenty one day approached her about entertaining the idea of a musical career. Rudo jumped at the chance with only a little coaxing. In fact, after failing a couple of auditions and getting frustrated more than a few times, she gained the attention of a savvy singing coach who endeavored to bring her to the next level.
She entered singing competitions, got a few gigs fronting musical groups or backing up known celebrities. By twenty she was gradually being viewed as an up and comer. Yes, young Rudo was soon to be on her way to an exciting career in music, and in time, perhaps, she’d be able to leave that stuffy hotel for good—or even better than that, return someday as a guest instead of a lowly chamber maid.
By 2096, things back on Earth were certainly looking up for young Rudo Kachote. She even changed her name so it would more easily catch the attention of audiences. Her first name in Shona meant “Love”, so she altered it a bit.
On stage, she eventually became known to the world as Rudo Love.
Chapter 12
Reach the Beach
At shortly after 0600 Greenwich Mean Time on the 24th of May, 2101, the Santa Maria finally arrived in orbit around Kapteyn B, the first manned space exploration vessel to ever reach an alien planet outside Earth’s solar system. To mark this grand occasion, a single brief message was sent by Captain Tommy Berwick using the newly completed matter pod line stretching billions of kilometers back to Earth. All it said was, Orbit established at Kapteyn B. Preparing landing craft to enter atmosphere.
This brief, historically significant message would take approximately 1.28 years to reach Earth. By that time, back in Earth’s orbit, the massive resupply ship Nautilus, equipped with Alcubierre Drive Metric technology would already be preparing for launch.
B.J.—or Ensign O-1 Ariel” as she was known officially—strained, moaned, and groaned through her daily physical therapy session. The crew of a hundred which had been in stasis for so many years were awake by now and had, for the past thirty days, been readjusting to the cold realities of consciousness after fourteen plus Earth years frozen inside cryogenic containers.
Waking them up, reviving them from so many years in suspended animation, had been a very delicate task. It had been a rather strange process indeed! Yet, with each revived crewmember, culminating in the successful reanimation of the Captain of the Return Team, Steinhart Stehter, Shamiso’s team could heave a collective sigh of relief. Practically everyone seemed to make it through the process okay, or at least relatively so, given the circumstances.
Those from the pod launch and matter pod preparation teams were reassigned to help Shamiso’s unit in getting those mostly female crewmembers fully functional. Oddly enough, after effectively seven long years working with the dangers of chemical gas leaks and the threat of exposure and death while placing matter pods out in space; they immediately became full-time physical therapists.
Now their daily dangers were of a far different sort! They had to deal with cranky, bitchy, whiny, and sometimes even violent patients as those poor souls struggled to get blood circulation to extremities and achieve motion within their arms, fingers, and legs. Their minds were usually the biggest challenge of all however.
“STOP TOUCHING ME!” screamed one of the young Canadian women, shortly after being revived one day from sleeping. Patients would usually exercise or undergo physical therapy until quite nearly exhausted, then they’d be stirred awake to begin again after a short nap. They’d cry out as well whenever lifted from one of the special therapy beds meant for the recovery process. These had been stacked up and sealed inside containers along the walls of the cryogenic lab for the past 14.22 Earth years.
Lt. Junior Grade Kelvin and his team of brutes, including a now full-grown Ens. Oswaldo Guerrero, had pulled them down one-by-one, all one hundred of them in fact, and laid them out in what was once a seemingly massive open lobby area in front of the stasis machines. When done it looked a lot more like some old wartime M.A.S.H. unit performing triage after wounded had arrived. It was chaotic. Shamiso and her little team of scientists could not hope to have managed it on their own, that was for sure.
People would scream at them, curse them out, or pathetically beg them to stop, but the new team of brawny therapists soldiered through it anyway, all the while assuring and reassuring each distressed crewmember. “It’ll only hurt worse if you fight it,” or they’d say, “Just relax and breathe through it.”
B.J., of course, suffered just as much as anyone else throughout the excruciatingly painful ordeal, but her clever wit had clearly survived the cryogenic process. She’d make ribald comments like, “It’ll only hurt worse if you fight it? Now when have I heard that before, I wonder?” or she’d quip, “Just relax, huh? They always say that when they wanna get ya’ to try anal sex, don’t they?”
In the meantime, her friendship with Kelvin took literally no time to reestablish itself. It was Kelvin who personally supervised reviving her frozen body; and he insisted the whole time that he be the first person she saw when the reversal process was complete. Sat by her stasis machine the entire time practically, for nearly seven hours, as the machine thawed her body and resupplied her organs wit
h her own previously frozen plasma.
She awoke slowly, still pale and ghostly after such a long period with no blood circulating. Then, ever so slowly, as the process brought her back to life, she finally looked up at Kelvin and stared eerily, blinking occasionally in the light and in reaction to some drops he was putting in her eyes to rehydrate them. She was silent for nearly an hour—occasionally confused or anxious—but then mouthed something nonsensical, barely audible to the team huddled around her. No one was completely sure what she was saying; but to Kelvin it looked like she was muttering “Well...Good mornin’, asshole.”
It took several weeks to bring them all out of stasis. Some patients came around after only a couple days of having their own blood pumped back into their bodies and their brains reactivated. Others took much longer; but there was always a threat that the minds of each crewmember or officer frozen in stasis might be altered slightly from their original personality and demeanor. Shamiso’s team had been trained for this potentiality and in turn informed their new staff of twenty-three volunteer physical therapists to watch out for it. They’d been told the brain could very well be affected by psychotic episodes, loss of long term memory, or even bipolar mood swings.
Despite the dangers, everyone was continually assured they’d return to their normal selves within a month or so. And though there was only one clear case of psychosis, discovered much, much later, the challenges it would eventually present to both the remaining colonists—as well as the crew sent to the surface to help them explore the planet—were certainly unwelcome if not downright daunting, at least for the next twelve months.
Unfortunately, this one case was with one of the crewmen—an officer in fact—and was not recognized until later when construction began on the new colony…
