by Dom Testa
“Oh, I don’t want to get all philosophical at the last minute,” Hannah said, looking embarrassed.
“No, tell me.”
“Well, it’s a doorway of sorts, right? Only this doorway, in effect, separates the primitive from the evolved. It’s a doorway that takes us forward several millennia in an instant. We leave our infant self behind, and take our first steps as galactic adults.
“But it might even represent more than that,” Hannah said, growing excited. “In my mind, at least, it represents an evolutionary leap so great that it could almost compare to the doorway between life and death.”
Triana stood speechless. Of course. Of course! It was exactly the description that her mind had so desperately sought from the moment she’d pierced that infinitely thin barrier and plunged into the space around a glowing red dwarf star. A doorway, a transition from one world to another. But more than that! A transition that took her into another dimension of life, a step that no human could even conceive, a leap that paralleled the mystical barrier between life and death.
Bon was convinced, through his repeated connections with the Cassini, that something, somehow, existed after this life. It had become an obsession for him, prompted by guilt, perhaps, but an obsession nonetheless. For Bon it was no mystery that another existence awaited; it was the transition itself that haunted him.
Now Triana felt an entirely new appreciation for the bridge spanning that gulf. She’d experienced a blinding flash of white light, she’d lost consciousness, and she’d awakened in an alternate reality, descriptions that eerily mirrored those given by people who’d crossed the boundary between life and death.
Before she even knew it was happening, Triana felt tears on her face. At a time when her thoughts should have been dominated by the events at hand, her conscious mind broke away from the Spider bay, from the Storage Sections, from Hannah … and took her immediately to her father.
For the first time since his death, Triana felt that she could let him go in peace. She’d been granted a gift that no other human had ever received: the chance to experience—and appreciate—the crossing of a barrier between worlds, between alternate realities, and to know that transitions of this nature could never end at the doorway itself. There would always be another side.
“Tree, are you all right?” Hannah was at her side, gripping her hand. “You’re crying. What happened?”
Triana gave an embarrassed laugh and swiped at her cheeks. “It’s nothing. Just … just a lot that’s finally making sense, that’s all.” She dabbed at her face again and looked at Hannah. “No, really, it’s okay. Everything you said is … well, it’s beautiful. Thank you for putting your feelings into words. Sometimes that’s hard for me to do.”
“It’s usually hard for me, too,” Hannah said. She let go of Triana’s hand and gave her own quick laugh. “We don’t sound like typical women, do we?”
“We’re not,” Triana said. “And that’s okay, too.”
They were interrupted by a tone from the speaker, followed by Gap’s voice. “Hey, Tree. You still at the bay?”
“Roger that, as Roc would say,” she said.
“Good. Come on down the hall, we’re ready to bust into this vault.”
Triana looked at Hannah. “Do you still have packing to do, or would you like to join us?”
Hannah was already walking out the door. “Are you crazy? I’m not leaving without seeing this.”
* * *
Dr. Zimmer had been lenient with the crew in many areas. He’d caved to their demands for an Airboarding track; he’d allowed them to introduce some of their favorite foods to the already restricted space in the Domes; and he’d bucked the advice of his advisors and sent each crew member home one more time before the launch. He’d proven to be a strong mission director who could bend at the appropriate time and for the right reasons.
But on one item he’d never swayed an inch: the Storage Sections were sealed, and would remain sealed until the crew reached Eos. The contents would remain out of sight and—ideally, anyway—out of mind. Roc alone knew what lay inside, and his programming was clear. Gap had poked and prodded the computer mercilessly during the first few months of the mission, practically begging to be let in on the secret. But they both understood that it was mostly an entertaining diversion.
A stowaway had breached the sealed compartments right after launch, but Roc had determined that no real damage was done to the interior. The chambers remained sealed without any crew member gaining access.
It was a dark mystery for the lively group of teens, and soon it dominated their late-night banter. What was in there? Why was it a secret? Who would be the first to find a way inside and break the spell?
Then, in one remarkable exchange, an alien visitor had pulled back the curtain and revealed Galahad’s secret. And now, on par with the other landmark events that were transpiring on this momentous day, the door would be flung open and the crew allowed access.
Gap grinned as Triana and Hannah rounded the turn on the lower level. To Triana it resembled the face of a little boy with his hand on the doorknob to the living room, anxious to see what delights Santa had left behind overnight. Lita and half a dozen crew members stood behind him, accompanied by a handful of wheeled carts.
“I feel like Dr. Zimmer’s gonna come crashing around the corner any minute, pointing and shouting,” Gap said. “You know, technically we haven’t reached Eos yet.”
“If it saves our lives, Dr. Zimmer would encourage us to break in,” Lita said. “Besides, I think we’ve more than earned the right to open this door, wouldn’t you say?”
Hannah chimed in. “And it’s not like it’s a big surprise anymore. Aren’t you just dying to see how they’ve done this?”
Gap stepped aside to show Triana the entrance panel. With the original Eos arrival date still three years away, she’d never bothered to look at the small control switches embedded in the wall. The secrecy, mixed with the dark, remote location within the bowels of the ship, had curbed her curiosity about the Storage Sections.
Standing before the panel that stretched from floor to ceiling, she eyed the controls that resembled an ordinary security lock. An hour earlier Roc had given her the six-digit code, a combination that immediately brought back fond memories and caused Triana to shake her head at Dr. Zimmer’s quaint inside joke. Now she took a deep breath and punched in the code.
Nothing happened.
She felt the stares from her shipmates behind her. Was there another step that she’d left out? Had the code somehow been corrupted during the stowaway incident? Did the—
There was a low whine, followed by a click. Seconds later the panel shifted inward about an inch before creeping slowly to the side. With the door’s seal broken, interior lights flickered to life, and the hiss of ventilation stirred within the chamber. Triana took one tentative step, and leaned inside.
The room measured about fifteen feet square, and almost that tall, with a passageway at the far end connecting to another room. Given the exterior size of the Storage Sections, Triana estimated that there were likely at least eight rooms linked together. Her apprehension about entering was somewhat diminished by the sight of storage crates looming over them, stacked high on metal shelves. She’d been nervous about immediately stumbling upon bodies; boxes she could handle.
It wasn’t until Gap leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Any day now,” that she pried her feet from the floor and walked inside. The air felt especially dry, although it was helped by the whisper of a breeze beginning to seep from the vents. Gap and the other crew members fanned out behind her and began a cursory inventory of the boxes. Most had labels that identified the specific contents, but Triana couldn’t focus on those just yet.
Summoning her courage, she left the first room behind and moved down the broad passageway toward the next chamber. She saw the first bodies before entering the room.
They were lying in clear cryogenic tubes that were markedly different fr
om the ones found on the pod from SAT33. While the pods were capable of short-term, emergency life preservation, they were older units, hastily added to the small craft. These, however, were advanced models, designed for interstellar travel and sleep cycles that could last for years.
They were arranged on specially constructed scaffolding that filled the space from floor to ceiling. A quick count showed seven stacks, each containing seven cryogenic cylinders. There were empty slots in several of the stacks, like empty airline seats during a flight. It was evident that bodies hadn’t been removed from these empty cylinders; they had never been occupied.
Triana stepped softly to stand beside one of the tubes, and looked through the clear glass into the face of a boy. Strands of blond hair stuck out from beneath a snug elastic cap that covered his head. Close to two dozen electrodes protruded from the gray cap and wound together into a twisted knot of wires that disappeared into a junction box at the head of the tube. His eyes were closed, his face serene. Triana noted the thin lips, the faint lashes, and a sharp, jutting chin. European? North American? She couldn’t tell.
He was dressed in what appeared to be an old-fashioned sleeping gown, not unlike the one Triana imagined Ebenezer Scrooge wearing during his midnight jaunts with the ghosts of Christmas. It covered the boy down to his ankles. His feet were bare, and his hands were placed gently at his sides. By all accounts he appeared to be in a deep, peaceful slumber. Two pale lights in the junction box, one green and one yellow, were the only indicators of activity. Triana resisted the urge to tap on the glass, to test the depth of his sleep.
Directly above him, another boy lay in an almost identical state. The only differences that stood out were the boy’s ethnicity—Asian, upon examination—and the fact that one hand was lying across his stomach. The skull cap, the wires, the gown, and the soft lights were the same.
Triana walked the perimeter of the room and noticed a mix of ethnicities in the teens occupying the other cylinders. All of them young men. Perhaps the girls were in another room?
She took a count and discovered that of the forty-nine tubes, thirty-nine held bodies. They all seemed to be in good health.
Gap came up beside her, his eyes scanning the room. “This is unbelievable,” he said, his voice low, as if in reverence. “I thought I’d be creeped out, but it’s actually very cool. We have new roommates.”
Triana nodded slowly. “Eighty-four new roommates. And eighty-four new stories for us to learn.”
She found the next passageway and, with Gap a step behind her, walked into the adjoining room. It was slightly larger, but held the same number of tubes. Here, as expected, were the girls. Triana and Gap gazed into the first chamber they encountered, into the face of a black girl. She had long lashes over eyes that were parted ever so slightly, giving the appearance of peeking back at the two Galahad Council members. Above her, a Hispanic girl had an impish smile on her face, causing both Gap and Triana to smile, too.
“The girls outnumber the boys,” Triana said. “Forty-five girls, thirty-nine boys.”
“Why do you think there are empty tubes?” Gap said.
Triana shrugged. “I don’t know.”
They spent another ten minutes combing through the remaining rooms. One housed what had to be the nerve center for the cryogenic controls. Unlike the subdued life signs on the tubes themselves, this unit blazed with activity, both in sight and sound. Digital readouts scrolled across a vidscreen, and a series of electronic sounds echoed off the walls. It all seemed light-years beyond their comprehension, Triana thought. Thankfully they had Roc.
There were two more storage rooms stacked to the ceiling with equipment and supply crates, all assembled to help a young colony take root on alien soil.
Three larger rooms were tightly packed with transfer pods. These small craft, obviously engineered to transport the cryogenic tubes and their control units to the surface of a planet, were essentially moving vans. The tubes would be rolled inside and secured, and the craft would be robotically piloted clear of the ship.
“But how in the world are we supposed to get these off the ship?” Gap said.
“Look at this,” Triana said, inspecting the far wall. “See the panel?”
Gap studied it for a moment, and gently brushed his hand across the surface. “Well, whatta ya know? A moving panel. How much you wanna bet that on the other side—”
“—is the Spider bay,” Triana finished. “Uh-huh. We move the sleeping beauties into the pods, secure the hatches, and then these walls open into the hangar next door. No wonder Dr. Zimmer put the Storage Sections down here. He could evacuate the suspended animation team in no time.”
There was a single room left. Branching off from the cryogenic control center, it was about the size of a large walk-in closet. But the moment they entered, both Triana and Gap felt a shiver. The room was noticeably colder than the rest of the Storage Sections, but it also had a feel about it that was unlike the other compartments. They knew immediately that they’d entered the embryo storage facility.
“This reminds me of my mom’s bank,” Gap said. “I’d go with her sometimes when she put things into her safe deposit box.” He indicated the metal boxes attached to the walls. “They looked just like this.”
“And these contain valuables, too, just like your mom’s safe deposit box,” Triana said, turning on her heel to take it all in. “Think of the responsibility we’ve just been handed.”
Gap gave a solemn nod. “Isn’t it wild to think about whose kids these are? They could come from anywhere in the world.”
“That’s right,” Triana said. “Anywhere. And their parents could be anyone. Think of those stories.”
She stood before the shimmering wall of embryonic storage compartments, her breath visible in the icy chill of the room, while her mind drifted back to the teens who slept in suspended animation. They had stories, too. And one of those might be a bombshell.
Was this how Dr. Zimmer inserted his child aboard Galahad without anyone knowing?
20
With only forty-five minutes remaining until the pod departed, Lita hurried back to finish her work in Sick House. Torrec was escorted to the lower level, and she’d soon follow. Her medical skills wouldn’t be needed for the launch, but she couldn’t let Manu and Hannah take off without giving them a proper farewell. There was no telling when—or if—she’d see them again.
The next step was more complicated, if only from an emotional point of view. She walked into the hospital ward of the clinic, carrying a mug of tea, and approached the ventet of Alexa. It sat peacefully in a chair, staring at a vidscreen displaying a slide show of Earth’s various landscapes. It was the only thing that the Sick House workers could think of to entertain their strange guest. And it seemed to work; Alexa’s clone appeared to absorb each fleeting scene with a look that mimicked interest, if not wonder.
Lita set the tea mug on a nearby tray and kneeled beside the reproduction of her friend. Again she marveled at the near-perfect copy. The blond hair, which an assistant had pulled back into a ponytail, had the thin dark streaks that Alexa sported. The nose had the same subtle ridge, the eyes were spot-on, and the skin gave off the same alabaster glow.
This Alexa, however, couldn’t speak. And if it was capable of complicated thought processes, it didn’t show.
“How are you today?” Lita said, invoking the doctor-patient tone that she recalled her mother using during her medical rounds. “Same as yesterday, I’ll bet.” She smiled when the ventet tracked the vocal sounds and turned its head to look at Lita’s face. It gave no emotional signals.
“I brought you some tea. It’s your favorite. You used to drink it with me all the time. Do you remember that?”
Of course the ventet couldn’t remember, but it seemed the right thing to say.
“This is called Cinque Terre,” Lita said, tapping on the vidscreen. The ventet looked back and forth between the screen and Lita’s eyes. “It’s on the Italian coastline, and i
t’s one of the most beautiful spots in Europe. I never made it there myself, but a few of our crew members have hiked it. Oh, and this is Angel Falls, in Venezuela. I have been there, with my dad and my brother and sister. I hope we have falls like that when we get to Eos. That’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”
The faux-Alexa gazed at the screen, then looked back at Lita. Nothing seemed to register.
“Why are you talking to it?” came a voice from the doorway.
Lita looked over her shoulder. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “This is the last place I thought you’d come.”
Bon stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall. “What good does it do to talk to that thing?”
“Maybe no good at all,” Lita said, turning back to the ventet and tucking a strand of its hair behind one ear. “But maybe I’m not doing it for her. Did you consider that?”
“No,” Bon said. “That makes no sense, either.”
“Not to you, but that’s no surprise.” Lita adjusted the vidscreen, reducing some of the glare. After sizing up Bon with a blank look, the ventet returned to its mindless gazing at the images.
“She’s not a ghost, Bon, and she doesn’t bite. You don’t have to stay twenty feet away.”
“I’m fine right here.”
Lita shook her head. “It’s like you hold some sort of a grudge against her, which is ridiculous. She didn’t do anything wrong, you know.” She lifted the mug of tea and brought it up to the ventet’s face. It instinctively accepted the warm liquid into its mouth, slurping it down, almost like a trained animal.
Bon said: “Why are you treating it like a real person? It’s not.”
“Is there something else you’d like to talk about?” Lita said. “Because I’m not going to debate my work methods with you. It’s really none of your business.”
Bon pursed his lips and gave a single nod. “Fair enough. Thought you might want to visit for a moment. Can we talk at your desk in the other room?”
Lita’s back was to him, so Bon couldn’t see the faint smile that crossed her face. “No, I’m busy right now. If you want to talk, you’ll have to do it in here with me and Alexa. Pull up a chair, tough guy.”
