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Short-Range Scan: due to pass by binary brown dwarf star 44N81/44N82 in two weeks, two days
Communications: receiver array intact and clear, home relay communications packet download completed successfully without information loss, next scheduled packet in nineteen months, sixteen days.
Self-diagnostics from Onboard Virtual Intelligences: all performing at optimum
There was also a helpful chart showing his current rate of bone-density loss (4%) along with recommended corrective supplements. A message from his grandmother, Liat’Nir vas Achaz, blinked unread in the corner of his vision. Recorded before they left and programmed to deliver itself on arrival. It was the little things that made up a family.
Arrival.
They must be there. Here. Home.
Senna’Nir’s heart raced a little whenever he thought of his grandmother. His pulse picked up now, crushingly anxious, as he had been since he was a boy, for her safety. She was so small and fragile. But then again, weren’t they all? He took a deep breath, sucking in more super-saturated air from his suit to energize his lungs. Liat was fine. No harm could come to her, fast asleep with the rest of the quarians, hibernating, safe. He subvocalized to archive her message, whatever it was, recorded whenever it had been, long ago. Later. Senna would never be sorry he brought her along to Andromeda, but he couldn’t take her voice just now. It was, and always had been, piercing.
All’s well, he thought. Strong wind and a following tide for all the ships at sea. Senna could see his breath fog blurrily in front of his face. Good. Fine. Back to sleep now. Sleep warm and good. Awake cold and bad. He blinked away the onslaught of interstellar and anatomical trivia and tried to shut down his optics again. Another few minutes couldn’t harm anything. All the real work was behind them. They’d be docking with the Nexus very soon, if they hadn’t already. And once the captain gave the command to link airlocks and that beautiful hiss of atmosphere exchange sounded off, his responsibility for this voyage would be mercifully over.
That prim, clipped, genderless voice piped up once more.
I’m sorry, Team Leader Senna’Nir vas Keelah Si’yah, I cannot allow you to red
uce your sensory input. Your attention is required.
“Unf,” grunted Sleepwalker Team Leader Senna’Nir vas Keelah Si’yah as his cryopod flooded with brilliant white light. “Ow. No! What? You said all’s well!”
* * *
Drell Sleepwalker Anax Therion, your attention is required.
Anax came awake instantly, her translucent reptilian lids blinking quickly over huge black eyes. Her mind raced ahead of the narcotic foam coursing through her body, organizing itself into alertness with the practice of someone who had never in their lives enjoyed the luxury of waking up in their own good time. She looked up at a note in her own handwriting, glowing on a personal display a few inches above the green blur of her nose.
Hello, Anax! You are in a cryopod on the quarian ship Keelah Si’yah bound for the Andromeda galaxy. You are thirty-one years old, 1.84 meters tall, 77.1 kilograms, and left-handed. You are a member of Sleepwalker Team Blue-7. Your favorite food is the Ataulfo mango, native to the human homeworld. The last movie you enjoyed was Blasto 8: The Jellyfish Always Stings Twice. Think about these things. Remember them. Feel them to be true. Congratulations, you are not dead! The voice in your ear is the ship’s interface program. Everyone calls it K, for Keelah Si’yah, but it is not a real person, or even a real VI, so you do not have to be too bothered with keeping up niceties. You can swear at it, if you want. Insult its mother. It will still call you in the morning. Your past self has written this note in order to save us both the excruciating inefficiency of an estimated two hours and thirty-two point five minutes of post-stasis disorientation and identity confusion. You’re welcome. Happy Transit Day 219,706. Welcome to Andromeda.
Anax glanced at the local time/date signature in the left corner of her note. It read: 0200 hrs Transit Day 207,113.
“I am awake, K,” Anax Therion said calmly. “Have we arrived early?”
Negative, Systems Analyst Anax Therion. Current position: 110,804.77 light years from destination. Estimated time to arrival assuming no change in speed or course: thirty years, five months, twelve days, sixteen hours and four minutes.
Anax stretched her long olive-and-black fingers and tented them over her chest. “Then why have I been revived?”
Your attention is required.
The drell took a long breath. The inside of her mouth tasted stale, medicinal, silvery. She ran her fingers over the orange frills along her jaw the way a human might slap her cheeks to wake herself up. Her mind raced to pick up its pieces and get them into some kind of useful order. But even half-thawed, that mind was faster than most—and more pessimistic.
“Just how fucked are we, K?” she sighed.
* * *
Elcor Sleepwalker Yorrik, your attention is required.
Bluish interior lighting clicked on inside a structure on Deck 8. It couldn’t really be called a cryopod. Pods were small, snug, ergonomic, modular. This was more like a cryo-garage. There were thousands of them packed into the repurposed cargo bay—3,311 to be exact. Something massive and gray moved sluggishly within the layers of iso-glass, metal, and frost. It shook its colossal head mournfully from side to side. The nasal voice that emerged was completely flat and monotone.
“With great resentment,” it droned, “go away.”
I cannot go away, Medical Specialist Yorrik. I am installed in the ship’s memory core. Please enter command-level password to uninstall.
Yorrik slammed his elephant-like foreleg into the wall of his enormous cryopod. He didn’t remember that it was a cryopod, and he didn’t remember that his name was Yorrik, and most of all, he didn’t remember what a memory core was, or what uninstall meant, though it sounded excellent. There was an ache in his head… between… between his smelling bones and his thinking meat. Yes, that sounded right. Yorrik’s thinking meat was angry and thick just now. His plodding, ancient metabolism barely noticed the whitewater rush of stimulants pummeling his nervous system.
Yorrik activated the locking plate on his massive cryopod with his huge knee. There was a hiss of depressurization. The massive creature stumbled out of the pod, tripped over the raised ledge of the thing, and crashed noisily to the deck floor. No one noticed. The other pods blinked away into oblivion. It was a nearly perfect pratfall, Yorrik thought woozily to himself, and not one person had seen it. His low, buzzing voice cut off the cheerful chirping of the ship’s interface.
