The Profane Dog

Crossing Ginnungagap 2

Bey hated coldsleep.

He always felt frozen through when he woke. The meditechs assured him that it was psychosomatic; the sleep capsule wouldn't allow him to wake completely until his internal temperature was nominal.

He didn't care what they said; he was cold.

He sat up slowly, feeling the stiffness of decades of immobility in his limbs. Despite the micromanipulators that massaged his muscles during the long process of awakening, every joint felt as though he had wrestled three falls out of four with his older brother Bjorn the night before.

The night before, he thought as he climbed gingerly out of the capsule; that was thirty years ago.

He was approached by a meditech with a clipboard as he began a series of stretching exercises. "Good afternoon, Captain... Lindstrom;" said the tech, with a glance at the board. "How are we feeling?"

"He's three hundred years old, junior, and just climbed out of a frozen coffin - how do you think he feels?" said a sardonic voice behind Bey. He turned, and winced at a twinge in his neck. Rags Johannsen, short, blond, and burly, stood several capsules away, massaging the small of his back.

"We have to ask, sir," said the tech, somewhat defensively; "it's procedure. And besides," he continued in a surer tone, "we want to catch any ill effects quickly."

Ill effects, Bey though sourly. You mean hibernation sickness.

It still happened; despite thousands of years of perfecting the process that allowed humans to survive the long years required for interstellar travel, on rare occasions, something went wrong. Microscopic ice crystals could form in the brain while the body's temperature was being slowly lowered to the point where hibernation was possible. The crystals destroyed the tissue they formed in, and often damaged surrounding tissue as well. When the affected person awoke, pieces of their mind were missing. Since the damage mostly occured in the neocortex, very often critical thinking abilities were lost. The affected person would still know himself, have memories, be almost who he was before the lid of the capsule closed over them, and they began their long sleep.

But there were things they could no longer do; like the irritating memory that hovers just on the edge of emergence, tasks that were once routine proved impossible to grasp. Bey's friend Ivar, an astrogator, had suffered such a loss. He had seen him sitting frozen at his console in the testing room, where you went immediatley upon awakening, hands that once flew over the controls like those of a concert pianist poised uncertainly in mid-air, as though they had never touched a board before. And the look on his face - the haunting, stricken knowledge of loss, of reaching for something once known that was no longer there. He had begged - Ivar had begged! - the evaluators for chance after chance, his face taut with concentration, as though he could will himself past the hole in his mind.

Finally, he had sceamed in frustration, calm, unflappable Ivar, and pounded his fists against the board until they were bloody. The staff had had to restrain and sedate him to make him stop.

Bey began performing simple quadratic equations in his head, just to be sure he still could.

"Gentlemen," said the 'tech, in a long-suffering voice, "we'll need you to report to the testing room as soon as you're ready. We're kind of pressed for time - we're waking the entire crew this time."

Bey started. Rags burst out, "The entire crew? Why? That's never been done!"

"I don't know," the younger man said, "but I've heard it's happening throughout the entire Fleet. There must be something big up - no one is saying anything."

The buzz of conversation that followed that statement was cut short by a curt voice from the hatch opening into sickbay proper. "And some people say too much."

Bey turned - damn my neck! - to see a tall, spare figure in black fatigues dominating the hatch. Commader Palmqvist, the XO. His lupine features contrasting with an immacualtely-trimmed goatee, he continued while the occupants of the coldsleep chamber snapped to attention, "These gentlemen will have to forgo testing for the present. Captain Beowulf Lindstrom, Captain Ragnar Johansen, officers call in half an hour - attend in fatigues, this will be a working meeting. The rest of you -" this to the NCO's and enlisted men - "report to your sections and stand by for orders." He turned his mild brown gaze on the uneasy young medical tech, but his voice was anything but mild. "I'd keep a lid on the scuttlebutt if I were you, Mister; unless you want to be assigned to patching micrometeorite punctures - from the outside"

Palmqvist spun on his heel and strode out of the compartment, with Bey and Rags running to catch up to him. "Sir?" said Rags, "can you tell us what's up?" Palmqvist spoke over his shoulder as they left sickbay and entered a general corridor; "You know I can't, Mister. You'll find out what you need to know in the Wardroom."

He stopped and turned so quickly that the two Jotunheimers nearly collided with him. "I can say this, however," he said, in a softer voice, "prepare for planetfall drills commencing immediately after the briefing." He turned again and resumed his rapid pace down the corridor, leaving his subordinates staring at each other.

Planetfall! It sang through Bey. They've found a system!