Late Riser

[RedFred]

Martin Major woke slowly. His first thought was that his cryotank had failed. No time seemed to have passed since he went in. The cryosleep technology was still very experimental; his final briefing had made that very clear. His cryotechnician had confided that about a five percent failure rate was expected during the process of slowing down each crewmember's metabolism more than a thousandfold. Some of the unlucky five percent were not even expected to be revivable. Those that did manage to survive would likely be pulled from the crew and replaced by alternates.

Martin rubbed his bearded chin, lost in muddled waking thoughts. Did this mean that he had failed to make the journey to Alpha Centauri? Or would his mission specialist status mean that they would retry the "freezing" process for him? Perhaps another wide-scale emergency was causing the mission to be postponed or scrubbed altogether? There seemed to be an opaque film over his eyes, dimming his vision. Grey shadowy outlines of people flitted about mysteriously. Suddenly dizzy, Martin closed his eyes again. His hearing was not working properly either. The cryofluid was still draining from his tank and his ears were still full of the semi-gelatinous gunk. The faint sounds that did reach his ears sounded like distant shouting. There was also a steadier high-pitched noise.

Slipping between waking and dreaming, Martin thought of his cryotechnician. Cryogenic preparation for the trip had taken the last three months. He had been held in the hospital for the whole time as they poked, prodded, injected and tested him. The close friendship that had sprung up with his cryotech Olga had made his time in the hospital much less tedious. She shared his sense of humour as well as his passion for the old 2-D videos. Whether it was ancient films or television shows, they had spent hours discussing their favourites. Michael expected her to show up any moment to deliver the bad news and assist him in the revival process.

"Bearded chin?" thought Martin with surprise, bringing his hand up to his face again. He had gone into the tank clean-shaven. Edging closer to full wakefulness, he rejected his earlier idea that he was still on Earth. It would take many decades to grow a beard while in the cryotank. Perhaps he was in the Alpha Centauri system after all. But wasn't crew revival supposed to take place under the low gravity of Unity as it orbited the target planet? Even lying down in a rapidly disappearing pool of slush Michael could feel full gravity and no thruster vibration. But Unity wasn't designed to land. Something must be wrong.

Martin spat out the low-level oxygen exchanger apparatus. With a sudden effort he sat up abruptly. Another wave of dizziness almost caused him to blackout. Both ears popped as the last of the fluid ran out. The far off shouting suddenly became much louder and closer as his ears cleared. With a sudden chill, Martin realised that the near continuous higher-pitched noise he had heard earlier was someone screaming. Either from the effort of sitting up or from plain fear, his heart started to pound. By blinking hard several times he was able to clear most of the film over his eyes.

"It looks like the interior of the ship but the lighting has failed", Martin thought as he looked into the gloom. A guy with a bewildering array of military decorations on his uniform was setting up temporary lighting nearby. Martin squinted. It was not a UN army uniform. Several other armed-to-the-teeth soldiers, also dressed in non-UN Army uniforms, were frenetically rushing around. Martin guessed that there were more than one hundred crewmembers in various states of being revived. Too many medical emergencies seemed to be going on for the military types to cope with. Further away, three of them were clustered around the source of the screaming. Two were holding a struggling revived crewmember down while the third was sawing off his leg with a hacksaw.

Martin snorted as his olfactory sense kicked in. His least favourite smell hit his nose. The stench of dead and rotting human corpses was unmistakable.

[RedFred]

Gaian Datalinks: Historical Notes
M.Y.2199
[Excerpt of transcript from Lady Deirdre Skye's Opening Remarks to the First Trans-Gaia Assembly of Psi Talents]

Lords, Ladies and Commoners, welcome one and all to our inaugural meeting. I know that most of you have undertaken an arduous journey to be present here today. Many of you had to leave your home habitat for the first time. Simply put, you have been invited here because you are the best psi talents in all of Gaia. As such, you have been requested to take part in a critically important new Project. Successful completion of this Project is imperative. National security is at stake. Complete commitment of all participants is vital. You can expect a great deal of work ahead of us. Our goal may take several years, perhaps as much as a generation.

Prior to getting underway, I would like you all to briefly think back to old Earth. Most of you assembled here today, the Planet-born, may not realize that psis were once regarded as charlatans, flakes, or outright mentally unbalanced people. The science of previous centuries was unable to measure the level of psi activity or, indeed, even unable to confirm that psi activity took place at all.

This is not as surprising as it sounds. Earth was a very poor environment for psis. You can imagine the shock to us all when upon arriving on Planet many of us began having strange and disturbing thoughts as if snatched from another person's brain. For most of Unity's crew that was as far as it went. For a small number of us things went further. Sharply contrasting with the Planet-born psis' experience, we quickly Awakened, then noticed a continuous improvement in our psi abilities over a period of two to five years from the Landing. Leveling off followed. We now know Planet itself is alive with psi activity. This has somehow supercharged our own psi abilities. Our research suggests that the fungus, and not the mindworms, is the likely source of our enhanced psi.

There is much that we can do with the Power such as it is now, but it is my belief that we have only scratched the surface of our potential. What will take us to the next level is, quite simply, teamwork. To date, successful efforts to combine psi force have only rarely occurred between even two people. Even when psi combining occurs, it is seldom continued for very long. This is due to the unfortunate side effect of both partners becoming hyper-aware of each other's thoughts to the point of being able to mutually exercise some mental control over one another. Complete trust and dedication will be needed for a group this size to devise methods to operate as one mind.

However, should we be successful, the rewards would be immense. We may be able to improve our early warning capability of hostile mindworm activity. We may be more successful in turning hostile mindworms swarms into friendly ones. We may be able to bypass the existing internal electronic communications system which has been notoriously unreliable given the erratic bursts of radiation put out by Alpha Prime. It may even be possible that we could reach such a high level of psi activity that our thoughts could literally span Planet. This could allow us to gather important information from the other six factions. This is imperative for the four factions with whom we have as yet been unable to establish diplomatic relations.

Gaia is uniquely placed for success in this endeavor. We alone have compiled a detailed map of the genes of each of our citizens. We alone have insisted that, while complete freedom in love and marriage is allowed, there must be state control of the conception of children. As our citizens must breed with only Government-approved projected gene optimal mates, we have been able to enhance good genetic traits as well as reduce or eliminate some bad ones. One of the many happy results of our Genome Project is that first class psi talents are no longer as rare as they once were.

Your main focus of achieving new levels of psi activity will not be your first task. This project is of such paramount importance that it is my intention to engage in the social engineering for the benefit of the Project's participants. I request your input in this regard. Similar to the merit-based nobility, I am proposing special compensation, privileges and titles for the psis that volunteer for this team. Special customs as well. One possible rich source of social engineering ideas would be the lore surrounding witches of old Earth. Mythical beings, they were thought to have supernatural powers. The difference, of course, is that your Power is unquestionably real...

[RedFred]

Martin swung his feet out of his cryotank and onto the floor. The dizziness came back but not as bad as before. When it cleared, he slowly crouched down beneath his cryotank while supporting part of his weight with one hand resting on the now empty tank. He felt weak and unnaturally heavy. To his surprise the floor was nowhere near level. Fishing underneath with his other hand he was able to retrieve his personal gear. He was ignored by the by the mysterious non-UN military personnel. They seemed to have more pressing concerns than himself.

His gear bag was more full than it should have been. Martin had deliberately taken less than the maximum allowable weight for personal possessions. He had anticipated having to carry his gear with him until some sort of residence could be set up on the new planet. This was a concern particularly since Martin was overweight and in poor physical condition. Clearly Olga had carried through with her threat to add some "souvenirs" from Earth to his belongings.

Nude but not yet cold, his first concerns were getting dry and finding his clothes. Rummaging around his bag he found an authentic UN Army uniform with a Major M. Major nametag stitched to the chest. "Something from Olga", Martin supposed, as he had never been part of the UN Army, and certainly not as a Major. She had mentioned a black humour World War Two 2-D video that she had recently enjoyed. Apparently there had been a character in it who, like Martin, had a last name of Major, but who held the rank of Major. For some reason Ogla had found it all very amusing, but unfortunately Michael hadn't been able to see the video prior to going into the cryotank.

After toweling away the last of the cryofluid, Martin eyed the uniform again. It seemed that the Unity crew were being revived by some type of military operation. A little protective colouration couldn't hurt. He donned the uniform instead of the clothes he had packed himself. Olga hadn't chosen a size which was a little big for him, but not unreasonably so.

As he was finishing dressing, the man with the military decorations approached him. He was very short but broad-shouldered. All of the army people were. Martin did his best imitation of the salute he had seen the military crew give. Judging by the way the others had treated him, this man was the one in charge. "Glad to see you came through better than most, Major", he said glancing at the rank on Martin's uniform. He spoke with an odd accent, "How are you feeling? Do you require any medical assistance?" From the nameplate on his chest Martin discovered that he was being addressed by a Brigadier General Z. Zoran. Unfortunately, all Martin could manage was a low croaking sound by way of reply.

Martin mimed grasping a glass and drinking. In response the General brought out a canteen-style flask. "Drink only to here", the General drew an imaginary line with his finger, "there will be ample water once we get back to the rover." The water helped. Martin still had a foul taste in his mouth but he was now able to manage a hoarse whisper. Luckily it was audible to the General because the screaming had stopped. The recent amputee seemed to have passed out. "Thank you General Zoran. I am not doing too badly at all and I don't require any medical attention right now. I have lots of questions but seeing as how there seems to be an emergency going on, they can wait. Is there some place that I can sit out of your crew's way?"

But the General was already talking to someone else. Like all the other army people, Zoran was wearing a single earpiece and a hands-free microphone. He was now speaking into the microphone, "Private Gagne, go help Lieutenant Phobos rig an airlock between the back of the rover and the Unity pod. Then clear out as much space as you can in there and set out all of the emergency litters. We will be sending a full load of casualties your way."

The General now returned his attention back to Martin. "Sorry Major", he said of the interruption, "but I am pleased to hear that you have come through so well. Sparta values survivors. Welcome to Alpha Centauri...and you are quite right, we are experiencing an emergency. Apparently this pod was flung clear of Unity prior to its crash on Planet and has been sitting here ever since. We have retrieved other similar pods, but never before has there been one with crew inside. So we did not anticipate a medical emergency of this magnitude. Sadly, we only have one qualified paramedic on our crew. Many of your cryotanks were badly damaged during landing so your crew has taken heavy casualties. A large proportion of your crew was long dead before we got here. I am amazed that the power for life support for the rest of you has lasted this long. If you are able to walk, I will show you where the other reasonably able-bodied survivors are mustering." Martin shouldered his gear bag and began trudging uphill on the tilted floor after the General, careful to avoid the slippery cryogel spills.

Less than a dozen Unity crew and their gear bags were scattered along one of the pod's walls behind some dusty equipment. Once Martin could see them, the General left him to resume his "other pressing duties" as he put it. Martin eased himself down into a sitting position beside the only two crewmembers he recognized. Mathilda Vik looked pretty much like she had back on earth. She was a bit thinner. Her normal brown hair turned abruptly grey near her scalp. Krystina Pinsky, on the other hand, looked horrible. Her skin was pasty white and she was sweating profusely. Krystina nodded to him, but Mathilda greeted him warmly.

"Glad to see you both among the living. Any clue as to what is going on?"
"Let Krystina rest Martin. She is not feeling well. And for that matter, you look like you have been crash dieting. One of these army people told us that Unity was holed by in-system debris prior to arriving here. Many equipment pods were dispatched along with the personnel escape pods before the bulk of the ship crashed into this planet. I guess recovery of these pods has been going on ever since... hey, I never knew you were part of the UN Army."
"I'm not, Matty. Please keep it down. I think this must be one of Olga's gifts. Could come in handy though, so just play along."
"Oh, our cryotech? That Leshova woman? All right. I won't say anything about your sudden promotion. So anyhow, it all seems like a big disaster from the start. And by the soldier's account, there was factional fighting to boot. In any case, somebody went to a lot of trouble to load us, still unrevived, onto an equipment pod instead of waking us and sending us down on an escape pod. It seems this pod did not land smoothly with no one awake to pick out a suitable spot. Worse still, a lot of time has passed since Unity came to Alpha Centauri and this planet was settled."
"How much time?"
"Don't know. Martin, who are these people? What did your chum say to you?'
"The General? Not much. All I can tell you is that their uniforms do not have the UN insigna on it. The General did make some reference to Sparta. No telling what political events have taken place since planetfall."

Throughout the exchange between Martin and Mathilda, Krystina had remained silent. Now she said, "The room keeps spinning. My sense of balance is gone." Refusing their offers of help she crawled off a short way from the others and vomited. Crawling back, but looking no happier, she closed her eyes and fell asleep. "Wait a minute", said Martin, speaking to Mathilda, "I received a special 'Interstellar Edition' Swiss watch, compliments of one of the mission's sponsoring companies. It has provision for that metric time that the UN agreed would be used here, but it also tracks Earth time including the year." Martin rummaged around in his gear bag. "Got it. My God!" he exclaimed looking at the watch in disbelief, "Over one hundred and sixty-seven years have passed since we last spoke. The target planet in the Alpha Centauri system was scheduled to be colonized about one hundred and seventeen years ago." He checked the watch to make sure it was running properly. "Several generations of people have been born, lived and died while we sat here in cryosleep."