Returning Home

She awoke to the cacophony of muffled machinery. Soft bells and low humming. A percussive tone that quickened with her heartbeat. She gasped in breath, tasting copper and electricity in the air, but the sweet mixture of oxygen woke her further and stirred memories, wisps of dreams.

Lifting a hand, she hit the lid of her coffin and frowned.

No. Not coffin. A sick joke, that.

No, the Narci-chamber had been built for sleeping for long periods through the vacuum of space. She’d helped design it.

When?

Years? Decades? It seemed eons ago.

Suddenly a loud hiss of air, a pop, and the lid groaned up and outward. Releasing her.

Cold air rushed in, sending sparks of electricity through her as her skin prickled with goose bumps. “Computer,” she croaked, throat dry and rough with disuse. A convulsion shook her and as it stilled to shivering with the cold, she repeated, “COMPUTER!” to the silent, dark space surrounding her.

She was still in the ship. Wasn’t she?

Then the whirring and humming and whistles grew louder. Lights clicked on slowly all around, like lightning bugs coming out at dusk to fill the woods out behind her home. Back in Maine? She poked around in her memories to gauge the correctness and decided she was fairly certain her last address had been in Maine.

“Yes, Captain?”

“I ne-need you to in-increase the temperature,” she gritted through chattering teeth, trying to suppress yet another convulsion as her body acclimated back to full…

What?

She lost her train of thought for a moment. Full capacity? Full life? She’d been dormant, not dead. Despite her companions’ morose humor in calling their chambers “coffins” and wishing each other a “Good night. Sleep like the dead.” Her attempt at a chuckle, despite her unwillingness to participate in the crew’s dark joke, came out more like a bark. Then a grunt as the shivering reconvened.

It was more like hibernation, really. She’d even brought with her a small, stuffed Teddy bear to help them remember. She chuckled again, then coughed as she sat up, blinking into the slowly brightening light of the cabin. Full wakefulness? Maybe. They hadn’t really come up with a word for it. Might have to remedy that to help settle the minds of those coming out of dormancy, she thought, and made a mental note. “Where are we? Systems check.”

“We are currently en route to Earth orbit, Captain. We will reach the orbit rendezvous point in approximately two hours fifteen minutes twenty seconds. All systems are functional. The crew are also awakening. Life signs, acceptable and improving. As are yours.”

The soft, male voice was created to be reassuring and sounded a lot like the voice of her Uncle Hal, who had programmed it. Which. At the moment. Considering she was clad in not much more than skin-tight underwear, it was more creepy than reassuring. “Thank you, Hal.”

“Apologies Captain. There is no one on board by that name. Perhaps we should complete a cognitive check?”

“No, no, no. I’m sorry KRIS. I-I was just thinking about my Uncle, um Hal, and it just slipped out.” That and she’d also suddenly remembered an old movie she’d watched with him as a young girl. “I-it’s also a reference to an old movie, I suppose. A space movie I saw with him as a child, and, well. Oh, nevermind.” She groaned, leveraging her legs over the side of the chamber and faced the room across from her. “A bad joke born of memory.” Then under her breath she added, “a really, really… bad… joke.” And to think, she had just been mentally giving the crew grief over their dark humor.

Maybe it was contagious? Or aftereffects of the Narci-chamber? It might be worth a conversation with the crew to see if they had experienced anything similar. Then again, considering their sense of humor, would she even get any useful information out of the ask?

She moved to the cabinets across the small room and pulled out an antiseptic towel to wipe down with, then dressed. Noting just before putting on the uniform that she had stopped shivering and the room had finally begun to feel comfortable. “What is the status of the crew now?”

“Understood,” KRIS intoned after a moment’s…thought? Search through his programming, more likely. “A spontaneous comment triggered by a memory,” he…it…continued. “Based on Doctor Faraday’s recommended expectations for cognitive recovery after long-term dormancy, this would be a positive response. Would it not?”

She stared at the bank of white cabinets across from her, mentally rummaging through the filing cabinets in her mind for the referenced checklists that she and Faraday had put together. “Huh, I believe you are correct, KRIS,” she nodded as she said this, as if it would register to the disembodied computer.

Her eyes flicked to the camera in the corner of the room. At once, noting that the red record light was not lit and wondering if her uncle had programed the computer to register such human body language. This led her to wonder briefly if there were other observations Faraday, or others, might have programmed or had built into the systems that she was not completely privy to. It would stand to reason, she supposed, since she could be perceived as biased towards the systems that she had either built or helped to build. While their test voyage to the Mars Outpost had proved successful and offered up a wealth of data, it was still a short dormancy compared to their current journey outside of the Milky Way. They would need clean data, free of her biases, perceived or otherwise, to ensure that the Narci-chambers and Odyssey in its entirety were working properly. Only then would they be able to follow Odyssey’s route back to Beta-9 to colonize it.

She smiled to herself, thinking back to the days they’d been able to spend on Beta-9’s Earthlike surface. She was perfect. Similar atmosphere. Water. Plant life. Minimal fauna. Similar to Earth’s early Cenozoic Era.

“The crew have awoken, Captain. Blood and body waste samples were taken from the Narci-chamber as per protocol and are being processed. You and Dr. Simoa will have results within the hour.”

“Excellent.” A sigh of contentment escaped and looking down she realized she was swinging her legs like a child. The shivering had stopped. “The muscle stimulators seem to have worked.”

“Yes, Captain. Muscle density scans show minimal loss and atrophy. I do need to remind you to be careful while attempting to stand and to please use the supplied handles to steady yourself before trying to walk across the floor. We do not yet know the full aftereffects of long-term dormancy.”

She suppressed a chuckle at her own script being read back to her as if she didn’t know better. “Right,” she nodded, grabbing said handles firmly, while flexing her feet until her toes touched the warmed floor. “Let’s do this.” She slowly lowered herself from the edge of the Narci-chamber, making a mental note to add a lift mechanism in future models to adjust for crew of differing heights. “No pain noted. Minimal feelings of weakness, but manageable.”

“Noted, Captain. The crew have checked in and will meet you in Medical Bay momentarily.”

The rest of their return protocols went just as smoothly. No alien viruses or bacteria were noted in the specimens. Trace elevations of proteins in the bodily waste, but it was inconclusive is this was from the protein broths they had been fed intravenously to keep up their body mass or from the degradation of their musculature. Either way, the amounts were low enough she counted it as a win for the program.

Their mission was successful.

They arrived in the Command Module chatting amongst themselves excitedly, eager to alert Mission Command at the International Space Headquarters, which would just be coming into view within the next fifteen minutes as the Earth rotated below them. It was day as they approached their orbit rendezvous and came closer to the transmission window.

“It’s still a bit odd that we didn’t receive any transmissions while we were dormant,” Simia murmured, her voice soft and melodic in the close space.

“I don’t know,” Davide replied, just as softly. “They knew we were going under and when we would arrive. I’m sure they were willing to wait until rendezvous.”

“The sun has begun its decent behind the Earth. I will open the observation windows now,” KRIS intoned.

There was a chorus of awed gasps as the window opened slowly, revealing the Big Blue Marble as Earth was often called.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Not a lot of clouds. I expected there would be more.”

“Not a lot? There aren’t any. Zara, have you ever seen a picture of the Earth from space where there weren’t any clouds?”

“I’m not sure. Certainly, there are some, even if I can’t think of any at the moment. Besides, we aren’t seeing the whole surface after all. KRIS?’

“I have no images of Earth on file. With the exception of your personal pictures taken on the surface.”

“Mmm,” Simia nodded slowly, looking thoughtful, her brow creased and dark eyes scanning the Earth’s surface for…

What? Zara sighed. She could feel it too. Something wasn’t quite right. “KRIS, is the transmission open?”

“Captain. I am not receiving a response from Mission Command. I will try hailing them again.”

Simia’s eyes met hers, one elegant eyebrow raised as her eyes echoed Zara’s unspoken thoughts.

“What the…”

They turned in unison to look at Davide, who had half risen from his seat to point out the window. “Night is falling. Look.”

She turned to follow his line of sight and watched as darkness slowly moved over the Earth’s surface. “Look at what?”

“Yeah, I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly. That is Europe and Africa beneath us.”

“And?”

“And…where are all the lights? The cities. There isn’t even a campfire lit down there.”

“That is Earth, right? We didn’t somehow get turned around? Go back to…”

“No. That was definitely the African continent and Europe above it.”

Earth continued to turn in its course, from night to day.

From day back to night.

Endless revolutions until…

She began to wonder if they had actually woken up.

The cacophony of muffled machinery surrounded them; soft bells and low humming seeming to echo against the empty darkness until it filled the Odyssey. They stared. Silent. Disbelieving. Her breath quickened with her heartbeat as they sat, waiting for a response.

From…someone…anyone.

Let us wake from this nightmare…