Between the Strokes of Night

All was ready. But now there was hesitation. The three checked the vital signs one more time, then by unspoken agreement went outside the chamber and removed their masks. For a few seconds they looked at each other in silence. “Should we really go through with it?” Charlene said abruptly. “I mean, with the uncertainties and the risks — we have no experience with a human. Zero. And I’m not sure how any of the drug amounts should be adjusted for different body mass and body chemistry.…”

“What action would you suggest, my dear?” Jan de Vries had been the one who opposed the idea most vehemently when it was first proposed, but now he seemed quite calm and resigned. “Bring her body temperature back to normal? Try to wake her? If that is your suggestion, propose it to us. But you must be the one, not I, to face her and explain why we did not accede to her explicit wishes.” “But what if it doesn’t work?” Charlene’s voice was shaking. “Look at our record. It’s so risky. We’ve had Jinx in that mode for only three weeks.” “And you argue that your experience with the bear is not applicable?” “Who knows? There could be a hundred significant differences — body mass, preexisting antigens, drug reactions. And some a lot more improbable than that. For all we know, it works for Jinx because of some previous drug used in our experiments with him. Remember, when we did the same sort of protocol with Dolly, it killed her. We need to try other tests, other animals — we need more time.”

“We all know that.” Wolfgang Gibbs didn’t share de Vries’ fatalist calm, or Charlene’s nervous vacillation. He seemed to have an objective interest in the new experiment. “Look at it this way, Charlene. If we can move JN into Mode Two in the next few hours, one of two things will happen. If she stays stable and regains consciousness, that’s fine. We’ll try to communicate with her and find out how she feels. If we get her into Mode Two and she’s not stable, we can try to bring her back to normal. If we succeed we’ll have the chance to try again. If we fail, she’ll die. That’s what you’re worried about. But if we don’t try to stabilize her in Mode Two, she’s dead anyway — remember the diagnosis? She’ll be gone in less than three months, and we can’t change that. Ask it this way: if it were you on that table, what would you want us to do?”

Charlene bit her lip. There was a dreadful temptation to do nothing, to leave JN with her body temperature down close to freezing while they deliberated. But the temperature in the chamber was still dropping. Within the next half hour they had to bring Judith Niles back up to consciousness, or try for Mode Two. “What’s the latest report on Jinx?” Charlene said abruptly.

“He’s fine.”

“Right. Then I say, let’s go ahead. Waiting won’t help anything.” If the other two were startled at the sudden change of attitude, neither mentioned it. They adjusted their masks and went back at once into the chamber. Already the temperature inside had dropped another degree. The monitors recorded a pulse rate for Judith Niles of four beats a minute, and the chilled blood was driven sluggishly through narrowed veins.

The final stage began. It would be carried out under computer control, with the humans merely there to provide an override if things went wrong. Jan de Vries initiated the control sequence. Then he went across to the still figure on the table and gently placed the palm of his hand on her cold forehead. “Good luck, Judith. We’ll do our best. And we’ll be communicating with you — God willing — when you get there.”

He stood looking at her face for a long time. The carefully measured drug injections and massive transfusion of chemically changed blood had already begun. Now the monitors showed strange patterns, steady periods alternating with abrupt changes in pulse rate, skin conductivity, ion balances, and nervous system activity. Oscilloscope displays showed unpredictable peaks and valleys of brain rhythms, as cycles of waves rose, fell, and merged.

Even to the experienced eyes of the watchers, everything on the monitors looked odd and unfamiliar. And yet that was no surprise. As she had requested, Judith Niles was embarked on a strange journey. She would be exploring a region where blood was close to freezing, where the body’s chemical reactions proceeded at a fraction of their usual rates, where only a few hibernating animals and no human had ever ventured and returned to life.

The frozen heart slowed further, and the blood drifted lazy along cold arteries and veins. The body on the table suddenly shuddered and twitched, then was quiet again. The monitors fluttered a warning.

But there would be no going back. The search was on. In the next few hours, Judith Niles would be engaged in a desperate quest. She had to find a new plateau of physiological stability, down where no human had ever gone before; and her only guide was the uncertain trail left by one Kodiak bear.

PART TWO: A.D. 27,698