Going Interstellar (collection)

He’d held Julie in his arms while she bled. And she’d looked at him in the eerie moonlight. “Pete,” she’d said, “what do you think is in the tower?”

They had been her last words.

And he’d gazed across the swamp to where the tower stood. “I’m sorry we ever saw it,” he told her. “Whatever it is, it’s not worth the price.”

He crossed the remaining distance to the tower and the stone-like wall that comprised its base. He was still knee-deep in water when he touched the wall and looked up at the immense structure. The wall was made of a light-colored stone and it might almost have been medieval. Below the waterline the stone was, as one might expect, covered in mildew and moss. Out over the water were the two distinct shadows caused by the twin moons. Every movement Goss made was instantly mirrored by the two shadows off to his side.

That takes some getting used to.

Seaweed clung to his boots and pant legs. He circled the base of the tower. Part way around he came across a door. And an inscription. He caught his breath. It was raised lettering on a metallic plaque. He pressed his fingertips gently on the characters. Wondered who had been here. What it said. Here we came in search of a new world. And found only a swamp.

He smiled. Maybe, Martin & Cable, Attorneys at Law.

How long ago had it been?

Would they have welcomed him?

He pulled his hand back and looked at it as if it were the first time he’d ever seen it.

Peter Goss awoke with a start. He was lying on his hibernation bed with his right arm held straight out, up, and in front of him. He was still staring at his hand. For a few moments he drifted back into the swamp and stood before the mysterious tower, and then he was back here, wherever “here” was, again.

He was cold. And he lay naked, partially submerged in what looked and felt like a bathtub filled with raspberry Jell-O. He tilted his head slowly from side to side, as if doing so would dislodge a memory and allow him to remember where he was. These new surroundings looked more and more familiar but he wasn’t yet quite sure why.

He coughed, and raised his head and looked around. This was not the tower. And certainly not the swamp. First of all, the tub in which he found himself was but one of many lined up along the floor. In fact, he saw at least fifteen tubs around him.

And each was occupied. By someone.

By another human being.

A memory was slowly returning.

Hibernation. Sleeping during the journey and being awakened when their new home world was reached. Now he remembered.

Peter Goss was on board the interstellar colony ship New Madrid bound for the Epsilon Eridani star system ten light years from Earth. As in his dream, he was a member of the initial survey team that was to awaken and scout the environment of their new home while the rest of the crew, and the fifteen thousand colonists, were being awakened.

Goss slowly lifted himself to rest on his right elbow. The other people were gone. Part of the dream. Still, he shouldn’t be alone. He wasn’t supposed to be the first to wake up. The ship’s commander, first officer and two medical officers should already be up and about, supervising the awakening of the survey crews to begin their mission. Waking the colonists would come later.

The ship was quiet. The only sound Goss heard was his own breathing and the sloshing of the liquigel in which he found himself. As he pulled his naked form out of the tank, he realized that the liquigel had probably formed the basis for his swamp during the hibernation. Slowly and with great care, Goss sat up and put his feet on the floor. Mindful that he had probably been in suspended animation for perhaps hundreds of years, he wasn’t sure that his muscles and bones would be strong enough to sustain his weight in the simulated fifty percent Earth gravity in which he found himself.

He stood.

To his great relief, he found that the electrostimulation of his muscles and bones had kept them healthy and fully functional throughout his long sleep. Just as the electrostimulation had kept his body functioning, the virtual reality generator had kept his mind from atrophying. His “adventure” on the water world with the tower had been just that. A machine-induced training session to keep his mind functioning through the centuries required to cross the vast interstellar distances between Earth and the intended colony’s destination.

That means Julie and Charlie are not dead! Thank God. It was just a simulation. They were safely asleep onboard the New Madrid.