Syohn

By Stephen R. Pell

Starhope 2100 was the project that saved the world from political, social and economic meltdown. But it came at a cost. Personal freedom. The new government was not a democracy.
The world's new government, controlled by Neo-Puritans, got the world running again after the United States and China were caught weaponizing genetic research.
Starhope 2100 was a global initiative to put a colonyship into space by the year 2100. To that end, each nation was assigned certain components to supply for the project, eliminating competition and allowing all nations to prosper.
The Neo-Puritans were an amalgamation of the world's remaining religious leaders. Once in power they forced a ban on all genetic research, claiming the world's ills were punishment for man doing God's work.
The Colonyship Exodus was the fifteenth such vessel sent out, with six thousand people in coldsleep, to carry humanity to a new world, a planet circling Ross 154.
But something went terribly wrong. The ship crashed on a planet with too much gravity, too little air, and a native creature that quickly developed a taste for human meat.
Now the survivors have to make some incredibly difficult decisions if they are to have any chance at all to create a colony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626758438

Book preview

LOST

CHAPTER 1

Somewhere, far away, there was a buzzing. It just did intrude into John Crain’s awareness. But the noise grew in volume, demanding more and more of his attention. Slowly, he began to notice pinpricks of sensation along his entire body. They were tiny at first, as though he might have slept in a circulation-restricting position. But as with the noise, the pinpricks gradually grew in intensity, until they became deep throbbing pulses, making muscles jump and twitch.

The coldsleep equipment was returning John Crain to the land of the living. And it was a painful process.

Electrical bursts from attached wires became red waves of agony. The jolts were designed to make his involuntary nervous system wake up. Pressure was applied to his ribcage by rubbery flaps that extended from the sides of the coldsleep container. A tube ran from the top of the container into his mouth and down his throat. Ever so slowly it was replacing the supercold helium mixture with an increasingly warm air flow that was oxygen enriched.

Finally his mind screamed, enough! The next series of jolts caused Crain’s eyelids to snap open.

The harsh glare hurt more than the electrical shocks and he quickly shut his eyes again. It was his first voluntary action in many, many years. But that glare triggered something in his memory.

The sound, the shocks, the glare, all were supposed to mean something. Something important. But what?

His body began to shiver. Crain remembered this was a good sign. He had been told this was a good sign. It meant his body was returning to life after years of being frozen solid.

That’s it! Frozen. In the Aggarwal-Diller Cryopreservation Container. Coldsleep! In a staggering second he remembered where he was. Crain had been warned, as had all the colonists, that the process of coming out of coldsleep would not be gentle. But this…

The electrodes attached to his body delivered another pulse of energy. He then realized it would keep happening until he physically turned the machine off. Frantically he searched his memory for the way to do it. His thoughts were interrupted by another jolt; it caused his body to convulse and his hands to rise slightly from the cushions of the coldsleep container.

Think, damn it! He had been trained for more than a year in the deactivation procedure. Slowly he opened his eyes again, squinting against the glare. A large red blur swam before his face. He tried to focus on the blur but could not. Yet somehow that act triggered a memory, and then he knew.

That’s it, that’s the release, he thought. Crain tried to move his right arm and could not. He tried the left, also without success. The shivers were subsiding, but the jolts from the electrodes were continuing to get stronger.

The noise was now overwhelming. His gag reflex began to work as the tube was withdrawn from his trachea. He was flat on his back, convulsing every few seconds as a new burst of energy seared his nerves. The jolts began to lift his head from the padding. Panic seized him. At this rate he was soon going to be electrocuted.

The next series of pulses lifted his head even higher; it gave him an idea. On the next electrode burst he put as much force as he could into an abdominal contraction. His knees jerked and his hair just brushed the red release mechanism. He flopped back onto the padding, his breath coming in great shuddering gulps. Grimly he forced himself to wait through the next series of impulses, timing them.

He put all his energy into a tremendous contraction of the stomach muscles as the next jolt came.

His heart was hammering a frantic alarm of its own within his chest. But this time his head hit the release pad with sufficient force. The deafening noise stopped. The electrical charges stopped.

Crain fell back exhausted onto the padding, and thankfully felt the pounding of his pulse begin to subside. He noticed there was still a clanging sound, but now it was distant. Not overpowering.

He carefully opened his eyes as his breathing slowed to a semblance of normal. More memories were now returning. The training, the acquired reflexes gained from long hours, weeks, and months of grueling practices and simulations, began to take over his consciousness. Those clanging noises represented others in the First-Team-Out who were still imprisoned within their coldsleep containers. He had to help them!

Crain painfully turned his head to look down the length of his body. Small tubes and wires were attached to his arms, ribcage and legs. He lay there and watched as, one by one, the wires dropped away and the tubes were pulled from his body. Now, he thought, he could get up and help the others.

The First-Team-Out Compartment had twenty-four other containers, as well as seven others in the pilot section. All were being revived from coldsleep. The heavily insulated containers opened after the tubes and wires had been withdrawn from each body, the top halving itself and moving to the head and foot ends while the sides dropped into slots on either side of the bed section.

Crain’s eyes had become somewhat adjusted to the light, although he still had to squint. He knew the other coldsleep containers by their general shape and position, but his vision was too blurry to make out any details.

The alarms intruded again into his awareness. There was something not quite right about them.

He knew he had to get up to check them out, as well as help his fellow Team members. He wormed his way over to the edge of the pad and attempted to swing his legs over the side. No good that way, he had to admit. Then he tried to raise himself onto his hands. No good. He tried to prop up on his elbows. Still no good.

He lay back, trying to think of another approach, when he heard a sound. A dull thump, followed by a groan. Painfully, he turned his head toward the direction of the sound and saw someone sprawled on the floor beside a coldsleep container.

Crain studied the naked form on the floor, trying to figure out just who it was. Female, he noticed, with long, dark hair. But so thin! Her skin seemed almost transparent. Blinking to try and clear his vision, he tried again to push himself up on his elbows.

Then he received a different kind of jolt to the heart as he recognized who it was. Gina! My God, he thought, that’s Gina! With more effort than he had put into previous attempts, Crain clenched his teeth and managed to swing his legs over the side of his coldsleep container, while at the same time trying to sit up. The room spun and his gag reflex returned, making him heave. Luckily there was nothing in his stomach. Resolutely, he braced his feet on the floor and stood. For all of two seconds.

Crain’s legs collapsed and he fell face down on the cold, hard floor beside his container. Pain shot savagely through his entire body. His vision blurred again and he could not stop the spinning sensation. He tried to speak and could not. It hurt to breathe and hot pain lanced through his shoulders and arms from his involuntary and futile attempt to break the fall.

Finally his heaving stopped and his breathing slowed. He opened his eyes and discovered he had fallen with his head in the direction of the other prone form. He could not tell if she was still alive. He tried again to speak and managed a low, croaking sound. He licked his lips and tasted blood. Oh, hell, he groaned to himself. Or was that a sound from the other person?

Painfully, Crain inched his way toward her. He discovered it was much easier if he kept his eyes closed. After an eternity of flexing and relaxing his fingers and toes he felt his hair brush against something. Opening his eyes, he tried to raise himself up. The pain made him gasp, but he eventually got onto his elbows. Slowly, the other person turned toward him. It was Gina. But so thin, he thought, so very thin.

Long dark hair framed her face, falling limply across her shoulders and onto the floor. Crain noticed her mouth was bloody too. Their eyes met. He tried to speak her name but only managed a grunt. He let his elbows collapse again and stretched out to touch her. She, in turn, slowly reached for him. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, their hands met.

They stayed that way for several minutes, not moving, until they heard another thump followed by another groan. Soon there were several First-Team-Out members sprawled on the floor by their coldsleep containers. Crain knew they had to get moving. Something was very wrong.

The alarms continued to clang and flash, but it was more than two hours before they could move enough to crawl together for mutual support. To a person they all had bloody lips. And very long hair and fingernails. He remembered they had said there would be some hair and nail growth, but this? Even his Apache ancestors had not worn hair this long! Nothing was making any sense at all.

What a sight we must be, Crain thought. They all looked like characters from an ancient horror tale. Practically skeletons, with just a bit of hide to cover their bare bones, bloody faces, long, long hair and curled fingernails. None of this was going the way they had trained. None of it.

At last a few of the Team members gathered enough strength to crawl over to the medical compartment. Gina Daor was senior medic of the First-Team-Out; she slowly left Crain’s side to begin dispensing the vital formulas that would rapidly restore their energy.

It took longer than expected for the recovery to begin, however. The various chemicals had been at work in the frail bodies for over an hour before the first Team member could stand.

One by one, the Team members slowly got their feet under them. Wobbly at first, but at least no one fell face-down again. After the first series of pills and water came a quick-energy fructose concentrate. But this proved to be too much for over half the First-Team-Out and they threw it back up.

So far everyone was communicating by grunts and gestures. No one could speak clearly enough to be understood. As he watched Gina distributing the various medicines, Crain realized something else was wrong. The medics from the pilot’s section should be here. In fact, they should have been there to supervise the revival of the First-Team-Out from coldsleep. But there had been no one. The coldsleep equipment had revived them, as best it could, autonomously in its emergency mode.

Some of the Team’ members began to stretch, and then attempted the exercise routines they had practiced together for more than a year before the trip. None were successful, and most wound up on their bony backsides frowning in pain and frustration. No one had thought to try and pull on a shipsuit yet. Modesty had vanished somewhere along the line during their training period. They had lived among each other too long and at too close of quarters for it to matter. Besides, everybody looked as though they had one foot and two toes in the grave, and there were some other terribly important problems to be dealt with. Problems they were just becoming aware of.

First-Team-Out Leader Lars Maynar indicated to Gina and Cuo Fujami, the other Team medic, that everyone should get one of the emergency high power stimulants. When that was done he stood shakily and headed toward the bridge. The others followed, making it a parade of twenty-five scrawny naked bodies staggering and lurching through the passageways toward the command center of the Exodus.

As Maynar pushed through the hatchway into the bridge, a matching hatchway on the far side of the bridge opened. Three pilots and two medics hobbled through it. The two groups advanced toward the main console. But they hardly saw each other–for all eyes were riveted on the two chairs in the center of the main console. And the two skeletons in shipsuits sitting in them.

Initial shock gave way to something like terror as, one by one, they noticed the hole in the back of the skulls. A small opening, blackened around the edges.

It was Maynar who finally broke the silence. Murdered, he croaked. Slowly everyone else nodded in assent.

Look, rasped Chief Astrogator Victor Stant, as he pointed toward the center holographic display screen above the main console.

The three-dimensional display showed a star, bright blue-white in color. Stant punched up the other, smaller console viewscreens and at the same time powered up the navigational computer.

One of the smaller screens gave a graphed readout of their course; it showed them to be seven degrees from heading for the center of the blue-white star. The nav computer remained dark.

Seven degrees! thought Stant. We might as well be dead center! Another viewscreen gave the distance to the star as less than a billion miles. And the number was shrinking rapidly.

The First-Team-Out members exchanged grim, questioning looks with the pilots. There were so many questions and no time to even ask them, much less try to get some answers. One of the pilots stumbled over to the console containing the alarm system computer and hit a switch. Nothing happened. He frowned, tried the switch again, and again nothing happened. First-Team-Out second-in-command Paul Killen joined the pilot and flipped another switch that was out of sight under the lower edge of the console–and for the first time since their revival there was quiet. Quiet broken only by a raspy breath or a shuddering sob.

Chief Pilot Xavier Fralic gathered Stant and Systems Engineer Brian DeSeneca together with the medics. After a short conference, each of them nodded in agreement. Gina, Cuo Fujami and one of the medics from the pilot’s section, Andrei Melrokov, began going through an emergency medical kit that had been secured to the bulkhead separating the main console from the rest of the bridge, a kind of half wall.

Melrokov took out a small box sealed in red plastic which contained a powerful stimulant. The medics injected three men–the chief pilot, the chief astrogator and the systems engineer–in each thin arm, and in moments their movements became more stable. The men carefully removed the two skeletal bodies from the bridge, then seated themselves at the main console. The trio exchanged worried looks, attached their headphone-throat mike lines, and began punching in questions as soon as their computers were activated. The navigation computer on the bridge, however, remained dark.

What the hell’s wrong with the nav computer? asked Fralic.

Stant stood and moved to the darkened console and peered into a small window.

Damn, he said, the physarum-polycephalum organic component looks like it’s dead.

What the hell? said the pilot, a little too loudly. That shit is supposed to last a hundred years.

I know, replied Stant. It should be alive and kickin’. But it’s not. He traced the cabling of the nav computer to the bulkhead. Well, fuck me! The nav has been disconnected!

Aware that a large portion of their computing ability was now lost to them, Fralic responded, Victor, pull in the MEGA. We have to have navigation data. And some computing muscle.

Roger that, affirmed Stant as he rerouted circuits that would feed the energy-hungry quantum computer. At least the supercooling could be done by opening a port and exposing the superconducting conduits to the unimaginably cold vacuum of space. Still, zetaflops of parallel processing required enormous amounts of power.

Crain watched all this in a kind of dazed fascination. He knew that emergency stimulant was very powerful–and each of the men had received a double dose! My God, he thought, that could kill them.

He turned his attention back to the viewscreens. The main screen still showed the bright blue-white star. The distance screen now showed less than eight hundred million miles.

As Crain watched the changing displays, Gina came to stand beside him, her duties temporarily over.

John, she croaked, that’s not Ross 154.

It sure as hell wasn’t, he agreed mentally, as his gag reflex threatened to start back up. Ross 154, their intended destination, was a small red star not quite nine and a half light years from Earth. The trip was to take twenty-six years. But this was not Ross 154. With a shock he suddenly remembered there were no blue-white stars between Ross 154 and Earth. Hell, there weren’t any stars that color anywhere near our solar system, he mumbled to himself. Vega was twenty-five light years away and huge Rigel was seven hundred seventy-three light years from Earth. They were lost.

Gina took his hand in hers. He felt her shaking. Not our star, she whispered, not our star. He held her hand as tightly as he could and together they stared uncomprehendingly at the screens.

Victor Stant threw the audio switch on his console. MEGA, name the star displayed on the main viewscreen. Several seconds passed. As he was about to repeat the instruction the mechanical voice spoke briefly. Insufficient data.

That’s odd, remarked Stant. There are eighty-three known star systems within twenty light years of Sol. Because of multiple stars in some systems, the number of stars is one hundred nine, along with eight brown dwarfs.

That’s no brown dwarf, commented Crain.

Curious, worried looks were exchanged. System scan, rasped Fralic into his throat mike.

Engineering, compute levels of fuel in all systems. He knew they would have lost some of their stored fuel through the very ship walls during the twenty-six year trip. It would only be used to go into a parking orbit around their new planet anyway. Given time they could even manufacture maneuvering fuel by altering the hydrogen mass convertor. The Exodus would never need it again anyway. But with this emergency he needed to know just how much maneuvering fuel he had to work with.

Oh shit, Xavier, whispered the engineer into his throat mike. Five percent! Five fucking percent!

Not how much we lost, Brian, the pilot responded hoarsely. How much we have.

The engineer’s face became even more blanched as he reset his computer for another reading. Holographic numbers shimmered before him. The same numbers as before. Five percent maneuvering fuel.

Holy Christ, whispered the engineer.

How the hell… began the pilot.

He was interrupted by a chime followed by a mechanical voice.

Scan complete, the computer informed them.

Display on main screen, instructed Stant into his throat mike, planetary bodies, starting with bodies closest to the star. The blue-white star disappeared, to be replaced by a pinpoint of light.

Planetary body closest to star: 67,128,436 miles from star’s chronosphere. Diameter: 3,678 miles. Rotation:…

Wait, interrupted the astrogator. Cancel last instruction. Display planetary bodies in this system with Earth-type characteristics.

The pinpoint of light disappeared. It was replaced by a silvery gray disk, almost the size of a full moon as seen from Earth. This planet also had a moon, but it seemed rather small compared to the size of the planet. Not the same ratio as Earth and its moon at all.

Fourth body from star, droned the mechanical voice. "127,489,003 miles from chronosphere.

Diameter: 11,761 miles. Atmosphere: nitrogen, oxygen, helium, carbon dioxide, plus measurable amounts of silver, copper and aluminum. Gravitational field estimated at one point six nine Earth-normal at sea level. Mean atmospheric temperature: sixty degrees below Earth-normal. Atmospheric pressure: sixty percent Earth-normal at sea level. Atmospheric general radiation level: one thousand times Earth-normal. Planetary magnetic field: five times Earth-normal.

Crain was confused. There are metals in the atmosphere? Could a magnetic field hold metal particles in suspension in atmosphere? Would that poison the air? His thoughts were interrupted by the astrogator’s voice.

Stop. Go to the next Earth-type body in this system, ordered the astrogator.

There are no other Earth-type bodies within this system, replied the computer.

Fix position of the fourth planet in this system, relative to the position of the star and the position of the Exodus, said Fralic into his throat mike.

The center screen resolved itself into a three-dimensional holographic display, showing a pinpoint of light in the center, shining a bright blue. The planet was about forty-five degrees to the right, apparently moving away from the Exodus. The ship, in the foreground, was represented as a flashing red point of light, moving perceptibly toward the star.

The First-Team-Out members as well as the pilots gradually either sank into a nearby chair or to the floor where they had been standing. No one else spoke. Any hope of survival rested squarely on the shoulders of the chief pilot, the chief astrogator, and the systems engineer.

Calculate the most efficient course to the fourth planet in this system, ordered Stant.

Seconds went by.

Insufficient maneuvering fuel to effect course change to the fourth planet, was the reply.

The systems engineer cleared his throat and spoke slowly and plainly into the mike. Emergency. Priority One. All systems tie in to the main computer emergency terminal. The big Hagelstein Quanta-MEGA computer opened its emergency interface terminal and all the ship’s various computers joined together. Auxiliary power was routed to the quantum interface.

DeSeneca continued his instructions. Repeat. Emergency. Priority one. MEGA, calculate navigational maneuvers which would bring the Exodus into orbit around the fourth planet in this system.

There was silence as all the machines sought the solution to one problem. No relays audibly clicked, no circuits popped. Only silence as microscopic bits of energy danced along threadlike highways meeting, rejecting, meeting, rejecting other bits of energy. The command emergency, priority one caused the emergency interface terminal of the Quanta-MEGA to become the clearing house for all the ship’s information, both stored data as well as incoming sensor reports. The power requirement was immense. Energy was being pulled directly from the ion fusion engines. If ever machines could be frantic it would be now.

Finally, the machine spoke.

Emergency priority one problem partial solution, said the MEGA computer’s synthetic voice.

Partial solution?

A viable course exists that will reach the fourth planet in this system. Probably of achieving orbit is seventeen point two eight six percent.

Describe navigational maneuvers necessary to rendezvous with fourth planet in this system, ordered the engineer.

Disengage hydrogen mass drivers. Rotate forward mass driver main nozzles one hundred ninety degrees. Bring aft nozzles to two hundred seventy degrees. Re-engage aft nozzles seven hundred sixty-two seconds. Re-engage forward nozzles in pulses of twenty-eight seconds at three hundred forty-nine second intervals for sixty-three minutes, thirty three seconds. Maneuvers must begin ten minutes from, mark. Otherwise navigational data reveals the Exodus will break up at the more acute angles and velocities required.

The pilot, astrogator, and systems engineer looked at each other blankly. You simply could not rotate the mass drivers’ exhaust nozzles almost bass-akwards and then turn them back on! You couldn’t!

Compute possible structural damage to the Exodus, said the pilot softly into his throatpiece.

The computer answered. A thirty-three point three, three, three percent probability of the colonyship Exodus retaining structural integrity until contact with planetary atmosphere. Of that percentage, there is a fifty-two percent probability of major structural damage upon entry into the atmospheric region. In addition, there is an eighty-one percent probability of total loss of maneuverability of the Exodus upon entering the atmosphere.

Wait, said DeSeneca. Can our present course be altered to avoid being trapped by the star’s gravitational well, and to allow the Exodus to exit this system safely?

Affirmative.

Explain.

Rotate aft mass driver exhaust nozzles twelve degrees away from present course, or more than twelve degrees, in any direction. Maintain present speed. Then the electronic voice became quiet.

A sweating Victor Stant turned to the pilot. So we have a choice. Try for that planet, or bypass this system by a safer and more simple course change, and hope to find a more suitable planet in another system. We can adjust the computers to scan any system we come near and have the coldsleep computers wake us when an Earth-type planet is detected.

Lars Maynor stood and made his way shakily to the main console. Hold on a minute. That second choice means going back into coldsleep. Thanks, just the same, but you can drop me off right here in a lifebubble. I’m not ever going back into coldsleep. "

He slowly scanned the rest of the pilots as well as his First-Team-Out people. He ended up staring at the pilot again.

Xavier, I mean it. I’m not going through that revival process again, ever! His voice started out as a harsh whisper and ended with a choked sob.

That goes for me, too, added Killen, First-Team-Out second-in-command. You’ll have to shoot me to get me back in that box. If you decide on the second option, I’ll just stay up and watch over the computer.

Slowly each of the other First-Team-Out members and the remaining pilots stood and added their agreement. No one wanted any more to do with the coldsleep containers in this lifetime.

The pilot looked toward his engineer, who shrugged.

Fralic looked over to the chief astrogator, who nodded and said, MEGA. Emergency. Priority one. Initiate navigational maneuvers to rendezvous the colonyship Exodus with the fourth planet in this system. Use whatever procedures are available to achieve orbit with the planet. Repeat. Emergency. Priority one.

Calculate estimated time of arrival at planetary orbit, instructed the engineer. But the machine was silent. It was devoting all its attention to the navigational problems associated with getting the colonyship Exodus from ‘here’ to ‘there.’ Period.

It won’t be long, whispered the astrogator. Look at this.

He pointed to one of the smaller screens, the one that recorded their velocity. In shimmering amber numerals was their speed, if the readout could be believed. It said they were traveling at point nine-four Light.

That makes no sense, said Fralic. We couldn’t build up that kind of speed in twenty-six years.

The pilot twisted in his seat so he could look at the faces of the others. His eyes were shining brightly, much too brightly. He was sweating even though the room was cool and he was visibly shaking. Nervous fingers danced over control surfaces, never quite touching them.

The computer was out of his control now. The very ship was out of his control due to the ‘emergency, priority one’ code the engineer had used. His breath was short and quick, as if he had just sprinted a good distance.

People, he said at last, I suggest we all get strapped in, or down, somewhere. I’m afraid we’re going to be in for one hell of a ride.

CHAPTER 2

Lightning flashed, revealing glimpses of a bleak landscape. Crain, now Chief Geologist John Crain, stood shivering in a driving rainstorm. Bizarre images strobed into his awareness every time the lightning tore at the sky. The lightning itself was bizarre, always a main bolt forking out into several smaller branches, and all surrounded by a wide halo or aura, as if a portion of the energy was bleeding out, dissipating into the very atmosphere.

Crain was wearing insulated coveralls and a standard clear ceramic helmet. But the rain was beginning to have ice mixed in it, and his shivering intensified.

Boiling gunbarrel colored clouds transformed the early evening into deep darkness. Raging wind gusts picked up a high pitched whine as they roared through steep ravines and around stark piles of huge rocks.

Jackson should be here by now, thought Crain. Ariel Jackson was the First-Team-Out chief meteorologist. Crain and Jackson had been trained and trained and trained to meet fifty feet out from the emergency outer hatch of the Team’s compartment. Crain had given up trying to use the radio in his helmet. He finally turned it completely off because of the intense static it was emitting.

Jackson, where are you! Crain silently shouted. He could not remember the crash. When his awareness had returned, he was leaving the ship through the emergency hatch, his insulated coveralls and helmet already on.

As he waited, he strained his eyes trying to penetrate the gloom so he could determine the seriousness of the damage to the ship. His head ached and he could feel his heart pounding.

A particularly bright flash lit up the entire quarter mile length of the Exodus. Sparks flew from nearby rocks that had been struck by the bolt, and the resulting thunderclap was deafening. But Crain didn’t even notice.

His deepest fears had been confirmed in that moment of brightness. The ship was broken. The Exodus would never fly again. The sections were designed to separate in orbit and land in different predetermined areas. Crain knew that had there been a choice none of the module pilots would have chosen this inhospitable location.

Crain’s rapidly weakening six foot-one inch frame sagged against a rock outcropping.

Broken, he cried to himself. The Exodus had been the focus of his life for so long, it, it…it wasn’t supposed to end this way! Hot tears rolled down his chilled cheeks, glistening like long jewels with each lightening flash.

John forgot about the cold, forgot about his physical torment as he stared through the storm at his home. As he looked at it the realization slowly came to him like an icy fist around his laboring heart-not everyone could have survived that crash. Who, he wondered, out of the more than six thousand colonists onboard the Exodus, survived? He feared that a great many would never wake from coldsleep. A great many indeed.

A light appeared in the emergency hatchway, silhouetting a figure. Jackson, thought Crain, and about damn time. He would have to have been much closer to identify the figure due to the intensity of the storm, but he knew it was Jackson. Who else would it be?

Jackson started waving, making exaggerated loops with one arm, apparently trying to signal Crain to return to the ship.

In the storm, however, Crain knew he must be invisible, his dark gray coveralls blending in with the shades of the surrounding rocks.

He stood to return as Jackson bent over to grab the rope ladder Crain had used earlier.

Somehow Jackson stumbled; he somersaulted into the air without being able to grasp the ladder, falling awkwardly and quickly to the sodden ground some fifteen feet below. With a gasp Crain began to run toward the ship and Jackson. But after less than ten steps the muscles around his heart cramped and he doubled over.

His momentum caused him to topple head first, and almost before he knew it, he was also lying face down in the mud.

Blood pounded a savage rhythm in his temples. Dots of color danced in his periphery. He lay there struggling for air as the rain changed completely over to sleet mixed with snow.

Not enough oxygen, he thought. Sensor scans as they approached the planet had indicated there was oxygen in the atmosphere, but not as much as Earth had. In fact, not even half as much. Crain could barely move.

I can’t believe I’m so damn weak, he told himself. But there was nothing he could do. He had to lie still until his breathing returned to some semblance of normal and the pounding of his heart subsided. Not to mention those pretty lights just inside his peripheral vision.

Remembering why he had tried to run in the first place spurred him into action again as soon as he could manage. Slowly, painfully, Crain pushed himself to a kneeling position. Any exertion at all brought on a wave of nausea, and twice he fell back into the freezing mud with his gut heaving spasmodically. He had been out of coldsleep for mere hours, and his body simply could not function properly. In this gravity it barely functioned at all.

The third attempt at getting up left Crain wobbling on his knees, sucking breath through clenched teeth. He struggled to his feet and inched his way back toward the ship and his crewmate. It was an agonizing walk of about forty feet, with Crain having to lean heavily on any rock outcropping he came near.

As he slowly closed the distance between himself and the ship, he glanced up and noticed there was another figure in the hatchway. The intensity of the storm blotted out the identity of the person, and would have from even a few feet away.

Hoping whoever it was would see him and understand, Crain waved a warning sign toward the hatchway and then pointed to the other crewman lying face down on the rapidly freezing, muddy ground. A beam of light from the hatchway bathed him in a dim radiance for a moment, then, following his repeated pointing gesture, found the fallen First-Team Out member.

After what seemed a lifetime Crain stood over the still body of his friend Ariel Jackson. The stillness of the body and the awkward angle of the limbs told the story. John slowly, painfully, knelt and turned the body over.

It was not Jackson.

Gina, he whispered, "Oh, sweet Jesus,