David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

Saul said distantly, “I see.”

Carl watched Saul carefully during the rest of the meeting. The man listened mutely, lost in his own dark introspections.

Malcolm was balky, reluctant. He gave ground grudgingly, agreeing to a slight increase in the labor hours in Hydroponics, swearing he could give no more without consulting all the Ortho factions. Jeffers made similarly hedged promises on behalf of the Percell groups.

Carl himself spoke for the ex-spacers—mostly Plateau Three types—and the Hawaiians. What would I do without those diehard idealists? he thought, watching the give and take of the meeting. There aren’t nearly enough of them…

He moved into the verbal crossfire, working them around to a livable compromise. He used hard-won skills to cajole Malcolm into doing what it seemed to him anyone rational would immediately agree to—but by now he was used to it, resigned to the obdurate mulishness of the human species.

And this was only a minor sticking point. Eventually they’d have to get Quiverian and Sergeov to sit down, too, representing the extremes. And all this bickering over mere Hydro, too the deeper issues of finishing the Nudge Flingers would be far worse. It resembled the never-ending news from the Middle East. Even with Saul’s lost Israel broken into squabbling theocracies, the region was still rife with more microscopic factions, unending rivalry, bitterness, stupidity. Nobody could see beyond their noses. No, Halley was all too representative of humanity.

After the meeting he sat and watched the sun set in vivid ruby splashes over Hong Kong. He wondered idly if the place existed anymore; there had been reports of a small nuke war somewhere near there, twenty years ago. He would have to check sometime. Or maybe he didn’t really wish to know. The city simmering in its rosy sunset looked better if you thought it could still he there.

At last he roused himself and went down to sleep slot 1. The thawing was proceeding normally; he had kept track by remote throughout the day. Suited and encased, he came into the foggy kingdom of eternal chill. He did not rush into the prep room, though. The team was not quite through yet…

Carl stopped. at Lani Nguyen’s slot. Frost filmed it and he checked the fluid lines automatically. He had come here often to stare into that blissful, milky, floating refuge—and to envy them all. He peered through the slowly churning fluids at the watery form inside. Did he see a face gazing out?

I miss you, Lani. I was a young idiot when I knew you. Not that an older idiot would do any better. That night after Cruz died… We know how it should have worked out, don’t we? He smiled wanly. Youshould sleep safely to the end. But we’ll need you soon, too. And pray that unslotting doesn’t give those plagues lying dormant in you the crucial edge they need…

He could contain his impatience no longer. He went into the prep room and stood aside as the technicians finished their hours of careful labor. His eyes followed every feeder line, each stimulating circuit, all the myriad details that spelled the difference.

She’s still as wonderful. Just looking at her makes my heart feel as though a hand is squeezing it.

He stood aside as they unwrapped the nutrient gauze from Virginia’s almond skin.

That luscious color belongs on beaches, not in ice.

He had waited so long for this … And had thought a thousand times of violating his pledge, of reviving Virginia without Saul. What could they do about it except complain? He had even come down here once, at the nub end of a lonely, half-drunken evening … Invaded the realm of frost and started the warmup, let it run on for two hours before finally facing the fact that he couldn’t do it. Not merely because she would be enraged, would surely see through his invented explanations… but because he knew he could not live with having done it.

But now all that was past. The long years dropped away, done.

He stepped forward to see her again.

Long ago, Virginia had wondered what it would be like if she ever really succeeded…if ever she fooled them all, and actually made a machine that could think.

How would awareness seem to the new entity? Would it appear suddenly, as great Athena was supposed to have come into her wisdom, springing self-aware from the brow of Zeus?

Would it be like a child growing up? A long, slow, tedious/thrilling process of rote and extrapolation? Of trial and error and skinned knees?

Or would it happen as humanity had done it—evolving by quirk and happenstance from the feral reflexes of microbes, all the way up to the hubris to challenge gods?

Most often of all, she had imagined that it would be like this. A slow gathering of scattered threads. A learning anew of what was already known.

An awakening.

All the blurry images came together into a single shape that swam in front of her eyes—a complete mystery. A blob.

Then, with no transition at all, she knew it as a face… one that ought to be familiar.

“Carl?” she tried to ask. But her facial muscles would only twitch a little, a promise of returning volition, but not much more.

The figure overhead blurred, unfocused, and finally went away. Virginia slept. And for the first time in a long while, she dreamed.

The white walls were sharp and clear when next she opened her eyes.

Recuperation room, she thought. I wonder how long it’s been .

There was a rustling tap tap tap of a databoard nearby. Virginia laboriously turned her head, and saw a man in a faded, threadbare hospital gown perched crosslegged on a webbing, looking intently into a portable display and rubbing his chin slowly with one hand. His eyelids were slot-blue and he looked so thin.

“Saul,” she whispered.

He looked up quickly. In a single motion he put aside the databoard and was by her side, bringing a squeeze bottle to her lips.

She sipped until he drew it away. Then she worked her mouth. “H… h-how… ?”

“How long?” Saul took her hand. “About thirty years. We’re getting near aphelion. Carl told me you left little watchdog programs throughout the data systems that kept popping up, promising bloody hell if you were awakened before me.”

Virginia smiled weakly. “I told you…I’d…m-manage it.”

He laughed. “And I’m so very proud of you.’

The richness of his voice made her blink. Saul was still only partially recovered from his own slotting, and yet something else was different about him.

Her preslotting memories were coming back clearly. There was a little more gray at Saul’s temples, maybe, and yet could it be an illusion that he actually looked younger than before?

Oh, I must be a mess, she thought. Ihad better do some hard eating to put some meat back on, after three decades.

But if slotting drops years off you, I must learn to conquer my fear of it!

“How am… I… doing?”

“A doctor’s joy.” He grinned. “A marvelous piece of womanly engineering. Recovering nicely, and soon to be put to work, by orders of his Grand Poobah-dom, Commander Osborn.”

Virginia shook her head.

“C-commander… ?”

Saul nodded. “Lieutenant Commander, actually. Commission from Earth. They had to. Only two officers left alive, and they hardly count. Ensign Calciano’s in the slots after a ten-year shift in which he seems to have become convinced he was the Flying Dutchman. Ould-Harrad’s resigned his commission and gone off to join the Revisionist-Arcists over in Gehenna…”

At Virginia’s puzzled expression, Saul squeezed her hand.

“It’s a different world, Virginia. So much has changed. Back on Earth, things have gone from very bad to better to incomprehensible. And out here they’re… well…” He shrugged. “Outs here they’re just plain weird.”