THEY DIDN’T EVEN let us shower before hustling us down the halls to our evaluations. But in the waiting room, a young woman in cheery pink scrubs made sure we drank lots of bottled water while she took our vitals, and put salve on our burns and bites.
No one really talked. We all kind of eyed one another warily, trying to gauge how each person spent the night in the swamp. No one seemed unscathed. Kendra had welts on her face and arms. Emilio’s messy dark curls were matted with dirt, and he looked more unlike his cheery self than I’d ever seen him. Hanna’s cheeks and shoulders were an angry red, and she and Emilio weren’t even looking at each other.
Mitsuko, a scabbed-over scratch on one cheek and usually immaculate hair filthy around her shoulders, caught my gaze and rolled her eyes—silently summing up her experience being partnered with Giorgia in the wilderness.
Luka and I were called last into Pierce’s office, a plain, narrow cinder-block room with no windows and no personal effects.
There were no chairs. We stood side by side in front of his desk, which was piled with orderly stacks of papers and a laptop with the screen turned off.
“And group five,” Colonel Pierce said, not looking up from his notes. I tried to peer over and see what was written on them. Probably the exact transcript of every word Luka and I had spoken since we got in that van, with readouts for our body temperature, heart rate, and other biometrics. But he was holding everything close to the vest, so instead I studied his expression, waiting for some hint as to what he was about to say.
His hard-lined face didn’t soften. “You were our most promising pair. I have to say, Luka, I’m very disappointed.”
I swallowed hard.
“We scored you as a team on a rubric consisting of a variety of criteria, including teamwork, creative problem solving, and wilderness survival skills, among others. Of the five teams, you two came in fourth. A distant fourth,” he added disdainfully.
But we’d been the last to the rendezvous point. Luka had almost drowned. The question wasn’t who did better than us, but who could have done worse?
“You’re dismissed,” Colonel Pierce said, already looking at another file.
I caught Luka’s eye, questioning. He shook his head slightly. He didn’t understand, either.
We split up—the first time we’d been apart in almost twenty-four hours. Hanna and Mitsuko had gone ahead of me to the cafeteria. Being alone in my room was almost as wonderful as the forty-five-minute-long shower I immediately took to wash every trace of the outdoors off me.
When I finally joined the others, it was almost sad to see how few of us were left. We were a motley bunch. So many empty chairs, empty tables; the remaining bodies filling them were hunched over their trays.
I searched the cafeteria for Luka but he wasn’t here. Feeling strangely bereft, I took a seat between Mitsuko and Emilio. Everyone’s plates, including mine, towered with food. Emilio had apparently taken an electric razor to his head, shaving the sides of his hair and leaving a lone strip in the center.
“I never want to do that again,” I said. “I’d rather die in a fiery crash. So much simpler.”
“Dear God, yes. Let me burn up on reentry rather than endure that BS again.” Mitsuko looked a little better after a shower, her face scrubbed to poreless perfection—the wound on her face somehow making her look edgy but no less beautiful.
Emilio shrugged. “I didn’t mind it so much, actually.” He was more withdrawn than usual, but I chalked it up to exhaustion.
Anton joined our table. “So, are we talking about our rankings yet?” Anton asked.
“They didn’t tell us we couldn’t,” I said.
We all waited for someone else to go first.
“Kendra and I came in first,” Anton blurted with a grin.
“We were third. I think stupid Boris and Pratima came in second,” Mitsuko said.
“Yeah, well, we were last.” We all turned to Emilio, glumly stuffing forkfuls of spaghetti into his mouth.
“What happened, man?” Anton asked.
We waited until he swallowed. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Anton, however, was more than willing to tell us all about his experience. He called Kendra over, too, so they could lord their victory over us. Neither one of them had gotten a major win so far, so I didn’t mind—I also didn’t mind knowing how they did it.
Apparently Anton had basically grown up trekking through the rain forest, and Kendra was into mountain hiking. They couldn’t have made a better team. I started to feel a little bit better about the whole situation. Luka and I were still the strongest overall competitors. The leaderboard hadn’t changed, but maybe it just didn’t reflect our new scores yet.
Luka finally came in just as we were leaving. I waved the others on without me and caught up with him near the door to the hall. “I looked for you,” I said and then cringed inwardly. “You okay?”
He was clean and dry, but his face was a little drawn, a little distracted. “Yes. They wanted to check my lungs, to ensure they were clear. I should not suffer any ill effects from my dip in the creek. Thanks to you.”
I waved that off. I didn’t deserve praise; it’d been a reaction, a bare-minimum response. But now the air was weird between us, the gratitude in him making our relationship off balance. So I changed the topic to the one I’d want to know, if I’d been him. “Anton and Kendra came in first. Emilio and Hanna were last.”
That piqued his interest. “Really? Even though they reached the rendezvous point ahead of us?”
“Yeah. That’s the mystery. They won’t talk about why, though.”
It still nagged at me why we’d placed fourth. And he had a point: How could Hanna and Emilio have really done so much worse when they’d made it to the helicopter before us?
Luka focused his attention on the buffet. There was almost no one left in the cafeteria; only Kendra sitting along the back wall, sipping a drink and reading her tablet.
I wavered, shifting my weight. It felt like abandonment to walk away, to rejoin my friends and leave him to a cold dinner alone. He’d somehow begun to feel like one of mine—one of my allies, or friends, or at least someone on my team. And I knew how much it sucked to eat alone. “Hey, do you want—I mean, I already ate, but I can join you if you want? It’s kind of lonely in here.” And he didn’t even have any roommates left, either, I realized.
He gave me a quizzical look. Probably wondering why I wanted to spend more time with him, when we’d just been stuck together for twenty-four hours. Probably wishing I’d leave him alone so he’d have a break from me. “I’m fine. I’m quite used to eating unaccompanied.” A smile softened the words. “But thank you.”
Needing to outrun the feeling of failure from our outdoor adventure, I headed to the track late that night, when I thought I’d get to be alone.
But Emilio was already pounding the tread when I got there, the dying sun sending our long shadows to chase each other as we ran out our stresses. He stayed behind me most of the way, until I slowed purposely and he caught up. We jogged together silently, breathing and foot strikes the only sounds we shared. I couldn’t help but remember the first day, the long run they’d put us through where I thought I was going to fail. Everyone’s sweat combining and evaporating off this track. Particles of ourselves mingling together, escaping into the atmosphere.
The only way I had gotten through it at all was because of everyone else running with me.
Endorphins and exhaustion finally dulled the edges of my emotions. I sat on the outer edge of the track where the grass had started to poke through, feeling the pebbles dig into my skin and the sweat drip down my back, and the amazing feeling of fresh air going in and out of my lungs.
Emilio jogged a few more laps alone, then came to sit beside me. We drank bottled water and watched through the fence as the sun melted red hot into the prairie grass.
After a while, Emilio spoke. “Something’s been bugging me.”
I turned toward him. He was leaning back on his hands, still watching the horizon. The deep orange light turned his skin to bronze. He could be good-looking, especially in moments like right now. Even his new haircut worked for him. I wondered what had made him do that—if it had something to do with what’d happened out there with Hanna. I wondered what it said about me that I hadn’t thought to ask him until now.
And then I thought back to what Mitsuko had said. If I’d ever grow to look at people the way she did. If I’d ever grow to care about people the way Emilio did.
“What is it?” I asked when he was silent a long time.
“I feel like they’re keeping a lot of information from us about this mission. I mean, obviously they are, they’ve said as much. But it’s gotta be something major, right? This is so far beyond what I expected.”
I leaned back on my hands, mirroring him, blades of grass shooting up between my fingers.
There weren’t any walls here. We weren’t wearing any wristbands. It felt safe to talk. “I’ve been feeling weird about it, too.”
“Yeah?” He looked at me a second and trained his eyes back to the dying light. “Then I’m not nuts. I mean . . . I was even afraid to talk about this inside the building, in case they’re listening. That isn’t normal.”
I laughed without much humor. “I was just thinking the same thing. Almost every astronaut ever was a trained military pilot, maybe the occasional scientist. And it took them two years to qualify for space. Why the fast track? Why are we so special?”
He sighed. “I really don’t know, Cass. We’ve yet to even touch any kind of technology that is involved in operating a rocket to space. They’re focused more on our brain waves and psychology than us actually knowing how to work a spacecraft. We’re not being trained, we’re being studied.”
I picked at a dry blade of grass. “There are going to be real astronauts on the mission, though. Maybe they’re counting on that.”
“Then what are we, an experiment?”
It gave me a little chill. An experiment. Hanna had said it and I had thought it. Now it was coming from his mouth, too.
I wasn’t ready to contemplate this. “Not to change the subject, but—seriously, what happened with you and Hanna out there?”
“Cass . . .” I felt for a moment he might actually spill, but then he shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. That’s something I’ve got to keep for myself.” His lips pressed together.
My instinct was to let it go. But then I thought back to all the times Emilio had helped me—listened to me vent, given me advice. He didn’t have to. He’d just shown up and been a friend, right from the start. And I hadn’t even tried to be the friend he deserved in return.
I didn’t want to be that kind of person anymore.
“I’m not trying to pry. You’ve just seemed really down ever since, and I don’t like seeing you that way. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? I could just listen, if you want.”
I waited a long time for him to speak again, until the sunlight was gone and the stars twinkled through the indigo-velvet sky. And then the exterior lights came on, bathing us in an artificial yellow glow.
Then he turned on his side, head propped in his hand, elbow buried in grass. “Yeah, okay,” he finally said quietly. “Be nice to get off my chest, I guess. So. I’ve liked Hanna for a while. Out in the swamp, I took a chance and I kissed her. I mean, we were alone, and I kinda was getting a vibe from her . . . anyway, it was nice at first. We made out for a while, actually. Then, like a jackass, I go and tell her how cool it is that she likes me and how long I’ve wanted to do that.” He groaned and collapsed to his back, rubbing his face with both hands. He kept his hands over his face, muffling his voice. “And she’s like, whatever, dude, I was just bored and you were convenient. So that sucked. And then we just . . . argued. She took off for a few hours and left me alone, and I wasn’t going to leave her, so yeah. She came back eventually, but we wasted a lot of time being stupid like that. The whole thing was about teamwork, and we showed we couldn’t work together for even twenty-four hours.”
He sighed heavily, his chest falling with a long, exasperated exhale. His hands fell to his sides, and he was quiet awhile. “You can imagine why I’m not super anxious to tell anyone.”
My heart clenched up for him. Ugh, Hanna, why Emilio? He was like a puppy, and she just couldn’t resist kicking him. “Hanna does what she wants, other people be damned.” He didn’t respond. “I’m sorry. It’s just too bad you couldn’t have been partnered up with someone nicer to make out with.”
At least that got a laugh out of him, though it wasn’t a particularly happy one. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think I’m going to be here much longer.”
My head whipped around but he didn’t flinch, didn’t even meet my eyes. “What?”
“I’m not going into space. Not this time.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “You’re doing well in the tests. Everyone loves you. You’ve had a solid rank this entire time. You—you’re great.”
He shrugged. “I can’t explain it. I’m not giving up just yet, but this place is too intense for me. I don’t like what it’s doing to me. What it does to . . . everyone.”
I stared at his profile, willing him to unsay what he’d just said, and surprised that I wanted him to take it back. How long had he felt like this? “If you’re saying this because of what happened with Hanna, it was just one test. Remember what you told her? One test isn’t the end. If you want this, you shouldn’t give up.”
“That’s the thing, Cass. I’m not sure anymore.” His hands were unconsciously clenching in the dirt. “If I go, I go. I’ve made peace with it. The only thing is, I’d miss the people here. Anton and you and Mitsuko and . . .” He trailed off.
“Hanna?” I supplied, and then wished I hadn’t.
He smiled tightly. “Anyway. Cass, I think you can go all the way. You do the right thing when it matters.”
“Stop it,” I said. He had obviously created a picture of me in his mind that wasn’t true. “I’m not that person. You know that I’ve never had a friend like you?” My voice got a little too high and frantic, but I couldn’t stop. “Before I got here, I thought a friend was someone you competed with on test scores and who kind of agreed with you on who were the stupid kids in class. I’d turn in my classmates for cheating if I thought it would help me. I had this huge complex about how great I was and nobody else was good enough and I—” I flashed back to my classmates, my coworkers. I’d snubbed all of them. No wonder I didn’t have any friends. “You don’t really know me.”
Emilio shrugged it off. “Who isn’t awful at least once in high school? You have the capacity to be better, though. You’re already better. I haven’t seen any of that stuff here. You’re not as big and bad as you think you are. That’s why I wanted to warn you. I don’t want to throw you off your game when I leave.”
He gazed skyward, his mind seeming to drift. “Look at all this sky. If it weren’t for these lights, you could see Orion pretty well. If we could just jump this fence and hike into the prairie a few miles, I bet it’d be gorgeous.” His eyes came back to earth, studying the slender, rustling shadows of prairie grass beyond the fence. “But we’re still too close to the city. There’s this amazing place back in Colorado. Out in the mountains. The sky is ink black and the stars just look like they’re alive. You can’t believe how many there are, trillions of stars that are above us all the time and you’ve never seen them before. That’s where I want to go. That’s why I came here.”
My head tilted back. He was right. I could see Orion’s belt and Venus and a waning gibbous, but not much else. “Me too.”
“It’s almost like a completely different sky. I’ll take you out there sometime.” For some reason, he seemed suddenly angry. His hand wrapped around a rock and pitched it like a baseball, lobbed it all the way to the fence with a tinkling rattle of metal. “Don’t let this place get the better of you, Cass. If you have to get out, get the hell out. There are private companies that can take you into space if you really want to go. It’s not worth becoming some . . . secret government weapon or something.” Now I could tell he was kidding.
“Yeah, like I could ever afford a private jet to low-Earth orbit.”
He grinned at me; his teeth shone for a second in the light, and then he was serious again. He stood, brushing dried grass from his shorts, and offered me his hand. “I’m gonna hit the hay. Are you coming?”
“In a few minutes.”
I heard his tennis shoes crunching on the grass, and then I was alone with the sky.
“Good morning, and congratulations for making it this far,” Felix said, altogether too cheerful for the hour. We were back on a classroom schedule, bright and early the next morning. But this was new—Felix had never come into the classroom before. “We have touched on the science of meditation and its effect on brain waves. Today we’re going to put it into practice.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes, but then he caught my attention. “Let me show you what I mean. Any volunteers?”
Felix picked Emilio and gestured for him to sit in the chair in the front of the room. He fitted a few electrodes to one of the shaved sides of Emilio’s scalp.
We sat quietly as Felix coaxed Emilio with soothing tones into a supposedly meditative state and watched the EEG scratch out a change. Emilio’s eyelids closed and he looked normal, even bored.
“Now,” Felix said, “Emilio is still conscious. Aren’t you, Emilio?”
“Yep.” His voice was calm but alert. He didn’t sound like a zombie.
“But his neural oscillations are slightly different than ours are right now. At the moment all of you are probably in a beta state, alert and focused. Emilio’s reading a higher output of alpha oscillations. Which means he’s relaxed, but still able to react and respond to outside stimuli. Would you agree, Emilio?”
“Sure, boss.”
“Thank you. You may go back to your seat.” Felix peeled the electrodes off.
Emilio’s eyes opened and he blinked. “Yeah, that didn’t feel like much, doc.” He moved back into his seat. “Honestly, felt like I was falling asleep.”
“Exactly. What we want you to be able to do is enter a state between sleeping and waking. When you sleep, your muscles relax, your blood vessels relax, your body consumes less oxygen. Your digestive system slows down and you need fewer calories. This is the ideal state in an environment where every ounce of mass costs us in fuel. If we can reduce the need for oxygen and chemical energy, we can reduce the load that rocket engines will have to push out of Earth’s gravitational pull and increase how long astronauts can survive on a deep-space mission.” He cleared his throat, appearing a little uncomfortable. “But we do not want you to actually sleep. We want you to be able to maintain some awareness of the outside world. Someone needs to remain conscious on board should anything go wrong. We want to achieve a . . . hibernation, of sorts. There’s a specific range of neural oscillations we’re trying to achieve, and the person who is able to maintain that range without drugs will be a much more competitive candidate.”
I shot a sideways glance at Luka.
“Who would like to go next?” Felix asked.
I didn’t even raise my hand; I just stood up and sat in the chair next to Felix before anyone else could get there first.
Felix hooked me up and then talked me under, his voice low and soothing. “Picture a place where you feel most relaxed. A sky full of clouds. Hear waves crashing on a sandy beach, wind rustling through trees. Feel your muscles relax. Let go of your anxieties.”
All this hippie nonsense was making me angry, not relaxed. It wasn’t working. I could tell from Felix’s frustrated little murmurs, which he probably thought I couldn’t hear, that something should be happening by now.
I rifled through my mind, looking for some memory that made me happy. The first thing I could find was music. I buried myself in the memory of piano notes—the satisfying way the keys plinked under my fingers, the cool, smooth surface of the ivory, the music seamlessly streaming from my brain to my hands to the instrument and then filling the air like bubbles. Taking that indefinable magic from my imagination and making it a reality, a beautiful melody.
The world outside of my body—the tangy smell of Felix’s aftershave, the feeling of the cold chair beneath my skin, and the sensation of everyone watching me—all faded like an old photograph. I was nothing but the blackness on the inside of my eyelids and the music inside my head.
He coaxed me out of it after a while, and it felt like I was slowly rising to the surface after being underwater for a very long time. When I opened my eyes, the lights felt too bright, and Felix looked perplexed as he removed the electrodes.
“What?” I pressed. He was looking at me like I’d grown a second head.
“You did it.” He swiveled the EEG readout screen toward me and pointed. “Right here, this dip . . . you . . . you’ve balanced perfectly in semiconsciousness, right where we want you. And on the first try. What were you thinking about?”
“I was just . . .” I didn’t exactly want to share my method with everyone. “Relaxing.”
“Well, it worked. Good job.”
Emilio’s mouth was hanging open a little. He flashed me a little hidden thumbs-up without smiling, and I felt a twinge of guilt. Despite what he’d said on the track, I wondered if he’d already given up.
I got out of the chair and went back to my own. Kendra stared at me as I passed. Hanna ignored me.
Luka’s expression was unreadable, almost angry, focused on the wall in front of him. We hadn’t spoken since leaving Pierce’s office, and it felt strange after how close we’d been during wilderness survival. I wondered if he blamed me for his first less-than-perfect placement. But wilderness survival hadn’t seemed to affect his ratings at all; Luka was still number one.
Felix examined the readout a few minutes more before he remembered he was supposed to be teaching. “Marine mammals and some avians have evolved the ability to put one half of their brain to sleep while the other remains awake. This way, they do not drown or get eaten, because they are never fully unconscious. The brain is still sending and receiving signals from external stimuli even while the body is in a relaxed and motionless state. We’ve studied these phenomena for years, and I believe we now understand the type of neurotransmitter that is responsible. The astronauts chosen for this mission will be given this drug transdermally to induce this half hibernation.”
He was animated, excited, carried away—but the looks on our faces stopped him, and his countenance changed. “I know how that must sound to you, but if you are uncomfortable with science that has not been fully proven to be safe, you know where the door is.”
I sucked in a breath and held it.
They wouldn’t need this technology if we were only going to the moon, or even back to Mars. This was something huge. And I was so close.
Felix nodded slowly. “Let’s continue. Hanna, would you come up here, please?”
Hanna did well. She maintained the right balance, stayed in control. Almost as long as I had. One by one, the entire class took their turns.
No one did better than me. Not even Luka. He struggled to relax. His brain waves rarely shifted out from beta. He was always alert, and that was his weakness.
No EEG the next day. Instead, we were told to meet at the training pool. Once there, we donned thin, short-sleeved wet suits, our shins and forearms exposed, and gathered like a team of divers a few feet from the water’s edge.
I could tell Hanna was shaking just standing next to the pool.
The last time we were here, there were so many of us that I had had to be careful not to get shoved and fall into the water. Now the ten of us were spaced as far apart as asteroids in front of Colonel Pierce and a tall, elderly but athletic white guy in an expensive black suit. His face was plastered into an almost-smile, which was maybe supposed to be reassuring, but the expression was so wooden it was like looking at a marionette. His face was almost shiny in the watery light—like maybe he’d had a good amount of plastic surgery—which didn’t help the whole puppet-face thing.
We stood in front of a large silver tube that looked suspiciously like a space-age coffin, propped upright. Except that coffins don’t have tiny plexiglass windows in the lid.
I flashed back to class with Copeland, what seemed like weeks ago. The specs she’d shown us. It hadn’t been theory. They had actually built this thing. They actually had the technology for human hibernation, which they intended to use. And they had, for whatever reason, kept it a secret.
I felt a thrill. That could only mean we were going somewhere far, far away.
“Welcome, candidates,” said the marionette-faced man after giving us time to be properly in awe. His smile widened, exaggerating his already-prominent cheekbones, in obvious pride. “My name is Clayton Crane, founder and CEO of the Society for Extrasolar Exploration. I’m joining you today to observe this particular test, because the odd-looking thing before you is something my company built. We call it the Human Hibernation Module, or HHM. It is with this technology that we plan to boldly go farther than we’ve ever ventured into space.” His face held a cheeky grin, and his eyes sparkled in electric excitement.
I found myself sharing a glance with Hanna. She looked a little terrified and a little angry beneath her otherwise stoic mask. This was not going to be easy for her. I looked around at Mitsuko and Emilio, but both were focused on the pair of men before us, Mitsuko’s jaw set.
I steeled my will. Mr. Crane was here personally to observe; I had to be the best.
The colonel picked up where Crane left off. “The astronauts on this mission will enter the HHMs after exiting Earth’s atmosphere and routing their course, upon which the ship will switch to autopilot for the duration of the flight. Each astronaut will wear a space suit with a specially fitted helmet allowing the computer to monitor their breathing, brain waves, and other vitals. The problem with the vital-sign monitor is that it can’t take any action while the astronauts are in the HHM beyond its normal homeostatic capacity. Should there be an emergency, an alarm will sound. A human brain needs to be alert for that alarm, in a state from which it can be easily roused in order to take any lifesaving action that may be necessary. The rest of the crew will be in full hibernation, unconscious. The crew slot you all are attempting to fill will require you to remain in the lightest form of sedation with minimal drug influence, in order to maintain constant communication with the monitoring computer.”
The pieces began to fall into place: why we had to learn to sleep with half our brain, like dolphins. Because we were the fail-safe.
“Today we’re going to simulate the experience of being inside the HHM. In a real-world scenario, you would be fitted with heart-rate, oxygen-consumption, and brain-wave monitors, just to name a few, and an IV to provide you with nutrients, water, and other things necessary to life, as well as hormones to suppress any nonvital functions and a variety of waste-disposal systems. But today, your face mask will do little more than provide oxygen and protect your eyes. We’re doing this today with only wet suits, so you can get the full experience of the cryogel. Don’t worry; it’s not going to hurt.” The way he emphasized the word made me pretty sure he was lying. “The capsules will fill with gel that will help protect you from radiation and micrometeoroids, and serve as a cushion in the case of any turbulence. Now, once we fit you inside, we’ll shut the door and fill the tube. We’ll start you off with five minutes, and if you can handle it, we’ll go for fifteen minutes so you can get a good feel for the experience.”
Emilio raised his hand. “Sir, how long can this thing sustain a human life in suspension?”
“The HHM can sustain human life with a minimum of function for many months, depending on the needs of the mission. We’ve had successful tests of up to a year and counting. Of course, there are drawbacks: loss of muscle function, visual acuity, mental and physical endurance, loss of microbiome and immune response. But these have all been shown to be temporary.” He waved away a hand as if dismissing all of these side effects we would potentially be exposed to. “We are not testing the HHM today. Rather, we are testing your ability to withstand it. Whichever of you is chosen will not be sedated to the level of the other crew; a part of you will be aware at all times. Some can find it . . . troubling.”
Aware. Of being kept alive in a test tube. Not eating. Not drinking. Not moving. For months.
I snuck a look at Hanna. This sounded like her hell on Earth. She must be freaking out, but her face was set like it was carved into Mount Rushmore. I waited for her to quit. She must know this was her weakness. But honestly, I had no idea who would be the first one to panic in that small drowning coffin.
Except that it wouldn’t be me.
Anton went first. He climbed into the metal tube and the techs strapped a face mask flush against his skin so that it covered his nose and mouth. Then goggles. He looked like a swimmer who needed prescription lenses; the clear plastic encircled his eyes from eyebrow to cheekbone and made him look fish-eyed. The techs gave him something small, and he stuck them in his ears. The mask fogged up as he exhaled, and Anton gave us a thumbs-up.
They shut the door.
It made sense to me now why they included a window in the door to the HHM. Why they would risk a structural weakness in something meant to keep out the unfiltered radiation of burning stars in deep space. Without that window, you wouldn’t know that there was anything alive inside the capsule. That window alerted someone to the helpless human life inside.
Not to mention the human life inside, alive and half awake.
From this far away, all I could see of Anton was a sliver of his goggles, of his head turning side to side as he watched the tube fill up with gel, a light blue tint distorting him as though he was underwater. Even as the gel covered his head, he seemed okay.
The colonel started his stopwatch. I counted the seconds.
The colonel’s five-minute mark arrived seven seconds after mine. “Okay, give him five more.”
Anton made it the full fifteen without a problem. Apparently satisfied, they started to drain the gel. They wouldn’t let him out until it was empty.
When the tech unlatched the door and opened it, Anton stood with his arms wrapped like vises around his torso, and he was shivering like my uncle’s little dog in winter. The techs moved in to detach him from the oxygen, and then he practically fell out of the capsule.
One of the techs brought him a towel and quickly got the rest of the gel off him, pieces of the clear blue gel falling in semisolid lumps at his feet.
“It’s okay,” Anton said through chattering teeth as I moved closer to check on him. “The gel . . . it doesn’t hurt. But when it’s gone . . . it makes you . . . so cold . . .”
“In practice, the side effects of the gel won’t be noticeable, as your skin will be covered with your suit and not exposed to the gel directly. It isn’t harmful, however, and dissipates quickly.” Mr. Crane’s voice was detached and ultrareasonable as the techs led Anton away. “Best to know now, in practice, what it feels like, should there be any sort of malfunction.”
I felt Mr. Crane’s gaze fall on me and knew what was coming.
The colonel hardly waited a heartbeat. “Gupta, you’re up.”