A Prayer From the outer rim
She loved me once, but can love endure?
Her name is Cassie, after the constellation, Cassiopeia. She never liked that name, but I saw the beauty of it. It suited her. She was not that boastful queen of mythology. To me, she was queen of the very stars in my sky and the true love of my life.
We met by chance on a layover at orbital station E-34. She was a propulsion engineer, I was environmental. Exchanging complaints about our overdue shuttle, we began to talk. We were both on our way to Mars planetary assignments. And once aboard our flight, we spent the hours lost in each other’s company, talking and laughing, telling our stories, as the beautiful blue globe of our home absently drifted away behind us. Our time on Mars felt like a dream; we were like children at play. Every moment not engaged in work, we spent together. And it was there in the open air of the Martian plains that her kiss and warm embrace showed me that she had fallen as much in love with me as I was with her.
In the shadow of Phobos we laid talking, in awe of the many worlds. We playfully argued about the technologies that inspired us. Obviously, we both had our biases. She claimed that in the last hundred years our greatest achievement was the ion drives that power our ships. For me it was the undersea colonies on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. But where we both agreed, was the perfection of cryogenics. Without the technology to put us into stasis for extended periods we would never have been able to overcome the myriad problems of long space voyages, nor would our goals of terraforming other worlds be possible.
It was this last subject that had our most recent attention. Once again, we would both be going into the deep freeze.
Permanent positions had become available in the Outer Rim, a new world discovered, prime for re-imagining. We were both accepted and ready for what would be the work of our lives.
It is a remarkable experience, this artificial sleep. I myself have felt the deep freeze eight times, though Cassie only twice. But on this trip, we’d have no need to worry about the effects of the process, how hibernation skews otherwise normal notions of passing time. In cryo-sleep, aging is a relative process depending on the length and speed of the voyage. Physiologically, Cassie and I are nearly the same practical age, but in Earth measurements, I am fifty-seven years her elder. It seems that our separate journeys in space-time have left us aligned at the right place and at the right time in our lives. And now, as we prepare for the ten-year jump to the Outer Rim, we will share the voyage, side by side, and arrive little different in age and appearance than at our departure. When we arrive at our virgin world, we will be ready to begin our new life together.
She was nervous on launch-date. Everyone was, I suppose. I did my best to reassure her. The entire crew and engineering team would be fast asleep before the engines fired and sent us hurdling from low Martian orbit into the vast sea of space. In a few minutes we would all be quietly bound in dreamless slumber. A decade would seem little more than a simple night’s sleep when we awoke in orbit around our new home.
Leaning backward in my tube, I smiled at Cassie. We’d arranged to be across from each other. I wanted her face to be the first thing I’d see when I woke up. I shuddered momentarily in the cool cryo-tube wearing only a diaper. Cassie returned a nervous smile. I watched goosebumps rise across her pale skin. Technicians placed IV’s into our necks and thighs. These would circulate the cryoplast fluids which keep our blood from freezing and which supply the small amount of nutrients necessary to sustain us while we sleep. I winked at her one last time as the transparent lids came down and sealed the tubes. I watched as her open eyes went blank with the coming of our artificial hibernation.
I too felt the paralyzing effect on my limbs, at first relaxing, then numbing, then complete disembodiment. I watched as the Technicians made their final system checks. Their mumbled voices through the cryo-tube’s shell faded as they left to exit the ship. Lights in the chamber dimmed until only the other tubes gave any illumination. I realized then that something had gone terribly wrong. The fluids pumping through me had paralyzed my body, but they had failed to put me to sleep.
As I lie here now, the panic has almost subsided. For a long time, it seemed, my mind screamed silently at the deaf and the invisible, though I knew all along that there was no savior. My mind floats incorporeal, aware of everything, but unable to interact with the world around. I remember the long blast of the engines, hearing the enormous rattle howling through the hull. And then the absolute, deafening silence of the long void ahead. Now, the horror comes and goes in unexpected waves.
I do not sleep. I do not dream. I experience no sensation - only a long, terrible stream of consciousness. The only reality of my existence stands across from me. Two meters away and completely out of reach. The glow of Cassie’s cryo-tube. Within that faint blue radiance, I see her face. Eyes open, she stares at me, moment after moment, as what must be passing days become weeks folding into meaningless months. But there is no comfort there. There is no sign of active mind behind those eyes, only the ghosts of hopes and dreams once clung to. And I cannot turn away. I cannot force my eyelids shut. I cannot escape the barren gaze. I stand imprisoned before it, wide awake, thinking, thinking, thinking. I can feel the madness taking hold.
It dawned on me, just as my sanity seemed to tease itself away. What if she too were trapped in this awful cage? What if behind those blank eyes her mind shares in my torment? What if the singular, everlasting vision of my face taunts her with the same horrific monotony as hers tortures me? How terrible that the thought of our shared suffering is the only sense of connection that I can feel.
It is a ten-year trip to the Outer Rim. Can we survive in this disembodied state for that long? Is there some limit to what the human mind can withstand? God help us…God please have mercy…what a horrible creature you must be to abandon us so…
And if we survive, will we be the same? Is it already too late? Will we ever be able to look upon each other’s face without knowing the torture of it? Without feeling the weight of mindless examination? Will she forgive my revulsion at her sight, and can I overcome my fear and hatred of her mocking stare? Her soulless eyes reflecting the cold infinity of lifeless space.
I pray when we arrive at the Outer Rim, that the same two people will emerge. That there is hope for some freedom of release and redemption. That our minds are not completely mad and that we might still be capable of feeling the emotions that made us human.
Yes, she loved me once, but can love endure?
