Descending Road - ARRIVAL by Dana W. Paxson

ARRIVAL

0 NC, Day Minus 370

The bitter chill of the steel floor stabbed through Miriam‘s wet bare feet. She stumbled toward Allan‘s rack, barely noticing the waking team drawing back from her as she passed. Shivering in her light robe, her mind lurching through dark patches and racing maniacally after the long Sleep, she clutched the side rails where he lay. The ship was under long-axis spin.

“Allan, please, come back up.” The cylindrical half-shell of steel and biomatrix sponge cradled Allan‘s frail, naked body in a thick bath of nutrients; two sweating cryotechnicians with maser heaters fought to drive warmth into his arteries and bring him awake. His pure-white face, a dark hoarfrost of stubble staining its jaw, lay as motionless as ice.

The older one, a stocky, gray-haired woman, stripped off her mask and said, “It’s no use.” Allan‘s rack stood in the middle of a long line of others; two adjacent racks lay empty, their teams of waking specialists having just lugged two dead bodies back to the cold-storage matrix, grumbling at the weight, stumbling over droid debris.

“Keep trying.” Miriam reached for Allan‘s face. She’d seen this look so many times in the morgue back in Cape Town, auditing the autopsies for the medical board.

The younger technician, a short, plump man with trimmed brown beard-growth on his chin, took her wrist. “Clogged,” he said, his eyes bloodshot. “On the way down into the Sleep, back at Earth, the cryoviruses must have mutated. We’ve lost over seven hundred that way, so far, out of nine hundred we’ve tried. It’s too bad.”

“Clogged?” Miriam stared at Allan‘s gaunt jaw. Tears burned her cheeks.

The young man stared at the floor and recited in a flat voice, “The mutated viruses give off a coagulant enzyme, so on the way back up, the whole vascular system solidifies. And there’s no equipment to show us why, and no time.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “He’s as gone as Earth.”

Miriam stood by Allan‘s rack for a long time, until the workers hauled him away, and someone else called for a doctor.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	ARRIVAL 0 NC, Day Minus 370 The bitter chill of the steel floor stabbed through Miriam‘s wet bare feet. She stumbled toward Allan‘s rack, barely noticing the waking team drawing back from her as she passed. Shivering in her light robe, her mind lurching through dark patches and racing maniacally after the long Sleep, she clutched the side rails where he lay. The ship was under long-axis spin. “Allan, please, come back up.” The cylindrical half-shell of steel and biomatrix sponge cradled Allan‘s frail, naked body in a thick bath of nutrients; two sweating cryotechnicians with maser heaters fought to drive warmth into his arteries and bring him awake. His pure-white face, a dark hoarfrost of stubble staining its jaw, lay as motionless as ice. The older one, a stocky, gray-haired woman, stripped off her mask and said, “It’s no use.” Allan‘s rack stood in the middle of a long line of others; two adjacent racks lay empty, their teams of waking specialists having just lugged two dead bodies back to the cold-storage matrix, grumbling at the weight, stumbling over droid debris. “Keep trying.” Miriam reached for Allan‘s face. She’d seen this look so many times in the morgue back in Cape Town, auditing the autopsies for the medical board. The younger technician, a short, plump man with trimmed brown beard-growth on his chin, took her wrist. “Clogged,” he said, his eyes bloodshot. “On the way down into the Sleep, back at Earth, the cryoviruses must have mutated. We’ve lost over seven hundred that way, so far, out of nine hundred we’ve tried. It’s too bad.” “Clogged?” Miriam stared at Allan‘s gaunt jaw. Tears burned her cheeks. The young man stared at the floor and recited in a flat voice, “The mutated viruses give off a coagulant enzyme, so on the way back up, the whole vascular system solidifies. And there’s no equipment to show us why, and no time.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “He’s as gone as Earth.” Miriam stood by Allan‘s rack for a long time, until the workers hauled him away, and someone else called for a doctor.