{"id":3417,"date":"2010-11-15T12:33:32","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T17:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=3417"},"modified":"2011-03-06T21:17:27","modified_gmt":"2011-03-07T04:17:27","slug":"another-excerpt-from-genesis-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/another-excerpt-from-genesis-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Another excerpt from Genesis Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made a lot of progress on the latest draft of my novel Genesis Earth<\/em> last week, and figured it was time to post another excerpt.\u00a0 This one comes from chapter 4, when Michael and Terra arrive at the star system they’ve been sent to explore.<\/p>\n

A slightly truncated version of this excerpt won first place in the 2009 Mayhew short story contest at BYU.\u00a0 I’ve made a few minor edits since then, mostly for clarification, but nothing too major.\u00a0 Enjoy!<\/p>\n

They say that cryofreeze is the closest thing to death short of actually dying.\u00a0 I believe it.<\/p>\n

First, you strip off your clothes and lower yourself down into the coffin-shaped cryo chamber.\u00a0 The glass seals shut above you, and a cold, green mist fills the narrow space, penetrating your naked skin.\u00a0 The mist contains chemicals that freeze your cells properly, so that they don\u2019t crack or break when you thaw out–but it has a nauseous smell to it, and makes you feel sticky.\u00a0 Your skin starts to change from pink to white to light blue, slow enough not to notice right away, but quick enough to catch if you know what to look for.<\/p>\n

As the chemicals continue their work, you start to shiver.\u00a0 Just before the cold becomes unbearable, sleeping gas seeps in through the top valves of the chamber.\u00a0 You pass out, too stiff to peacefully fall asleep.\u00a0 The rapid freezing process–where your heart and lungs cease their natural functions–happens while you\u2019re unconscious.<\/p>\n

They say that you don\u2019t dream when you’re in cryo, but that\u2019s a lie–they just don\u2019t know how to explain it.\u00a0 Neither do I, but I can say something about the experience.\u00a0 The lines between the senses and your own thoughts blur together, until reality itself becomes utterly unrecognizable.\u00a0 Imperceptible images flash across your awareness, beyond your ability to process them.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s what nothing itself feels like; after all, is it really possible to comprehend non-existence without thinking of it in terms of space and time?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know–I just know that I don\u2019t want to go back there.<\/p>\n

By the time you regain consciousness, the thawing process has already run most of its course.\u00a0 The flashes and images become brighter and more perceptible.\u00a0 You have a sort of falling sensation, during which you become aware of your body.<\/p>\n

Painfully aware.<\/p>\n

When you open your eyes, you\u2019ve got a splitting headache and a nauseous stomach.\u00a0 Every time you move, another muscle\u00a0 cramps up on you.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t careful, you empty your bowels right there in the chamber.<\/p>\n

The glass hisses open, the chamber tilts up to a forty five degree angle, and your limp body slides down the cold metal back until you find yourself sitting on your ankles.\u00a0 Your breath feels like fire in your lungs, and even though steam envelopes your body from all sides, you feel deathly cold.\u00a0 Too weak to stand up, you fall forward onto your hands and knees instead.<\/p>\n

The vomiting is the worst.\u00a0 Forty year old bile splatters cold across the floor, followed by a good ten minutes of dry heaving.\u00a0 Each convulsion is so painful, it makes you feel as if you’re coughing up your own stomach.\u00a0 After you\u2019re finished, you want to do nothing but lie on the ground–in your vomit or to the side, it doesn\u2019t really matter–and cry.<\/p>\n

But all that passes with time. After lying on the floor for what seems like hours, your body starts to take strength.\u00a0 The headaches die down, and the cramps slowly diminish.\u00a0 When you open your eyes again, the stars fade away like some kind of ebbing soda fizz, revealing the unfamiliar room in which you have awakened.\u00a0 You bend your fingers, lift your arms, and slowly drag yourself away from that god-awful place.<\/p>\n

After that, what is there to do?\u00a0 Wash up, get dressed in your vacuum wrapped forty year old clothes, and clean up the mess.<\/p>\n

My stomach throbbed as I walked onto the bridge, but I ignored the pain.\u00a0 My aching body could wait; I had more important things to do.<\/p>\n

The instruments showed that we had arrived nearly thirty light hours out from the central star, just outside the orbit of the fourth planet in the system.\u00a0 An unfamiliar starfield shone through the windows, dimmed somewhat by the presence of EB-175 even though the star was still far away.\u00a0 A quick review of the automated ship’s log showed that no significant objects had come anywhere close to the ship in the last two months.\u00a0 Nothing had been sent to intercept us.<\/p>\n

I blinked and reread the log, just to make sure.\u00a0 If there was intelligent alien life, maybe they were waiting, watching us from a distance.\u00a0 Or maybe the log was wrong.<\/p>\n

My bodily needs eventually overcame my scientific obsession, however.\u00a0 I stood up from my seat on the bridge and made my way to the ship\u2019s tiny mess hall where I could find something to satisfy my cramping stomach.<\/p>\n

I felt sick and disoriented for nearly an hour.\u00a0 In that time, I ate some meal and fruit drink, but not much else.\u00a0 It felt eerie to be alone on the ship, but I didn\u2019t want to thaw Terra until I had recovered my strength.<\/p>\n

After an hour, I was ready.\u00a0 At least, I thought I was.<\/p>\n

Terra didn\u2019t look human–she looked like a giant doll, a pale, lifeless marionette.\u00a0 Her skin was a whitish-blue, while her other features–fingernails, toenails, lips, nipples–stood out in high contrast shades of black and purple.\u00a0 Her hair was darker than I remembered, as if the cryofreeze had sucked the color out of that, too.\u00a0 The glass of the chamber was cold to the touch, and the expansion of her frozen bodily fluids made her body look slightly bloated.\u00a0 I felt like a voyeur staring at her, but the sight was so morbidly fascinating that I could hardly turn away.<\/p>\n

Eventually, however, I got myself together and started the thawing process.\u00a0 A hissing sound came from within the chamber, and a greenish mist washed over her.\u00a0 Gradually, almost imperceptibly, redness and color began to return to her skin.\u00a0 Her body deflated as the temperature in the chamber rose and her bodily fluids began to melt.\u00a0 A robotic arm with two suction cups fastened onto her chest and twitched as a series of quick electric shocks restarted her heart.<\/p>\n

I periodically glanced down at the control screen, monitoring the various measures of her status.\u00a0 My legs felt stiff, and my hands trembled–I\u2019d never run through this procedure before, and I barely knew what I was doing.\u00a0 The process was supposed to be fully automated, but cryonics is an imperfect science, and problems frequently arise.<\/p>\n

About ten minutes in, I noticed something unusual.\u00a0 Little blue splotches were forming on Terra\u2019s skin at the extremities on her hands and feet.\u00a0 After half a minute, they started showing up on her thighs and torso.\u00a0 I frowned; that didn’t seem right.\u00a0 I adjusted the heating pattern inside the chamber, but the blotches didn\u2019t go away.\u00a0 Instead, the bleeping from the computer that marked her heartbeat started drifting into an unpredictable pattern.<\/p>\n

With sweaty palms, I accelerated the thawing process.\u00a0 The uneven heating was probably causing blockages in her veins and arteries.\u00a0 I\u2019d need to break those up soon, if her heart, brain, and lungs were to fully revive their functions.\u00a0 She could only last so long on the machine–<\/p>\n

Without warning, the bleeping turned into a constant monotone.<\/p>\n

I glanced down and cried out in shock.\u00a0 The line showing her heartbeat had flatlined–according to the machine, she was clinically dead.<\/p>\n

I frantically keyed in a series of commands on my console.\u00a0 The robotic arm reattached the suction cups to Terra\u2019s chest and reapplied the electric shocks.\u00a0 To my relief, her heart started beating again, but weaker and more erratic than before.\u00a0 A second later, the warning indicators on half the instruments blinked on.\u00a0 My heart skipped a beat as they flashed in rhythmic chorus.\u00a0 This was serious–very serious.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease, no,\u201d I said, face paling.\u00a0 There was no-one on the ship to hear me, though; I was alone.<\/p>\n

Within seconds, I figured out what the problem was.\u00a0 Micro-cramps in her muscles were causing uneven heating, cutting off the arteries and capillaries in various parts of her body.\u00a0 Her heart hadn\u2019t recovered sufficiently to break the blockages, so they were spreading.<\/p>\n

My hands trembled so much I doubted my fingers could type a coherent sentence.\u00a0 In spite of that, I worked as quickly as I could to counteract the complications, maintaining constant periodic shocks to her heart and significantly increasing the heat on her upper torso.\u00a0 With any luck, her blood would warm up enough to relax the contracted muscles and break the blockages.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Still, most the indicators remained in the red–the electric shocks were simply unsustainable.\u00a0 I waited as long as I thought I could, then crossed my fingers and shut them off.\u00a0 Her heart kept pumping, but the beat soon drifted back into unpredictability.<\/p>\n

I glanced up at the cryo chamber and caught my breath.\u00a0 Her arms, legs, and chest twitched and convulsed at utter random, undulating in a slow motion seizure.\u00a0 She had no control of her body.\u00a0 Chills ran down my neck and arms.<\/p>\n

She needed more than the machines could give her.\u00a0 I pulled out a syringe from the medical cabinet and nervously fumbled through nearly four dozen canisters of liquid drugs.\u00a0 The wrong injection could kill her, but if I didn\u2019t give her something right away, she didn\u2019t have a chance.\u00a0 I grabbed the formula that I thought would best relax her muscles and filled the syringe.<\/p>\n

A few of the indicators were moving out of the red when I returned, but the situation was still serious.\u00a0 A brainwave scan showed that her body was operating 85% autonomously from the machines and that she had regained partial consciousness.\u00a0 I waited until the indicator reached 95% and cracked open the glass.<\/p>\n

Steam poured out of the chamber and splashed across the ceiling, while the sound of violent coughing came from within.\u00a0 Terra half slid, half fell to the ground.\u00a0 I rushed forward and caught her before she hit the floor, and she responded by vomiting on the front of my shirt.<\/p>\n

Despite the heat of the steam, her skin felt cold, and her vomit even colder.\u00a0 I held her off to one side and patted her back to help her force it out.\u00a0 She stopped twitching and coughed a couple of times, but quickly grew weak in my arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on, Terra!\u201d I pleaded.\u00a0 Her breathing was too ragged for her to respond.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t any time to lose.\u00a0 I pulled out the syringe and balled my fingers around it into a fist.\u00a0 It was built for a fast, emergency injection–the kind that could be jammed into someone\u2019s leg.\u00a0 I brought it down on her right thigh.\u00a0 Her blotchy-blue skin rippled a little, and the fluid went in almost immediately.<\/p>\n

A couple of seconds passed before the medicine took any effect.\u00a0 When it did, her whole body went stiff, and her eyes opened wide, revealing dilated pupils.\u00a0 Before I could react, she started convulsing violently, as if she were going into a seizure.\u00a0 I set her on the floor as gently as I could and held onto her head to make sure that she didn\u2019t injure herself.<\/p>\n

After about fifteen seconds, her body went limp again.\u00a0 I put two fingers up to her neck and felt for a pulse.\u00a0 To my relief, it was steady and strong.\u00a0 I sighed and practically collapsed.<\/p>\n

As if in response, her chest heaved and she started vomiting again.\u00a0 I scrambled to my knees and turned her onto her side.\u00a0 How much stuff did she have in there–hadn’t she followed the 24 hour no food rule?\u00a0 No time to worry about that–just help her get it out without choking on the stuff.<\/p>\n

She vomited and coughed until snot dripped down her face and the hoarse sound of her dry heaving filled the room.\u00a0 She was still too weak to sit up, so I supported her as best I could until she stopped.\u00a0 Sobs of pain slowly replaced the retching.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you all right?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

What a stupid thing to say!<\/p>\n

She looked up and gave me an icy glare.\u00a0 Tears and snot mingled on her cheeks. \u201cNo!\u201d she shouted, then went back to coughing.<\/p>\n

I held her until she began to quiet down.\u00a0 With the worst of it gone, relief came slowly to my nervous body.\u00a0 Her skin was getting warmer and her heartbeat was steady now.\u00a0 After forty years on the threshold of death, she was alive again.<\/p>\n

Alive and completely naked.\u00a0 My cheeks flushed, and I set her on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you stand up yet?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot…yet,\u201d she groaned. \u201cCramps…everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

I grabbed a towel on the side of the control panel and hastily draped it over her.\u00a0 She reached up with a hand and weakly held onto it.\u00a0 I waited until her breathing became less labored before asking her again.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about now?\u201d<\/p>\n

She clenched her teeth and nodded.<\/p>\n

I stood up and took her by one hand, pulling her gently to her feet.\u00a0 She bent her knees carefully as she sat up, still holding onto the towel.\u00a0 When she was standing up, she let go of my hand and reached out for the wall.\u00a0 The towel fell off of one side, but she didn\u2019t make any attempt to fix it.\u00a0 She still seemed fairly incoherent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s…our…status?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is going well.\u00a0 We\u2019re about two light hours out from the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood,\u201d she groaned, slowly wrapping the towel back around her.\u00a0 I almost reached out a hand to help, but hesitated.<\/p>\n

\u201cD–do you need help?\u201d I stammered.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, thanks, I think I\u2019ve got it.\u201d She glanced up at me, then down at my chest and grinned. \u201cSorry about your shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d I looked down and saw the vomit. \u201cOh, that.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded weakly and closed her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you sure you don\u2019t need help?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t…think so.\u00a0 Getting…better.\u201d She staggered away from the wall and nearly fell over. \u201cSo…cold…\u201d<\/p>\n

She had stopped shivering.\u00a0 That was a bad sign.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere,\u201d I said, taking her hand. \u201cFollow me.\u201d<\/p>\n

If she wasn\u2019t shivering, her body wasn\u2019t generating enough heat yet and she was at serious risk for hypothermia.\u00a0 The best way to counteract that was to immerse her in warm water.\u00a0 I led her down the hall and into the narrow, cylindrical shower unit in the bathroom.\u00a0 She nearly passed out on the way there, and I practically carried her the last half of the way.\u00a0 The towel fell off in the hallway, making things only more awkward for me, but that was no longer important.<\/p>\n

I leaned her up against the smooth wall of the unit, and she slid down to her knees.\u00a0 Her skin was sickly pale, her arms limp, and she mumbled incoherently as her head flopped back against the wall, hair partially covering her face.<\/p>\n

I bit my lip and reached around the side to activate the water.\u00a0 Should I turn the heat up to full, or would that give her system too much shock?\u00a0 My heart pounded in my chest–no time to waste.\u00a0 I set the temperature to low-warm and hit the activate button.<\/p>\n

Jets of lukewarm water shot out from all sides, drenching my already soiled shirt and running out into the room.\u00a0 Rivulets ran down Terra\u2019s face and pale skin, but she didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on,\u201d I said, ignoring the water soaking my clothes as I knelt down and put my hands on her shoulder. \u201cTerra, are you alright?\u00a0 Terra!\u201d<\/p>\n

I pressed my fingers against her neck and found a pulse.\u00a0 Her body shuddered and she coughed.\u00a0 Nothing else to do but give her some space and let the shower do its work.<\/p>\n

My heart still pounding, I stepped out of the unit and shut the door.\u00a0 My shirt was soaking wet, and Terra\u2019s watery vomit ran down my legs and pooled on the floor.\u00a0 As I stood there dripping, Terra stumbled noisily to her feet, teeth chattering.\u00a0 The diffuse glass began to steam up, indicating that she\u2019d turned up the heat on her own.<\/p>\n

She was recovering.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour clothes are outside,\u201d I said as I pulled out the vacuum sealed bags and put them on a shelf next to the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d she groaned.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you okay?\u00a0 Do you need any more help?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo…thanks,\u201d she muttered.\u00a0 I left the room.<\/p>\n

When I reached the hallway, I leaned against the wall and promptly collapsed in exhaustion.\u00a0 A puddle of grimy water formed around me on the floor, but I no longer cared.\u00a0 I sat there by myself for a long time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made a lot of progress on the latest draft of my novel Genesis Earth last week, and figured it was time to post another excerpt.\u00a0 This one comes from chapter 4, when Michael and Terra arrive at the star system they’ve been sent to explore. A slightly truncated version of this excerpt won first… Continue reading Another excerpt from Genesis Earth<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,1],"tags":[164,474,163],"class_list":["post-3417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ge","category-uncategorized","tag-contests","tag-excerpts","tag-mayhew-contest-2009","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-T7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3417"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4449,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions\/4449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}