prologue
There is a bump in the ride. An unforeseen hitch. Although every precaution was taken by ancestors long since dead, the annual computer feed, responsible for recounting history and experience and edifying its recipient, receives a one from its master when it should have received a zero. An essential electrode disengages from its subject seven thousand years too soon. The journey continues, though all is lost.
A red light turns to green, the room sighs, and the weight of countless ages lifts ponderously from the sterile floor and hisses its departure. Fresh air, real air, sweeps into the chamber with the vague scent of lilacs on its back. With no further preamble, motion and activity are restored, the journey has ended, and life begins anew.
His eyes are open at last. His body temperature is normal again. He draws his first breath in centuries and wonders where the lilacs are. Then he wonders what he just wondered, and forgets he ever knew the scent, the flower, or the season it represented. His eyes are open, but there is nothing he recognizes on the ceiling of the chamber. He has no memory of eyes or ceilings. He knows nothing of the endless electrical currents, meticulously trained to stimulate his muscles every day (until today), three times a day, to stave off atrophy and decay. What's a muscle? The treatments pay off now, and like an awakening leviathan of forgotten legend, he moves at last. He rolls over. Off of the contoured couch which will always be a perfect match for his contour and no other, onto the usually sterile floor, and back into that comforting constant which has protected him through an eternity of miles and hours. Oblivion.
Around him, lights and computer screens get back to their usual business, anxious to shake off centuries of inactivity. A panel hisses open, and a tall cylinder on wheels emerges, reveals a handful of purposeful appendages, and begins to clean and dust the room. It lovingly avoides the sleeping beast. Dim light grows less dim in miniscule, twenty minute increments. What's a minute? Some two hundred and sixty of these little mysteries later, he opens his eyes again. What's later?
The cylindrical maid has long since come and gone, like everything he ever knew, without his ever noticing. He notices now that the light in the room is brighter, but its significance escapes him. He presses down against the floor, lifts himself to his knees, and for the first time in the longest time looks around the room. He is unaware of the fact that he is naked, or even that he is a he. He only knows that he needs. He blinks repeatedly and tries to find the answer to his need. On a table over in the middle of the room there is something he wants. It beckons to him with much greater urgency than the rows of lights and moving pictures on the far wall. Unsteadily, he rises to his feet and thinks, thinks hard. Nothing comes. He must go to it. He takes the one step and falls to the tiled floor without incident. Crawling with his head down, fascinated momentarily with the subtle (what is subtle?) pattern of the tile, he shambles awkwardly towards the table, until he hits the edge of the table with his head. He cannot fathom that the smaller object on the other side of the table is a chair, so he again rises shakily, one hand on the table's edge, until he is face to face with something that makes him smile.
Some things, it would seem, are never quite forgotten, and the glass of water gives rise to a wave of pleasure and gratitude that outshines any fleeting emotion he may have felt since he first awoke. Instinctively, he places the edge of the glass against his closed lips and tilts it. Cool, refreshing water pours down his chin and streaks down his hairless chest. Some minor trickle makes it past the barrier of his mouth and he reflexively swallows. The glass, half full, is placed back on the table, unfortunately on its side. All at once, it is not full at all, but it has already been forgotten. He does not know that he is still smiling as he follows the trail of moisture down his chest to his belly. He looks down and discovers that he is indeed a he. His penis seems to have something to do with his need, so he places his hand on it. His smile grows; some things are indeed never quite forgotten.
An alien thing, an immediate threat, cancels his smile and causes him to fall back on his butt. What was that? It's still there. It rises and falls. It's coming from the direction of all of the blinking lights and moving pictures (what's a picture?) over there. It is sound. If he knew better, he would say it was a voice. Then again, if he knew better, he wouldn't be sitting naked on his butt in the middle of the room with his penis in his hand. He had his first realization then.
If he wanted to get closer to the sound and the far wall, with its full complement of increasingly interesting lights and imagery, he would need to move again. He wanted to try that thing that had made him fall: standing. To do so, he would have to release this thing in his hand. So he did and he did and this time, he did not fall. He stood there blinking, with a rather vapid looking grin on his face. Without once pausing to consider the infinite network of long-unused processes of thought and biomechanics it took, he took a small step, and then another, and then pitched forward and fell. This time he got up almost immediately and did it again. In short order he was basking in the light and sound of the most interesting wall in the room.
Even in light of the crucial failure of the annual memory feed, his ancestral planners had foreseen the need for a kind of debriefing and re-education. An impressive bank of twelve computer screens displayed myriad images of home, while a soothing voice repeated a series of statistics deemed vital to their recipient: a name, a brief history, and a reason for being there. It ended each seventy five second recital with instructions to hit a very important button to continue the lesson. The hope was that the passenger would retain at least some grasp on his native tongue and be able to respond as planned. Unfortunately for they and their ancient plan, the only items this passenger had grasped since rising from his couch had been a glass of water and his penis. Across the vast stretches of space and time, dead hands can only do so much to put the hands of the living where they need to be.
As it stood, the blinking red light next to that very important button was only a minor curiousity among many, as an amazing wall of information largely escaped its intended target, who now had a long finger up his right nostril. His eyes darted from screen to screen, wondering at the sheer spectacle of it all, if not understanding the individual components. He idly removed his finger and saw that there was something on it. He did not need this something, so he reached out and touched the nearest screen, ran his finger across it, and left a curious streak on the glass (what's glass?). So he withdrew his hand and focused on this particular screen.
Pretty.
Suddenly, he was uneasy. Something was wrong. He whirled to his left and came face to face with... his face.
"Bgdah!" he cried out, and ran, fell, then crawled to the safety of the far side of the contoured couch. He did not come out again for a very long time.
A red light turns to green, the room sighs, and the weight of countless ages lifts ponderously from the sterile floor and hisses its departure. Fresh air, real air, sweeps into the chamber with the vague scent of lilacs on its back. With no further preamble, motion and activity are restored, the journey has ended, and life begins anew.
His eyes are open at last. His body temperature is normal again. He draws his first breath in centuries and wonders where the lilacs are. Then he wonders what he just wondered, and forgets he ever knew the scent, the flower, or the season it represented. His eyes are open, but there is nothing he recognizes on the ceiling of the chamber. He has no memory of eyes or ceilings. He knows nothing of the endless electrical currents, meticulously trained to stimulate his muscles every day (until today), three times a day, to stave off atrophy and decay. What's a muscle? The treatments pay off now, and like an awakening leviathan of forgotten legend, he moves at last. He rolls over. Off of the contoured couch which will always be a perfect match for his contour and no other, onto the usually sterile floor, and back into that comforting constant which has protected him through an eternity of miles and hours. Oblivion.
Around him, lights and computer screens get back to their usual business, anxious to shake off centuries of inactivity. A panel hisses open, and a tall cylinder on wheels emerges, reveals a handful of purposeful appendages, and begins to clean and dust the room. It lovingly avoides the sleeping beast. Dim light grows less dim in miniscule, twenty minute increments. What's a minute? Some two hundred and sixty of these little mysteries later, he opens his eyes again. What's later?
The cylindrical maid has long since come and gone, like everything he ever knew, without his ever noticing. He notices now that the light in the room is brighter, but its significance escapes him. He presses down against the floor, lifts himself to his knees, and for the first time in the longest time looks around the room. He is unaware of the fact that he is naked, or even that he is a he. He only knows that he needs. He blinks repeatedly and tries to find the answer to his need. On a table over in the middle of the room there is something he wants. It beckons to him with much greater urgency than the rows of lights and moving pictures on the far wall. Unsteadily, he rises to his feet and thinks, thinks hard. Nothing comes. He must go to it. He takes the one step and falls to the tiled floor without incident. Crawling with his head down, fascinated momentarily with the subtle (what is subtle?) pattern of the tile, he shambles awkwardly towards the table, until he hits the edge of the table with his head. He cannot fathom that the smaller object on the other side of the table is a chair, so he again rises shakily, one hand on the table's edge, until he is face to face with something that makes him smile.
Some things, it would seem, are never quite forgotten, and the glass of water gives rise to a wave of pleasure and gratitude that outshines any fleeting emotion he may have felt since he first awoke. Instinctively, he places the edge of the glass against his closed lips and tilts it. Cool, refreshing water pours down his chin and streaks down his hairless chest. Some minor trickle makes it past the barrier of his mouth and he reflexively swallows. The glass, half full, is placed back on the table, unfortunately on its side. All at once, it is not full at all, but it has already been forgotten. He does not know that he is still smiling as he follows the trail of moisture down his chest to his belly. He looks down and discovers that he is indeed a he. His penis seems to have something to do with his need, so he places his hand on it. His smile grows; some things are indeed never quite forgotten.
An alien thing, an immediate threat, cancels his smile and causes him to fall back on his butt. What was that? It's still there. It rises and falls. It's coming from the direction of all of the blinking lights and moving pictures (what's a picture?) over there. It is sound. If he knew better, he would say it was a voice. Then again, if he knew better, he wouldn't be sitting naked on his butt in the middle of the room with his penis in his hand. He had his first realization then.
If he wanted to get closer to the sound and the far wall, with its full complement of increasingly interesting lights and imagery, he would need to move again. He wanted to try that thing that had made him fall: standing. To do so, he would have to release this thing in his hand. So he did and he did and this time, he did not fall. He stood there blinking, with a rather vapid looking grin on his face. Without once pausing to consider the infinite network of long-unused processes of thought and biomechanics it took, he took a small step, and then another, and then pitched forward and fell. This time he got up almost immediately and did it again. In short order he was basking in the light and sound of the most interesting wall in the room.
Even in light of the crucial failure of the annual memory feed, his ancestral planners had foreseen the need for a kind of debriefing and re-education. An impressive bank of twelve computer screens displayed myriad images of home, while a soothing voice repeated a series of statistics deemed vital to their recipient: a name, a brief history, and a reason for being there. It ended each seventy five second recital with instructions to hit a very important button to continue the lesson. The hope was that the passenger would retain at least some grasp on his native tongue and be able to respond as planned. Unfortunately for they and their ancient plan, the only items this passenger had grasped since rising from his couch had been a glass of water and his penis. Across the vast stretches of space and time, dead hands can only do so much to put the hands of the living where they need to be.
As it stood, the blinking red light next to that very important button was only a minor curiousity among many, as an amazing wall of information largely escaped its intended target, who now had a long finger up his right nostril. His eyes darted from screen to screen, wondering at the sheer spectacle of it all, if not understanding the individual components. He idly removed his finger and saw that there was something on it. He did not need this something, so he reached out and touched the nearest screen, ran his finger across it, and left a curious streak on the glass (what's glass?). So he withdrew his hand and focused on this particular screen.
Pretty.
Suddenly, he was uneasy. Something was wrong. He whirled to his left and came face to face with... his face.
"Bgdah!" he cried out, and ran, fell, then crawled to the safety of the far side of the contoured couch. He did not come out again for a very long time.
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