Chapter 5

Don West came to with a sudden jolt. He was temporarily disoriented and his muscles were twitching, probably the result of a steroid introduced into his drip tube by the computer. Once he got his bearings, West was determined to get out of his glass coffin and back on his own two feet. There was much work to be done and the game clock was winding down. West needed to know where the Jupiter was and how far it was to the nearest soft landing.

Gingerly, and with great effort, West raised the golden outer visor to his helmet, giving him his first clear view of the upper deck. The cryo-tubes were oriented horizontally during flight and rotated slowly along their main axis to prevent the occupants from developing pressure sores while in suspension, so there was no telling which way one would be facing when they came to. The tubes would lock upright into a vertical position for loading and unloading.

"Just like the greasy hot dog rollers at the Gas-O-Mart," thought West, though his meat-filled casing only rotated once every twenty hours. At the moment, his cryo-tube was facing nearly straight up and West could make out the curved ceiling of the upper deck. So far, so good.

Without warning, a dark apparition filled the window immediately above West's face and flashed a deep red light into his eyes. The light was followed by the now-familiar pounding on the side of the cylinder. West nearly jumped out of his skin. A high pitched tone wailed in his helmet as his suit's built-in EKG sensors registered his erratic heartbeat.

Something was out there and it was trying to get at him.

"What the hell?" yelled the terrified pilot, speaking his first words in decades. Flat on his back, weak as a kitten and thirty feet from the nearest weapon, Don West had never felt more vulnerable in his entire life. His heart pounding and his breath coming in deep gulps, there was nothing he could do but watch and wait.

After a small eternity, the creature adjusted its position, moving back slightly from cryo-tube so that West could make out some of its features in the dim light. In a moment, West's terror morphed into anger as he recognized the clear sensor bubble of the Jupiter 2's robot. After every third beat on the side of the tube the red light would flash again and he could make out the Robot's muffled mechanical voice calling to him. West swore a blue streak to himself.

"Major West. Are you conscious? Major West?" followed by the clang, clang, clang of a metallic claw on the side of the cryo-tube.

"Awake! I'm awake, damn it!" coughed West in a ragged voice he barely recognized. "You damn near scared me to death! What's going on here?"

"My apologies, Major, but your services are required on the flight deck. The Jupiter 2 is entering a critical stage in its flight profile."

As West struggled to make out the Robot's words it dawned on him that the voice was muffled because it was coming from outside of the tube and not through the radio in his helmet. Sound didn't travel through a vacuum so there must be some sort of atmosphere on the upper deck.

"What are the conditions on the deck, Robot?"

"Upper and lower decks are nominally pressurized. Internal temperature is 12 degrees Celsius and rising," came the report.

"My heads-up display indicates no pressure on either deck, and why aren't you coming in on my headset?"

"Your indicators are in error, Major, and all transmitters aboard the ship were cycled off, per your command. Upper and lower decks are nominally pressurized. Internal temperature is now 14 degrees Celsius and rising."

"Per MY command? What command? I never gave any such order. What the hell are you talking about?" West was livid now and even more confused than before. Not only did such an order make no sense whatsoever, it went against every Alpha Control flight directive. Without an active transponder there was no way to track the progress of the ship in flight. To the people on Earth it would appear as though the Jupiter 2 had suddenly vanished into space. Or was destroyed…

"Per Flight Directive 5217, command line 19, issued by West, Donald E.: At Mission Elapsed Time 34,822 hours from launch, Jupiter 2 is to maintain complete radio silence for the duration of the flight. Override security code, West, Donald E., confirmed, Earth date: 08/10/52."

"Twenty-fifty-two," West thought, "that's nearly five years into the flight and more than half way to Alpha Centauri." There was no possible way for Alpha Control to track the ship from that distance without a strong radio beam. West needed to sit up and clear his head. He had a thousand more questions for the Robot, but so far every answer only generated more questions, and none of them made any sense.

"Robot, initiate unloading sequence for my cryo-tube."

"Affirmative."

West was relieved that at least the Robot was responding to his direct commands. It was possible to blow the hatch on his cryo-tube from within, but it was a very risky procedure, especially for his shipmates. If their tubes were damaged by debris from his hatch their odds of surviving through to a normal reanimation were worse than nil. He could make out the squat figure of the robot wheeling into position to raise his tube and initiate a more controlled egress process. The robot's three-fingered claws were designed to operate all of the manual controls and switches with as much dexterity as a human, but he was also configured to access most of the ship's systems by wireless remote control.

Don West watched as the more familiar architecture of the flight deck come into view as the robot swung his cryo-tube slowly into an upright position. He became aware of his own body weight on his long-unused legs, his knees buckling involuntarily, wedging against the side of the tube and propping him up precariously. West had a sinking feeling that this was not going to be a dignified process.

"Break the seal."

"Affirmative." The Robot issued a wireless command to the cryo-tube control chip, which in turn began the process of equalizing the internal pressure with that of the upper deck. West had little choice but to believe the Robot's pressure readings, but he was still sealed in his space suit. Even if there was no pressure out there he would still be safe, for a few hours. The bigger worry was how he was going to keep from crashing to the deck once the hatch was opened. In a matter of seconds West could hear the sticky crackling of the ancient O-rings on his tube hatch as they gave way. Without the side of the tube to prop him up, West began to lurch forward before shifting his weight to his elbows. He hung there precariously for a moment, unable to stand and unable to sit. Catching a glimpse of the collapsible wheelchair the Robot had moved into place alongside the cryo-tube, West's initial reaction was a steadfast "No way!"

Discretion being the better part of valor, though, the Major gratefully allowed the Robot to guide him clumsily into the wheelchair, relieved that there was no one awake to see him in such a helpless state. There was nothing elegant about the transfer, but it was better than the inevitable swan dive onto the cold, hard deck, and West sat quietly as the Robot disconnected the various wires and tubes that still attached the Major to his high-tech cocoon.

By the reckoning of the ship's calendar, West figured he was chronologically in his early sixties. By Earth's accounting, he'd be pushing ninety and at the moment he sure felt like it. The effort of supporting himself in the tube now made the simple act of keeping his head upright nearly impossible. As the last of his meager energy supply slipped away, West felt his head tip forward as he obeyed the call of the golden slumbers one more time.