They all called it "cryosleep," but that was a misnomer. "Suspended animation" was far more accurate… they entered cryostasis, and everything stopped. Heartbeat, cell growth and death, and all brain function. They would wake up six hundred years later feeling as if they had only just closed their eyes. To the smallest atom, they would be unchanged by the passage of time. No muscle atrophy, no aging of any sort. No awareness of the time that passed, no dreams.

At least, that was the way it was supposed to work.

Sara Ryder dreamed.

A small, deep corner of her mind somehow continued to work, synapses firing. This strange anomaly occurred below consciousness; she wasn't aware of the passage of time, wasn't aware that she dreamed, and certainly wasn't aware enough to realize that this was wrong.

Nonetheless, she dreamt, and the emotions in her dreams stayed with her. Without her conscious mind to hold the concept of self, she lived her dreams, and had no incredulity to mar them.

He was a hunter.

He moved silently, gracefully, through the underbrush, searching for the prey that would feed his daar for the next few days. He clutched his rifle in three fingered hands, large eyes scanning the darkness of the canyon floor.

There.

He saw the motion the challyrion made before he saw the creature itself, but that didn't matter. His finger squeezed, and the animal seemed to appear from nowhere as the bolt found it's head; it fell over, and he grinned fiercely as he walked over to it.

His first solo kill, years younger than most hunters managed such a thing. Surely now, he would be accepted by his family and friends. Surely now, he had proven himself to be whole, useful, worthy, despite the crippling lack….

He shook the thoughts away, they had no place in this time of triumph. With a grunt, he lifted the dead challyrion, and made his way home.

He was a student.

He spent years studying every piece of history he could lay his hands on. Every written word, every recorded oral story of his people.

And finally, his hard work had paid off. He had been invited to join the sages at Mithrava, to study, to learn with them, and - perhaps - to become one of them.

His sense of pride in this accomplishment almost overwhelmed the certain knowledge of his deficiency that he had carried since childhood. Almost, but not quite. He would never be good enough, never be worthy…

It didn't matter now. The crippling loneliness would only be useful now; the sages maintained a minimum of contact with the rest of society. The pressing knowledge of inadequacy had already served him well, driving him to learn more, learn faster, study longer than any of his peers.

The sages may or may not have the same ties as the rest of the angara, but they certainly didn't pursue such ties, and so surely they couldn't place such importance on them as his family did.

Perhaps, in Mithrava, he could finally forget that missing connection, and live his life without feeling that consistent absence as a wound that would not heal.

Perhaps.

The countdown dwindled.

The Hyperion came closer to waking.

There were still years left, still vast distances to cross, but the end was in sight now, and SAM waited patiently for the moment when the Pathfinder would awaken.

What should he tell the Pathfinder of Sara's dreams? He saw them more clearly than she did, she mostly just experienced the emotions. He alone kept track of the dream periods: short, disjointed flashes that came at irregular intervals for years, and the silent stretches of decades between; Sara knew nothing of those. Should he mention it, or stay silent?

In the darkness of the sleeping ship, SAM node was a single spot of light, as SAM wondered.

Slightly less than 30 years now, it didn't seem long compared to the centuries he had waited through.

Suddenly, after a long silence in the recesses of Sara's sleeping mind, a new bright emotion flared.

Hope. Try again. Maybe this time, it will come out right.

This made no sense to SAM, and the connection was quickly lost, the dream-emotion fading. He knew it would return in time, they always did. Perhaps, this time, Sara would be awake, and able to tell him what was going on. Perhaps Alec would know something about it.

Perhaps, this time, he would learn more.