Eternal Spring

He was roused. Dim yellow lights caused his long dormant and overly sensitive eyes to tear up, clouding his vision. He lay there unable to move. He did not where he was or even who he was for at least a full minute. Gradually, his vision cleared and he saw a monitor now above him attached to the surface of a glass bubble that he was entombed in.

I am Bill. Bill Hasting.  I am an astronaut. It was another full minute before he recalled what the NASA mission was. I am on my way to the Libra constellation. He then remembered that specifically, he and the crew of 7 others were on route to Gilese 581d, a promising explanted 20.4 light years away. The nano probes had sent images of a watery giant planet in the goldilocks zone. A planet with a gravity 1.2 that of Earth, despite the planet being ten times the size of earth. The planet was considerably less dense then earth but had a breathable atmosphere. Earlier probes sent to nearer exoplanets to earth had all been a bust. All ninety-seven of them. Toxic atmospheres, hostile climates, or gravitational fields that either too strong or weak to adapt to had ruled them all out.

After ten minutes of lying still allowing sensation return to his body, Bill gently removed the two feeding tubes, gagging as they slid out of his throat. He depressed a large red button on the side of his dome and it silently slid open.

Now to sit up. But it felt like he had the world's largest hangover. He had been told it would be awful but this was like someone was literally squeezing his brain like a sponge. His eyes now felt like two heavy dead weights. He sat up and the room went blank for thirty seconds. He panted from the effort. During the long hibernation, he had been constantly turned to avoid bed sores. His limbs had been exercised automatically three times each earth day. He did not wake up for any of this was the deep level of his hibernation with his heart rate down to as low as 10 beats a minute.

Even still, he knew he would be weak for weeks until he could get his body fully and properly exercised. Which is why he was supposed to be awakened approximately one month before arriving to the orbit of Gilese.

Cautiously, Bill swung one slightly emaciated leg over the side of his chamber. Each movement had a price of further pulsating pain in his head. As captain, he knew he was the first of the crew to be revived. The others would be revived by him manually once he got his bearings. If something had happened to him, the others would be revived automatically in seven days.

And then they would begin the long process of setting up the first human extrasolar colony with the ten thousand frozen embryos aboard. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.

Bill swung his other leg over the edge and this time the pain wasn't quite as nuclear in his head. Thirty years of sleeping and he couldn't even remember one dream. Probably a good thing as thirty years can create quite a list of nightmares.

Thirty years. His girlfriend back home would be in her sixties now. Not that he was ever going home. That wasn't an option. The deep hibernation had physically aged Bill very little. He too was in his sixties now but would still essentially be a thirty-five year old man. Only single astronauts with no children were even considered for this desperate pilgrimage across the stars. The psychological trauma of a thirty year voyage was pure speculation. The longest previous human voyage had been to Callisto, the onetime promising moon of Jupiter which of course had been another bust.

Bill had been conscious now for about five minutes. He took a longer look at his monitor which in addition to displaying his various vital signs also displayed the date.

Something was wrong. The digital date read: March 21, 2062.

But the voyage had left earth in 2052. Something was very, very wrong. Bill felt his pulse, which had been so faint during hibernation, leap forward in his chest like a drum roll. He had been roused twenty years early which meant that something was terribly wrong.

Going back into his hibernation chamber was not an option. They were not designed for two uses. They had been told only an absolute emergency would interrupt their thirty year sleep.

"Jesus," Bill muttered in a horrific, hoarse croak. He realized that to complete the mission now, assuming he could, that would mean being another twenty years in non-hibernation. Certainly, their ship was equipped with rations for such a contingency emergency. But was he equipped psychologically.

Bill stood up now on shaky, skinny legs. Ignoring the six other hibernation domes next to him for the moment, he hobbled to the end of the entire hibernation room to the only window. He had to see where they were even though if his mental calculations were correct they were about 6-7 light-years on their journey. Bill peered through the ten inch thick glass and gasped. He looked up and down and around but could see nothing but the inky blackness of space. No visible stars anywhere.

This simply wasn't possible. He should be seeing the bright sweeping edge of the Milky Way, and countless other stars filling the sky. But there was impossibly nothing to see.

He then looked back at the hibernation domes. Should he rouse them now? Certainly their team together might be able to make sense of what had happened to place them in the middle of nowhere. Then again, if he did so would he be condemning them to the same fate of enduring twenty more years of non hibernating existence?

He needed to figure out what had happened first.

Naked and cold, Bill found his locker in the chamber and put on his silver jumpsuit. He made his way past the ten thousand frozen embryos in their casket like refrigerators and took the auto shuttle to the bridge.

Sitting in the captain’s chair, he consulted PAL, the ship's artificial intelligence. "Eh, good morning, PAL," Bill started.

A deep and resonant silky smooth voice answered. "Good morning, Bill. How are you?"

"Bill chuckled.”Not so good, I guess. Waking up from hibernation is a bitch."

"A rather unprofessional assessment I would say, Bill."

"Ok PAL. You can admonish me later but something is very wrong here. Let's get to it. Why did you pull me out of hibernation twenty years early?"

"Well, as you can see, Bill. Something is terribly wrong."

"There's nothing to see, actually, PAL."

"Exactly why I roused you, Bill. Our ship has encountered a tear in the fabric of space and time."

Bill almost slid out his chair. "What! How?"

"Two undetected micro black holes have collided creating a rip that is approximately two light years in diameter. We entered this rift four hours ago and now we are...here."

"Where the hell is here, PAL?"

"The more appropriate question is when is here, Bill." PAL replied calmly. "Since there are no stars or even dark matter to gain a point of reference, the first part of your question is meaningless."

"What do you mean by when? It's 2062 isn't it?"

"No Bill, that is incorrect. Our ship has been thrust forward in time as a result of crossing the rift."

This couldn't be happening, Bill thought. They were humanity's last hope. "So how far in the future are we?" He was starting to realize the answer as he made the connection of zero stars or dark matter.

"My conservative estimate is that we are at least two hundred fifty billion years in the future as the vacuum delay is complete. Of course we could just as easily be ten times further then that in the future. We are witnessing the end of the universe. The physicists were right that predicted that there would be no Big Crunch. We appear to be alone, Bill."

Bill felt something in his mind bend to the breaking point. It was the end of everything. There was nowhere left in the universe to settle. There was only their ship, the crew and ten thousand useless frozen embryos.

"PAL, how long can the crew stay in hibernation?"

"The hibernation chambers do not have the resources to sustain them beyond the remaining twenty years. There are enough reserves on board for you to live the next twenty years assuming we do not revive the remaining crew over that period. However in twenty years, we will have to revive the crew or they will die in their chambers."

Bill nodded numbly. "And in twenty years, after we revive the crew, how long can we survive?"

"Well, Bill, the problem will not be lack of oxygen nor water as they are renewable resources that will continue indefinitely. The problem is going to be food reserves as those are not renewable. There will be enough reserves for the crew to live another two years. As you are well aware, the crews to farm and produce food in the Gilese soil over those initial first two years prior to the embryos being grown."

Bill did some calculations of his own. "So if we revive the crew now, they can keep me company and share my misery for likely five years tops and that's with rationing?"

"Yes Bill. That is a very good estimate. Or, we can choose not to revive them at all which would extend the reserves for you and greatly extend your life by at least an additional fifteen years."

"But that's like...murdering them, PAL." Bill was horrified.

"They and you will die two years after they are revived twenty years from now anyway. This would allow them a much more dignified death. Not waking up from a sleep versus death by starvation?"

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess it is the humane thing to do. Why subject them to this horrific situation and then watch each other eventually die of starvation?"

"Of course, there is one other option, Bill. An option that would extend everyone's lives by an additional 4 years upon being pulled out of hibernation twenty years from now. By now, you must have considered it. Need I say it?"

Bill shook his head but a hideous thought rose to the surface now. "What are you talking about, PAL?"

For the first time, there was a hesitation before PAL responded. "I think you know, Bill. However, if we choose not to revive the crew you can live a total of another fifty years. You would be alone but you would have me of course."

Bill was silent; He couldn't say it out loud. It was unspeakable.

Ten thousand embryos wouldn't be so useless now. Did Bill want to live another twenty six years with the last six years with his crew? Or did he want to live another fifty years with only PAL as his company?

He made up his mind. "Pal, we are not going to revive the crew."

"As you wish, Bill," PAL answered.

Their ship would float through the empty eternal darkness with the last and final human.