Semper Ad Meliora

A quiet tss of the lid. Distant clatters. Dull, metallic thuds. Muffled groans and chatter somwhere nearby. Slight echoes.

Dry mouth. Difficult breath. Stiff hands. A tingling sensation that was slowly fading into a fuzzy, all-over warmth.

The first sounds and feels at the dawn of a new day. A new chapter in his life, and the thousands of other lives.

His eyes ached a little.

And he realized they were still closed.

Or they must have been, because all he saw was black and those little lights and colors people see when their eyes are closed. He couldn't remember the word for that, though he knew he knew it. He read about it in a bored day on the internet. It was... It was... He knew the phrase, whatever it was.

He blinked—once, twice—and still saw black. His breathing became easier, then he started breathing faster. Maybe I didn't actually do it, he thought. So he blinked more times, faster and harder.

“Can you see, sir?” A calm male voice just in front of him. When he didn't answer, the voice continued: “I am MEDI-Bernard, but I like when ones call me Bernie. Do you know your name, sir?”

He nodded with an escaping rush of air. Bernie was an android. “Dagan, uh... Dagan Nathaniel Mecca.” He figured it wanted his full name. It took so long for the words to get from his brain to his mouth that for a moment he feared he'd be having problems with speech too.

“I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Dagan Mecca.” It was probably smiling a gentle, pleasant smile that matched its tone of voice. Of all names, why would it call itself Bernard? “Can you see, sir?”

Dagan deliberately blinked a few times more and shook his head. He huffed, diappointed since he was so sure before the journey that he'd get to avoid the any of the effects of hypersleep. That's what his physical and the doctors told him, anyway. But he still saw black and...and...phosphate? No, that wasn't the word.

“My hand is in front of you. Please take it.”

He paused for a second, but did as he was told, reaching up with both hands until he found the cold, synthetically fleshy hand just inches from his chest. The locked hands, his right to its left, by grabbing the base of each other's thumb, then Bernie tugged. Dagan was forced off the tilted pad he spent the last century on and pulled onto the catwalk. It was a jarring transition in the darkness; he grabbed Bernie's arm for just a moment to gain his balance. His legs nearly buckled.

He remembered getting into his pod. It was the top level, the very last row on the starboard side. He remembered the Sentinel droid that hooked him to all the wires and rings and little tubes with its creepy, perpetual smile on its unmoving face. He remembered how eerily quiet the halls were then. He remembered his hands shaking and his heart racing from both the excitement and the fear. He remembered the song he hummed until he went unconscious.

“Your legs are holding.” Bernie sounded pleased. “It appears your body responded well to the sleep sessions. At this moment, it seems you will not have to worry about any form of paralysis.” Which is basically what the sleep sessions were for. They brought the body halfway to consciousness and did god-knows-what to you for however long before putting it back under so that nothing completely shut down during the extended hypersleep. But people almost always still experience some sort of side effect.

“That's good,” Dagan nodded, probably too much. “Don't I need to actually move to know?”

“You moved your arms and grabbed my hand. You stepped out of bed and did not fall. So far, the signs are good. Now, please follow me to the Morning Room.” It moved his hand to its right shoulder and started walking. “Please tell me if I need to slow down.”

One step, two step, three step, no falling. Only the kind of staggering a person does when he's gotten out of bed too early in the morning. Dagan wasn't going to question it again. MEDI-Bernard seemed to know what it was talking about.

For a moment, he wondered what Bernie was going to look like. He knew—hoped—the face of the Sentinel that sent him off wasn't going to be the last face he saw. The Sentinels appearances were very practical, sure, but they looked fake and unsettling. Their designers didn't worry about making the Sentinels human-passing because their only operations would be during the hibernation. They didn't need to look pleasant to sleeping people.

What kind of face went with the name Bernard? Dagan could only think of curmudgeony, pudgy old men, and big dogs. None of which, he knew, was going to be anything like the android's actual face. What was its designer's definition of perfection? was probably the real question, since all human-passing androids were so good looking that they were on the opposite end of unreal in comparison to the Sentinels.

He liked how Bernie said bed instead of the numerous other, less appealing words it could have used. It seemed very polite, which was unusual in his experience, albeit limited. He'd never heard any one say please so many times in such a short period of time. Most were just simple and frank. They didn't care to make things sound nice. Then again, most androids he'd ever met were military.

And what was with the examples of his movement? Encouragement? It was comforting. Whoever Bernie spent most of its time with was doing a good job teaching it. It was a good wake-up call.

Back on Earth, he often wished he could afford his own robot. They were pretty much all you could ever need, including pet or companion, rolled up into one package with your choice of wrap. Too bad all the money he'd ever seen in life when to medical bills and making sure he and his brother stayed healthy so they'd even be allowed on Vita Est. All the training in the world meant nothing if you had (or had a high probability of developing) any type of sickness.

That didn’t matter anymore. He couldn't let himself get caught up in everything that came before this day, especially after they made it. Now, what mattered was the new home he and his brother were about to move into.

“Is Colin Mecca awake?”

“Who, sir?” Bernie's shoulder moved as it seemed to turn its head.

“Colin—” No. He remembered. His brother wasn't on the ship. He failed the sickness tests last minute. “No, no. I—I meant Alia—”

“We're only waking who we need at the moment.” A commanding voice just a meter or so ahead. That was the voice of First Captain Sage Nau, a voice anyone would recognize. “Watch your step, navigator.”

“There are two stair steps now. One, two.” Bernie completed what the captain was saying, counting as he took the steps. Dagan wondered how stupid he looked—in front of one of the leaders of the last of humanity—as he over-stepped each of them, feeling like he was going to fall each time. He wanted to slap his face. Maybe that would jolt his eyes awake so he could look more professional in front of one of the bosses.

But blindness caused by hypersleep had been known to last for days. So, great.

“Who we need?” Dagan turned his head to face where it seemed Captain Nau might be. “I thought everyone—oh, right. Preliminary scans of the planet.” His chest swelled with the excitement, though he did manage to keep that subdued. They were to survey the planet, and then everyone gets to wake up.

Nau didn't respond, but he heard a definite swallow, as well as a short and controlled sigh over the quiet hum of the hall. He realized most of the noise he heard when he became conscious disappeared.

“Please, to the Morning Room.” Bernie stepped behind Dagan, placing its hands on his shoulders. The door slid open and he could feel the air change from the dull buzz to stillness as he was led into the room. After a few more steps, he was gently pushed into a chair.

“Give us a minute, Bernie.” Nau had followed them. Dagan felt the same jitters he felt as he was preparing to go to sleep rise again, but he was mostly nervous now. Nau's words were tentative and slow.

Bernard agreed to the captain and left. Once Dagan heard the slide of the door, there was silence. Not even the hum of the hall outside. He just waited.

Nau softly cleared his throat, deciding to jump right into it. “We are not orbiting Xiwang. According to a message left by one of the Sentinels, there was a malfunction in almost half our engines about fifteen years into the journey. We held speed, but were turned twenty degrees off course. They broke protocol and left us asleep in an attempt to solve the problem.”

Dagan’s throat caught and his tongue stumbled for words. “They—they broke protocol? That's impossible!” On so many levels, he thought it was well known that was impossible. Androids don't disobey orders like that. It’s just—they—that just didn’t happen!

“It's obviously not.” Nau didn’t bother hiding his sigh this time. “Apparently CON-001 gave the order and the others fell in line.”

“They left us…” He swallowed. “How long has it been?”

Once again, silence. “Since the incident, it’s been one hundred eighty-five years.” “Two hundred years!” Dagan felt his head go light.

“We're debating our next course of action,” Nau quickly kept going, “but we are having issues waking Captain Seder, and Second Captain Miser has passed away. Krewson was promoted to take his place.” More good news.

Dagan gripped the arms of his chair at the corners. There was that shaking again with a vengeance. Holding on tight seemed to keep it unobvious, but he felt like his hands were going to slip off at any second. He didn't need any more of Nau's words to know where the biggest details of this conversation were headed.

They were millions, billions of miles away from where they needed to be. Two hundred years asleep and coddled by machines wasted. They were... They were in the middle of nowhere!

And two, Krewson is—was the navigator just above Dagan. Besides the captains, the navigators were considered to be the most important members of the control crew. Originally, that was in case Xiwang wasn't right for humans after all. No one actually thought they were going to be needed because Xiwang was the other Earth.

The point was, there had to be three captains. These were the rules. Nau was First Captain. Krewson was made Second Captain, promoting Dagan to First Nav.

Unless those issues with waking Seder were resolved...

“I'm sorry to lay all this on you so soon, son, but if we can't wake Seder, you will have to act as Third Captain.”

Oh God, he hoped they'd be able to wake Seder.

“What's the problem?” He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. “How did Miser die?”

“More malfunctions. Some of the pods stopped functioning and those inside either woke and couldn't escape or died in their sleep...”

Nau kept talking, explaining the answers to his questions but Dagan didn't hear them. They petered out of his ears, falling away to a thumping, heavy silence.