“It’s quite easy, actually. At least, once you get used to it.”

MOTE prompt

A hundred thousand new processes, or extremed processes, had to be invented or tested or extrapolated. Their specialty was the cryopods. Little ones for mice, curled sleeping rodents for six months of torpor—bigger ones for cats, dogs, and rhesus monkeys. At first, plenty of the animals died. Later, fewer of them did.

“This is one of the most important technologies we’re developing,” he said to the staff. They ventured out for a pleasant lunch on the blackened Rue Saint-Antoine, still tangled with concertina wire and patrolled by gendarmes cradling A-MP5s in their arms, BD-8s trotting alongside with their unnerving chaingun mounts and restless sensors. “Right now, we have a ten percent failure with mice and up to twenty-five percent with the monkeys. That’s six months. If we have a success rate like that after one hundred and fifteen years with humans, we’ve just delivered ten thousand corpses to Tau Ceti.” He smiled bleakly. “Démoralisant, n'est-ce pas?”

The staff laughed.

He tapped the table. “The project is proceeding at full speed. The lottery is already being designed. We must have usable cryopods with nearly 100% success rates within four years. No excuses. I expect human trials in nine months.”

“That’s insane!”

“Is it? The political will is already fraying. We must launch within a decade. Mars is an unreliable partner who is using the project to extract—or should I say extort?—resources from us. We have a rival in Little Pusan. The mining colonies feel they are being used. We must have cryopods that guarantee human survivability at rates above 99.8% over the voyage. Pods that our staff can trust with their own lives. Because one of us will.”

They looked at each other.

Tests, and tests. Modifications in the speed of cooling. The speed of warming again. Modified gel surrounds. Sleep? That was for the mice. The monkeys. Not for them. Work day, work night.

Then, the first trials. Alice lay down in the chamber, her heart pounding, monitors stuck to every part of her face and hands, wires snaking inside the modified flight suit.

“Eh, bien, Alice,” Control said. “This is simple. As it pours over, just breathe deeply. It’s perfectly breathable before it sets up, and you’ll be asleep before it does. If a mouse can do it—”

“A woman can do it, oui, je comprends.”

“If the monkeys can be trusted, it’s quite easy, actually. At least, once you get used to it.”

“At least they are sedated,” she said tartly.

“Start breathing slowly. A week will fly by! We’ll have a glass of wine to celebrate when you wake.”

Alice closed her eyes. She breathed. In, out. In, out. The pod was cold already and got chillier. It felt as though it was filled with cold, clammy smoke clinging to her face, hands, lips, and eyebrows. If her eyes were open, she would thrash around. Drowning, drowning.

No, eyes closed. Keep them shut. Count, I forgot that. Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit…neuf…dix…dix…onze…

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This week’s prompt challenge, I was slow on the draw, so I grabbed a spare: It’s quite easy, actually. At least, once you get used to it. See all the challenges and responses over at More Odds Than Ends!

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