5. Lost in Space

[rossi]

The sun pours down on my bare skin like warm honey. I lie on my back under a perfect blue sky, the sand hot beneath my back but slightly cooler as I dig my hands under the surface. I can hear the hiss of the waves on the beach, as regular as a heartbeat.

I take a slow breath in, hold it a moment, then release. A perfect moment.

Of course, thinking that is a cue for the moment to end.

"...David? Can you... me?"

The voice is faint and faraway, crackling with static. I sigh and close my eyes tighter, willing it away. I'm not ready to leave yet.

"Need...you. David, can you hear me? Please respond."

I groan and shift slightly. Too late, the moment's lost. The sand, the sun, the waves all melt away, leaving me floating in my jar. "Control, this is David. I hear you."

I am a forerunner of space exploration, an experiment in manned flights beyond the Earth's solar system. By virtue of paring everything down to the essentials, they created craft not much more than a garbage can attached to a series of thrusters. And when I say "pare down to the essentials", I mean the essentials. With the advent of direct neural interfaces and nanotech, the human body became just extra weight. For deep space exploration, there was no need for things like arms and legs and all the rest. Just as space craft were pared down to to the fundamentals, so too were their pilots. All of us, brains in jars hooked up to life support, floating in our tin cans, far from any moon you can see in the night skies above Earth.

"About time. What took you so long? We were starting to think something had gone wrong."

If I had a face, I'd be grimacing. As it is, my 'voice' holds an irritated edge as I reply. "I was on my required R & R, Control. Talk to the egg heads. All work and no play makes David a dull floating brain in a jar."

"Okay, okay, sorry about that. Let's get this done and you can go back to the Bahamas or whichever beach it is this time."

I blow a mental raspberry. "It's not always a beach, you know."

"Just usually. Can we get to business now? We've picked up some odd readings on your scans."

"Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute." I concentrate on the scanning equipment, my mind's 'eye' filling with the ever-lasting glory of space. Stars, planets, nebulae... I never get tired of it. Reluctantly I drag my attention away from the big picture and focus closer to home, looking for the anomaly. "Bet you five bucks it's another floating rock."

"Sucker bet. They're always floating rocks. How about..." Static swirls across the communication channel, random interference from the depths of space and I focus harder.

"Say again? You're breaking up, Control."

"...vid? Can you...?" There's a sensation that my brain translates as a squeal of distortion and my mind jerks away instinctively from the connection. When the pain ebbs, I try again.

"Control? Do you read me? This is Captain David Booth for the exploration vessel Daedelus, please come in." I send the same message out again and again, but there's no response. I'm alone.

After several hours, my support system puts me into the mandatory rest period. Even brains need to rest.

I sleep.

***

"The MRI definitely shows brain activity," the doctor said, looking down at the clipboard with his results.

"But the other doctors, they said he was brain dead." The woman might have been attractive once, but now she is worn looking, old before her time. Her blonde hair hung limply, lines etched around her mouth and shadows smudged underneath her eyes.

"To the equipment then, he was," the doctor replied. "Today's technology is much more sensitive."

"So you're saying, all this time... he's been aware? Awake?" A look of horror mixed with hope crossed her face.

The doctor paused carefully before replying. "I'm afraid so, yes."

"But... that's horrible! Not being able to move, not being able to speak, for ten years... I'd go mad!"

"It's entirely possible that it has been the case with your husband, Mrs. Booth. Now we know, we'll keep trying to reach him, provide adequate stimulus, but there's no telling what kind of state his mind is in." The doctor reached out to pat the woman's hand. "We'll do all we can to bring him home."