Chapter 19
553 Words
12
STARTLING STORIES
12
A QUICKENING TIDE
by A. J. McIntosh & Andrew J. Wilson
Durante was at peace. He’d drawn his last breath, and his heart had stopped. He was as dead as a proverbial doornail. All that was left was a desire that this dark, silent and timeless non-existence would continue for-ever.
Then the pain began. At first, it was just pins and needles all over his body, but vio-lent shocks to his chest came next. Then Du-rante was transfixed by agonizing waves as his lungs and limbs started working again. When the t*****e was over, he flinched as dull thuds sounded from somewhere outside his aching head. He opened his eyes reluc-tantly.
Beyond an inspection hatch, a blurry figure was signaling to him with a monkey wrench. He shook his head to clear it and then show he wasn’t ready. Maybe whoever was disturbing him would go away. With luck, they’d let him return to rest, to the ef-fortless accumulation of riches.
A viscous eddy swirled around him as sluices opened. The contents of the suspen-sion tank poured away, exposing his n***d skin to cool air. Then even colder water flushed the last of the antifreeze out of the tube, and things came painfully into focus. For better or worse, he was back in the land of the living.
Durante scrabbled at the side of the tank as the hazmat-suited figure outside opened the hatch. He focused on his finances, and the possibility that these might have signifi-cantly improved during his tax-free period of cryogenic suspension. If nothing bad had happened over the intervening decades or centuries, perhaps he was already loaded at the ripe old physical age of 23.
He shivered as the faceless technician leaned towards him. A gloved hand released
the straps that bound him, and then pulled the respirator off his head. A voice crackled out of the speaker on the suit’s mask.
“Are you OK?”
Durante nodded.
“Can you feel your toes and fingers? Can you move them?”
Durante wriggled his digits in a half-hearted wave, then nodded again.
“Can you talk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who are you?”
“Fleet Midshipman Peter Durante, sir, provost’s officer in Cryogenics. Frozen aboard the Spirit of Scutari on day of depar-ture—September 31, 2315.”
“Good.”
He staggered out of the suspension tank and into the cryovault itself. The technician circled him, appraising his condition, prod-ding him here and there with a probe.
“Any questions?”
“I was wondering, sir, how long…”
“Don’t worry—often happens—you’ll unshrivel in a couple of hours.”
“No, I mean, how long have I been out of it, sir?”
“Six seconds,” his tormentor said, “17 minutes, 6 hours, 8 days, 2 months and 5 years. Thought you were going to wake up rich? Trust me, you’re not.”
Durante shook his head, too disappointed to speak. The technician loosened a seal on the neck of the hazmat suit and pulled off the visored helmet. A woman’s face emerged from underneath it: older than him, but still young. She was sloe-eyed, expressionless, Mongolian.
“You’re on duty, Midshipman,” she said. “Report updecks.”
Durante staggered forwards, readying
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