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CHAPTER 26

December 5, 2089 (Earth timeline)

November 20, 2089 (Ship timeline)

Captain Crosby checked the AI and personally inspected the health and status displays of the crew members already in cryosleep. The ship had plenty of supplies and it was up to individual crew members as to when they would check themselves into cryosleep for the remainder of the nine year and eight month (ship time) voyage. The flight rules said that everyone, besides the three flight deck crew members on the three-month-awake rotation, had to be asleep by the end of December, but until then, sleep check-in was purely optional. Everyone held out for the first month or so. The novelty of being in deep space hadn’t worn off, people were excited, and relationships were still forming. Crosby actually hoped that the crew was practicing the birth control protocols required or they would need pediatric care soon at the rate the relationships were progressing.

Finally, one by one, people came forward and put in their requests for entering cryosleep. Once a few people were asleep, the rest grew increasingly restless and bored, subsequently putting in their requests. There were now only six awake and the ship was extremely quiet. Even the requests for data bursts home were coming in fewer and farther between. Besides, they’d been accelerating at about eight tenths of a gee for a couple of months and were pushing the boundaries of the outer solar system. The ship was currently traveling far faster than anything mankind had ever done—that is, besides the Interstellarerforscher, which was following the same propulsion profile. But the Samaritan had people on and these people were traveling faster and farther away from their homes than any had ever before in the history of mankind.

Unlike the classic science fiction stories and movies, the body continued to age while in cryosleep. There were some scientific studies showing that cryosleep slowed the aging process down slightly, but there were few studies that had been conducted on extremely long-term cryosleep. For the most part, you were just spared the tedium and boredom of nearly a decade in a tin can zipping through black nothingness. For that, Crosby was grateful. He’d spent at least four of his forty-eight years in space as a military resupply pilot before being selected for the Samaritan. Most of those four years were extremely boring and tedious. He couldn’t imagine being awake and occupying his time aboard ship for seven subjective years.

Crosby had about a month to go before he was to take his first rotation in cryosleep. As it worked out, the sleep cycle required two bridge crew trained in most ship’s systems and one volunteer from the ship’s compliment to be awake at all times in case of repair needs, navigation checks, and any other minor, or God forbid, major emergencies. There were enough bridge crew that they would get nine months out of the year in cryosleep while the other members only would do one rotation each for the entirety of the flight. There was also a scheduled all-hands one-week medical check and systems maintenance requirement at the midpoint.



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Framed