Soon I will have to go back into the ice bath. My memories have not returned to any great degree, and I fear that I will lose my mind completely if they freeze me again. But the ship AI, Hoyle, tells me that e has new techniques e can try, which e says have been tried out on the other ark-ships. Hoyle is apparently in touch with all the other ships as they flee through space. The medical systems will fill my brain with subcellular devices, a new type Hoyle is keen to try out; these will be frozen along with my brain but will maintain a low level of activity, working to protect my cells and my memories even at subzero temperatures.
I find it a little hard to believe, myself, but the AI seems very confident. E also tells me that I was once a valued member of the crew, and I once had useful skills that e thinks e will be able to restore to me. My journals say that I was a fusion drive supervisor- this skill won’t be needed till we start to decelerate. Perhaps Hoyle will be lucky, and e will make me remember somehow. And myself of course; I think I need luck at the moment.
One other set of memories I would dearly like to recover are my memories of my partner, Rosie. I have pored over the journal entries dealing with our life together, but without success. She seems like a complete stranger to me. Perhaps I could feel just a suggestion of familiarity when I tried really hard; she certainly looks like my type, and I can imagine us together. The story from Tyr habitat of how we hid from armed gangs for ten sols without food seems so real, that I can almost persuade myself that I remember it.
But I won’t get to meet her this awakening; she is still frozen, still vitrified – still ’still’ in the hold of the ship, and I won’t be around when they wake her up in a couple of years time. If, of course, they manage to wake her up at all.
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