It was a female voice, within the age parameters of thirty-eight to forty-seven. Gentle and reassuring, yet with a hint of insistent strength, it was the kind of voice that a rosy-cheeked lady from Kansas City might have.
All of the astronauts called her “Mom.”
This calm, motherly voice responded to the high-pitched bell, buzzer and whooping siren.
“Time to get up, boys and girls. Time to rise and shine now.”
Nothing happened.
Hidden lights began to flash at the point where the Aquila’s ceiling and wall made their seamless kiss.
“This is not an emergency. This is automatic wakening to make preparations for reentry and landing back on Earth. Time to be up and at them, boys and girls. Rise and shineandshineandshine…”
There was a loud click, and the voice ceased. But the lights, bells, siren and buzzer all continued in a crescendo of noise.
Within the control units of each of the life-support capsules, there were changes made in the chemicals entering and leaving the cardiovascular systems of the astronauts.
Very gradually the state of suspended animation that had carried them through infinite miles of space was itself being suspended.
The microcharges that had prevented muscles from atrophying disconnected themselves.
Mom’s voice clicked back on again. But it had suffered a subtle change. It had risen very slightly in tone, as though mildly irritated by the slugabed tardiness of her dozen recalcitrant charges.
“Wakening is proceeding. There are thirty-two hours to reentry into Earth’s atmosphere and approximately thirty-six hours to the projected landing time. Wakening is proceeding.”
During most of the seven hundred and fifty days and nights of the flight, the lighting aboard the Aquila had been very subdued. Mission control back in the Nevada desert had been monitoring everything that went on inside the vessel and making minute changes every few hours.
Now the lighting was bright again, flooding the cream-painted interior and bouncing off the array of instrumentation screens.
A couple of minor illumination fittings had malfunctioned, but it made little difference to the overall level of light.
“There will be another call in sixty minutes. Meanwhile, all other audiovisual systems will be closed down.”
The ship was restored to its former silence, the twelve capsules, six to the port and six to the starboard, still slumbering.
A new clock had become illuminated, headed Time To ELT. It showed thirty-five hours and fifty-eight minutes to landing, with touchdown scheduled at Stevenson for approximately four o’clock in the afternoon of September 25.
EACH CREW MEMBER had been allowed up to sixty seconds of time to describe himself/ herself for the media on a microtape that was then stored in the ship’s main data base. Some had used most of their minute, while some had used a lot less.
“Hi, I’m Jim Hilton and I’m captain of the United States Space Vessel Aquila. I’m thirty-two years old, stand six feet two inches tall and weigh in around one-ninety, depending on how much chocolate fudge sundae I’ve been into recently. Been with the space project for ten years since graduating. Been married for twelve years to my high school sweetheart, Lori, who you’ve maybe seen on some of the afternoon family vid shows. She was the psycho killer in Sunstrokers. We’ve got twin girls, Heather and Andrea, aged eleven. I miss them a lot. And I miss our house on Tahoe Drive, a quarter mile or so from the old Hollywood sign. Hobbies are linked to survivalist skills. I’m a fair shot with rifle or handgun. And I love my country.”
James Carmel Hilton had thinning blond hair, visible through the cover on his capsule. His heart and breathing were already beginning to speed up a little, climbing back toward normal.
The next capsule along the row held a small incised plastic tag with the name of the occupant: Marcey Cortling.
“I’m Marcey Cortling and I’m number two on the Aquila. My personal details and my private life are just that. Personal and private.”
She was twenty-nine years old and lived alone in a neat apartment on the Stevenson base, the only crew member to do so. Her father and both of her older brothers had been Air Force officers. Marcey was five feet tall and weighed one-thirty-five. Her hair was short and dark, curling a little at the nape of the neck.