“Thanks,” Mildred said as Jamaisvous crossed back to his recliner, handing her the drink before sitting down.
“You’re welcome, Dr. Wyeth. Please, be seated.”
Mildred took up a position next to Doc on the edge of a small sofa.
“What’s the first thing you remember when you arrived in 1998, Dr. Tanner?”
“Shadowy shapes. Masked faces.”
“Sounds typical. You would have been disoriented. But you became conscious-fully awake-in a hospital bed.”
“If my memory is to be believed, that is correct, yes. However, I find my memory to be seriously lacking in detail and sharpness since I began my travels in time. I used to believe after I was abducted by those madmen in Chronos that I was placed within the confines of a glass coffin, like a refugee from a Grimm’s Fairy Tale.”
“Cryo pod,” Jamaisvous corrected.
Mildred snorted a second time.
Jamaisvous pressed on. “In Chicago, when you were trawled, you arrived through one of the waiting cryo pods-you know, the canisters made of alloy and armaglass. When you appeared inside, you were then immobilized until they could be sure you had arrived whole and intact. Then, over an extended period, your body temperature was brought down and-”
“Please-his entire body would have exploded,” Mildred retorted, interrupting the narrative. “The very blood in his veins would’ve frozen. There would be cellular disruption on a massive and incapacitating level. There is no instant freeze except in bad science fiction. Putting subjects in cryo sleep and then reviving them is a tedious, dangerous process.”
Jamaisvous gave Mildred a doubting look. “What makes you an expert, Dr. Wyeth?”
“I was-I am-a pioneer in cryonics, Dr. Jamaisvous.” Mildred replied, accenting the word “doctor” as she spoke.
“Really? Got to experience your subject firsthand, did you?”
Mildred frowned. “As did you. We seem to be no worse for wear.”
“Right, right,” he said dismissively. “Still, as a pioneer in the public sector without military clearances, you know nothing at all of the true nature of cryonics. If you’ll pardon the pun, what you and your so-called colleagues were allowed to see was merely the tip of the iceberg.”
“And I suppose you’re an expert?”
“Not by any means. I can’t explain some of what I know of the utilized cryonic techniques. I just know it works. Rather, worked.”
Mildred held her tongue, choosing to take another sip of the potent brandy. What Jamaisvous was saying made sense when you factored in some of the advanced technology she’d seen for herself in the redoubts equipped with cryonic sleep chambers. The basics from her past studies were there, but some of the processes were well beyond what she could have accomplished herself using late 1990s technology. The advanced leap of science that had created the matter-transfer gateways also could have been easily involved with cryonics.
“Okay, I give you the possibility. You don’t have to be such a jerk about it,” Mildred finally said.
“And you don’t have to be so damned all-knowing, Dr. Wyeth.”
“I am afraid her self-assurance is one of her less endearing qualities,” Doc said.
‘ ‘Well, not to me. I like a woman who speaks her mind.”
“How long do you think I was in suspended sleep?” Doc asked, turning back to Jamaisvous.
“A few days, I’d say. Long enough so they could be sure you were intact and whole. The cryo pods served another function, you know. They protected you against any unexpected diseases or exposure. After all, you were in a fragile state, and there were germs and bugs floating around in 1998 you had never dreamed of a hundred and two years ago in the past.”
“So, is that how trawling has to be carried out to work, with cryonics involved on the receiving end?”
‘ ‘No. As far as I know, a year or so after you made the trip into 1998, a modification was discovered that allowed the mat-trans chambers themselves to serve as collector and containment fields for living subjects minus the earlier subzero temperatures needed until the trawled subject was whole and intact. Besides, if cryonic pods were a necessity, than temporal passage into the future would be an impossibility, and you wouldn’t be here talking with me.”