In Situ (28 page)

For the next few weeks, their lives were like a holiday.
Tom taught Mot the game of tennis and Mot began to beat him severely within a few days of his first lesson. Alex and Ara commiserated about the baby Arzat and began making plans for a nursery. Ara had been very curious about Alex’s clothing, and they had spent a good deal of time fashioning some things for Ara to wear. Eventually, the two of them had convinced Mot to join in, although he still preferred his loincloth. Shoes, of course, were out of the question.

Alex had recently developed a glow of her own, and although she hadn’t said anything yet, Tom began to wonder if she too, was pregnant.
If so, he thought, he would find out soon enough—he was smart enough not to ask.

The four of them would have long dinners where Tom and Alex would tell the Arzats about everything human
, and Mot and Ara would describe everything Arzat. The Arzats marveled at human technology, and the humans marveled at the complexities of the strict Arzat culture, as well as the extremely dangerous world they had come from. When Mot had told them the story about the night he had slain the dreaded beast, Alex couldn’t help but wonder if the creature he had killed was not the very same dinosaur she had found in front of the caves.

Mot, of course, was ecstatic about his soon
-to-be child. He told Tom that, if it were male, he would teach the child to hunt and all the ways of the Arzats. If it were female, then, well, he would leave the matter to Ara and Alex. Tom would just nod and shake his head, not wishing to remind Mot that their hunting days were over, praying for a female. Mot had described his hunting stick to Tom in detail and had questioned Tom intensely about the ‘fire sticks’ of the humans. Tom considered actually showing Mot the arsenal, but refrained when Alex had asked him not to. “The last thing I want to see in here is a gun, Thomas,” she told him sternly. “I have had enough of them and I would think you had too.”

For the most part, he and Alex tried not to imagine what might be happening on the surface. None of the video monitors worked, but the atmospheric sensors continued to function, and Tom found himself checking them often.
The carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide levels were astronomically high on the surface, and he doubted if anything above them that required a breath of air was still alive. Even more disturbing was the fact that he had tried to connect with all three of the other ARC units, but was unable to. Perhaps something had happened to sever the lines during the earthquakes. Perhaps it was something electrical, he could only wonder.

*

Then one day, a warning siren went off. Tom ran to check on it and found that the levels of CO and CO2 were off the charts inside of the ARC. He examined all of the air scrubbers and found them to be functioning perfectly. Then he ran a system check on the entire ARC but all of the reports came back negative. There had to be a breach somewhere in the ARC itself. His first thought was that it might be coming from the cave entrance that he and Mot had plugged, but they could find no evidence of a leak when they tested the air directly around it.

They spent over a week, crawling through the complex, checking everywhere
, but still they could not locate the source of the poison air. Soon it would begin to affect their breathing. Then, Tom thought, it would eventually kill them.

“We might have to go into the suits if this keeps up Alex,” he said to her one night just after dinner.
“I am so sorry, Alex, but I just cannot find the leak, and I don’t know if I have the resources to fix it even if I do find it.”

“I don’t think that I wish to live out my life in a plastic suit
, Thomas. Anyhow, Ara’s pregnant and about to drop an egg any day and,” she paused, touching his arm, “I think I’m pregnant, as well.”

Tom smiled at her, speechless.

“Besides, living down here is all well and good assuming you could fix the problem with the air quality, but I can’t really see raising a child down here, can you? I don’t think Mot and Ara really like the idea all that much either. And,” she added, “we still have another problem.”

“What’s that?”

“There is a second asteroid coming, remember? I haven’t brought it up, but if I have my dates right, it will impact sometime day after tomorrow. It might give us another earthquake and make the situation worse.”

“What do you want to do Alex?” Tom said, afraid of her answer.

“There is another option.”

*

It took some convincing, but Mot and Ara totally trusted Alex now. If she said it must be done, then it must be done. The world above them had ended once again, and their shelter was now in jeopardy. As before, there seemed to be no choice. As far as Mot and Ara were concerned, the whole process they had been through the first time only involved taking a short nap. “What about my child Alex?” was Ara’s main concern.

“I don’t see why
this won’t work just the same for your child, Ara. Doctor Pete told me the cryo-protectant was the most amazing preservative he had ever imagined. He based his version on the formula created by Fet the Wise Mother. Pete told me that it should perform every bit as well as the stuff she concocted, and this time, you won’t have to even get wet.”

Alex had gone to work closely studying everything she could about the cryo units.
One of the features she found far more appealing than the prospect of being packed in the goo that had served Mot and Ara so well, was that Pete’s cryo-protectant was applied as an aerosol-no “packing in goo” required.

Tom had gone to work learning everything he could about the reactors and figuring out how to tune them to last as long as possible.
He came to the conclusion, that under very low draw, one of them might be able to power their needs for twelve to fifteen hundred years or so. That was if nothing went wrong. He figured out how to set the defaults to the other reactors, if and when the first one failed, but that was an even bigger risk—the backup reactors might be anywhere from a few decades to a thousand years old by the time they were needed. Their cryo experiment also demanded that the computers that controlled the units continue to function for centuries, as well. The computers were all hermetically sealed and had several backup systems, but they were risking everything on the computers’ performance. In short, there was a lot that could go wrong.

*

“I’m not real comfortable with this Alex,” he said, when he had finished all the calculations and setting up all the systems. He explained the tenuous power situation to Alex.

Alex was less worried.
The cryo units had a battery back-up and she had discovered that they were designed to shut down and open were there ever a permanent loss of juice. “We’ll be OK Tom,” she just kept saying to him, as he watched her carefully loading the canisters of cryo-protectant Pete had given her into each of the four beds they would be using.

She put Mot and Ara in charge of food supplies.
Tom had located a bank of hermetic safes and Alex had sent the two Arzats out to find anything and everything they could that was dry to stock them. Dry nuts, dried fruit, pasta, flour, anything and everything dry was the assignment. Alex figured with their noses, the Arzats wouldn’t miss much. She was only mildly annoyed when they showed back up from their first trip with a huge load of beef jerky and not much else. She sent them out a few more times, and eventually, there was a nice stockpile of dry edibles packed into several of the safes. Alex smiled when she noticed that Mot seemed to have inadvertently brought back several boxes of pancake batter mix, until she realized that there was a picture of pancakes on the box.

Tom was doubtful if there would be anything left of anything when
or if they finally awoke, but he hadn’t bothered to say it. Alex noticed that he had placed his own stockpile of duffle bags stuffed with something in the safes, but she hadn’t questioned him about them.

When they were finally finished with all of the preparations, Tom cooked the four of them another lavish
dinner, mostly meat, but complete with ice cream sundaes for dessert, which Mot and Ara claimed were delicious. They chatted and laughed throughout the evening until their last bites, then the dinner table became suddenly quiet.

“It’s time,” Alex finally said, when she was sure everyone had finished.

The four of them slowly cleaned up the table without speaking another word to each other. Alex wandered off somewhere with Ara after giving Tom and Mot instructions to meet them shortly. All of them eventually made their way back to the area where the cryo units were open and waiting. Alex helped get everyone settled, double checking each of the individual cryo beds as she did so.

“What happened to your hair?” Tom asked, settling into his unit.

“Thought I would go for a new look, like it?” Alex said, modeling her shorter cut. “Ara did a good job, don’t ya think?”

“Al
, I don’t care about your hair, long or short. The one thing I want you to know is that I want to be with you forever,” Tom said seriously as Alex leaned over him.

“Well, looks like we are off to a pretty good start,” she said, winking.
Was it just her imagination, she wondered, or was he actually getting better looking with age. Carbon fiber beams, she mused as she gazed at him, his damn mistress had been carbon fiber beams.

“Will you ever forgive me for being such an asshole?” he said, looking up at her.

“Not in a thousand years.” Alex kissed him deeply. “See you in a minute.”

“Thank you
, Alex,” Ara said, as Alex checked on her.

“For what?”

“For Mot, for bringing him to me. Without you, Mot would not have survived and I would have no mate and no chance for a child.”

“You give me too much credit.
I’ll see you soon.” Now, scoot up in the bed just a bit, Alex thought, deliberately blocking her thought the way Ara had taught her.

The Arzat did not move.
“You look very nice for a human Alex,” was all Ara said.

Alex just smiled
, liking her new female friend very much. Gotcha, she thought, still blocking.

“Have I done something wrong again Alex?” Mot said as she approached him.

“Why would you say that Mot?”

“Oh, I was just wondering.”

Alex bent down and looked directly into Mot’s reptilian eyes amazed again that such an incredible being could exist. “No, Mot, maybe just a bit unlucky. You’ve somehow managed to show up right before the end of the world
twice
,” she said, smiling at him.

“Maybe next time will be better?”

“Well, we humans have a saying: ‘the third time is a charm.’”

“What does that mean
, Alex?”

“Oh
, never mind, Mot, it’s not important.” Alex said, her eyes were full of tears.

“Alex?”

“Yes, Mot.”

“Do you believe in the Great Creator?”

Alex put her hand gently on his forehead. “Well, I have to tell you, Mot, I didn’t before, but you definitely have me leaning in that direction. I’ll see you real soon, OK?”

“Yes
, Alex, perhaps you will make me the pan cakes?”

“Yes, Mot son of Url, nothing would make me happier,” she said, gazing at the amazing Arzat that had so changed her life.

Alex did a check, and then another, as any good scientist would have done. She ran through the cryo programs according to Pete’s instructions, and she adjusted the temperature settings to -1 degree centigrade, just as Pete had suggested. The only thing left was duration of sleep cycle. The computer icon was blinking in the box, daring her.

You should be a lot more scientific about this Alex, she thought.
She typed in: 10000 years
0 months
3 days
0 hours
0 minutes—
ten
times longer than she had originally intended.

That will give me an extra few days to forgive Tom, she thought, smiling
in his direction as she key stroked the command that would begin the sequencing, hoping he was right about the reactors and the way they were linked. Might as well come back to something, she thought. She knew that one thousand years wasn’t nearly long enough based on the damage the two asteroids might inflict.

Alex walked to her own cryo bed and l
ay down, trying to slow down her heart, which was beating wildly with anticipation.

“Alex?” she heard Mot say quietly into her head.

“Yes
, Mot?”

“Thank you
, Alex daughter of Simon. Thank you.”

Alex took in a deep breath.
She was going to ask Mot why he was thanking her again. But then she thought better of it.

“You’re welcome
, Mot.”

The glass shields automatically lowered and Alex could immediately feel herself getting sleepy and the cryo unit cooling.
Alex wasn’t worried, she was excited, like the first day of school or the night before Christmas. She was in love with Tom and someday, god knew when, she was going to have his child. And the Arzats, those fabulous Arzats—Mot and Ara and their child—would be with them when the world began again. She was absolutely sure of it.