Of Fire and Slumber

— Year 3 —

Fiona watched the slowly moving star in the purplish evening sky of Prospero, the air still stinking of woodsmoke and ash. The Delias in orbit carried thousands of sleepers. One hundred had been recently awakened to join their comrades on the ground. But there would be no happy reunions. The recently revived had been ordered to return to their pods without setting foot on the new world. No one knew for how long.

Thankfully, the forest fire only resulted in a handful of deaths. The lightning-caused flames had rushed through the spiral-branched helix trees and devoured the structures carefully embedded beneath their shade. Since the tiered greenhouses and food warehouses had been reduced to blackened rubble, famine-level scarcity loomed.

A message chimed on Fiona’s watch: You’re next. Come in.

The synagogue was not built in the forest that clung to the winding river descending from the Silent Mountains. The humble adobe brick religious center stood among the gentle hills and traditional farms. The colony’s only undamaged structures were here: farmhouses, storehouses, a clinic, and the synagogue.

Near the steps she spied Ricard, a clinic doctor, his flop of brown hair covering his left eye and his usual stubble now edging into beard territory. He broke from a group of murmuring people to approach, his green eyes large and sad. He pushed his hair back. “Fiona—”

She shook her head sharply in response. He nodded and turned away. Fiona needed no more stress.

A sudden hug stopped Fiona. It was Aleah, a stem of fragrant mothweed plant in her ear, its leaf patterned like mothwings. “I’m so sorry. Be strong, okay?”

Fiona returned the embrace. “I’ll try.”

She trudged up the steps of the synagogue and through the open double doors. Fiona was not Jewish nor religious, but this was now the largest building in the young colony, and screens had been connected to the Delias for the goodbyes. Jericho was scheduled to undergo the re-hibernation procedure tomorrow. The news that they would not be reunited crushed her soul. She had sobbed and raged for hours. That was yesterday. The day after the fire.

A week ago she’d been giddy as she spoke to her husband, fresh from revival. It had been the first time since Departure, more than 200 years ago. Fiona, considered essential as a meteorologist, had hit dirt Year Zero on the second shuttle. Jericho didn’t make the revival list until three years later. Still recovering from the procedure, and the two-century sleep, his smile and eyes drooped with fatigue. She had done most of the talking. It had been the happiest moment since her arrival.

And now Jericho would sleep again. At least a year, maybe two or three. It all depended on how the food situation shook out.

The damned fire.

Rabbi Levy, tall and bearded, greeted her unsmiling and sympathetic. At the question of her raised eyebrows he guided her to a screen. She sat heavily on the wooden folding chair and breathed in. Fiona was determined to not be an emotional wreck for this last conversation for…too long.

“Hi,” said Fiona as Jericho appeared on her screen.

He hovered in zero G by one of the terminals in the Delias, his sky-blue eyes more alert and intense than their last conversation. His close-cropped hair had thickened a touch. “Hi.”

“You look better,” Fiona said, forcing a smile.

“Feeling better. Stronger. Did some 1G treadmill today.”

“Well, that’s fucking useless now, isn’t it?”

Jericho chuckled. “God, I miss you.”

“Miss you, too. For a few years now.”

“Before I’m put down, I have to ask: Did you lose any friends?”

“No one I was really close to. Aleah’s sister’s still missing.”

Jericho grimaced. “How’re you holding up?”

Fiona sighed. “Barely. Just barely.”

“Anyone down there you can talk to?”

“The rabbi here has been great.”

Jericho’s face crinkled in confusion.

“He’s a good soul. He’s holding us together more than the governor.”

“Hope there’s more than one somebody. A rabbi is a busy man, I expect. Especially now.”

“Yes. Aleah is wonderful. A little fragile. Can’t blame her. Anyway, don’t worry about me.”

“I do. The shortage looks bad.”

“We’ll be fine. If it gets really serious, maybe I’ll just volunteer to head back up for hibernation.”

Jericho shook his head. “No.”

“I’m aware of the risks—”

“Exactly. Don’t risk the both of us like that. If the situation is truly between hibernation or starvation, then, sure. If not, please stay down there. Wait for me.”

Fiona replied in a small voice. “Okay.”

“Was that a real ‘okay’ or just a placating ‘okay’ that you really didn’t mean?”

“Okay. I won’t volunteer.”

“They probably wouldn’t let you, anyway, Ms. Essential Meteorologist.”

“They could get by with two.”

“But they probably won’t. Not with the drought.”

Fiona paused for a moment. “You could stow away.”

“What? On the shuttle down?”

“Yes. Do it.”

Jericho gave her a skeptical side-eye. “I don’t think I’d be a beloved member of society if I just showed up in a food crisis.”

“I’ll have to hide you. I’d sneak out to your cave with scraps of food.”

“A cave?”

“Yes. I’d steal some rations, come to you in the dead of night when everyone’s asleep. We’d make love in the cave.”

Jericho’s smile grew. “That actually sounds really awesome.”

“It’s a flawless plan.”

“It’s perfect.” Jericho grinned broadly, buying into the fantasy. “We’ll have our little cave. We’d be like Adam and Eve out there.”

“Yes! I’d sneak you out seeds. You could farm in the day. I’d come to you every night, to my sweaty cave man.”

Jericho sighed, his smile collapsing with the fantasy. “I’m so sorry. I am. I have the easier part in this. I’ll be asleep.”

“It’ll be fine. Eventually. I don’t want you to be worrying about me before your sleep.”

“Impossible.”

“This is just a setback. We have a lot of smart people down here. We’ll figure it out. I’ll be missing you every day.”

“And I’ll be dreaming of you.” Jericho reached out and touched the screen.

Fiona did the same, tears held back now falling.

— Year 6 —

Prospero’s two moons sliced two bright crescents in the sky, visible even beyond the lights of the landing zone. The night was cool and dry and still, yet filled with the electricity of anticipation. The crowd hung back behind the temporary fence forty meters from the shuttle standing on its extended legs.

Fiona and Aleah watched together as the newly awakened came down the ramp in ones and twos, announced by the Governor and applauded by the crowd gathered for the first shuttle carrying passengers dirtside in three years.

Ricard squeezed through the crowd to get close to Fiona. “Whatever it is, not now,” she said, glaring. “We have an agreement.”

“Just…stopping by to wish you well. Okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Ricard slipped away as Fiona watched, jaw tense.

Aleah rubbed Fiona’s back. “Are you going to be all right?”

Fiona nodded. “Fine.”

At every landing since the fourth, back in Year Zero, Fiona had felt sympathy for Ricard. His wife had been scheduled on that one. She was on board, but she had not survived the revival procedure. A tenth of a percent either died en route or succumbed to the rigors of revival. Health issues, unfortunately, were not as rare. When came the news of a loved one being revived, the excitement was always tempered with a touch of dread until word followed of their health.

Fiona’s athletic husband Jericho, hardly ever suffering the sniffles Earthside, now had tremors, a product of damage to the substantia nigra of his brain resulting in low dopamine production. The med techs were optimistic about a fix. The doctors confirmed the symptoms had been present at his first revival, but didn’t say anything at Jericho’s own request. Her husband was a little too proud.

“Jericho Baily!” announced the Governor.

A yelp escaped Fiona and she slipped through the fence and rushed forward, the crowd parting. She slipped through the fence and stopped at the foot of the ramp. Jericho’s mouth was a tight line of concentration. A cane in his left steadied his walk, his right trembled at his side. He saw Fiona and smiled broadly. Fiona wiped her tears and walked up the ramp to meet him halfway. She hugged him tightly—a touch delayed far too long.

Cheers erupted as they kissed.

She could feel trembling in the arm returning the embrace. But this was her Jericho. And she knew it was a humiliation to be seen with a cane.

Fiona pulled back to look at him, seeing tears well in those blue eyes. “You made it,” she whispered.

“Thanks for waiting.”

“I had nowhere else to be.”

Jericho kept his arm around her waist and Fiona assisted her husband down the ramp. On the tarmac, he looked up at the two moons, perhaps for confirmation he had truly crossed fifty-five light-years.

Fiona helped him through the crowd beaming, heart bursting.

— # —

The aroma of goat meat and sweet potatoes lingered in the tiny adobe-brick dorm where Fiona, Jericho, and Ricard sat about the small table of gnomewood, its dark grain thin and wavy.

“I wish I had a drink,” said Jericho. “An after-dinner wine would be perfect.”

“That and a smoke,” replied Ricard.

“No thirsty crops for us in a drought,” said Fiona, sitting back down after placing the dishes in the sink. “Although I hear a certain someone stole corn to make whiskey.”

Jericho looked to Ricard.

Ricard laughed. “It’s not me, but I’ll snitch if McDougal doesn’t cut me in.”

Jericho smiled. His right hand on the table tremored and he moved it to his lap.

“How’s the pioneering life treating you?” asked Ricard.

“A little more rustic than I expected.”

“Someday we’ll get it right,” said Ricard, his smile less than reassuring.

Jericho nodded.

“Are you tired?” Fiona asked her husband. She immediately regretted it.

“I am,” cut in Ricard before Jericho could answer. “I’ll be getting back. You’re a great cook, Jericho. Let me know when you’re at the stove again.” Ricard stood, and his mouth twitched before he pasted a grin Fiona recognized as false. “I’m really glad you’re with us, Jericho. And…it’s good to see you two together at last.”

Hugs were exchanged and Ricard left, leaving a small chill as the door closed.

Fiona and Jericho settled on the futon in its sofa configuration, Jericho still eyeing the door. “Not how I pictured it.”

She took his hand, which still lightly trembled. “What do you mean?”

“Everything. The hibernation problems. The colony almost going up in smoke. Us apart for so many years. It has to be a lot tougher on you. The memory of us saying goodbye before hibernation is still fresh for me. It’s been three years for you.”

“Well, yeah, but I never stopped loving you.”

“It makes me happy, but that’s a lot of time.”

“Colony business kept me occupied.”

Jericho stared at the floor. “Don’t take this as an attack. It’s not. I don’t mind. It was expected. And it needs to be in the open.” He paused for a breath. “I can tell you and Ricard had a thing.”

Fiona stiffened.

Jericho continued, “It’s okay. Really. I’m actually glad you found some comfort while I was away.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jericho held up his good hand. “Stop. It’s all right. Truly. Three years we were apart. God, six years total.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We can pick up from here.”

“Yes.” Fiona took Jericho’s hand for a tight squeeze.

“But I’m not sure if we can all be friends. Ricard seems uncomfortable, too. I don’t know how you left things.”

Someone gently knocked at the door.

Fiona got up, exhaled to settle nerves, and answered.

Rabbi Levy stood there, his voluminous beard shot with silver and puffed by the slight wind. His smile fell. “Is this a bad time?”

Fiona forced a grin. “No. Come in and meet Jericho.”

Levy stepped in as Jericho rose to greet the visitor. “I’ve heard so much about you, good sir,” said the tall rabbi before meting out a fierce bear hug. “Welcome to Prospero.”

“Thank you.”

“Your wife is my favorite non-Jewish Jew. She’s an angel.”

Fiona pulled a chair from the kitchen for Levy and he sat with an exaggerated sigh. “Sorry for calling so late, but I was in the neighborhood and the light was on.” He looked to Jericho, “How’s the recovery?”

“A little slow. The doctors don’t know if the tremors can be fixed. But when they ease up, I take to woodcarving.”

Levy nodded. “It’s the little things that keep a man sane and spirits high.”

“I heard you lifted Fiona’s more than a few times. Thank you.”

Levy gestured to the framed photograph on the wall above the shelf where a rough-hewn wooden elephant stood. In the frame, Fiona and Jericho smiled as they leaned on a stone railing adjacent to a wide, blue river crossed by a bridge. “You know how often Fiona pointed at that picture and talked about you? Every time I visited.”

“She loved Vienna,” replied Jericho.

The rabbi laughed. “Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s what she loved!”

“Excuse me for a moment,” said Fiona as she went to the table and gathered dishes. Jericho mentioning her past with Ricard still had her rattled. She needed to do something physical to settle nerves. Fiona cleared dinner’s dishes and headed to the sink, still in easy earshot of the conversation.

“Fiona said you’re also the lead botanist,” said Jericho. “I know lightning started the fire, but why did the helix trees explode like that?”

Levy grunted and frowned. “I’d been studying the helix trees closely. Their pollens grow inside the trunks in an empty space, a bladder-like compartment. The heat of the fire caused the bladders to explosively burst, spreading pollen to the pistils that sprout from the exposed tops of the tree roots. The forest waits for drought and lightning and fire. Total annihilation and then renewal. If I—”

“Quit blaming yourself,” said Fiona, stepping in from the kitchen. “No one could have predicted that with such paltry data on a new species. You were the glue that held us together during the lean years.”

“Too kind.” A small grin appeared. “Much too kind.” The smile vanished. “But I come with news. Bad, I’m afraid. Our chickpea crop has a blight.”

“Oh, no,” sighed Fiona.

“It’s not Didymella rabiei, the common earth blight,” continued Levy. “It’s alien. It’s an indigenous fungus, or fungal-like life form.”

“So what do we do?” asked Fiona, settling into the sofa, other concerns momentarily forgotten.

“It might infect a variety of species. We’re investigating. We’re separating the crops. Worst case, this blight gets into everything with earth origins.” said Levy. “We may be sending people back to hibernation. Prepare yourselves mentally for that.”

— Year 231 —

A persistent anxiety wormed in the pit of Fiona’s stomach. She had a recovery room all to herself, the other three wall cocoons were empty. She knew she had been here before, yet nothing looked familiar, nothing felt right. The attending doctor looked worried too, which wasn’t helpful.

“Tell me your husband’s name,” the doctor asked, a serious woman, her wavy blonde hair a chaotic halo in the zero G.

Fiona could clearly see her husband in her mind—his green eyes, his flop of brown hair, the perpetual chin stubble, his lanky figure—but his name kept slipping from reach.

“Take your time, memory lapses aren’t uncommon,” encouraged the doctor.

There it was. “Ricard LeBlanc.” Fiona released a sigh. Perhaps the damage was minimal and recovery would be swift.

The doctor shook her head.

How could that not be right? That had to be right.

“Can you name someone else from the early days? A friend?”

Fiona didn’t have to think at all. “Rabbi Levy.”

The doctor smiled. “That checks out, his name is here.”

“But Ricard’s isn’t?”

“He’s not listed as your husband. Tell me a Year Zero memory.”

Fiona concentrated. “I remember stepping off the ramp of the shuttle. So happy. Seeing that orange sun and those weird helix trees.”

The doctor smiled. “Very good.”

“Another time I remember cursing that my husband didn’t make the revival list. Again. I broke a bowl in the cafeteria.”

The doctor taped her wrist screen. “Maybe enough for today. Let’s not try too hard. Rest. You’re safe. And soon you’ll be back on the ground.” The doctor glided from the room.

Alone, Fiona didn’t feel safe. She felt off-balance and anxious, and knew it wasn’t the lingering after-effects of hibernation. The world below her had changed so radically. She feared she may have Environmental Displacement Disorder, just like she had back in Year Zero: panic attacks caused by living in a radically new environment with no hope of going home.

She recalled the swift alien blight that had withered the crops—that filled her most recent bank of memories. Tearful goodbyes as friends walked up the shuttle ramp to hibernate in orbit, safe from the second food shortage. Most of the colony had been liquidated back to the Delias. She remembered seeing her name on the list for the next shuttle uphill and a long hug and a longer kiss from Ricard. Not her husband? Were the records mixed up and not her brain?

Colony history uploaded to her watch filled in the two-century gap of her hibernation. The blight had been defeated after several years. However, before food production was completely normalized, both shuttles had been destroyed in an act of terror by someone cracking under the enormous pressure of those difficult days. The only transport between the colony and the Delias had been eliminated. Everyone was stranded apart from their sleeping comrades and backup supplies. The embryo safe had been opened, and women carried strangers’ babies for genetic diversity. No manufacturies had yet been built, all the necessary materials stored uselessly aboard the Delias.

Over a century had passed before the colonists engineered and built factories. Rockets were assembled—chemical rockets—to dock with the Delias. Information storage had to be deciphered to access the details on reviving colonists and building nuclear shuttles.

A knock came on the open door to Fiona’s recovery cabin. A man with close-cropped dark hair and blue eyes floated in the doorway, grasping a handhold. He looked expectant.

“Yes?” answered Fiona.

“Is this a good time?” he asked.

“For what?”

His face visibly shifted to disappointment. “For a visit. I heard you were having memory issues and—”

“I’m sorry. Do we know each other?”

He maneuvered into the room and grasped the handhold next to her cocoon. “An old friend.” He offered his hand. “I’m Jericho.”

She took his hand. “Fiona. Oh. That was stupid. You know me. I’m sorry, can we get reacquainted another time? I’m just really tired.”

— Year 7 —

Aleah had killed herself with the poisonous extract of the mothweed plant. Three days after the funeral, Fiona wasn’t rising from bed for anything other than using the toilet.

Jericho was gone, drafted to re-hibernate half a year past. The colony had been reduced to a skeleton crew of several hundred. The monumental task of getting a few thousand colonists back to the Delias had drained everyone of energy and morale.

Fiona, in bed, ignored the knock at the door.

Judging by the reddish nature of the light coming in from the edges of the window shade, she concluded it was evening, the K-type sun setting.

“Can you please open up? It’s Ricard.”

She knew who it was and she didn’t want to see anyone.

After a minute, louder, he said, “Can you let me know you’re alive?”

“I’m fine,” replied Fiona her voice thick with annoyance. “I want to be alone.”

Ricard said something she couldn’t hear. Silence followed. She relaxed and the sweet sleep of depression swallowed her again.

When she awoke it was dark. The urge to urinate was painful. She slipped on her flipflops and headed outside toward the communal toilets.

“You truly are alive,” said Ricard behind her.

Normally, she would have jumped, maybe yelped. Tonight, someone could have slipped up behind her with a knife and ill intent and she would have been relieved.

“Yes,” Fiona continued walking, not turning. She entered the bathroom.

When she emerged he was still there, casting two moon shadows, looking worried and brushing his hair from his forehead. “Can you come with me to the clinic? Please?”

“Not tonight. No.” She walked past him.

“Fiona, there’s been more suicides, and—”

“I’m not killing myself.”

“I’m begging you. Let’s walk.”

Fiona sighed and stopped. “Why?”

“I’d like to talk about a treatment. Something the colony doctors want to try.”

Fiona paused. The torpor had her. She hated it. She felt guilty for not working, for not even glancing at the satellite data or being a friend to people who had just sent loved ones to hibernate. This uselessness fed into guilt, but didn’t prod her to action. She had settled into a cesspool of despair and apathy.

A walk. Could she manage a walk?

“Fine.” Fiona almost changed her mind when she realized that putting on shoes would be required, but she plowed ahead and allowed Ricard to guide her toward the clinic. They passed a few farmhouses, the silhouettes told of people eating a paltry and unfulfilling dinner. Ricard chatted the whole way, Fiona half-listening.

Over a hill the clinic stood stark against the landscape with bright light spilling from every window. Through the glass double-doors and she squinted. Too damn bright, painful. She wanted to go back home.

In Ricard’s office he turned on the desk lamp and angled its gooseneck low. Fiona slumped on the sofa against the wall and stared at her feet.

“Now that you came all this way,” Ricard said, “how about letting me do a neurological scan?”

“Why? Seriously, my husband is gone, again, my best friend committed suicide, and the colony is failing. And you think you can bump my serotonin and solve my depression?”

“Did you listen to what I said on the way over?”

Fiona sighed. “Not really.”

Ricard frowned. “All you have to do for the scan is lie down. It’s a full molecular snapshot. You’ll probably fall asleep.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

— Year 231 —

The colony had grown into a city bristling with activity. Fiona found it disorienting. Cheery stone buildings dyed bright pastels lined the streets and the roads hummed with swift vehicles. A buzzing winged aircraft rode the winds overhead. At least the orange sun was familiar. Fiona and her friend Jericho were a curiosity, as were all the `originals’ coming down lately.

Her memory was porous and slippery. Some of the images that crossed her consciousness were so confusing that she didn’t know if they came from a dream or waking life. Fiona concentrated on living in the moment, as per medical instructions.

That evening she agreed to meet Jericho at a café. She trawled her past and caught only glimpses of the fellow. Once on a walk in the helix forest, marveling at their branches with scarlet leaves that spiraled around the trunks. Another time, in a tiny apartment, she recalled holding his trembling hand and feeling badly for him. Fiona mentioned that last one to Jericho, and he nodded. “This time around they were able to fix that aboard the Delias.” Jericho pulled a fist-sized wooden carving of an elephant from the pocket of his Delias-issued coveralls. “I made something for you,”

Fiona smiled. “I love elephants! Thank you!”

“The hobby keeps me…distracted from all this.”

Fiona turned it over in her hands, running a finger along the curling trunk. “You’re really good.” She sat it on the table and looked about the café, a bit of pride swelling. A couple of centuries beyond three huge disasters and the people had been scrappy enough to keep on and eventually thrive.

Jericho lifted his glass of red wine, “Cheers.”

She returned the gesture and drank. They shared a sour look as they set their glasses down. “And I was just mentally applauding humanity at all this success. Ugh. Worst wine ever.”

They laughed. The food soon arrived and made up for the inferior wine.

A tall, bearded man entered the café and his presence stopped Fiona. She could not stop staring. He noticed and smiled. And then his mouth fell open. “Fiona?”

“Rabbi!” she shouted and leapt to give him a hug.

“Oh! It’s my favorite non-Jewish Jew!”

“I knew you used to call me something! Now I remember! I figured you were long dead!”

The embrace was broken. “Not at all! Don’t you know that rabbis are immortal?”

She slapped his shoulder playfully. “Right. I can tell your beard is more gray.”

“Rude of you to notice.”

“So my memory isn’t that screwed up!”

The rabbi’s smile faltered. “Having issues?”

Jericho cut in to grab Levy’s hand, “The long sleep has taken a toll on us both.” Jericho held the rabbi’s gaze in a seriousness that Fiona found curious. “Maybe you remember me. I’m Fiona’s friend Jericho.”

After a small pause, Levy said, “Yes. Yes I do remember. Of course.”

“Join us!” said Fiona.

Rabbi Levy explained that he had stayed through the worst of times, assisting with the development of the successful blight killer. His principal job finished, Levy and the several remaining Jews opted to hibernate. He had been sent up on the last shuttle before they had been destroyed, and he got the news before he underwent the procedure. “I feared I might sleep until the Delias ran out of gas and me and every other sleeper died.”

“But we made it,” said Fiona with a grin.

“Not only that, but in the intervening years someone had the kindness of heart to remove the Torah from the synagogue and protect it. The synagogue, unfortunately, is in ruins.”

“That’s terrible,” said Fiona.

“It’s just bricks. But the Torah is important. It’s in the museum. I’ve been trying to get it back.”

“Museum?” asked Jericho.

“The Year Zero Museum,” replied Levy. “I recommend it. The artifacts there might help with the memory issues.”

— # —

The following week Fiona and Jericho stood in the atrium of the museum looking at a rusted heavy-duty construction bot as sunlight beamed through the skylights. Its six legs were extended to their full height of three meters. Smaller arms sprouted from the chassis displaying its built-in tools: the stone saw, mortar applicator, and rivet gun.

“These things were impressive in action,” said Jericho.

“And so fast,” said Fiona.

They took their time meandering and remembering. Fiona remembered more than not. There was a 1/12 mock-up of one of the old shuttles, which she recalled clearly. A small room held the glass-encased open scroll of the Torah that had come from earth with the Jewish community. Fiona hoped Levy could get it back and build another synagogue.

Hundreds of photographs crowded the next rooms’ walls. They were not displayed individually with placards, but densely in a continuous collage. These personal artifacts were of little historical interest, but intimate minutiae of the early days.

“Call out a name if you recognize anyone,” said Jericho.

There were lots of photos of people stepping off the shuttle ramp for the first time. Newborns and proud parents. A wedding beneath the scarlet leaves of a venerable helix tree. Doctors posing in front of their newly constructed clinic. “Here’s Ricard!”

Jericho nodded as his eye shuddered briefly. “Good.”

A wave of sadness struck Fiona. Her boyfriend was long dead. She refused to let that show in front of Jericho. But why? Jericho wouldn’t be bothered; he knew what she was going through.

“Hey, that’s you,” said Fiona. “And me!” she quickly added.

They smiled from a cracked, faded, and yellowed photograph in a battered frame, the entire bottom molding missing. As she studied the picture, her smile disappeared as she noticed more detail. The bridge and buildings in the background—Earth. Jericho’s left arm was draped around her neck, and she grasped his wrist.

Fiona leaned closer. “Is that a wedding band? Were you married?”

— Year 7 —

In the clinic office, black ruins of the forest distant through the window, Fiona squinted at a screen. Ricard selected various videos for her, testing and stimulating her memory a week after the depression treatment.

“This guy here, know him?” asked Ricard.

A broad, shortish man with a dark beard was remote-controlling a construction bot. Only his profile was visible until he noticed the vid-drone, and he turned and waved. The view zoomed to his smiling face, his bushy eyebrows prominent.

“Ah…yeah…” Fiona sighed, feeling the dawn of recognition prickle her scalp. “McDougal!” She snapped her fingers. “Bot wrangler! And he made illegal whiskey.”

“Excellent, very good.”

The scene switched to a woman with long, curly hair reading her palette beneath the wide trunk of a helix tree. She looked up, directly into the camera. Ricard froze the video and zoomed in.

“I know her?” asked Fiona, face scrunched in concentration. “Wow. You have mothweed in here?” She looked around for the source of that flowery-fruity scent that suddenly prickled her nose.

“No.”

“Weird.” Fiona turned back to the screen.

“Her name’s Aleah.”

Fiona shook her head. “The name sounds familiar, but not her face.”

Next came a man in his thirties down the shuttle ramp with a cane, walking carefully and unsteadily. His dark hair close-cropped and he focused on his footing. When he looked up, he smiled broadly and Ricard froze the frame and enlarged, his eyes the color of old Earth’s sky.

“Yeah, nothing for this guy.”

“Take your time.”

Fiona looked again, searched that face for familiarity. “Just a deja vu thing, like maybe we met?”

“You were fairly close, I believe.”

Fiona squinted at the screen. “What’s his name?”

“John.”

— Year 231 —

The ruins of the synagogue lay outside the city, unmarked, out in the farmlands. No wall rose more than a meter, and the foundation was cracked and covered in native rust-colored scarlis vines. Rabbi Levy and Fiona stood in what once was the sanctuary. There were no chairs, no ark, no bimah. Just rocks, dirt, and weathered bricks.

“How often do you come out here?” asked Fiona, looking to the towers of the city in the distance.

“Every time Jews come down, I give them the tour.”

“Where do you worship?”

“My house.” After a moment where only the breeze created any sound on a world with only plant-related life, Levy said, “I know when something’s troubling you. Do you want to talk?”

“I don’t think you can help.”

“Well, you’re probably right.”

Fiona laughed. “How long have you been back?”

“Six years now.”

“Did you have any memory issues when you woke up?”

“No.”

After a pause of looking at the ruins, Fiona blurted, “Jericho said we were married.”

“How did that go?”

“So it’s true?”

“Yes.”

“How could the hibernation wipe out everything with Jericho?”

“It didn’t.”

Fiona looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“Your memory was damaged after the depression procedure. It was called TSA but I forget what that stands for.”

Fiona groaned.

“There may have been more deterioration after another 200 years up there,” continued Levy, “but from talking with you, I doubt it. Maybe half a year before you were drafted to hibernate you underwent a procedure for depression. Ricard recommended and performed it.”

— # —

With Levy’s direction, Fiona sat at a terminal accessing medical records two centuries past in a brightly lit museum room lined with rows of screens. Old records stored on the Delias had been declared open information. No new privacy laws had been enacted since the originals began returning. Anyone could access the old medical records.

She navigated the portals and at last discovered her health documentation beginning in Year Zero:

DIAGNOSIS: Environmental Displacement Disorder (EDD)

TREATMENT: Serotonin Boosters, Mandatory Outdoor Activities

This was a common mental issue with colonists. EDD had been initially discovered among the first long-term Mars colonists. Fiona noted she had felt a little of that uncomfortable anxiety since her return, but considered it culture shock, not EDD.

She flipped forward in the records to Year 7.

DIAGNOSIS: Trauma Induced Depression

TREATMENT: Targeted Synapse Adjustment (TSA)

She read that the goal of TSA was to weaken the memories of the traumatic incident. Fiona’s diagnosis didn’t qualify as she had not suffered something like witnessing a murder or surviving an accident. The records indicated she had lost her husband to hibernation. She had lost a dear friend to suicide. Incidents as such should not be edited, since the person involved would have to be eliminated from the patient’s timeline entirly to be effective. Experiments in the past had been made in extreme cases of abusive relationships, but collateral memory damage was always too extensive.

Dr. Ricard LeBlanc had been the sole physician signing off on the diagnosis and treatment.

Fiona screamed in rage, garnering stares.

Her memories had been deliberately stolen. Her husband wiped from her mind…by a jealous lover.

— # —

An inquiry had been launched, with Fiona, Jericho, and Rabbi Levy summoned to speak with investigators. Fiona found them polite, earnest, and thorough. A brain scan was ordered for Fiona. The medical professionals deemed the results more likely malice than malpractice.

Dr. Ricard LeBlanc still hibernated, but there were no laws regarding the revival of a citizen for a trial. The current statute of limitations would have to be altered. Fiona’s case made for an interesting Year Zero historical bit for the news cycle but nothing would be done in the near term for justice.

Fiona turned to the rabbi. His old farmhouse, built in the early years, smelled of wood and mothweed. They sat at his Year Zero kitchen table of gnomewood, restored recently by Jericho. Fiona sipped Levy’s green tea. “No one suspected this at the time?” she asked, voice weak.

“By then, there were so few of us, and so much work.” Levy said, shaking his head. He leaned forward. “This will eat you alive Fiona, if you don’t deal with it.”

“How do I deal with this…this assault?” Her voice went shrill. “He murdered part of me!”

“I’m hoping he’ll be revived and tried. Justice would be a beginning. But you must consider forgiveness. For your own sanity.”

— Year 232 —

Fiona increasingly found Jericho and his too-often recollections of happy memories tiresome. Their past was not really shared at all. It was his past. It felt like Jericho was trying to reconstruct their old relationship, reconstruct her from his memories.

She asked him to stop, often, but still something would trigger a memory and he reflexively shared. This Fiona that Jericho talked about was not her. It was, but it wasn’t. She couldn’t tell the difference if he fabricated or not. It felt like stories of an old girlfriend.

Depression came calling.

She stopped seeing him.

— Year 233 —

“It’s been too long, Rabbi,” said Fiona answering her watch in her apartment. After some schooling, she had reintegrated herself into society as a meteorologist. Her home screen was lit with satellite images and data.

“Well, my favorite non-Jewish Jew, I just now saw the list of this round of revivals, and a name stood out.”

“I appreciate your concern. I do.”

“I just thought this might be difficult for you. I called as soon as I saw Ricard’s name.”

“I’ve made peace with it, Rabbi. But it’s sweet of you to call.”

“I’m here for you, you know.”

“Seeing his name stirred some feelings, I admit. But not the crippling sort I believe you’re talking about.”

Levy nodded. “You’re strong, my friend. But even the strongest might need someone to lean on at times.”

— Year 234 —

Fiona waited in the visitors’ area of the reeducation facility, which looked like a café with metal tables and chairs. The walls burst with the colors of brightly painted murals of Prospero landscapes: a setting sun, a dense gnomewood forest, the craggy Silent Mountains to the north. The metal chair was more comfortable than it looked, and she waited for Jericho. He had chanced upon Ricard in the street and beat him bloody and unconscious. He was a month into a year-long sentence where his days were filled with meditation, tai chi, yoga, and classes involving de-escalation, anger management, and self-control.

Jericho came in through the thick metal door and smiled when he spotted Fiona. They hugged, but Fiona’s body was stiff, unable to lean into the embrace.

They sat across from one another, and Jericho started, “I know I shouldn’t have done it. I was taken by a rage as soon as I saw him, standing by the gallery—the one that’s taken a few of my carvings. Ricard was chatting with someone, some woman, not a care in the world. Unpunished for taking you from me.”

Fiona’s face hardened; her jaw tensed. She hadn’t known what to expect from the visit, could not articulate to herself why she had made the appointment, and now rage heated her face. “He took me from you? That’s why you did this?” She stood up, her chair falling over with a clang! “I wasn’t stolen, Jericho! I’m not a fucking vase on your shelf! Ricard murdered part of my life!” She stabbed her chest with her fingers. “It was my years!”

She turned and fled as Jericho sputtered amendments to his wording.

— # —

Fiona had been stalking Ricard for a few months now, always careful, never noticed. Today she watched as he left the bakery, a bag of bagels in one hand, a coffee in a lidded mug in another. This was part of his day-off ritual. She followed at a comfortable distance as he made his way down two blocks and turned into the park and found his favorite picnic table shaded by a gnarled gnomewood tree.

She watched from behind as he ate. The park was sparsely populated. A few couples strolled, some children ran about on the ground cover of scarlis vines.

Fiona pulled in a breath and approached, sitting across from him.

Ricard blinked. The bagel with a single bite missing was placed on the table. “Fiona.”

She had prepared something to say, but nothing came.

“I heard about the case you brought against me when I was hibernating,” he said. “I figured you’d approach me someday.”

“Do you have something to say?” she asked, fighting to keep her shakes invisible.

Ricard’s gaze dropped to the table for a small moment. The left corner of his mouth twitched before he began. “There’s gaps from that time. From hibernation damage. But yes, I wanted to say that I would never hurt you. Not deliberately. I loved you but I wasn’t a creep about it. When Jericho came back I was okay with him, right?”

“Well, I don’t remember that, do I?” she said, tone harsh, but she had not approached Ricard for an argument.

She looked up into the sky instead, at the bright silver star slowly crossing. “It’s different for me now. The Delias. I would look up there, watching that moving star pass, and all I remember now is feeling a longing.”

Ricard followed her gaze to the glint high to the east.

Fiona continued. “I’m sure before the treatment that feeling was not just an echo, but a solid yearning for the man I had loved. That feeling had a face and memories and laughter attached to it. But after the TSA treatment there was nothing left but an echo of all that. Just a melancholy feeling of longing as I looked up.”

“It’s tragic that it turned out that way. But truly, I would never hurt you. And they barred me from practicing medicine. From even going back to school and learning all the new procedures. Your story has had consequences.”

Fiona lowered her stare to his eyes. Ricard’s eyes were not sorrowful. Perhaps wounded.

Nothing else was said.

— # —

On a pitted and leaning stone park bench in the helix forest Fiona sat with Rabbi Levy, facing the river, barely a trickle these days in the drought. Dark storm clouds roiled in the sky. She knew it would rain, and desperately wanted to be outside. It hadn’t rained for two months, and she looked forward to feeling the heavy, cold drops. Levy sat in his poncho, prepared.

“I feared you had something to do with it,” he said.

“Yeah.” Fiona wiped a tear about to escape down her cheek. “I hate him so much.”

Ricard had been found in his apartment days after their encounter, unconscious. His life had been saved, but he suffered permanent brain damage and would likely not fully recover. His motor skills had been degraded and he needed a cane, his speech slurred, his vision weakened.

The rabbi and Fiona sat in silence for some long moments, watching the paltry flow. Listening as the leaves rustled in the wind. Lightning split the sky, followed quickly by thunder.

“I thought I’d only given him enough mothweed extract to make him sick. Just sick.”

Levy looked at her questioningly. And sympathetically.

Fiona’s eyes narrowed for brief seconds as she stared out to the water. She whispered, “But I know in my heart I wanted him dead.”

Levy replied, voice soft, “There’s no easy answers, and wrong choices are more tempting than right. The past can’t be erased.”

“The anger over what he did to me was too much to bear. I needed justice. I don’t know. The remorse may be worse.”

“The hardest thing is forgiving ourselves.”

Lightning came again, this time striking across the river. They both jumped at the gunshot of its report, and again at the thunder.

Smoke rose from the opposite bank, blown by the winds now picking up.

The rabbi stood. “It may be time to leave.”

Fiona pointed to the flickering orange flames visible through the screen of trunks on the opposite shore. She stood and took the rabbi’s hand. “I think you’re right.”

© 2023 Brian D. Hinson

About the Author

Brian D. Hinson ditched a lame career in 1999 and concentrated on traveling backpacker-style to 40-some countries. He grew up in Detroit but eventually settled to rural New Mexico, USA. His stories have appeared in Andromeda Spaceways, Shoreline of Infinity, and ParSec. He haunts the webs at @briandhinson1 and https://www.briandhinson.com/