Revival

by ~Quarter-Teaspoon

A man rocked in a bunk. Deep movements in the room shook him slowly from side to side. The ship was moving at long last, but he hardly cared. A thin tube of metal pointed down at his arm. He hated needles.
It was the tenth time that the government had decided that they had no place for him. It was always the same. A brief shuffle of papers, a few bureaucrats directing him from line to line. A week in a cold prison cell. A stone-faced man telling him that he needed to move again. The first few times, he had been confused, scandalized. Now it was routine.
That first time, they had somehow failed to mention that the journey he would be taking would span trillions of miles and hundreds of years. That he would be out cold, in fact frozen for the whole trip. As if it was hardly the issue.
When he was a kid, he had been told that time was relative. That it had been proved once, that great scientists had worked for long hours to solve the equations to know it was true. Well, he thought, it may have taken longer, but I know it now.
Only a month ago, sometime before the last trip, he had realized that the last year of his life had a few blanks in it. Moments between sleep and waking that were only momentary, lapses in time. Lapses centuries long.
The ruble became louder, more violent. He knew that the engines hadn't yet been engaged, that the ship was still on the runway strip, deep inside the station. That he would never actually experience the engines being on. A red light began to blink on the panel in front of him, alerting him to the imminent launch, to the fact that he would soon be immersed in the sleep of ages that would carry him between the stars.
Strange memories tended to surface during launches. His mother had yelled at him the week before he left for the first time. Told him he was scum, that he should have been executed for what he did, that he shouldn't even be there. That he government shouldn't even waste the money on him. It's a new system, he had told her. Cleaner. Less for the public to worry about. And, who knew, maybe it would work.
Besides, who was his mother to call him scum? She didn't know what Abigail had done. What it had been like. God, the things Abigail had said to him before he had done it.
A light blinked on the needle, and it repositioned itself silently. The memory left.
The rumbling began to gain in volume. Perhaps he was moving out of the station. The end of the runway coming at him like a bullet. The needle, still, calm. The light ceased to blink.
His memory always blanked out at about this time. He remembered all the other launches up until about now. But the needle actually puncturing his skin, and everything after, was always lost on him when he awoke. His memory simply skipped over that part.
He thought that might be funny. Tenth time a rookie. Tried to laugh a little bit, but the walls ate the sound. The unknown scared him more than any other part of the trip.
The ship shook harder. Might be breaking up, too eager to exit the station, to be on its way. More memories.
He had been surprised that the courtroom was so small. The feeds always made them seem larger, with more people. A good side and a bad side. Justice. This one was only dusty.
The trial had in no way been a success. Halfway through the defense's opening statements, he had leapt from his chair, full of vocal rage. How dare they accuse him. How dare they defend him. Of course he had done it. He would do it again if he had to. They hadn't heard what Abigail had said.
The judge was calm, a silent bird in black, all through the tantrum. When it was over she had said that he was clearly insane, and she was dismissing him. He had been forced to leave.
The new technology was a godsend. Send him out to the new colonies, just a century behind the settlers. They would have a place for him, for sure. Surely, something would have changed.
The clamor of the room became a full-throated roar. Couldn't hear himself think. Then, just at its zenith, it ceased altogether, and all was still. The ship had cleared the docking gate. Space surrounded them at last.
The needle jabbed down into his arm.
He gasped, more in surprise and fear than pain. It had been so fast. He had imagined, hoped almost for a slow, agonizing injection fit for a horror feed. But the needle was done, already retracting back into the wall. His toes already went without feeling.
A cold fog blew through him, pulling all the heat from his bones. His feet were cracking stone, his legs bags of meat. His vision smeared, and faltered, and died, and he was left blind in the dark. He was terrified. Wondered if this happened every time. Perhaps this one was different? He would never know.
It occurred to him that he would never remember this moment, that for all it was worth, the present for him would never exist again in any form once he lost consciousness.
Scraping susurrus filled his ears. Falling, he was pulled into the ground. A great, black pit of wind awaited him, pulling him apart.
And even as it came, this too blurred, spun as if caught in a river.
Before that final dark came to him, a small image floated to him.
It was Abigail, crying for the last time in her life. I'm sorry, he thought. They didn't hear what you said.

Six hundred years later, his hand gripped a stretcher. His eyes were glued shut, still owned by the ice. The stretcher was being guided by two men.
“His tenth time, it said.”
“I know. Bugger's come a long way.”
“I don't know why they still chuck these old guys between the stars. It's been so long, I be even he doesn't remember what he did.”
“Well, let's get him to bed, so they can get him on his way again.”
He opened his eyes a sliver, and broken glass filtered in, white and hostile. He shut them.
I wish I were blind, he though. I wish I were dead.