The Death of Sleep

Satia laughed. "Oh, coffee! My grandmother told me about coffee when I was off-platform, visiting her on Inigo. It's very rare, isn't it?"

Lunzie frowned. "No. Where, or rather when, I come from it's as common as mud. And sometimes has a similar taste… Do you mean to say you've never heard of coffee?" She felt her heart sink. So much had changed over the lost decades, but it was the little things that bothered her most, especially when they affected a lifelong habit. "I usually need something to help me wake up in the morning."

"Oh, I'veheard of coffee. No one drinks it any more. There were studies decrying the effects of the heavy oils and caffeine on the nervous and digestive systems. We have peppers now." "Peppers?" Lunzie wrinkled her nose in distaste. "As in capsicum?"

"Oh, no. Restorative. It's a mild stimulant, completely harmless. I drink some nearly every morning. You'll like it." Satia stepped to the synth unit in the wall of Lunzie's quarters, and came back with a full mug. "Try this."

Lunzie sipped the liquid and felt a pervasive tingle race through her tissues. Her body abruptly forgot that it had just spent an entire shift cramped in one position. She gasped. "That's very effective."

"Mm-. Sometimes nothing else will get me out of bed. And it leaves behind none of the sour aftertaste my grandmother claimed from coffee."

"Well, here's to my becoming acclimated to the future." Lunzie raised her cup to Satia. "Oh, that reminds me. The gizmos in the lavatory have me stumped. I figured out which one was the waste-disposer unit, but I haven't the faintest idea what the others are."

Satia laughed again. "Very well. I ought to have thought of it before. I will give you the quarter-credit tour."

Once Lunzie had been shown how to work the various conveniences, Satia punched up a cup of herbal tea for them both.

"I don't understand these newfangled things perfectly yet, but at least I know what they do," Lunzie said, wryly self-deprecating.

Satia sipped tea. "Well, it's all part of the future, designed to make life easier. So the advertisements tell us. My friend, what are you going to do with your future?"

"The way I see it, I have two choices. I can search for Fiona, or I can take refresher courses to fit me to practice medicine in this century, and then try to find her. I had the computer research information for me on discoveries that were just breaking when I went into cold sleep. Progress has certainly been made. Those breakthroughs are now old hat! I feel like a primitive thrust into a city without even the vocabulary to ask for help."

"Perhaps you can stay and study with me. I am completing my internship here with Dr. Banus. I may do my residency off-platform, so as to give me a different perspective in the field of medicine. Specifically, I am studying paediatrics, a field that is becoming ever so important recently - we're having quite a population explosion on the Platform. Of course, that would mean leaving my children behind, and that I do not wish to do. Nonya's three, and Omi is only five months old, They're such a joy, I don't want to miss any of their childhood."

Lunzie nodded sadly. "I did the very same thing, you know. I'm not sure what I want to do, yet. I must work out where to begin."

"Well, come with me first." Satia rose and placed her cup in the disposer hatch for the food processor. "Aiden, the Tri-D technician, told me he wanted to talk to you." Lunzie put her cup aside and hastened after Satia.

"I sent your query to Tau Ceti last shift. Doctor," the technician said, when they located him at the Communications Center. "It'll take several weeks to get a reply out here in the rockies. But I wanted to tell you-" The young man tapped a finger on the console top, impatiently trying to stir his memory. "I think I've seen your surname before. I noticed it, I forget where… in one of the news articles we've received recently. Maybe it's one of your descendants?"

"Really?" Lunzie asked with interest. "Please, show me. I'm sure I have great-nieces and -nephews all over the galaxy by now."

Aiden keyed in an All-Search for the day's input from all six beacons. "Here it comes. Watch the field." The word "Mespil" in a very clear, official- looking typestyle, coalesced in the Tri-D forum, followed by ",Fiona, MD, DV." Other words in the same font formed around it, above and below.

"My daughter! That's her name. Satia, look! Where is she, Aiden? What's this list?" Lunzie demanded, searching the names. "Is there video to go with it?"

The technician looked up from his console, and his expression turned to one of horror. "Oh, Krims, I'm sorry. Doctor, that's the FSP list. The people who were reported missing from the pirated Phoenix colony."

"No!" Satia breathed. She moved to support Lunzie, whose knees had gone momentarily weak. Lunzie gave her a grateful look, but waved her away, steady once again.

"What happens to people who were on planets that have been pirated?" she asked, badly shaken, trying not to let her mind form images of disaster. Fiona!