LITMIR.BIZ

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stench that had collected inside the coffin-sized compartment for the past ten years or so. His empty and shrunken stomach threatened to rebel. He tried to focus on remembering.

      He could remember … yeah … he could remember.

      He remembered the shuttle flight up from the surface of Ishtar, and boarding a European Union transport—the Jules Verne. He remembered being told to remove all clothing and personal articles and log them with the clerk, of lying down on a metal slab barely softened by a thin plastic mattress, of a woman speaking to him in French as the first injection hit his bloodstream and turned the world fuzzy.

      Ishtar. He’d been at Ishtar. And now … Now? They must be at Earth.

       Earth!

      The thought brought a sudden snap of energy and he thumped his head painfully against the plastic surface of the hybe tube as he tried to sit up.

      Earth! …

      Or … possibly one of the LaGrange stations. The pull of gravity felt about right for Earth, but that could be due to the rotation of a large habitat. He might even still be on the EU ship.

      Gods and goddesses, no. He didn’t want to have to deal with them again. Let this be Earth!

      The end of his hybe cell just above his head hissed open, and his pallet slid out into light. Two Marines in utility fatigues peered down at him. “What’s your name, buddy?” one asked him.

      “Garroway,” he replied automatically. “John. Lance Corporal, serial number 19283-336-6959.”

      “That’s a roger,” the other said, reading from a comp-board. “He’s tracking.”

      “How ya feeling?”

      “A bit muzzy,” he admitted. He tried to concentrate on his own body. The sensations were … odd. Unfamiliar. “Hungry, I think.”

      “Not surprising after ten years with nothing but keepergel in your gut. You’ll be able to get some chow soon.”

      “Ten years? What … what year is it?”

      “Welcome to 2159, Marine.”

      He held up both hands, turning them, looking at them a bit wonderingly. They were still wet with dissolving gel. “2159?”

      “Don’t freak it, gramps,” the other Marine told him. “You’re all there. The nano even stopped your hair and nails from growing.”

      “Yeah. It just feels … odd. Where are we?”

      “The Marine Corps Cybernetic Hibernation Receiving Facility,” the Marine with the board said. “Twentynine Palms.”

      “Then I’m home.”

      The other Marine laughed. “Don’t make any quick judgments, timer. You’ll null your prog.”

      “Huh?”

      “Just lie there for a minute, guy. Don’t sweat the net. If you gotta puke, puke on the deck. The auts’ll take care of it. When you feel ready, sit up … but slow, understand? Don’t push your body too hard just yet. You need time to vam all the hibenano out of your system. When you feel like moving, make your way to the shower, get clean, and rec yourself some utilities.”

      Garroway was already sitting up, swinging his legs off the pallet. “I’ve done this before,” he said.

      “Suit yourself,” the Marine said. They were already moving away, beginning to cycle open the next cybehibe capsule in line, a few meters away. As the hatch cycled open and the pallet extruded itself from the bulkhead, Garroway could see the slowly moving form of Corporal Womicki half-smothered in green nanogel.

      “What’s your name, buddy?” one of the revival techs asked.

      “Wo-Womicki, Timothy. Lance Corporal, serial number 15521-119—”

      “He’s tracking.”

      “Welcome to 2159, Marine.”

      The routine continued.

      Elsewhere around the circular, fluorescent-lit compartment, other Marine revival techs were working with men and women emerging from cybehibe, dozens in this one room alone. Some, nude and pasty-looking, were already standing or making their way toward a door marked showers, but most remained on their pallets.

      “Hey, Gare!” Womicki’s voice was weak, but he was sitting up. “We made it, huh?”

      “I guess we did.”

      “Whatcha think the pool number is?”

      His stomach gave an unpleasant twist. “Dunno. Guess we’ll find out.”

      The deathwatch pool was a kind of lottery, with the Marines betting on how many would die in cybehibe passage.

      How many of their buddies had made it?

      And then his head started swimming and he vomited explosively onto the deck, emptying his stomach of yet more of the all-pervading foamy nanogel.

      A long moment later, his stomach steadied, and he began working on bringing some focus to his muddled thinking.

      Twentynine Palms. This was the place where he’d been loaded into cybe-hibe preparatory to being shuttled up to the IST Derna like a crate of supplies. That felt like a year ago or so … not twenty years.

      Well, his various briefings had warned him that he’d have some adjusting to do. Between the effects of relativity and the cybehibe sleep, he’d been just a bit out of touch with the rest of the universe.

      He thought-clicked his cerebral implant. “Link. Query. Local news update.”

      He expected a cascade of thought-clickable headers to scroll past his mind’s eye, but instead a red flash warned him that his Net access had been interdicted. “All shoreside communications have been restricted,” the mental voice told him. “You will be informed when it is permissible to make calls off-base or receive information downloads.”

      A small flat automaton of some sort was busily cleaning up the mess he’d made on the deck.

      So far, he thought, this is a hell of a welcome home. …

       Headquarters Star Marine Force Center Twentynine Palms, California 1750 hours, PST

      “Why,” Colonel Thomas Jackson Ramsey said as he took a seat at the conference table, “all the extra security? My people have calls they want to make, and they’re justifiably curious about the Earth they’ve just come home to. But we appear to be under quarantine.”

      “Quarantine is a good word for it, Colonel,” General Richard Foss told him. “Operating policy now calls for a gradual insertion of returning personnel into ordinary life. Things have changed a lot in twenty years, you know.”

      “How much?”

      “The political situation is … delicate.”

      “It usually is. Damn it, what’s going on?”

      “The European Union has recognized the independent nation of Aztlan, along with Mexico, Brazil, and Quebec. All U.S. military bases are on full alert. The borders are closed. War may be eminent.”

      “Jesus.” Ramsey frowned. “An EU ship brought us home.”

      “The crisis flared up for the first time a year ago, about the time you were beginning deceleration, a half light-year out. Geneva recognized Aztlan independence, at least in principle, and was offering to broker talks. There was … concern, in some circles, that you people might be held hostage if war did break out.”

      Ramsey nodded. The Aztlan question had been smoldering for some years, even before the Derna had left for Ishtar, and it

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