Read Online Resurrection by Arwen Elys Dayton - Free Book Online

programming would only do that in situations where the data it had to impart, based on the instructions of its programmers, was judged to have potential emotional impact on the crew.
    “Pruit, Niks’s crib reports that Niks is no longer alive.”
    Pruit’s head was in her hands, and she was looking down at the dried body in the crib. Her eyes were burning.
    “I know that, Central,” she said quietly. “Tell me why.”
    “It happened ten months and fifteen days ago,” Central said, reviewing the data. “It was not a malfunction in the crib.”
    “Then what?”
    “It appears Niks left his skinsuit on when he entered stasis.”
    “Saving Father…” she whispered.
    She and Niks were both fitted with skinsuits, a web of cells that lived in the upper layers of their skin and could retreat back into their bodies or rise to the surface to provide an additional layer of “skin” as needed to protect them from microorganisms in strange environments.
    They activated their skinsuits as a matter of course upon waking, to protect themselves from any radiation or stray organisms in the ship. They had to be deactivated prior to stasis, however, for they would, by their very nature, repel the advances of the crib and treat the bioarms as a threat. Since their earliest training for this mission they had drilled the simple procedure for deactivating the suit before stasis. It should have been second nature to Niks.
    She could imagine what had happened. The crib had tried to activate. Niks’s skinsuit had repelled it. The crib had continued its standard functions and begun to assume control of Niks’s body. This would have caused the skinsuit to draw more heavily on the resources in his body to put up greater resistance, acting on the erroneous assumption that his body was under heavy attack. Ultimately, the skinsuit would have drained him in a misguided effort to save him. As the scenario played out in her head, Pruit felt a great surge of impotent frustration. After all their worries about the hazards of the stasis cribs, Niks had been killed not by his crib at all, but by his skinsuit, a mechanism designed solely to enhance his life.
    Niks must have realized that something was wrong as he was falling into sleep. He had tried to pry open the plantglass, but by then he must have been half in stasis with his body half dead. It had been too late. Those who had designed the ship could not anticipate every possible crew error.
    Pruit pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to wipe out the thought of Niks struggling in the biofluid. She couldn’t avoid the image. She pushed herself away from the crib and stood up.
    “Central, take control of the life-systems computer,” she ordered. “Fill Niks’s crib with biofluid.”
    “May I ask why?” Central said, still using the quiet tone.
    “I want all ship life-systems resources used. We are going to regenerate him.”
    There was a long pause as Central scanned through its vast databanks of programming instructions, looking for an appropriate response to this irrational request. After several long moments, the computer spoke.
    “Pruit, that is not possible.”
    “It is possible!” she yelled, looking down at the remains of Niks. “Fill the crib!”
    At her command, biofluid poured into the crib. Niks’s body was so light it began to float. Pruit’s stomach turned again, and she averted her eyes. That was Niks in there; that was him, hollow and dry…
    “Pruit, what you ask is not possible,” Central said slowly and clearly. “We have no such resources on this ship. It is doubtful such resources exist even on Herrod.”
    Pruit did not respond. If only she could shut his crib, go back to sleep, and wake in a year to find that none of this had happened. She stared at a corner of the tank, watching it fill, avoiding the sight of the floating husk within.
    She knew that Central was right. Niks’s was gone. He had died ten months ago, from a stupid mistake, a