The Dreamers
The sleepers began to wake on the fifty-sixth day.
Not all of them. Not most of them. But enough. Enough to notice. Enough to fear. Enough to scream.
The cryogenic bay was on Deck Seven, a vast chamber of rows and rows of pods, their occupants frozen in suspended animation, waiting for the end of the journey. They had been there for three hundred years — colonists, scientists, engineers, families. They were supposed to wake when the Odyssey reached the edge of the galaxy.
They were waking now.
Mira stood at the entrance of the cryogenic bay, staring at the rows of glowing pods.
Elara stood beside her, her medical scanner in her hand, her face pale.
“Vitals are spiking,” Elara said. “Heart rates, brain activity, neural response. They’re not supposed to be awake.”
“Can you sedate them?”
“I can try. But the signal is already inside them. It’s been inside them for weeks. Months. Maybe longer.”
“What is it doing to them?”
Elara looked at the pods.
At the silver light pulsing through the glass.
“It’s changing them.”
The first sleeper opened his eyes.
He was young — younger than Mira, younger than anyone had a right to be. His hair was dark, his skin was pale, his eyes were silver. He sat up in his pod, the glass retracting, the fluid draining.
He looked at Mira.
“You’re the linguist,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Zander. I was a colonist on Aethelburg. I heard the signal. I followed it here.”
“You followed it?”
“It called me. It called all of us. The sleepers. The dreamers. The ones who could hear.”
“The ones who could hear what?”
He stepped out of the pod.
His bare feet were cold on the metal floor.
“The song. The hunger. The voice in the dark.”
Elara stepped forward.
“Zander, I need you to sit down. I need to run some tests.”
“There’s no time.”
“Time for what?”
He looked at the pods.
At the sleepers who were still sleeping.
“They’re coming.”
“Who?”
He looked at Mira.
“The others. The ones who heard the call. They’re waking up all over the fleet. Ships we haven’t heard from in years are sending signals again.”
“What kind of signals?”
Zander was silent for a long moment.
“The same signal. The same song. The same hunger.”
Captain Theron arrived with a security detail.
They surrounded Zander, their weapons raised, their faces hard.
“Step away from the pods,” Theron said.
Zander did not move.
“I’m not a threat.”
“Your eyes are silver. The same silver as the signal. The same silver as the star.”
“I’m not the star. I’m just a listener.”
“A listener?”
“I hear the song. I understand it. I can translate it.”
“Translate it for me.”
Zander looked at Mira.
“It’s saying, ‘Come home.’ “
The cryogenic bay shook.
The lights flickered.
The pods glowed brighter.
Mira stumbled.
Elara caught her.
Zander stood still, his silver eyes fixed on the ceiling, his lips moving.
He was singing.
Not with his voice. With something else. Something deeper. Something older.
The song filled the room.
The sleepers woke.
All of them.