Beside her right hand, lying in the bottom of the tank, was a hypodermic syringe, bright and shining despite the green fluid which covered it.
Gary's breath caught in his throat.
She looked alive and yet she couldn't be alive. Still there was a flush of youth and beauty in her cheeks, as if she merely slept.
Laid out as if for death and still with the lie to death in her very look.
Her face was calm, serene… and something else. Expectancy, perhaps. As if she only waited for a thing she hoped to happen.
Caroline Martin was the name on the diploma out in the laboratory. Could this be Caroline Martin? Could this be the girl who had graduated from the college of science at Alkatoon ten centuries ago?
Gary shook his head uneasily.
He stepped back from the tank and as he did he saw the copper plate affixed to its metal side. He stooped to read.
Another simple message, etched in copper… a message from the girl who lay inside the tank.
I am not dead. I am in suspended animation. Drain the tank by opening the valve. Use the syringe you find in the medicine cabinet.
Gary glanced across the room, saw a medicine chest on the wall above a washbowl. He looked back at the tank and mopped his brow with his coat sleeve.
"It isn't possible," he whispered.
Like a man in a dream, he stumbled to the medicine chest. The syringe was there. He broke it and saw that it was loaded with a cartridge filled with a reddish substance. A drug, undoubtedly, to overcome suspended animation.
Replacing the syringe, he went back to the tank and found the valve. It was stubborn with the years, defying all the strength in his arms. He kicked it with a heavy boot and jarred it loose. With nervous hands he opened it and watched the level of the green fluid slowly recede.
Watching, an odd calm came upon him, a steadying calm that made him hard and machine-like to do the thing that faced him. One little slip might spoil it. One fumbling move might undo the work of a thousand years. What if the drug in the hypodermic had lost its strength? There were so many things that might happen.
But there was only one thing to do. He raised a hand in front of him and looked at it. It was a steady hand.
He wasted no time in wondering what it was about. This was not the time for that. Frantic questionings clutched at his thoughts and he shook them off.
Time enough to wonder and to speculate and question when this thing was done.
When the fluid was level with the girl's body, he waited no longer. He leaned over the rim of the tank and lifted her in his arms. For a moment he hesitated, then turned and went to the laboratory and placed her on one of the work tables. The fluid, dripping off the rustling metallic dress, left a trail of wet across the floor.
From the medicine chest he took the hypodermic and went back to the girl.
He lifted her left arm and peered closely at it. There were little punctures, betraying previous use of the needle.
Perspiration stood out on his forehead. If only he knew a little more about this. If only he had some idea of what he was supposed to do.
Awkwardly he shoved the needle into a vein, depressed the plunger. It was done and he stepped back.
Nothing happened. He waited.
Minutes passed and she took a shallow breath. He watched in fascination, saw her come to life again… saw the breath deepen, the eyelids flicker, the right hand twitch.
Then she was looking at him out of deep blue eyes.
"You are all right?" he asked.
It was, he knew, a rather foolish question.
Her speech was broken. Her tongue and lips refused to work the way they should, but he understood what she tried to say.
"Yes, I'm all right." She lay quietly on the table. "What year is this?”
she asked.
"It's 6948," he told her.
Her eyes widened and she looked at him with a startled glance. "Almost a thousand years," she said. "You are sure of the year?”
He nodded. "That is about the only thing that I am really sure of.”
"How is that?”
"Why, finding you here," said Gary, "and reviving you again. I still don't believe it happened.”
She laughed, a funny, discordant laugh because her muscles, inactive for years, had forgotten how to function rightly.
"You are Caroline Martin, aren't you?" asked Gary.
She gave him a quick look of surprise and rose to a sitting position.
"I am Caroline Martin," she answered. "But how did you know that?”
Gary gestured at the diploma. "I read it.”
"Oh," she said. "I'd forgotten all about it.”
"I am Gary Nelson," he told her. "Newsman on the loose. My pal's out there in a spaceship waiting for us.”
"I suppose," she said, "that I should thank you, but I don't know how. Just ordinary thanks aren't quite enough.”
"Skip it," said Gary, tersely.
She stretched her arms above her head.
"It's good to be alive again," she said. "Good to know there's life ahead of you.”
"But," said Gary, "you always were alive. It must have been just like going to sleep.”
"It wasn't sleep," she said. "It was worse than death. Because, you see, I made one mistake.”
"One mistake?”
"Yes, just one mistake. One you'd never think of. At least, I didn't. You see, when animation was suspended every physical process was reduced to almost zero, metabolism slowed down to almost nothing. But with one exception. My brain kept right on working.”
The horror of it sank into Gary slowly. "You mean you knew?”
She nodded. "I couldn't hear or see or feel. I had no bodily sensation. But I could think. I've thought for almost ten centuries. I tried to stop thinking, but I never could.
I prayed something would go wrong and I would die. Anything at all to end that eternity of thought.”
She saw the pity in his eyes.
"Don't waste sympathy on me," she said and there was a note of hardness in her voice. "I brought it on myself. Stubbornness, perhaps. I played a long shot. I took a gamble.”
He chuckled in his throat. "And won.”
"A billion to one shot," she said. "Probably greater odds than that. It was madness itself to do it. This shell is a tiny speck in space. There wasn't, I don't suppose, a billion-to-one chance, if you figured it out on paper, that anyone would find me. I had some hope. Hope that would have reduced those odds somewhat. I placed my faith on someone and I guess they failed me. Perhaps it wasn't their fault. Maybe they died before they could even hunt for me.”
"But how did you do it?" asked Gary. "Even today suspended animation has our scientists stumped. They've made some progress but not much. And you made it work a thousand years ago.”
"Drugs," she said. "Certain Martian drugs. Rare ones. And they have to be combined correctly. Slow metabolism to a point where it is almost non-existent. But you have to be careful. Slow it down too far and metabolism stops. That's death.”
Gary gestured toward the hypodermic. "And that," he said, "reacts against the other drug.”
She nodded gravely.
"The fluid in the tank," he said. "That was to prevent dehydration and held some food value? You wouldn't need much food with metabolism at nearly zero. But how about your mouth and nostrils? The fluid…”
"A mask," she said. "Chemical paste that held up under moisture. Evaporated as soon as it was struck by air.”