When Michael came out of cryosleep, he realized almost immediately that something had gone wrong. The resuscitation team should have been in place to receive him, Dr. Ortega’s smiling face coaching him through the steps, the shower and nutripack and exploratory calisthenics, everything smooth as planned.

Instead, he found after several blinking bewildered minutes that his pod still lay in the storage bay with everyone else, and everyone else had awakened too. No sequence, no preparations, the whole sleepership full of colonists just climbing out of their pods, dripping and chill and confused. Some of them didn’t take it well, crying, panicking, getting sick on the bay floor. Several had to be sedated. Everyone, released all at once? Something had gone very wrong.

Eventually they got through the chaos. The resuscitation team, themselves rattled and half-spacesick, could take it from there. Michael ordered the command group to the bridge.

They found their stations, miserable with hunger and fear, uncomfortable from having to shove on their uniforms without showering off the cryoslime. Considering all that, Michael was proud of how professionally his people carried themselves. System assessments started pouring in.

“Life support fully operational.”

“Power systems fully operational.”

“Scanners active, no local objects.”

“Hull integrity 100%, repair nanobots active.”

“Engines fully operational. We are on course, at optimal velocity.”

“Cryogenic systems…” he could hear the bad news in the hesitation, the intonation, the lieutenant’s wrinkled brow, “…show a catastrophic failure.”

There it was. Catastrophic failure, as he feared. The failsafe had shunted them all out as the last recourse.

“Okay. Is it repairable?”

“Diagnostics…” the lieutenant’s brow might roll over her eyes if she furrowed it any further. “…are not favorable. I’m going to have to take a team on site to be certain.”

“Go.”

She went.

“Where are we?” Michael asked. How long had they been asleep? More importantly, how much longer had they hoped to sleep?

“We are on course, approximately 4.755 trillion kilometers from Gliese 1061.”

“So,” Michael considered, “about a thousand years still to go?”

“Approximately 982, commander.”

Right. Another thousand years. Well, they’d gone 19,000 years without a major hiccup; even considering the wonders of maintenance nanotechnology, that was more than they’d any right to hope. The whole mission had been an absurd longshot anyway.

“Alright. Keep running your systems diagnostics. We’ll conference after I get updates from the lieutenant and Dr. Ortega.” He smiled wryly. “And don’t despair: you’ll all get showers and coffee soon.”

Reports came in. Showers and coffee and nutripacks gave what comfort they could. Michael had on a clean uniform and as much confidence as he could muster when he stepped into the conference room. There sat the expectant officers and department heads, steeled for bad news. He gave it to them.

“There’s no point sugarcoating it: we’ve got a lot of work and a lot of changes ahead. The cryogenic system is done. Unrepairable. And even if by some miracle of engineering we could get it back on, Dr. Ortega has grave doubts about the feasibility of reentering cryosleep after such a long stasis.”

“Very grave doubts,” Dr. Ortega put in.

“So that’s out. We’re a millennium from our new home-sweet-home, all seven hundred expedition members awake, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.

“The good news,” he continued, “is that all our other systems appear to be intact. We have power, navigation, propulsion, scanners. The habitat module is ready to be deployed when we get there. Hydroponics looks promising for long-term nourishment. Even the virtual golf course is operational.”

That got a chuckle, and a few nudges.

“So we’re going to embrace this new challenge. We’re explorers, and we’re going to explore. We’ve got all the data collected during 19,000 years’ flight, and we can open up the laboratories. We’ve got a huge backlog of messages from earth sent during the first three hundred years of our mission.” Only the first three centuries. Well, that had been about the projection, hadn’t it? But why let them stew on that? “As my grandfather used to say, ‘You’ve got mail.’”

More groans than chuckles, but smiling groans. Everybody’s grandparents had said that, though who knew why?

“Comments?”

The head geologist put in words what everyone was thinking. “But we’re not going to reach Gliese.” Sober silence filled the room.

“No. But your great-great-great-great — you see where I’m going — grandchildren will. That’s the new plan. This ship just became our colony. We’re not going to build the planetary structures; we’re going to build the civilization. For our children.”

“Our children, sir?” another asked.

Michael tried for a fatherly smile. “Look, sergeant, everyone’s going to have to do their part.” The laughter came back. Good. “I know some of our expedition came as couples, and many didn’t. And we will respect everyone’s religious and ethical convictions, but we’re going to have to have some organization to keep our population between acceptable thresholds. But we all knew this was going to be our dating pool eventually, so buck up and start looking for your soulmate. This sleepership just became a generation ship. We’re going to make this work.”

The only way was onward.

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