“Usher, wake up.”

 

Banners yellow, glorious, golden.

 

“Usher — wake up NOW.” She heard the slow rising of the pod hatch, sky and banners gone; she heard a dog barking from over the hill. Eyes opened; she could make out blurs of instrumentation and a round shadow.

 

Her throat was stiff; she managed “Rod?”

 

“Usher, I have proof. Wake up.”

 

She wanted back in her dream; always the same dream: ‘every gentle air that dallied.’ Since leaving orbit, she awoke to poetry, and the memory of running with her dog. Shaking off the effects of REGEN, she wouldn’t remember the words, but the sun’s touch and sweet sky stayed with her, even during mindless hours of ship maintenance and checkout preps.

 

“We’re already home. Wake. Up.”

 

Voice cracking: “Rod, it’s the extended flight test.”

 

“No. No. Yes, it’s a test, but not that test. They’re watching us, entombed in here, but we’re home. Or close. The test is how long we can stand this. Do you know how many times we’ve woken up?”

 

She worried for Rod; he had seemed distant, withdrawn since launch, a polar change from his patient coaching during flight prep. In training, no one talked about what was wrong — that’s how you washed out. She squinted at the pod display, a little more in focus than the face floating in front of her. Her throat ached. She squinted at a dull, rust-colored ‘2’. She held up two fingers.

 

“The display is lying. I’ve kept track.”

 

“We’re weeks out from Earth; why would you even think that?”

 

“Recovery felt different up here. Remember, there was no extended REGEN testing in weightlessness.”

 

She nodded; blinked; swallowed. “Rod, think this through: every instrument says we are millions of miles from Earth, on target with two sleep cycles.”

 

“Just like the simulator.”

 

“You can’t fake space; most of us know the stars by heart.”

 

“We ARE in space, but the portals are the same tech as our helmet displays. Everything is instrumentation — just like the simulator.”

 

They had all made jokes about ETs and asteroids the size of Texas: a way to take the edge off the darkness. She checked her display again. Definitely two. Was this a joke?

 

She looked at him. Rod had trained her; he'd trained half the crew. They were family.

 

“The panels say this is our second wake-up. Hull inspection is scheduled for wake-up three. Can’t you just take a deep breath?”

 

“This is at least our fifth wake-up. Probably more.”

 

Not a joke.

 

She shook her head, but made no move to unstrap out of the pod — still slightly groggy. “No way you can reset this equipment.”

 

“All the equipment can be reset on Earth.”

 

“I won’t argue that; prove it another way.”

 

“I told you — I’ve been keeping track.”

 

“How?”

 

“I kept score.”

 

There were med alert alarms all over the ship. She fought the urge to just punch one now.

 

“Meaning?”

 

He floated down into her pod so that only she could see his arm. He caught his sleeve on a pod restraint, and rolled it up — there were four thin scabs on his arm.

 

“I started the first time ship’s log said two, even though I remembered more.” He backed away and rolled his sleeve down in one motion.

 

She sat up halfway. She was always the last to come out of the big sleep, and fought the urge to do her own checking. She didn’t want to feed this, but she didn’t know how to help. “Next cycle is EVA — we all know the mission. Sit tight. When we go EVA, you’ll see.”

 

“That’s what you said last time.”

 

“What last time?”

 

“You told me you wanted proof. You don’t remember the marks the last time we talked?”

 

“I don’t remember.”

 

“I said you wouldn’t. You gave me this.” He unclenched his fist; a small crumpled paper floated free. He grabbed it and handed it to her.

 

‘Four scratches, no med alert, Tippy.’

 

Tippy was her childhood dog.

 

“Rod?”

 

“Your note, your writing. You said only you would know who Tippy was.”

 

She recognized the scrawl. Could she have written something and not remembered it?

 

“Remember, we’re drugged for sleep; we wake up a with a little amnesia.”

 

That’s why she trusted him; she always felt he could read her mind.

 

“This is crazy. If I can’t remember that I wrote these words, how can you remember you’ve been waking up?”

 

He just pointed to his arm. “How else would I know to return your note?”

 

“Even if this is true, what can I do?”

 

“Help me out. Help all of us out. We only need two cards to stop this.”

 

Two badges, dosimeters, were needed to unlock escape pods. Only when there was a single remaining card would a single badge launch. She looked at him, and the duty screen — they had four minutes left to report to roll call, or alarms would go off and access cards would get disabled.

 

“We can make it.”

 

“Rod, we’re just weeks out from Mars approach.”

 

“No. You, the whole crew, think we are, but we aren’t. I bet we’re back in Earth orbit. Our pod will be recovered in hours, or less.”

 

She didn’t know. She didn’t remember their conversations, or giving him the note. Training or instruments, memory or sight.

 

“We’re lab rats, Usher. We sleep, we wake, we sleep. I can’t go back in the box. This is the test.”

 

She took a deep breath. Two minutes before roll call.

 

"Okay."

 

She pushed out of her pod, and they flew through the main corridor. At the last escape pod, they slid dosimeters into the hatch lock. Rod headed in. Still outside, Usher yanked her card and backed away. She watched the pod bay door shut, now disabled from the outside. She tapped a med alert with a brush of her fingertips.