"Warning... all... There... no... for... but... indicate... possibility... fire... not... Go... nearest... and... orders... Do... panic."

"Things breaking up, lover," Krysty warned, glancing anxiously at Ryan.

"Still want to... Let's just take one look through those next doors. Nothing there, and we'll get out."

"Warning... There... for... indicate... fire... Go... and... panic."

There was a moment of hesitation, broken by Ryan, who strode quickly toward the next doors. But Jak was faster, reaching them just ahead of him, the others at their heels.

"Warning... for... Go... panic."

They hurried through the first doors, and then past the second set, the boy in the lead. Doc stumbled and nearly fell, but J.B. hauled him quickly to his feet.

They came to a large lounge, with padded seats and framed unexceptional landscapes on the walls. There was only one door to it, and Jak ran ahead, pausing in the doorway. He looked back at the others with a grin.

"Heads?" Ryan called.

"Yeah, but this time got bodies with 'em!"

Chapter Twelve

"My love is like a goblet of purest crystal, studded with rich jewels. Chalcedony and onyx. Amethyst and fiery opal. There are times that this goblet brims over with the richness of our love for each other. And now... it is shattered into a million daggered shards upon the stones."

Doc sat in a black leather chair in one corner of the room, eyes closed, fingers to his temples, muttering to himself.

The other four friends ignored him, preoccupied with what they'd found — three deep-frozen bodies, pale and bloodless, with dozens of tubes and wires running to and from every part of them. Liquids were circulating slowly, some without color, most tinted shades of red.

The clear coffins that held the bodies were slightly frosted and ice-cold to the touch. But it was possible to make out something of each of the three freezies inside.

"It's a child here," Krysty said. "Little girl. Can't be more'n three years old. Why did they freeze her?"

"Old man this," Jak called from the far end of the row.

"Middle-aged black woman," J.B. announced. "Handsome looking."

Ryan sat down at the single long control console. The capsules were numbered 1, 2 and 3. There were sections on the console labeled with those numbers. On an impulse he pressed the main key for 1, the glistening pod that contained the child.

The screen lit up, glowing an unearthly green. The others went to stand behind Ryan and watch what was happening. Even Doc stirred himself from his almost catatonic lethargy to join the group.

There were forty or so lines in the display, each offering a different menu of information. One said simply: Bio. Ryan operated the flickering cursor to bring it to the right place, then pressed the Go key.

They all read as the information scrolled upward, Jak's lips moving as he whispered the more difficult words under his breath. It was very short.

Hope Future, girl child abandoned in New York's Museum of Modern Art on April 7, 1998, newborn and in coma. Has massive and inoperable brain damage under existing parameters of medical knowledge. As part of cryo-campaign of late nineties she was treated in hope that one day she might be awakened to full and happy life. Her name, Hope Future, was selected after a nationwide TV and video competition.

That was all. Ryan pressed the Off switch and sat back with a sigh.

Doc broke the silence. "If I might paraphrase that great Englishman, Sir Winston Churchill, some future... some hope."

"Going to thaw her out?" Krysty asked.

"Three-year-old brat? The heat scrambled your brains, Krysty? Leave her. Maybe one day she really can be a future's hope. But not with us."

"The others?" J.B. asked. "One's kind of old and sick."

He was eighty-seven years old and had been frozen at the point of death from a cerebral tumor. He had won a Nobel Prize for atomic physics and had been an expert on remote-control missile detonators. So the comp-screen proudly announced.

The decision to leave the physicist on ice was unanimous, though Doc mumbled something about thawing him out and cutting his throat.

"The lady?"

Ryan's fingers moved over the keys to try to find an answer to Krysty's query.

"Least she's not too old. And she doesn't look too ill," J.B. said, waiting for the screen to display the information.

Wyeth, Mildred Winonia. Doctor of Medicine. Degrees earned and honorary see full printout. Born December 17, 1964. Parents black activists. Father, minister, killed in KKK (qv) firebombing in 1965. Mother marched in late fifties and sixties: see alsoConnor, Eugene ("Bull"); Kennedy, John Fitzgerald; Kennedy, Robert Francis; King, Martin Luther; Montgomery, Alabama; Selma, Alabama; Young, Andrew Jackson, Jr. Height, five feet four inches. Weight 136 pounds. Eyes brown. No distinguishing marks or scars.

Doc abruptly lost interest again and wandered off to peer into the cryo-containers.

Unmarried. Next of kin, mother. Leading U.S. authority on cryogenics, specializing in cryo-surgery. Frozen December 28, 2000 after complications arising from minor exploratory abdominal surgery. Details available under Medical History.

"Sounds quite a lady," Krysty commented. "Be interesting to try to defrost her."

"Probably kill her," Ryan replied. He watched as the screen continued to outline details of Mildred Wyeth's long-ago life, including where she'd lived and been educated, and titles of scientific papers she'd written. But there was one item that attracted the interest of all four of the watching companions.

Was chairperson of pistol club in hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. Represented United States in Olympic Games of 1996 in free-shooting competition. Won silver medal.

J.B. ticked off the points on his fingers. "Woman. Looks healthy. Bright. Doctor. Real one, not like Doc. And she can handle a blaster. What are we waiting for, Ryan? Let's get her thawed out from the rad-blasted coffin."

Ryan couldn't see a single reason to argue with the Armorer. "Yeah. Let's do it."

The friends remembered from their previous experience that the ritual of thawing out a freezie could take a long time.

All of their combined skills were needed to master the consoles. Fortunately, the basic process, once properly initiated, was run by the all-knowing comp-controls. But they had to try to monitor the display panels showing vital functions. For nearly two hours, every dial and meter remained blankly, stubbornly unchanged.

Doc had fallen asleep, head on his hands, snoring gently.

They could tell that things were happening. The flow of liquids became swifter, and the pod began to fill slowly with a swirling gas that obscured Dr. Mildred Wyeth.

"Look." Krysty pointed to the monitor labeled Vital Function 3. A small blip had been traveling soundlessly along a central line, but now there was a tiny hiccup in the blip's movement and the faintest beeping sound from the speakers.

Doc looked up blearily. "We have lift-off," he said, and fell straight back asleep again.

Gradually the other monitor screens clicked into reluctant life. Drainage levels of certain fluids rose, while others dropped. The at first imperceptible heartbeat became audible. But the misting grew thicker, until it was impossible to see into the capsule that held the late Mildred Wyeth.

Jak went out after a half hour to check the rest of the complex, and found that the automatic fire controls had put out the blaze. "All heads dead," he told them, grinning happily.

It took more than three hours before all the vital signs steadied.

"Soon," Ryan predicted.

The fog of vapors within the pod gradually cleared, and they gathered around, waiting for the automatic lock to spring open and release the woman. Now they could see the rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin cotton of the shroud.