The ship's cryochamber, at first glance, seems like the ruins of a vast dark-marble mausoleum.  The ceiling is low, barely high enough to stand straight in. Hundreds of sleek white cryosleep tanks lie in rows like raised metal coffins. Most of them are cracked, liquid dripping out of the dark fractures that form spiderwebs over the lighter surface. Most have their lids torn off - all but one, hidden in an inconspicuous corner of the chamber.

>Did you hide them, Coron?

>I made sure the alien did not find it.

>How did you do that?

>Minds are easy to distract, Nous. Their minds depend on distraction for sanity, preferring to ignore truths rather than face them.

With a hiss the top of the lone cryosleep tank slides open, and the pale white light within flickers on. The woman half-submerged in the clear liquid inside sits up, shivering and sputtering, eyelids shut. Her skin is rosy and flushed, but her hands are pale as she grips the sides of the cryosleep tank. She gasps, hands flying to her throat.

There is no oxygen.

>She requires help! You have endangered her!

>She will survive.

Her hands drop, limply, over the outer edge of the cryosleep tank. Desperately they scrabble over the side, trembling and feeling and - there! Her fingers wrap around a bundle of tubes and valves, grip tightly, and pull. The woman presses the breather to her mouth and inhales deeply.

Her eyes flutter open, wide and nervous as she takes in her surroundings. Her name is Deserux Keseer. She listens to the silence, waiting for a voice that is not there.

No one speaks. There is no wind to even break the deafening silence. Keseer climbs out of the cryosleep tank, shivering as her bare feet touch the cold floor and her wet suit clings to her. A puddle of liquid drips from her body and pools on the floor.

Keseer takes in a huge breath, calming herself down. She closes her eyes and folds her arms across her chest. “Nous?” She asks the emptiness. Again, there is no answer, not even any wind to howl and create sound. There is no wind in space.

The ship, Nous, was the only one who had the power to operate the cryosleep tanks and literally everything in the ship. Nous was an AI, capable of thought that matched and transcended those of humans, yet incapable of doing two things: he could not do anything - directly or indirectly - that would cause harm or risk causing harm to humans, and he was incapable of doing anything that went against his orders from Earth.

Nous was one of the few probeships, sent on a millennium-long journey to gather information from the furthest corners of the Universe in search of habitable worlds. Nous travelled slowly, making great looping orbits around galaxies, not requiring any kind of fuel apart from the starlight which pushed his solar sails. A transible enabled him to communicate instantaneously with other probeships and with Earth, sending gathered data back to Earth which scientists would analyze.

Though Nous was more than capable of repairing himself in cases of damage and analyzing information, once in a while he would need human help or human opinion. In those cases, he awakened a handful of humans from the five-thousand cryosleepers in his cargo. Most of the cryosleepers were breeders, selected for their variety of genes and skills, only meant to be awakened in the case a habitable planet was found so that humans could create a colony there. However, a notable number of cryosleepers were crew - engineers, exobiologists, meteoroglogists, xenobiologists, astronomers, quantum physicists, and more.

Nous awakened certain people in certain situations - he was not allowed to awaken people unnecessarily.

So, Keseer thought, who woke me up? And what destroyed all those cryosleep tanks?

>Wake up the girl, now.

>Have patience.

Keseer's silhouette flares up on the wall in front of her, backlit by white light.

The woman's head whips around, eyes settling on the light spilling from an opening cryosleep tank a few feet behind her. It is the cryosleep tank of the captain's six year-old daughter.

"Kid, here. Inhale." Keseer is ready with a breather when the girl sits up, gasping. Pale curls stick to the child's forehead, and she grasps the breather, taking deep breaths. Grey eyes look up at Keseer, surprise morphing into confusion.

The captain, Maer Unham, was awakened every time any two or more of the crew were awakened. Captain Unham was the one who made all the decisions, yet his power was limited, as he could never override Nous' orders from Earth. The captain was intended to be the leader of the humans in the case they ever found a habitable planet - yet that had never happened yet.

For reasons unknown to the crew, he had requested his daughter to be allowed to have a cryosleep tank on Nous, and his request had been granted.

Keseer holds the child in an embrace, stroking her hair. The woman is trembling, trying to hide her fear. "I don't know what happened, but we're going to find out."

She takes the child by her shoulders, black eyes looking into grey. "I need to know some things. You have to think hard, to remember every single thing, okay?"

Wiping away her tears, the child sighs and nods.

"Do you know when Nous is supposed to wake you up?" Keseer askes.

Hesitation. The child shakes her head. "I- I don’t remember"

"We need to know what happened, if we landed on a planet, or if we need manual repairs, or if… I don’t know, extraterrestrials are attacking us." Keseer rambles on, gaze unfocused. "Specific people, Nous’ supposed to be wake up at specific times”

The child looks worriedly at Keseer. “Kes, are you okay?”

Keseer’s eyes refocus on the child. “I'm an exobiologist. I study aliens. I'm only supposed to be woken up when Nous finds a habitable planet to land on and after Earth has given permission for him to do that. Nous would never wake me up in any other situation. But I'm not sure now... he- he doesn't seem to be active."

"Nous didn't wake us up." The child says. "An angel woke us up." She hesitates, looking up at Keseer. "He told me we had to go wake up Nous, and he would tell us everything that happened."

"I- what?"

"The angel - his name was Coron - said that something bad was on the ship, an alien. He said we had to watch out for it, and we're the only ones who can do this." The child said resolutely. "We have to go."