Throwback Book II

Clara Xhang dropped what she was doing at the sound of the alarms. "Adam!" she shouted, "The stasis units!" She rushed to the back of the hi-cap and threw the doors open. She looked inside the hi-cap and saw the progress bars on the stasis units simultaneously approaching 100 percent. She watched as all four progress bars reached their finish and the four doors slowly opened. Xhang stepped up into the hi-cap and cautiously approached the two rows of open stasis units . Just as she reached the feet of the two closest, four hideous, cadaverous figures sat up and reached bony fingers for her, eyeless, shriveled faces grinning. Xhang tried to scream, but it caught in her throat. She awoke with a jolt, the scream escaping as more of a short moan. These nightmares had become a regular nocturnal occurrence. She understood the necessity of postponing the resuscitation of the others, at least until recently. She and Adam could at first not be sure of food enough for themselves, and just staying alive had been a full-time job. They had endured months of short rations before they even got here, and the rations got shorter once they arrived. It was natural to want to enjoy the relative surplus, but they were postponing the inevitable. Their long journey from Mars had left them both weakened and depleted, and Mother Earth had not exactly welcomed them back with open arms.