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Charlene bit her lip. There was a dreadful temptation to do nothing, to leave JN with her body temperature down close to freezing while they deliberated. But the temperature in the chamber was still dropping. Within the next half hour they had to bring Judith Niles back up to consciousness, or try for Mode Two. “What’s the latest report on Jinx?” Charlene said abruptly.
“He’s fine.”
“Right. Then I say, let’s go ahead. Waiting won’t help anything.” If the other two were startled at the sudden change of attitude, neither mentioned it. They adjusted their masks and went back at once into the chamber. Already the temperature inside had dropped another degree. The monitors recorded a pulse rate for Judith Niles of four beats a minute, and the chilled blood was driven sluggishly through narrowed veins.
The final stage began. It would be carried out under computer control, with the humans merely there to provide an override if things went wrong. Jan de Vries initiated the control sequence. Then he went across to the still figure on the table and gently placed the palm of his hand on her cold forehead. “Good luck, Judith. We’ll do our best. And we’ll be communicating with you — God willing — when you get there.”
He stood looking at her face for a long time. The carefully measured drug injections and massive transfusion of chemically changed blood had already begun. Now the monitors showed strange patterns, steady periods alternating with abrupt changes in pulse rate, skin conductivity, ion balances, and nervous system activity. Oscilloscope displays showed unpredictable peaks and valleys of brain rhythms, as cycles of waves rose, fell, and merged.
Even to the experienced eyes of the watchers, everything on the monitors looked odd and unfamiliar. And yet that was no surprise. As she had requested, Judith Niles was embarked on a strange journey. She would be exploring a region where blood was close to freezing, where the body’s chemical reactions proceeded at a fraction of their usual rates, where only a few hibernating animals and no human had ever ventured and returned to life.
The frozen heart slowed further, and the blood drifted lazy along cold arteries and veins. The body on the table suddenly shuddered and twitched, then was quiet again. The monitors fluttered a warning.
But there would be no going back. The search was on. In the next few hours, Judith Niles would be engaged in a desperate quest. She had to find a new plateau of physiological stability, down where no human had ever gone before; and her only guide was the uncertain trail left by one Kodiak bear.
PART TWO:
A.D. 27,698
CHAPTER TWELVE
The last shivering swimmer had emerged from the underground river, and now it would be possible to assemble the final results. Peron Turco pulled the warm cape closer about his shoulders and looked back and forth along the line. There they stood. Four months of preliminary selection had wi
Peron shielded his eyes against Cassay’s morning brilliance and studied each face in turn along the long line. By now he knew where the real competition lay, and from their expressions he sought to gauge his own chances. Lum was at the far end, squatting cross-legged. He was eating fruit, and he looked bored and sweaty. Somehow Pentecost’s hot summer had left his skin untouched. He stood out with a winter’s paleness against the others.
Ten days ago Peron had met him and dismissed Lum as soft and overweight, a crudely built and oafish youth who had reached the final hundred contestants by a freakish accident. Now he knew better. The fat was mostly muscle, and when necessary Lum could move with an incredible grace and speed; and the fat face and piggy eyes hid a first-rate brain and formidable imagination. Peron had revised his assessment three times, each one upward. Now he felt sure that Lum would be somewhere high in the final twenty-five.
And so would the girl Elissa, three positions to the left. Peron had marked her early as formidable competition. She had started ten minutes ahead of him in the first trial, when they made the night journey through the middle of Villasylvia, the most difficult and dangerous forest on the surface of Pentecost. Peron had been very confident. He had been raised in wooded country. He was strong and agile, and his sense of direction was better than anyone he had ever met. After two hours, when he had failed to overtake Elissa, he was convinced that the dark-ski
Now Elissa turned to look at him while he was still staring along the line at her. She gri
He looked back at the board. The markers were going up on the great display, showing the names of the remaining contestants. Peron counted them as they were posted. Only seventy-two. The last round of trials had been fiercely difficult, enough to eliminate over a quarter of the finalists completely. No Planetfest celebration for them. They would already be headed back to their home towns, too disappointed to wait and find out who the lucky wi
Now Sy was ignoring the display and concentrating all his attention on his fellow contestants, clearly evaluating their condition. Peron had the sudden suspicion that Sy already knew he was in the top twenty-five and was looking ahead, laying his plans for the off-planet tests that would determine the final ten wi