The Surveyor – the robot with cameras and lasers for measurements and documentation – greets me in their warbling and staticky electronic voice. Each one is equipped with different tools and components so that the bots can serve various functions.

My robotic companions chirp and buzz at me when they see that I’ve arrived. Of course, they never went to sleep in the first place because, unlike me, they don’t have any organic parts that could degrade with time. Blanket still wrapped around my shoulders, I enter the flight deck of the ship. The door to my quarters zips open with a burst of warm, stale air, and I walk out into the hallway. I briefly wonder if I should be worried about whatever chemicals they’ve been feeding me for five years, but then again, they aren’t paying me to worry myself over such things. It feels so strange, sitting here under the fluorescent lights of my quarters, knowing that five years have passed and yet not seeing a single new wrinkle or spot. I glance at my face in the mirror on the desk. I hobble over to the wall of cabinets and locate the one with blankets inside, wrapping myself up in one. They told me about the chills, but no number of informational pamphlets could prepare me for the way that the cold lingers in my bones, in the pit of my stomach. I knew that waking from the hibernation would be rough they briefed me on this before I ever agreed to go on this mission. Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I swing my legs up and out of the pod. I fumble with the buttons on the control panel until I hit the one that makes the noise stop. There’s an alarm screeching at me, coming from the console to the left of the pod I’ve been asleep in for my five-year flight through the frigid darkness of space. My hands shake as I clear my head and pull myself up into a sitting position. My head feels gummy, and when I open my eyes the lights of my hibernation quarters are blinding, burning my eyes. The first thing I feel upon waking is the cold the freezing-hot sensation of blood rushing in my veins.

Second extinction neurotoxic slime