Kepler 452-B

Chapter I

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

I

The cryogenic capsules began working.
They were big, ovoid metal sarcophagi with a thick front glass that allowed to see who was inside, and that worked as a screen on which all the information about the hibernated subjects appeared: hibernation time, time left to the restoration of vitals, cell health status, temperature.

The bodies inside were attached to an exoskeleton-like thin structure. I held them still inside the cryo-fluid, and attached to it there were the long needles that disappeared under their skin, and the oxygen masks that would be necessary when they woke up. And it was in that very moment that three of the capsules lit up, humming like an old refrigerator would, and glowing with a blueish glare while the fluid started to drain off.
Just a few seconds later the needles started doing their work, removing the replacement fluid from their bodies and pumping in blood almost simultaneously.
Then the subjects' ECG materialized on the front glass. The temperature marker signaled a slow rise back to natural human warmth. The electrodes on their chest started slightly shocking the hibernated ones, and their shaking bodies could be seen even through the steam and the moisture that covered the front glasses form the inside.