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Alien invasion. Warning. Alien invasion.”
    Alien invasion.
    The words are terrible, even though I don’t understand their meaning. The monsters penetrated Ship from Outside, but Blasius never told me other living creatures populated Outside. Perhaps he didn’t know this. How could he? He was just a poor clone.
    I am just a poor clone too.
    The image on the wall changes again with dizzying rapidity. Ship’s map, with Seventh Sector red and flashing, reappears. A white, pulsing dot shows the aliens advancing inside. I gasp in horror when the dot divides in two, then in three. The three dots branch out quickly into Ship in three different directions. The first toward Eighth Sector, the second toward the center, and the third toward Sixth Sector, stopping just on the edge.
    “Sixth Sector under decompression,” the voice says.
    “No, no, no!”
    A handful of seconds, and the Sixth Sector’s slice starts flashing.
    “Seventh Sector and Sixth Sector under decompression. Danger, danger, danger.”
    “You idiot, tell me what the hell I have to do before they pierce all over Ship!”
    “Danger, danger, danger. Emergency protocol recommended. Start the emergency protocol now?”
    “Yes, yes!”
    “Request accepted. Emergency protocol in progress. Please wait.”
    My heart thumps so hard that it seems to explode through my ears. The dot moves across Sixth Sector in a diagonal line. I think the monster is walking on one of the suspended walkways. I guess it’ll take at least half an hour getting to Fifth Sector. If it doesn’t stop. But why should it? Ship’s empty. What is their purpose?
    The horror makes me gasp. “Kidnap Prince!”
    “Please wait, emergency protocol in progress. Cryosleep awakening started.”
    “What? What?”
    I turn slowly on my heels.
    I watch, in shock, while all the lights on the sarcophagus edge increase in intensity. I jump a step away.
    The coffin shines like I’ve never seen. The lid exudes a thin veil of steam.
    “What are you doing, Corp?”
    “Subject condition: good. Twenty minutes to total awakening.”
    It can’t be. Can’t be what I think.
    The light from the row inside the lid grows in intensity and becomes white and blinding, while the ice on the external surface dissolves, smoking. I can see Prince, now, and he’s exactly the same as usual. But an awful lot of lights and signs I have never seen start blinking in the panels on the sides of Prince’s head, an area I have always mistaken for a kind of headrest.
    “Temperature: four degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Plasma transfer in progress. Eighteen minutes to total awakening.”
    “For Outside’s sake. Is that all? Is this the emergency protocol, Corp?”
    Corp doesn’t respond.
    “Can’t be. I’m dreaming.”
    But I know it’s not true. I couldn’t dream things as complicated as those I have just witnessed.
    The sarcophagus begins to buzz, and some frost on Prince’s chest and upper lip dissolves. Prince is changing color. His skin is turning from white and veined with blue to pale pink. I check the tubes of his refrigerant.
    Two thin ducts slip into Prince’s neck, just below his left ear, carrying the refrigerant inside his system. They are usually frozen and light blue in color, but I realize that now one of them is bright red.
    “Damn!”
    I turn to check Ship’s map. The closest alien has traveled across half of Sixth Sector. Is it heading here? Do the aliens know where to find Prince?
    “Temperature: five degrees Celsius. Heartbeat: absent. EEG: flat. Plasma transfer in progress. Fifteen minutes to total awakening.”
    “At least hurry up!”
    If the alien continues to approach, I need to take Prince out of here. But where? And how? The idea of dealing with Prince is so absurd that I can’t understand how I should behave with him. Will he speak, walk as Blasius and me? Will he be able to understand what I say? Will I be able to understand him?
    Meanwhile, the tube sticking into his neck