Addiction
By Jill B. Hart

He swam through space with the grace of dolphin at sea. The universe surrounded him, and he experienced every atom of it. When he gazed out at far off stars, he saw them through electronic eyes that offered every shade of the electromagnetic spectrum. Through radio ears the galaxy sang to him. The solar wind, through sensors on the hull of his Explorer-class ship, felt like sunlight on his skin. The interface was successful. He was one with the ship.

Douglas Euzerman hadn't expected much. He was glad to be wrong. But then, Mission Central hadn't really told him what it would be like. His mind had been literally merged with the resources of the ship's cybernet dataframe. To Central, this was simply a new computer system interface, a more efficient way of collecting information and using the ship's human component. To them, the match was simple.

As a Surveyor, Euzerman existed to collect information. The new interface would expedite that process. To Euzerman, it was more like giving sight to a blind man.

Surveyors were deep space explorers. They lived their lives on small, swift one-person ships. They would be assigned to survey a specific star system. Their objective was to find planets suitable for colonization. To keep the ship's stores of food and water at a minimum, they were locked into Deepsleep shortly after departure. They would remain in hibernation until awakened by their ship's central computer, typically only days before entering the planetary system that was their destination.

With the new interface, the Surveyor's body could kept in a reduced form of hibernation, even when decisions needed to be made. The Surveyor's mind would be conscious, but his body would be comatose, fed through an intravenous tube. At an appropriate time, the Surveyor would either disengage or re-engage the system. Disengaging would restore his or her body, allowing for normal exploration using a shuttle or aboard the main ship. Re-engaging would restore full hibernation, both body and mind would be in stasis until needed again.

Euzerman had initially been unwilling to submit to the interface since through it he would be in regular -- virtually constant -- contact with Mission Central while connected. At first he hated the prospect. He thought the interface would be just another excuse for Mission Central to exercise control over him. He'd become a Surveyor specifically because he didn't want to grant anyone such control. The life of a Surveyor was perfect for him. Euzerman liked being out of contact with most of the human race. He loved being separated from most humans by time and space. The separation was his freedom.

Not only was he physically alone while on a mission, the effects of time dilation from his near speed-of-light travel, left him chronologically isolated as well. His Explorer spacecraft traveled at 80 percent the speed of light. Time dilation meant that time passed more-slowly for him -- or from his perspective more rapidly for the outside world. As a result, though his missions typically took only a few months of his time, the outside world aged five and a half to more than seven years.

Euzerman had been happy with the old system and he wasn't sure that the new interface was any kind of improvement. That's why he was glad to be wrong. The connection with Central allowed them to closely monitor his progress, but not to control him. After experiencing deep space flight through the interface he would never choose to be stowed away in stasis again.