All of the cryo-cribs were empty now. The Commander was sitting on one of the benches in the bay, his legs were still unsteady. The injection Odetta had giving him only moments before had finally stopped his dry retching. "Cryo," he groaned. "Recovery never gets any better." This was his eighth recovery, from memory, and  he decided it was just as bad as his first. Still struggling, he glanced around the room. It was his duty as Commander to check on his crew.

The cryo bay was littered with people in various states of distress, despair and posture. Some were sitting with their heads between their knees, others were lying prostrate in what looked like semi-consciousness. Still more were half standing, knees buckled, heads bowed, holding, white-knuckled onto bulkheads in a desperate attempt to stay upright. Odetta was moving about, pumping her recovery spray into his tortured crew. The Commander was amazed; even though Odetta had come out of cryo moments before the rest of the crew, she was busy attending everyone else. He was sure she felt just as bad as the rest, but she wasn't showing it.

"Don't rush," she ordered. "Take as much time as you need. Some will recover quicker than others. Once you feel better I'll be taking some vitals and some blood. Don't leave before I see you."

"I don't know how you do it," Aaron Howarth croaked. Aaron was one of the Pilots. He was also one of the single crew members. The Commander had marked him down early as a smooth talking player, with an eye for the ladies. But even he was amazed that someone could have just come out of cryo and still be capable of chatting up someone.

"Don't worry, my dear Mr. Howarth, I feel just as wretched as the rest of you."

The Commander managed to stand at last and caught a desperate glimpse of himself in the reflective cryo-crib door. Although the aging process and body functions slowed in cryo he still had an almost full beard. His olive colored irises were surrounded by intermingled red and yellow where white should have been. His thick dark hair was longer with a lot more gray than he previously remembered having. He hoped this present yellowish complexion was only temporary. He looked all his forty-five years, and worse, he felt it.

"Well now, how are you feeling, Commander?"

"You tell me, Doctor."

She placed a small pad on his chest and was taking readings on a small hand held unit.

"Everything looks okay here. Just stand still and I'll take some blood."

Looking up, he nodded, and felt the blood rise in his cheeks. He was blushing. It was at that moment that he realized they were both totally naked. He couldn't help but notice that she obviously looked after herself.

"That's all I need from you, Commander."

"My pleasure, Doctor," he replied as he grabbed his overalls from the floor. Cryo was the great leveler-- no uniform, no rank.  He always felt an urgent need to reestablish some control and order to his life.  He put on the overalls and wobbled hurriedly out of the Cryo Bay.

He had only one thing in mind -- he rushed to the Control Room. He needed to report back to Ground Control, Earthside, then check to see that everything was running smoothly.

The ship's internal environmental control shut down during cryo and restarted automatically. It seemed okay, they were all breathing, but it was essential that the detailed calibrations be confirmed in the Control Room.  Next he checked the ship's gravity systems---it was a new arrangement, a type of electronic magnetic field. And after that, he ran an integrity check on the ship's hull. He expected some damage, they would have traveled through dust clouds with particles of rock and ice, and showers of micro-asteroids. Finally he allowed himself to look at their destination, Matet and its planets, to confirm that there were no other ships already orbiting their destination.

After that, a quick shower, shave and brush. Cryo always left a terrible taste in his mouth.

Then he raided the galley, grabbed a globe of coffee, two waffles with ham and cheese and a tub of fruit yogurt. They still had supplies of fresh Earth food. Space Corp always stocked enough to last beyond cryo. It helped morale. After the fresh food was gone, there would only be synthetic Nutritional Plaz until they set up the bio-sphere.

Thankfully the gravity generators were still operating perfectly. On-board gravity was not as heavy as that experienced on Earth, but at least they were not floating upside down, out of control, and crashing into bulkheads, or worse into each other. With the lower gravity you had to develop a type of bounding step to get around, but your food mostly stayed on your plate and didn't float over to collide with your dinner companion's ear.

They were still two months out from Matet, Earth time. They needed to be spot-on when they reached their final orbit. The next two months would be taken up testing every possible piece of equipment and testing it again if need be. They would reestablish their fitness levels and hone skills through refresher training. They would also tap into the data that was still coming in from the original satellite that was put into orbit around Matet after its discovery.

Success of the mission depended on limiting mistakes and preventing equipment failure. Nevertheless, human error was by far the biggest variable affecting the success of the mission. This was the monkey on his back, he ran the show. It was his responsibility, all of it. Like it or not, making the right decisions, limiting mistakes and getting the most out of the crew was his province and he was all too aware of it.

The crew had all checked out okay. Cryo can produce some unexpected problems, but the Doctor assured him that everybody was A-OK. All the systems on board functioned just fine. And most of all, no mishaps en route. His first report to Earth, after cryo, made for good reading. A lot of data had also come in from Ground Control during their deep sleep. A quick check revealed nothing urgent, most of it being news reports, messages from home, and new movies and books. He pushed it aside for later consideration. Right now, his interests lay elsewhere, namely their destination. After all they were about to spend at least ten years there.

The destination  planet was smaller than Earth, bigger than Mars. The atmosphere was compatible, if not a perfect match to Earth's. There were oceans which looked light blue, and a white cloud cover. There were indications of mountains and rivers, ice on the poles, volcanic remnants and vegetation. No one could be sure if there were animals as well as plants.

One interesting difference in the vegetation was already apparent, the plants appeared to be predominantly blue and yellow, rather than green. A variety of colors for chlorophyll were known on Earth, but green was the most usual. 

Of course, it was assumed that the food chain included organisms to convert the sun's energy into usable form, but given a hypothesis of independent evolution, it would not be astounding to find that a totally different mechanism was used.  In fact, it probably would be quite astounding and significant to find that it was the same. Of course the big issue was toxicity of the vegetation to human biochemistry. Could it be eaten, or used as fiber or construction material without harming them?

All of these questions were on the assignment lists of Stilla Rimes, and Marcus Kolenilova, the Biologists and Sula Dramaticus and Damien Quist, the Environmental Scientists. And all of them would have to wait to be answered until they traveled down to the planet.

"The planet," he spoke the words out loud. That was on his assignment list---the naming of the habitable planet, and the other planets in the Matet solar system.

The International Space Center (ISC) gave the habitable planet the usual bureaucratic title, P835/4, but part of his prerogative as Commander was officially naming the planets.  The scientists would all have fame and fortune in their published scientific studies and could name the flora and fauna after whomever or whatever they pleased---but he would name the planets. The Pilots and Navigator would have the naming of the continents and islands. That seemed fair, everybody got to name something.

There were five identifiable planets in the Matet system, with four spheres and what looked like a hunk of rock tumbling erratically on the outermost orbit. Beyond that was an asteroid belt, important enough in itself, particularly if natural resources were scarce on any of the orbiting planets. So he needed five names, six if he wanted to name the asteroid belt. The chunk of rock could keep its official number determination, it did not inspire him.

He wanted to use names derived from ancient Egypt.  This followed the lead of the astronomer who named the star, Matet, after the boat of the Egyptian solar god, Ra. Besides, Egyptology was his second passion. 

Matet was a big star, bigger than  the Earth's sun, Sol. That's why the planets were on such a wide orbit, anything too close would have been captured by the enormous gravity field of Matet and sucked into its fiery depths. The closest planet to Matet was about the size of Earth, possibly much like Mercury in terms of an atmosphere. Then a large planet with a clouded atmosphere, not habitable.  The livable one was the thrid one out from Matet.  Then a giant gas ball, bigger than Jupiter. 

His train of thought was broken by movement and voices echoing up into the control room. The crew were starting to make their way up the ship from the cryo chamber. Lolita Limbo, or Lolly as most called her, entered the control room to assume her duties as Pilot.

"Commander."

"Lolita, how are you feeling?" He called her by her full Christian name, Lolita, Lolly being too informal for him.

"Pretty good, considering. Just had some breakfast, or was it lunch, or dinner perhaps."

"No, right the first time, call it breakfast. We were scheduled to come out in the morning, Earth time. Although I'm not sure if that really matters anymore, and... more particularly when we reach Matet."

"Yea, well, whatever, the food settled things down a bit. It's amazing what a shower and some food can do. How are all the systems going?"

"Not a glitch."

"Nice."

The control room was a mass of computer screens and terminals that merged into the surrounding bulkheads, forming a bank of continuous work stations. Everything was made of the same synthetic polymer, ultra light weight, but incredibly strong and durable. The entire inner lining of the ship was constructed with this material in various colors. Work benches, desks, and the swivel chairs next to the work stations grew out of the floors and bulkheads in a continuous pale yellow surface. Cushions and floor coverings had been added after the initial construction. All floor covering was gray to aid orientation in case of free fall. Cushions and other soft materials were coordinated to the designated color schemes of the areas. Here the coordinating color was a blue-gray.

Lolita worked the terminals, checking everything from speed to trajectory and navigational settings. Data scrolled up the computer screens and he heard the soft beeps of the touch screens and instrument panels. He was glad she was not using voice activation, he was still a little jumpy from the cryo.

He turned his thoughts back to the problem of naming the planets. He had already decided to call the clouded planet Isis, after the goddess Isis and the gas giant after the god Osiris, her brother. The planet nearest Matet was an odd shape, lumpy with a jagged line running down its center, pole to pole, possibly mountains or a canyon, something like a hazelnut. So he decided on the title Nut, after the goddess Nut, "Lady of Heaven, Mistress of the Gods."

As for their intended destination, the third planet from Matet, that was proving a little more difficult to name. He'd accessed his own personal database and was checking his files on ancient Egypt. Initially, he had considered calling it Horus after the son of Isis He also considered Ka, meaning human spirit or essence, but rejected that on the grounds that the word didn't sound grand enough. Of course, there were all the kings and queens of ancient Egypt, but no.too obvious.

But the recent experience of cryo had given him an idea. Why not name the planet after the afterlife destination of the Egyptians, Duat. After all, they had just survived an experience much like dying and traveling to the other side. Somehow it was appropriate to carry that metaphor forward to the naming of the destination planet.

In Egyptian Mythology Duat was a multifaceted place that included all the tortures of Hell and the rewards of the Fields of Reeds, just as their destination planet had many different environments, some of them hellish and hopefully some of them heavenly. But he didn't want to offend anyone and since they were a group of twenty with many religions represented, he felt he might add the diminutive Eeb, small or little, to indicate that the planet was not supplanting the afterlife concepts of any of the crew or future settlers. Putting the two together, Eeb Duat, sounded great to him, but more crucially it had added meaning to the experience of getting there.