"I'm not sure we can make her fly again. It was always sort of a one-shot thing. That said, we can show you how she flew. And we can show you how to fly as well."

Turning back to the Pale Lady, Nate cocks his head.

"I speak a couple of languages m'Lady, some better then others, but Styric is not one of them."

He lets the Ancient One comment slide. For now.

"It would be nice to know how to fly," admits the big man with the axe. "But I may be a trifle large, I fear."

"Ancient one?" asks Sparhawk.

"The weight of millenia lies upon him," says the Pale Lady, speaking the same language as everyone else. "And upon this - this ship of his. Both are indeed ancient, dear child; ancient beyond measure. When thy ancestors were yet living in caves, when my ancestors and thine had not yet diverged, aye, e'en back until the time of the Dawn-Men themselves, 'tis but an eye-blink next to the age of his stranger, and his yet stranger ship, that sails the vastnesses between the stars themselves. And Ulath, if you knew what you were doing, your size is not what would prevent you from flying."

Despite the fact that she's about half the size of the knights, they all seem to take what the Pale Lady says very seriously.

"Are you human?" asks Sir Sparhawk.

--------------

Science: +3 Roll: +0 Target: +5

Felix gets to work reviving the middle-aged woman. At one point, a stuck valve threatens to completely destroy any chance of her ever waking up again...

Aspect: Colonial Environmental Manager: +2

...but Felix has worked with valves before, he knows just what to do to unstick it, and not a moment too late. It takes several minutes, but eventually the woman begins to stir under her own power. Without opening her eyes, she reaches out one arm, feeling for the edge of the capsule...

"Hello, ma'am? Are you feeling alright?" Felix ventures, hoping to get the woman's attention. "We've got something of an emergency and we could use all the help we can get. Are you the Captain? We could really use some Captaining right about now."

Nate is somewhat taken aback by this question, but not exactly surprised, given the Pale Lady's previous statement.

"That seems to be a somewhat loaded question to me, and before I answer it, I would like to ask you a question."

"What does humanity mean to you?"

The woman's eyes shoot open when Felix speaks, and she sits up quite suddenly - then clutches her head with a groan. "What - immediate danger?" she asks.

--------------

"Well, we don't much care all that much about which race of humanity you might be," says Sparhawk. "We can see you're not Elene, Styric, or Zemoch, or even Tamul, and you're certainly not Atan. I suppose you could be Cyrgai -"

"No, dear child, the Cyrgai were dark-skinned, much like yourself," says the Pale Lady. "The Delphai could perhaps take on that oddly pinkish colour, but these people are older by far than any of the tribes known to us."

"You certainly look human enough," concludes Sparhawk. "Is that your true appearance, and is that your only appearance?"

"We're not in danger of colliding with an asteroid or falling into a black hole or anything, but we've got all sorts of wonderful troubles to concern ourselves with," Felix replies. "We've been under far FAR longer than we should have been. Power reserves are critically low. None of the computers are responding because of it. All of our food is rotten. There's no water left anywhere that I can find. You're only the fourth person that's woken up and I had to crack your egg open manually trying to find someone who can help. One guy is outside the ship investigating the current situation and the other guy is so out of it from cryo sickness I think he might die. He hasn't even moved since we woke up."

Felix stops to catch his breath. He's visibly freaking out more and more as reality sets in, but he's at least able to keep a lid on the worst of it. He moves to help the woman out of the capsule as he speaks, not wanting to wait even a moment longer if he can help it.

"Oh, and the best part? The sparkling gem that I'm leading up to? The planet we've landed on has SENTIENT. LIFE." Felix punctuates the words for extra emphasis. "They're out there with swords and spears RIGHT NOW. We've established some small communication with them and they haven't yet murdered us all but I'm not quite sure what's happening out there with just Nathan talking to them. I ran inside as soon as I could to try and find someone who can help us deal with a situation that's been spiraling out of control for freaking MILLENIA."

Nate smiles. "This is my true appearance, and unless I spend too much time in the sun, it won't be changing much."

"Now to answer your question, I am human. My spiecies is Homo Sapiens, as it is for all those who travel aboard the Pandora, although our appearances may vary widely."

Almost to himself, Nate quietly says; "I guess we did build other ships after all."

He seems quietly happy with this.

The lady lowers her hand from her head and stares at Felix. "What the - what are you speaking? Do you know English? All the colonists knew English, right?"

Thinking back over the conversation, Felix will recall that she's only been speaking English all along.

--------------

Sir Sparhawk raises an eyebrow. "Then perhaps you could explain how you come to be several millenia old?" he asks. "In my experience, that's not exactly a normal human trait."

"Because it takes so long to travel between the stars, we freeze ourselves solid for the journey so we don't age. When we arrive, we get thawed out. The process is not without risks, but it's the only way to live to see your destination."

Right. That weird foreign language thing. Thinking back, he can remember Nate trying out phrases he'd learned in other languages. So they can apparently still speak what they came with... Felix concentrates for a moment. English. You speak it, you know it. Come on.

"Can you understand me now? Sorry, I'm freaking out somewhat. Something Bad Has Happened between when we went to sleep and when we woke up. The situation is VERY dire."

Felix will just have to trust Nathan is maintaining a relatively peaceful situation.

"Whatever it is, you're going to have to tell me about it while I get something to eat." The lady reaches for her little box of personal effects, opens it out, and is rather disappointed to find that the hyper-preserved ration bar that had been packed in there is now little more than a funny-coloured stain on her shirt.

"...that's not good. I thought these things were supposed to last? I'm sorry, where are my manners? I'm Dr. Vanessa Vanderbilt, Chief Medical Officer."

--------------

Sir Sparhawk raises both eyebrows at this revelation.

"I've heard of it happening to frogs before, and there's a legend that a troll once survived freezing in a glacier, but never with humans," says the Pale Lady.

"I don't suppose you have a doctor in there?" asks Sir Sparhawk.

"Felix False, Environmental Engineer and also the first of only three people who've woken up so far. Four counting you," Felix gives that a second to sink in, still concentrating on English as he speaks. "We've been under a great deal longer than we should have been."

With that said, still concentrating on speaking English, he reexplains the general bullet points of the freak out he was having earlier. Apparently the new language is the default one and you slip back into it when feeling anxiety? This needs further examination

"We have several doctors aboard, but it will likely take some time before they're able to take on new patients. I'm a bit of a healer myself if there's an emergency."

"Delayed Waking Syndrome," says Dr. Vanderbilt. "Very rare. Basically, his body isn't coming out of cryosleep, despite the waking procedure - he could wake up quite suddenly after a long delay, or he might never wake up. Leave him in his cryocapsule, it'll keep him alive longer than anything else you can do. I don't... don't understand why you were woken up first. I was supposed to be - are you telling me there's nothing edible on this ship?"

As she talks, she pulls on a set of clothes from her box.

--------------

"Do you think you could perhaps identify a - a disease, by a description of the symptoms?" asks Sir Sparhawk.

"I can give it a shot, but there's been alot of time for new diseses to evolve that I wouldn't be familiar with."