Jonas realized, They’re not talking like this’s a hypothetical. They’ve already decided it’s going to happen.
Norm said, “So, do you want to watch Saturn get stazed, or just watch videos of his other stazes?”
Mind whirling, Jonas said, “Let me see a video.”
They pulled it up on a big screen. Tail wagging, Saturn was in his crate, happily eating from a dog dish. Seba said, “You’re watching through a pinhole camera that’s viewing through a one millimeter opening in the upper corner of Saturn’s stasis chamber. Openings bigger than a millimeter cause a stazing failure.” The image dimmed as if something was being pulled over Saturn’s crate leaving the dog lit only by what looked like a battery-operated light. Seba said, “That was the Mylar stazing wrap being closed around his crate.” The screen flashed but Saturn, focused on his food, didn’t seem to notice. Then the scene brightened again and Norm’s voice said, “Hey boy.” Saturn looked up eagerly, then the screen went blank.
Norm said, “That was his first two-day stasis. Since he just came out, we haven’t had time to splice the video for this past five days, but—”
Jonas interrupted, “What you mean that was his first two-day stasis? And what’s this about splicing?”
“Oh,” Norm said. He looked at Seba and said, “Can we take him back through the stasis event.”
Seba nodded and clicked a trackball, “Here it is again.”
On the screen, Saturn was happily eating in dim lighting again. There came a flash, then the lighting improved.
Seba said, “Here it is again. The flash you’re seeing is a half-second view of the Stade Saturn was in. We’ve spliced the before-stasis video to the after-stasis video with only that half-second of video of the Stade so you can get the sense that, as far as Saturn was concerned, nothing happened.
“I see,” Jonas said, “Can you play through that a few more times? Maybe in slow motion?”
“Sure,” Seba said.
Jonas watched it through a few times in slo-mo, deciding that if they took out the half-second the silvery Stade was flashed on the screen, Saturn’s movements would look completely uninterrupted. He suggested they trim up such a video.
Seba said, “We’ve already done it.” He spoke briefly to the computer and the same video—this time without the flash or the momentary hitch in the sweep of Saturn’s wagging tail—started playing. Seba said, “Because you can’t tell there was a stazing event, it doesn’t look very impressive unless you’ve seen the other vid first.”
After watching it a couple times Jonas had to admit it appeared Saturn had no idea he’d been in stasis.
Though Jonas worried that he was putting Saturn through something unnecessarily, they stazed the dog for him for ten minutes, letting him inspect the Stade that’d been formed. Then they destazed it and let him pet Saturn afterward—apparently no worse for the wear.
While Saturn was in the Stade, Jonas took the opportunity to bend Seba’s ear. “I’d like to discuss a lot of thoughts I’ve had regarding other areas of medicine where stasis could be hugely important. Is it true that I can’t talk to your CEO directly?”
Seba nodded, indicating one of the tables. “You could explain your ideas to myself and Arya. We can pass the message on to Mr. X.”
“Okay,” Jonas said with a sigh, worrying that much of his message would get lost in translation. “I’d assume neither of you was old enough to remember much from the pandemic. Do you know if X was old enough?”
They shook their heads.
“I was in training then and the pandemic was a huge problem for health care professionals. There were so many sick people in some areas that there just weren’t enough doctors and nurses to take care of them. In some places they had to make horrible decisions as to which patients they were going to try to save and then just let others die because they couldn’t treat all of them. There definitely wasn’t enough protective equipment and that meant the medical personnel who were trying to save patients couldn’t be safe. A lot of them caught the virus and died themselves…” he ran down, emotionally affected by the memories.
Grace had been sitting with them, listening. She asked, “I know it was terrible, but what could Staze have done about that?”
A moment passed without Jonas lifting his head. Then Seba turned to Grace. “I think he’s proposing that they could’ve stazed the people who were really sick. They would’ve stayed in stasis until manufacturing produced enough PPE. Perhaps until there were better treatments available.” He turned back to Jonas, “Is that what you were thinking, Doctor?”
Jonas lifted his head and nodded. “We could’ve destazed them when we had enough people, equipment, and ICUs available to provide first-rate care for them.”
Seba turned to Arya, saying, “Perhaps some medical equipment could be made of Stade so germs wouldn’t stick to it.”
My God! Jonas thought. He said, “Germs don’t stick to it?
Seba shrugged, “Well, nothing sticks to it. Some things wouldn’t be useful if they were made of Stade. For instance, if you made tables or shelves out of it, anything you put on them would just slide to the edge and fall off.”
Jonas asked, “Couldn’t you put a little rim on the table to keep stuff from going off the edge?”
“Sure. There could even be gaps in the rim that would let tiny things like dirt, bacteria, and viruses slide off, but would keep bigger things on the table. Unfortunately, everything you put on a table would slide to the lowest edge and stop against the rim.” Seba looked thoughtful, “But I’m sure there are things that would benefit.
