In the side room off from the ark's bridge, Abraham lifts the metal helmet from my head. My eyes meet his fiery gaze as it scours over me like hot blue coals burning through my wall of defense. He knows I know. He knows I remember what happened before he brought me into the recovery room.

When I push up from the chair and stand, my mind gets transported back in time. My original awakening happens again before my eyes.

I burst into consciousness and roll off the bedding of what I believe is my hibernation chamber. I slam against the floor, face down, but my hands and knees break my fall. My arms and legs scramble for purchase, intent on righting myself so I can run. So I can fight through the madness. So I can take my flight into the unknown. Or better yet, away from it.

But my limbs refuse to cooperate.

I claw at the floor, each scrape dragging me forward toward another hibernation unit, away from Abraham.

I glare back at him as he marches toward me. Before he catches me, I lurch upward for the transparent lid encasing the second unit. Adrenaline dumps into my system, and I pull myself up to stand. For a vapor of a moment, I glimpse a human form, and then I crash to the floor when a needle jabs into my neck, the contents of a syringe plunged into my jugular vein by Abraham.

I was certain I remembered what I saw. Who I saw. But as the memory replays, the identity of the person blurs into nothing, as if they never existed.

When the memory fades, a faintness rushes over me, and I grab Abraham's shoulder to steady myself. The artificial gravity draws my body toward the floor, reacting with the metal fibers in my suit.

"Are you okay?" Abraham asks.

I wince and shake away the vision to rid myself of the wooziness. The uneasiness.

"The memory transfer triggered a flashback. You recalled waking up in the hibernation lab, didn't you?"

I want to reply, but the words die on my tongue.

"I sedated you so you wouldn't hurt yourself. Do you remember anything else?"

I hesitate, grinding my teeth. My reply wants to explode from my lips, but nothing comes out.

"Do you remember anything before you blacked out?"

"No. Nothing." That's all I say, but I still see the hazy figure of another human lying in the hibernation chamber. I vaguely recall Abraham carrying my limp form to the hatch, ducking under the low clearance of the doorway, on his way to the recovery room. I succumbed to the sedation somewhere along the way and then awoke for a second time with him hovering over me, but I didn't remember any of it until now.

"Are you sure you recall nothing?"

"I'm absolutely certain." I snatch the water pouch out of the air and hand it to Abraham. "What's next? I know you woke me up for a reason."

"I see the knowledge emboldening you. You know about the global flood and some of what it took to create the ark. You understand why the designers engineered and built it. And you remember the incident in the hibernation lab, but nothing else?" His eyes narrow, head tilts slightly. "Good. What about your life before stasis? Do you remember any of it?"

As he talks, the more my body relaxes. The disturbance I felt when I recalled crawling on the floor and stretching up to see the blurry person in the sleep unit, bleeds away. The contempt I harbored for Abraham melts under his rich baritone voice. After all, he was helping me. It shouldn't shock me to see another person in hibernation. I had to know there were more people in stasis.

"I remember nothing about my past life," I finally say.

"That could be a good thing. Or not." Abraham pauses, wrinkles appearing on his forehead. "You need the education and experience you had as a planetary scientist."

"A what?"

"That's what you were on Earth before the waters consumed the planet. You were a young man, but you completed your university requirements and had five years of work experience assisting me. I was the chief scientist for NASA."

I look him in the eye, all of his story seeming far-fetched but also making sense. "Are you my boss now?"

"If you want to view our relationship that way. I'm here to facilitate your awakening, help restore your memories, and re-educate you. I have means to do so. Like the memory transfer, in the chair, just now."

I inhale and blink. Nod.

"But to prepare you for what comes next, we need to continue our journey through the ark. When we exit the bridge, we'll take a right into the corridor, then continue on past the main entry door that leads to the hibernation lab. Yes, there's another door. The low hatch I carried you through was a shortcut to the recovery room. They created it for the droids... the robots. They were supposed to wake everyone up, but they malfunctioned. Fortunately, we had backup measures. When the droids failed to wake us up, my unit revived me, so I could begin the awakening for everyone." He waves me toward the archway. "Come on, we'll talk while we walk."

We leave the bridge and pace through the corridor, our boots clinking on and off the floor. "You never said exactly where we're going."

"It's a big room meant for learning and relaxing, mostly designed to help you get settled in and prepared to learn about the reseeding." Abraham gestures with his hands while he talks. "Forgoing another memory transfer, I believe a less invasive approach is more suited for this part."

The corridor turns sharply to the left and then takes an immediate turn back to the right. A quick zigzag. Then it's straight ahead again. A short ways down the hall, we come to another open archway wide enough for double doors.

"This is the commons room."

He wasn't exaggerating when he said it was a big room. Much larger than the galley. Not as immense as the bridge, but there's plenty of space. Sofas and lounging chairs occupy most of the surrounding area, spread out to give the room a leisure atmosphere. Again, I suspect they secured everything to the floor. Lamps set atop end-tables. They must have bolted down the bases, too. I test my theory by tipping the shades, and I'm not surprised when they don't budge. Microgravity affects everything, but I remind myself about my gravity suit. Abraham said there's a magnetic field pulling us toward the floor. Fine tuned, I suppose, to the degree of simulating Earth's gravity.

When Abraham sits down on the sofa, I follow suit, leaning back with the six rectangle windows providing a backdrop. By now, I'm accustomed to the blue glow emanating from outside the view ports. The mild illumination gives a certain level of comfort, especially with the memory of my incident in the hibernation lab spinning on a continual loop inside my mind. It comes and goes. Trouble drifting on a breeze that comes full circle. I breathe in and sink into the comfortable cushions.

"As I mentioned a few moments ago," Abraham begins, "next, you need to learn about the Earth's reseeding."

I sit up straighter, my eyes glued to Abraham's.

"The space station is an ark. It stored the seeds of all the trees and plant life that existed on Earth before the oceans flooded the planet and swept over the continents, washing it all away. The space ark, Novus One, also held DNA samples from every animal species. All the birds and insects. You name it, the ark had it."

"So, the ark is empty now?"

"Technically, there are reserves in case of an emergency, but everything that wasn't a reserve got reseeded across the globe. All wildlife grew from embryos and eggs in a laboratory. Computers controlled the process, using robotics to carry it out. I oversaw it all. Once I jettisoned the mammals, reptiles, and birds to the Earth in pods, hatches opened and they escaped into the wild to replenish the planet. First, we reseeded the forests and valleys, and then we set the creatures free."

A thought strikes me. "When are you going to awaken everyone else?"

"That's a valid question." Abraham arches a brow. "It's imperative that we establish a presence for humanity on the planet. First, we're going to send you down to test the waters." He grins slyly. "But don't worry, I won't send you alone."