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I spent the next eleven and a half years of my life unconscious.

I do not remember my journey through space; I cannot speak of the wonders our ship beheld. Time existed in only the vaguest sense: I dreamt, and occasionally I would become aware of a imaginary world's ending... slipping out of time until a new story began. I retained no physical sensation, either. I was fully aware that my body was being metamorphosed at the cellular level; that I was probably little more than a central nervous system and some organs floating in the gelatinous goop of my changing DNA-- before the slumber began. But that was before. I lived totally within my own mind, and for over a decade, my mindscape was the only universe that was real.

To be sure, I dreamt of stars, of asteroids, and of Erebus (as my subconcious envisioned it): We entered into its orbit, all of us awake and happy, ecstatic at being the first humans to live beyond our solar system. It loomed peacefully, a small red sun peeking out from behind its great curvature to welcome us. It was beautiful, an orb of ice and crystal so pristine and clear that even from space you could see the deep blue of the global ocean underneath. Sometimes it was a snowglobe, and we were children who threw balled powder, pushing against the glass to make it blizzard. Sometimes it was Atlantis, and we were mer-people who built castles out of coral and kelp. Sometimes it was a shadow, a frozen black hole in space that pertrified everything it touched, and we became its statue guardians. And sometimes, dreams being what they are, we were all of these, and nothing.

Then there were the regular visits from Boris, my chrysalis AI and tandem partner on this sojourn. Every so often in my dreams a resonant disembodied voice called my name, and would continue to do so until I acknowledged it. As soon as I did, the world would become static, and a young Russian man with blinking lights for eyes would appear. He would invariably smile, and though the world around me remained suspended, I could feel lucidity being fed to me, and I became aware that Boris and I could talk.

"Hello again, Jaffrey."

"Hello, Boris! How long has it been since our last chat?"

"It has been three months, 22 minutes, and 13 seconds, Jaffrey. It took you longer to notice me this time."

"Sorry about that, robo-buddy. But you interrupted a pretty intense dream...."

"Yes..." He looked around the dreamscape. As he moved, his form become multilayered-- wires and tubes and metallic joints appearing in a huge, hazy halo about him, like this human representation was just a small attachment decorating the tip of the massive machine that was Boris. Which was true, in a way. "I have intruded upon a mating ritual. My apologies." And while he sounded sincere, he was probably programmed to sound that way; he registered no embarrassment or voyeurism or shame.

I looked at the paused snapshot of Luke, naked in my bed, hot as he ever was, lube and sweat all over him.

"It's okay, Boris. He probably shouldn't be here anyway. We broke up."

I imagined myself clean and dressed. Clothing and cologne appeared from the ether to envelop me.

"Ah. My apologies for that as well. Please do not feel the need to get dressed on my account. After all, you are currently floating naked inside me."

"Yes, I'm aware... how am I doing, anyway?"

"Your vitals are well within tolerance levels. Your genome is readily adapting to the genetic re-sequencing. The transformation process is approximately 67.2 percent complete. I expect you to emerge from me completely healthy and ready to begin your new life on Erebus."

"Great! So can you tell me about any cool new stuff you've given me? Do I have superpowers yet?"

Boris grinned, and a porcelain smile was superimposed over pearly quantum processing. "That depends on your definition for the term. While you will be receiving augmentations to various systems that allow them to surpass their normal human limits, as well as entirely new systems that humanity cannot approximate without technology, you will not capable of doing anything that breaks the laws of reality."

"Jeez, Boris. If you're gonna interrupt a man in the middle of fucking, the least you could do is give him laser eyes."

"I'll talk to the others and see if we can get that added to the next mission."

"Haha, great, Boris! I'm glad that my traveling partner has a sense of humor."

"I am glad you always make these conversations interesting. If I may ask..."

"Yes?"

"Why did you and your boyfriend break up?"

"Oh..." I looked again at Luke's erotic still life. "Well, we both loved each other, but we both wanted different things, I guess. When the time came, I don't think he could handle mantaining the longest-distance relationship in human history."

"That is problematic."

"And I think the whole 'different subspecies' thing freaked him out."

"Of course. Humans are accustomed to certain physical parameters, unlike ourselves."

"Yes, you must be incredibly open-minded, Boris. Your mind is your only constant... and that must make some things much easier."

"How so?"

"Well, you don't have to worry about physical lust, for one."

"It does seem like a messy form of entertainment, Jaffrey. Do you have any other questions for me?"

I turned to Luke again. "No... no, I think I'm going to indulge my human vices a bit more, if it's all the same to you."

"As you wish. I will let you know if any complications arise. Otherwise, we will speak again at our next scheduled progress interface."

"Yes, we will..." I hopped back up on the bed and took the body paint from the nightstand. "Good night, Boris... or are you going to watch?"

"Sleep soundly, Jaffrey. As always, this conversation will be stored within your higher consciousness for later retrieval." Then everything resumed as my clarity dissolved.

There were dozens of such conversations. Most of them were similar in tone, although none were quite so colorful in background. Only a couple others are worth mentioning now.

The first and most tragic one was the death of Ella Abernathy. We only ever talked once, at the introductory gala where the colonists got to meet each other and the mission team. According to Boris, she began rejecting her own body about halfway through the transformative process; suppression medication and original genome infusions were unsuccessful. She was a brilliant astrophysicist, or so I was told. My dreams took on a darker tone for weeks afterward; more than once I imagined her soupy remnants oozing out of her chrysalis and killing us in our sleep, a roiling fleshtone amoeba with bits of hair and nail sprouting out of its congealed skin. Her dedicated AI, Patrice, mourned her loss as best she could, and held vigil over Ella's remnants until we arrived at Erebus and could grieve for her properly. Ella Abernathy, first sacrifice to our impossible dream. Boris said some nice things about her.

The second, after so long, was to let us know we were entering the Barnard solar system.