“What —_ggggrhghh—- _am I?”

Haunting, it was, to hear a sentence gurgled through sparse lungs that hadn’t met air in one hundred and eleven years.

“You are alive. Welcome back, Lieutenant.”

The surrounding students held their breaths as the frozen soldier took its first steps. One, two, one, two, shuffling slowly towards them in a commandering rhythm learned from years on the frontline. Did it think? Did it feel? Many pens waited to jot down the answer. So many experiments waiting to be conducted.

“The war, Lieutenant,” the lead scientist and professor stepped further forward. “Do you remember?”

The soldier did not stop shuffling, and the jaw remained clenched in silent resolution. Nostrils flared with respiratory effort, muscles strained for movement.

Cryolysis — the limbs and vital organs in atrophy— was an expected outcome of a one hundred and eleven year old experiment. What wasn’t expected was the way Lietuenant Pasco’s gaunt eyes pierced each person around him like they were prey.

“I…,” it gasped and gurgled, “I…”

“Easy,” said the professor as many students shifted back uncomfortably in their lab coats. “He is not physically strong like he once was. It will take retraining and time for his body to recover from the effects of cryostasis. And then,” he turned to the soldier, “we will learn what he knows.”

The students nodded, pens scribbling.

He addressed the whole class, eyes glued to the new living corpse, “So, what will you ask him first?”

One of the brave said, “What side of the war did he fight for?”

One of the curious said, “Where did he die?”

One of the fearful said, “How did he die?”

The professor frowned. “The most important moment in the history of our colony was the moment we could permanently freeze not only our own food, but ourselves. We have a way to preserve our civilization, learn about its past, and make progress through subjects that lived before us like Lietenant Pasco. Now, what must we _really_ ask him?”

“What…,” one of the contemplative said, “…did he live for?”

The soldier’s head snapped to the student. It formed more broken words very, very hoarsely. “Expedition 47.”

The professor’s eyes widened in shock at recognition of the name. The class broke into murmurs. “Expedition 47…that was that one trade war…that was that resistance…was he one of _them_? Was he an enemy, then? Does this _still_ make him our enemy?”

Expedition 47, the company of soldiers rumored to have gone awol when the resistance broke through the defences of Planet Virgo. It was well known that resistence operations had been smothered, along with expedition 47 that joined them in ashes.

So why were the cryogenic tanks housing rebels?

There was no flawed record to speak of. Rows and rows of Planet Virgo’s inhabitants, soldiers and civilians, were cleared and marked for long stasis.

It could not have been a mistake, nor an oversight.

Planet Virgo had been infiltrated from the inside, a resistence operation set in motion…one hundred and eleven years ago.

The professor looked over his crowd of students and wondered how many of them were the offspring of traitors.