You wake after twenty years. Your face is on every poster. You never ran for anything.
You are the colony ship's chief surveyor. After twenty years in cryo, the crowd cheers you as Governor. A woman with your face has run the colony for five years.
You step off the lander after twenty years of cryo sleep, gel still freezing in your hair.
Two thousand people roar one word at you: Governor. Your face hangs on a banner three meters tall, five years older than yours.
A man in a deputy's gray coat grabs your left hand and turns it over, looking for a scar you don't have.
Her rover is pulling onto the field. If the crowd sees the two of you together, the colony breaks.
You read land the way other people read faces: bearings, contours, drift. Twenty years asleep, and you meant to wake up to your own colony.
Tall, tired, a radio clipped at his collar and frayed cuffs on his gray coat. He knew the difference between you in one look, and he hasn't said what it cost him.
Her rover is ninety seconds out. Keep reading.
Someone on your own ship knows why the colony was ready for you. Keep reading.
The company that sent you has a man on the ground. Keep reading.
Someone in the colony knows how this happened. Keep reading.
Where you land: the hot ceramic stink of the lander and a banner of your face snapping in the wind.
Every door, ration line and council vote in Halden Reach opens to face and voice. The locks read the two of you as one person.
Six weeks of cold hands and a tremor after cryo. It fades, but your hands shake on the theodolite.
A message to Earth takes nine years each way. No one above can rule in time; the colony decides for itself.
The plains of New Halden creep a few meters a season. A map goes stale in months.
Sci-FiYou wake forty years early on the Meridian. The only other person awake says he has been alone for forty years.
RomanceYou killed him tonight. He's alive, wearing the twin of your ring. At dawn, the Queen announces your engagement.
RomantasyHe is the prince of the kingdom you swore to hate. In forty-nine days the seventh trial needs one victor, or war returns.
RomantasySoonYou owe him three favors. Leave one unpaid by the longest night, and you turn to stone.