On The Edges - Part 1 (Completed Short Story)

THE FULL STORY EXCEEDS YWS'S 8000-WORD WORD LIMIT. THE SECOND AND FINAL HALF OF THE STORY IS POSTED IN THE NEXT PART!

****

Voyage Year (V.Y.) 121

In the bowels of a great beast of metal and science, they were rocked to sleep by the hum of the stellar engines. The hum was low and heavy, and, in the bowels of the CS Amisos, it was undampened by the technologies that softened the journey up above. The hum shook their world apart, and indeed it felt as though their bones were being shaken out of their flesh – but they all grew to love it. They were all alone, and in their loneliness, they’d found each other – huddled in the ship’s shadows, in old vents and in disused rooms, in the cargo hold or in trash chutes. They hid themselves, totally, from the people that were family, from the place called home.

But they knew, each of them, that it could never be their home. No, they were never supposed to have been born. In the shadows, on the edges of life, they will die. That was their lot. For the good of the project, they will die quietly and silently.

The CS Amisos was still 900 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 164

“Another one?” the Caretaker looked down at the mewling baby, wrapped up in a cloth, still covered in the blood of its own birth.

“Yes, but it’s fresh,” the Caretaker noticed that the nurse deliberately did not humanise the baby. “Just… vent it. No reason to raise it to suffer too,” her voice was breaking. “How many are still alive? Less than before?”

The Caretaker raised his heavy eyes to meet the nurse’s gaze and she shuddered a touch. His face was uncommonly wrinkled among the passengers, though he was only 70. His shoulders were rounded nearly to a hunch, weighed down by decades of self-imposed responsibility. The nurse’s young face was lit by starlight, and the tears that welled in her eyes were twinkling in it. “Do you really want to know? Is either answer going to make you comfortable?”

Wordlessly, though after a long silence perforated only by the engines’ hum, the nurse dropped the baby into the Caretaker’s arms and turned to leave. “No, hermit. I do not want to know.” The engines’ humming was momentarily and nearly drowned out by the sound of people cheering some decks below – it was the 3rd Captain’s 47th birthday, and that mandated a great celebration. “Just… get rid of it.” The nurse disappeared into the maintenance lift which had brought her up, her eyes, now nearly devoid of tears, fixed on the baby as she disappeared behind the lift’s doors.

The old man sighed and looked at the baby, which now was fast asleep.

“I shall name you Vishta,” he said finally.

The CS Amisos was still 857 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 172

The boy was sitting in the shadows cast by an immense column, staring up at the Starlight Deck. He liked the upper decks – they were far away from the engines’ hum. Families picnicked there, lit by the bright light of countless stars of the firmament. They ate and laughed in that light; living in a utopia they didn’t know existed.

Maybe one of them was his mother? Maybe she missed him?

“Vishta, come here,” the order from his guardian jolted him out of his yearning. Chandi was just 16, and skinny to the point of illness – like most of the rest of them. “You are too close to the light. If someone sees you, you know what happens.”

“It’s unfair,” the boy responded, without turning his head. Chandi sighed, and Vishta knew she was frustrated. But he didn’t want to listen – it was unfair. They were people too, weren’t they?

“It doesn’t matter what’s fair or not fair, Vishta,” she chided him as she bounded up through the shadows toward him. “How many times must we tell you? It’s about food and water. They don’t make enough to feed us. We were supposed to be killed at birth, or in the womb. We don’t exist!” she grabbed the boy by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him back into the ship’s blackness.

The CS Amisos was still 849 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 176

“You’re growing well,” the old man spoke warmly, with a smile on his wrinkled face. His was the only face Vishta knew to smile.

“Let me help you with that!” Chandi picked up the Caretaker’s bag, under the weight of which the old man was almost bent double. The bag was bulky too, which pleased Vishta, and it smelled of synthbeef, which was even better. The Outliers had developed a system quite different to that of the Insiders – the young ate first, while the older Outliers waited their turn.

“It’s the synthbeef, I’m afraid,” the Caretaker announced but the gathered Outliers didn’t complain. “I couldn’t find the real stuff. I’ve scraped some of my own portion in, so there’s just one real steak.” The Caretaker, Vishta didn’t know his real name, was from the A-decks, and the A-deckers had first picks of food. U-deckers got the best of the rest, and those on the G-decks, those who were responsible for the unsavoury tasks of managing trash or non-specialised ship upkeep, ate synthstuff almost entirely.

“It’s quite alright, sir,” Chandi handed the Outliers one wrapped parcel each. There 104 of them now, and that made Vishta sad. At one point, just last year, there had been 129. The old died quietly, and the young cried in hunger – but they all passed nonetheless. Their bodies were tossed, without ceremony though not without grief, into trash chutes. What happened to the corpses after that, Vishta did not know. He did not want to.

Today’s meal was being served to them in near total darkness – for they had all gathered in the confined spaces of a specialised cargo hold filled with Helium-3 tanks. These tanks played some part in the ship’s ability to propel itself through the void, and the cargo hold was marked SFR4 – Specialised Fuel Reserve 4. No one had entered it since the Amisos had left Earth, or indeed, any of the other SFR holds. SFRs 1-6 had thus been used by the Outliers as homes, and, of these, Vishta was “native” to SFR3. A system of pipes and vents connected these holds to the other extremities of the ship, and to the engine room. The engine room was so close to SFR4 that the engines’ hum made it nearly impossible to stand or walk without holding onto something. Vishta had seen the messdecks up above, from his vantage point in defunct or under-maintenance A/C vents, and knew that even the G-deckers could sit and eat without being thrown around. The others shrugged their shoulders, for they saw it as the natural order of things. It made Vishta sad.

As Vishta waited his turn in line, for there were 8 other younger children before him, his eyes drifted upwards. Somewhere in that darkness, there was the rope-ladder he’d climbed down. Up, up, and up some more was the Starlight Deck.

He hated the darkness.

“Here you are, Vishta,” Chandi handed him his parcel. He disappeared behind one of the massive barrels of Helium-3 and sat down to eat – closing his eyes as he did so, and imagining the feeling of starlight on skin.

The CS Amisos was still 845 lightyears from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 180

Vishta saw the old man again, for the first time in years, and in terrible circumstances. He simply stood in the crowd, and watched. Vishta wanted to hate him for not intervening, but there was nothing the old man could have done. Vishta himself simply watched, though he watched from above, from inside the ship’s great vents. The main deck was large and expansive, with floors of golden marble and smart windows that modulated the starlight. The vent inside which Vishta was hidden was used to simulate weather on the deck, but on that day the vent was turned off. There was to be no weather, aside from the slow winds caused by the ship’s circulatory system. The smart windows allowed all light through, which they further amplified. In that simulated afternoon, a crowd had gathered as 18 people were hauled toward the main airlock.

Vishta knew them all.

Chandi placed a comforting hand on the boy’s back, for she, too, watched from the vents, but she had been crying just hours before.

“Let it be known,” an officer below read out from his script. He was the ship’s 8th Distributor. His chief duty was to oversee the Amisos’s stores of food and water, and to manage the production of the same. Given the importance of this role, the people had voted to give Distributors more power still in V.Y. 174, and here Vishta saw the fullest extent of it. The 8th Distributor was a small wiry man, old enough to show signs of aging (Vishta guessed at leat 110), and petty to a fault. Like all the ship’s officers, he wore a beige-gold uniform. “That the vagrants, the outliers, you see before you have committed the greatest crime one can commit in this life,” his tone was matter-of-fact. “They have stolen food and water from your mouths – from the mouths of your children. By the powers vested in me by the Colony Council, and thus by the Act of Expanded Authority of V.Y. 174, I sentence you all,” he whisked around to face the 18 Outliers, “to death.” He spoke without drama.

There was a short burst of fire as the Ship’s Company executed them all, but even the gunfire couldn’t overcome the bass of the engines’ hum. Their corpses were vented without ceremony, as Chandi stifled her sobs. The crowd looked on, and not one of them uttered a word.

The CS Amisos was still 841 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 183

Vishta had made the journey before, on 4 separate occasions and on each occasion, Chandi had been annoyed at him. Of course, he did not care. The 6 SFR holds were arrayed on either flank of the ship – 3 on one side, 3 on the other. Typically, the journey from one side to the other was simple, but the vents that connected them were under maintenance. 4 Outliers had been found in them, for they, audacious fools, had braved the journey. Their executions had been only last week.

The journey then, if it was to be made safely, needed to be made on the decks. Specifically, the U-decks. These were darker, and windows here were sparsely placed, so the journey was not as dangerous as it would have been on the G-decks. Travelling on the A-decks was impossible, of course.

Vishta skulked in the dark as Chandi had taught him to, and the G-deckers stuck to the dim light of the lightbulbs in the hallways. They had inane conversations, which Vishta wished he could stop and listen to. They spoke of movies, of books, of songs, and picnicking on the Starlight Deck. Vishta held on to those titbits of ordinary life as he dashed from shadow to shadow, moving only after the G-deckers had passed him by. He was never seen. They had no reason to look.

Finally, he reached the maintenance door that led to the fuel ducts. These fuel ducts led to SFR2. With reckless abandon, he opened it and disappeared into the bowels of the Amisos. There, he finally relaxed for The Hum had returned in full force.

The ducts ran straight to SFR2. Straight to her.

“Vishta!” she launched herself at him. She was alone in SFR2, for it held no native Outliers. It was a hideaway for those on the run from the Company, but for now, it was their hideaway. A bulb, old technology as Vishta understood it, cast a glare of yellow light on the hold and on Tashi. He held her close, and she held on tight.

For the next few hours, little else mattered.

The CS Amisos was still 838 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 185

The old man was dead, and no one mourned him. He had no family, as far as the Insiders were concerned – his own wife had died during childbirth and he’d not married again. His unborn child had died with her. The Insiders had a word for people like him; deadliner, since their genetic line died with them. He was among the only deadliners on the A-decks.

Vishta watched, as always he had, from the shadows – hidden, this time, by the bulk of trash compactors and incinerators. The old man’s body, wrapped in a yellow body bag splattered with red biohazard and ionizing radiation symbols, was vented from deck G16 – with the rest of the un-recyclable garbage. Typically, the Insiders’ bodies were turned into compost for the ship’s farms or their cells harvested for the synthesizing of any number of medical treatments. The old man’s body, though, had been declared unfit for any kind of recycling. As Vishta watched the corpse float by, he was happy that it remained whole for he knew that that was what the old man had wished. As it disappeared from view, left behind in the void by the ever-moving Amisos, Vishta wondered how the old man had died. Plutonium-238 was all that Vishta could figure.

There was the patter of feet behind Vishta, and he whirled around to see Tashi arriving in a hurry. “I found it!” she seemed to be saying under her breath.

“Found what?”

“What the Caretaker left us,” she dropped a small leather bag at Vishta’s feet.

“My, my, it’s real leather,” Vishta felt as though he were touching starlight itself. He shook himself out of his awe, and opened the bag in the dim light of the incinerators’ fire, he smiled to himself at what the old man had left behind.

“I don’t get it,” Tashi frowned. “Why would he leave us a keychip?”

“It is the means to our liberation, Tashi,” Vishta suppressed an urge to laugh like a villain from the ancient movies of the old world. On deck U14, there was an armoury – small, it only contained handguns, not even rifles. But it was a start. “Tashi,” Vishta closed the bag and raised her face to his. He kissed her and she kissed him back. “Run. Just run, my love.”

“What do you mean?” she asked half in tears, for in her asking she knew the answer and the knowledge filled her with fear, but Vishta was already on his feet.

As he rose, so did the others – 24 Outliers descended on the 6 sanitation workers that managed the trash. They did not shout or cry or yell, and in the melee the only noise was the engines’ immortal hum.

The next hours were a blur. Vishta had never killed before and, for most of that day, he did not kill. He did not want to. No, he would not kill. That is not what the old man would have wanted; he valued the sanctity of life, he valued life for life’s sake. No, he would not be happy with a bloody revolution.

The Outliers numbered 164 – 81 of them were men of fighting age. The Ship’s Company numbered 282. No, Vishta didn’t want to fight, for he knew that he would lose.

They met on the main deck, in the middle of the simulated-night. The vents pumped the deck full of mist and fog. The 9th Distributor stood in front of Vishta, 64 men behind him. Vishta’s 75 rebels stood resolute, their guns aimed at the heads of their crying prisoners; 27 engineers and sanitation workers, and 6 of the Company. The 9th Distributor was trembling, though Vishta supposed this was more in fear than in rage.

“What have you done!” the Distributor was the first to speak. “Mutiny!” he cried. “You have committed mutiny!”

“I will not harm anyone, Vedal,” Vishta stepped forward, holstering his pistol. “I only want to talk. Surely, you can talk, no?” The Distributor stepped back, and his men became suddenly unsure of how to hold their rifles. Emboldened, Vishta took another step. “We are humans, here. All of us, Vedal. Don’t you agree?”

The Distributor scowled. “The only humans are those born within the quota,” his speech was panicked.

The ship was alive with the noise of humanity now, a noise which eclipsed The Hum for the first time in Vishta’s memory, as horrified onlookers surrounded the standoff. Yet, no siren sounded. The ship-wide PA crackled to life. “Hey, V?” it was the voice of Chandi, who led the remaining 6 men. “The bridge is secured. The SFR holds are locked down, too, and the charges are planted.” Chandi was bluffing, of course – they had no charges to plant. Vishta’s smile broadened.

“You monsters!” the Distributor, a fat, balding man whose uniform could not fit him no matter how many SmartFibers it was woven of, shrieked. “You’re going to kill us all!” His shrill squeaking was the first of its kind that Vishta had heard.

“You’ve already killed so many, Vedal. Please don’t do this,” Vishta’s beseeching fell on deaf ears.

“Just, kill them all!” Vedal issued the order to his men, who stood petrified and did not move. “What are you waiting for?” he turned his back to Vishta and yelled at the Company.

“They…” one of the Companymen croaked, “they have guns.” With a frustrated sigh and an exasperated grunt, the Distributor yanked the Companyman’s gun from his hand and turned it on Vishta’s formation. He fired and, in his firing, he yelped and dropped it, for he could not control the thing. Immediately, there were cries of horror and pain from the bystanders as the Distributor had succeeded only in hitting 3 engineers.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” the maddened Distributor roared.

“Me? You pulled the trigger?” Vishta was as calm as ever, but he suppressed his shock. He really had hoped for this all to have been bloodless. His hand wrapped around his pistol.

“Kill them! KILL THEM ALL!” the Distributor ordered.

The gunfire, now, was ceaseless.

Vishta lost count of how many died. He lost count of how many he killed. He didn’t want to pull the trigger… but what could he do? He fired until the magazine was empty. He wept in those moments – wept for humanity, for the old man, for himself. It didn’t last too long, though he wasn’t to know – for Vishta, those 3 minutes felt like an infinity.

He died, in the end, and no one knew who fired the bullet that killed him. The fighting stopped not long after. The onlookers flooded the site of battle, horrified at the death, when the bullets ran out. They found Vishta in that pile of bodies, his hand wrapped around his empty pistol. His still face was streaked with tears.

The CS Amisos was still 836 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 186

Chandi sat in her chair. The room was lit by the brilliant light of the stars, for her room had a window.

She’d never been so close to a window before. She sat there, for hours, and stared.

She ate food, in the mess hall.

She cried herself to sleep, in a bed.

Vishta had made it all possible. They’d put up plaques, and his name among them was given most importance. She wept for Vishta, as much as she did for the miseries of her past.

Never had she thought she’d be eating hot food.

The U-decks weren’t so bad, though sometimes people shouted at her. They were angry about their friends’ or families’ deaths, but Chandi knew to shout back. She’d lost friends too. Many of the Outliers had reunited with their parents, or tried to. They apologised till they were sick, till they were blue in the face. For some, it was enough. Others, like Tashi, preferred to start fresh.

Chandi’s parents never came forward. Maybe they were dead? At any rate, she hoped they were.

Vishta’s parents never came forward either, much to Tashi’s immense anger. Chandi hadn’t expected them to. She hadn’t expected much at all, in fact, aside from being reviled. But she could revile back.

The CS Amisos was still 835 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 191

“I thank Mr. Toff, for handing me the mic,” Tashi took her place on the Council’s speaker’s stand. The assembly hall was large, and it was devoid of sound. Tashi did not know why The Hum could not be heard here – why would she know? This was her first time in the hall, after all. Her legs trembled and her fingers shook as she took the stand and looked out at the 218 faces staring back at her. They were all richly dressed – their SmartFibre suits coloured blue, pink, gold, and jewellery hanging from their ears or ringing their fingers. The hall itself was a long oval, and it was ornate – real Earth wood, dark and rich, had been used for the furnishings, and some sleek metal, golden and smooth, had been cut into tiles.

Tashi didn’t want to be the speaker, but she was one of the few surviving Outliers who could read and write. She had also been Vishta’s partner – something approaching a wife.

“First,” her voice was small to begin with, so she cleared her throat. “First, I call upon all of you to rise for the minute’s silence, in honour of the 121 Martyrs and the 86 Victims.” There was a great shuffling, as everyone in the assembly got to their feet in memory of the 121 Outliers and 86 Insiders killed on Vishta’s Day. For a minute, there was silence.

“Second,” Tashi spoke more confidently now, “I should like very much to thank Mr. Toff again, who has graciously resigned his post as the 10th Distributor. In so doing, he has also abolished the post of Distributor.” There was a round of applause, short and polite, as Foch Toff got to his feet and nodded with a kind smile – first to Tashi, then to the assembly. He was a portly man, as were all topdeckers, but not as fat as had been the 9th.

“Third,” her voice now echoed, “I am here to announce what many of you have been expecting. As you know, I have been – alongside the 45 Survivors – in close conversation with the Council and, I must say, with many in the assembly. The topic has been the abolition of the Ship’s Company and the establishment of the Corps of Surveyors. Yesterday, behind closed doors, the Council voted, and the Act has passed with near unanimity.” There was another round of applause, accompanied by loud murmurs of agreement.

“The mandate of the Corps of Surveyors, which the Council has entrusted me to help set up, can be best explained through our motto: All Life is Sacred.” Applause, again. Tashi felt more certain of herself with each word that passed her lips.

“There will be no more armed Surveyors than was the Ship’s Company, and their primary role will be to see that Vishta’s Act is not infringed upon by any family or individual.” The Act replaced the Old Directives, which were the instructions issued by the Amisos’s builders on how to structure society aboard the Amisos. “Aside from that, the Armed Surveyors will be helped by a team of experts – data analysts, biologists, botanists, synthtecists, food techs, and sociologists. Their job will be to ensure we have a food and water supply that is flexible enough to deal with population.”

Murmurs of agreement followed.

“We have also put in place The Cap. The absolute maximum that the ship can sustain is 2112 people. If we ever approach The Cap, the Corps of Surveyors and the Amisos’s medical teams will allow, for the first time in our history, voluntary vasectomies and tubal ligation. Other measures are in place,” she wavered slightly but hid it behind a cough, for here she lied, “to ensure we do not approach The Cap.”

They had no measures in place – nothing was humane enough. Tashi despaired at it, but there was nothing to be done. Anything aside from voluntary sterilisation would fly in the face of what Vishta dreamt of.

The crowd applauded, more loudly than they had before, and there were some cheers too. The violence of V.Y. 185 had shaken them to their cores, and they were desperate to not let it happen again.

The CS Amisos was still 831 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 271

“He was a hero,” Limick waved away his friend’s argument. Glover, in turn, rolled his eyes.

“He got them all killed, Limick. That’s not a very heroic thing is it?” Glover was the son a topdecker, and he spoke with the airs of starlight. He even drank wine in the pub, like the fop he was. Still, Limick respected him.

“Well, do we have Outliers anymore, Glover? Or rebellions? Or violence?”

Glover clenched his jaw and The Hum was all that could be heard for a few seconds. He had to concede the point there, Limick thought, but the stubborn bastard couldn’t let it go. “We didn’t think we had Outliers then, either!” he finally retorted.

Now, Limick rolled his eyes. “The Survey checks the whole ship every year – they have done that, in fact, every year, as I said, since 185! We’ve solved that problem, Glover, whether you like it or not!” Limick sipped his beer and spoke again. “And the Survey is certainly a good thing – much better than the Ship’s Company if you ask me. What’s their motto, again? All Life is Sacred, or something?”

“What do you mean whether I like it or not?” Glover frowned as he nursed his wine, ignoring Limick’s aside on the Corps. “Of course, I like it. I’ve never said I agreed with the Old Directives, have I?”

“Your dad does, though. Remind me, what did his dad do?” Limick teased his friend.

“Yes, alright, he was the last Distributor,” Glover sighed with exasperation. “But the operative word there is last! He ended the practice! Besides, it’s not like my dad was a Distributor.”

You were supposed to have had a baby sister by now, Limick bit back his tongue. Nothing good would come of reminding his friend of his aborted sister; aborted because his father still believed in one-child families. “We’ve gone off topic!” Limick changed the subject. “Vishta was a hero! Yes, he died, but he died a martyr, man! He knew what he was doing,” he stopped to take a giant sip of his beer. Unlike Glover, Limick couldn’t afford the real stuff, so synthbeer it was. “He knew he was going to die, Glover, come on. You have to have figured that out.”

“Yes, he was noble, I concede that. But self-sacrifice alone does not make you heroic!”

“Without his sacrifice, we would still have Outliers! Actual humans, who we leave to die. Babies that we vent into space. Come on,” Limick could barely believe his friend’s obstinacy, but he’d known him long enough to know that Glover had accepted his wrongness long ago and was now just arguing for the sake of it.

“Well, I concede that, too. Yes, we take care of multi-children families now,” Glover raised his eyes from his wine, and they widened in surprise. “Oh, hello, dad!” the boy got to his feet, sporting a fake smile. Pator was a tall man and at first appearances, he seemed warm and amiable and friendly. Limick knew better.

“Good evening, boys!” the man bellowed. “Enjoying a spirited debate?” he sat at their table.

“Yes, something like that,” Limick tried his best to be polite and formal, but Pator could see through it. He never let it on though.

“I’ll let you get back to it in a moment. I’ve just come to tell you, don’t tell anyone by the way, but I’ve heard that the Colony Council has voted and agreed unanimously to make me Councillor-in-Chief!”

“Wow! Congratulations, father!” the praise in Glover’s voice was thick with insincere sincerity.

“Thank you, boy,” the man smiled and got to his feet. “Anyway, I shall be off now. I have laws to draft, after all. I bid you good night!” He left, and sent a chill down the spine of both boys.

The CS Amisos was still 755 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 272

“Let me sum it up,” Pator spoke in his usual suave manner; comforting and nourishing to all who knew him as Councillor-in-Chief. He addressed the Colony Council’s public meeting, one held every 4 months, and it was attended by nearly every adult aboard the Amisos. “In no way am I suggesting that the Old Directives were faultless. They were harsh and pragmatic in the extreme, but they also contained some traces of sense; sense that we would be foolish to now ignore. The fact of the matter is this – our supplies of food are lower than they were 272 years ago. Many of you have felt this yourselves! You drink synthbeer and eat synthmeat, do you not?”

The assembly murmured in agreement. The assembly hall was the only place on the ship where the engines’ hum could not be heard, and so the soft murmurings were as loud as gunfire.

“For the A-deckers, and U-deckers, the water often tastes of iron, does it not? For the G-deckers, water is only available in the mornings, is it not?” He neglected to mention that the topdeckers had no issue with the water system, nor were they impacted by the shortage of organic food. Their private farms, started by his own father, saw to their needs. Of course, they did not share – they had no desire to live a life of want.

The assembly agreed.

“For all of us, the air seems stale does it not?”

The assembly agreed. Pator smiled, and Limick nearly vomited upon seeing it.

“The reason is obvious! There are too many of us. The Amisos, our home and our hope, our world and the vessel of our future, was designed – designed by the smartest that humanity could muster – to sustain a constant population of 1,284. We are now 1,646! This is not sustainable, my friends.”

The assembly, once again, murmured in agreement.

“I have the utmost respect for Ms. Tashi, and her legacy of Surveyors. They speak, often and diligently, about The Cap. They do not, however, tell us when we might begin to use their pre-approved population control methods! I trust the science, I do,” the crowd’s murmurs forced him to pause his speech and raise his hand to silence them. Then, he continued. “As I was saying – I do trust the science, but we need clarity, not a vague notion of trust. Now, let me be clear: I do not wish for the dark days of the past, when people were punished simply for being born. No, those were barbarous days. I suggest a better alternative, in fact, I have already suggested this better alternative to the Council, and they have voted in its favour!”

The murmurs grew louder.

“The Marriage and Family Act of V.Y. 272 will, my friends, allow us to better control who marries who, and who has children, and when, and why. This will allow us to not only bring the population under control, such that by this time in the next century we will be back at 1,284, but it will make it so that no one has to touch the synthstuff ever again! We will pack it away and dump it into the plentiful oceans of Svarg-A when we arrive!”

The murmurs turned to cheers and applause.

The CS Amisos was still 754 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 275

Glover stood in front of The Names, frozen by them. Naturally, no one who had died had been from his family. No, the Toffs were spared the violence of Vishta’s Day. The 207 who had died, though, their names were immortalised on the main deck – engraved on copper plates, set into the Amisos’s wall, and bathed always in starlight. Since they were installed, nearly 100 years ago, the stars had shone on them endlessly.

“Do you see?” his father placed a hand on his shoulder. “Do you see why I must do what I must do?”

The 207 Names stared back at Glover. No, he did not see. No, he could not see the difference between what his father wanted and what led to that day. At least Surveyors had put their foot down – no one would be aborted or sterilised until the population came close to The Gap.

“Yes, father, I do see.”

“Good. Now, be here tomorrow. Same time.” Pator squeezed Glover’s shoulders and left.

Tomorrow came, and Glover had hardly slept.

“Vishta’s Day has changed the Amisos,” Pator began, standing behind a podium carved from Earth-oak. “That is something we cannot deny. He showed us the error of our ways, and for that, I am eternally grateful to him – as I am sure, are all of us. We have become better, because of him!”

The people gathered, which numbered nearly the entire ship save for the bridge crew, applauded in agreement.

“But that was a dark day! 207 lives lost – for a better cause, yes, but in tragedy. We will be better, but how can we be?” Pator looked up from his speech, fire in his eyes. “How can we be better when this reminder hangs here, as a ghost, as a constant echo of the crimes, of the injustices, of the horrors of the past?”

The people were silent, save for a few smattered claps. No one murmured. Glover held his breath, for he saw a Surveyor in the crowd. The man wasn’t armed, but he was angry.

“Yes, we can be better. But not while we are reminded, so ghoulishly, of a time we’d all be best happy were forgotten. So, Amos,” he raised his head to the roof, staring at someone who the crowd could not see. “Please, shut the window. Let this starlight column be gone!”

The starlight died away. The crowd said nothing, and there was only The Hum.

The CS Amisos was still 751 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 276

Limick stooped, panting and tired, behind a fallen column, the blood of Surveyor Gent on his sleeve. No one had expected Pator’s Vanguard, certainly not the Surveyors. Limick wanted, perhaps, to regret enlisting in the Corps – but he knew it was the right thing to do.

“Fighting retreat!” Captain Trest ordered, and Surveyors to Limick’s right and left stood to fire in cover.

“Move, Lim!” Fred shouted. He was a well-built man, an A-decker. If rumour was to be believed, he was Pator’s nephew and Glover’s cousin. “These Vanguard are morons. They can’t fight worth a damn, but there’s too many of them!” Fred ducked back down to reload.

“Where the hell did they come from!” Limick stood and fired off a burst. As he fired, Fred moved to the rear. When Limick ducked, Fred fired and coverd Limick’s retreat.

“They’re from the old Distributor and Council families! I know them!” Fred, Limick noticed, was bleeding from his chest. “Not my blood, just fucking keep moving!” He reassured his friend. They kept moving.

8 Surveyors lay dead behind them. The Vanguard had barricaded the lifts to the A-decks, and had fired on the Surveyors when they tried to break the barricade. It was unexpected, to be sure.

Fred and Limick, along with the Captain and the surviving Surveyors, turned the corner and sunk into the G-decks. As the gunfire died away and The Hum returned, Limick breathed a sigh of relief. They would reconsolidate and strike again. Already, there were volunteers in the hundreds for the Surveyors. The war, Limick hoped, would be a short one.

The CS Amisos was still 750 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 277

They came from the shadows of the G-decks, the same shadows which once were home to Vishta’s Outliers. That, Limick thought, was the final irony of democracy. Limick hadn’t the chance to fight back. His section was overwhelmed in a single burst of fire.

The Vanguard officer, a burly man with a thick beard, approached the wounded Limick, and smiled. “You were there, I remember. On the day of the Final Betrayal. You tried to force the barricade. I remember, boy. I shot your Major.”

Limick spat in the Officer’s face. The compensatory rifle butt knocked him out, and as his vision faded, his skull rang so that he felt at one with The Hum.

The CS Amisos was still 749 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 278

The Surveyor’s firing squad assembled and their shots rang out without a count. Pator’s body fell with a dull thud. Glover turned his face away, unable to stomach the sight of his father being dragged into the airlock and vented into the nothingness.

Above him, in the great hall, hung 281 chimes that sang in the simwind – one for each person that had perished in the Great War.

“It was always going to end in one way and in only one way,” Limick had told him as he left to enlist in the Surveyors. That was the last that Glover saw of his old friend. Glover knew that Limick was shot as a prisoner of war. He’d been eating a meal of steak and eggs when he heard the news. The war had always been a foreign thing to him. Until the Surveyors tore down the A-decks. Then he’d pleaded for his life. They’d been gracious victors, at least.

As the lifeless body of Pator, already turning to ice, floated past the smart windows, the Surveyors cheered and the people cheered with them, drowning out The Hum. The starlight shone again on The Names.

The CS Amisos was still 748 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 341

“If we continue like this,” 2nd Councillor Faith spoke with a booming voice. She was a young woman, but with a keen eye, a sharp mind, and a stubbornness she traced all the way back to her many times great grandmother, Tashi. “Then the Amisos will arrive on Svarg-A with nothing aboard her but skeletons!”

The Councillor-in-Chief hung from the roof of the assembly hall, and the assembled could hardly tear their eyes away from the corpse. His crime had been to propose that The Cap be brought down to 1,917. The Surveyors, the final bastions of Vishta’s ancient rebellion, looked at the hanging man with pride for they had asserted the values of humanity. They were all humans, after all. It did not matter to the Surveyors that the Amisos struggled to feed her declining population – no, why would it? That was a design flaw, they argued, and no human lives could be sacrificed for a design flaw. Councillor Faith agreed with them in private – how could she not? Tashi herself was a founding member of the Corps of Surveyors. Now, though, was not the time to talk philosophy. She turned the page on her speech.

“This is a problem, yes. The natural desire for humans is to breed and expand – that is hard-coded, to borrow the archaic term, into us by millennia of evolution. Yes, this means that an unchecked population will lead to shortages of everything. Ultimately, an unchecked population will kill us too. So, I suppose, you might say it doesn’t matter what kills us; rebellion or starvation.”

The assembly was silent, and the silence was filled with The Hum, for the vibration dampeners in the assembly hall had failed some years ago. Faith was unsure of herself, and the future she was planning. What if Vishta had been wrong? What if it was better for the Outliers to have just… died? Now was not the time, she chided herself, to waver. She had to stand resolute, or at least look it.

“I say, that we do not have to die,” she looked up from her speech, and each face in the assembly was staring at hers. “There is a paradise that awaits us, and I intend to see to it that humanity will conquer the stars, as we did our planets, in the lifetime of the Amisos. For our children, and their children, and their children – we must work together.”

The assembly remained silent.

“We can be better. We will be better.”

The assembly murmured in agreement.

“My Council will pass a number of acts to this effect, this I promise. These acts will be designed to help us analyse data, which will allow us to predict and better optimise our food, water, and air systems. I promise you – your children will sunbathe on the beaches of Svarg-A!”

The CS Amisos was still 685 lightyears from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 351

The A-deck synthesisers had begun to fail, and with them, Faith had begun to die. Her Chief Engineer brought her the classified report in the morning, and she was struck mute and dumb by it for far too long. The reason was mechanical – parts had to be replaced, and the synthesisers needed general upkeep. They were the last aboard the ship, so they were vital to ensure the people received a steady supply of synthmeat.

Finally, after an eternity, she turned to her chief engineer and asked, “What of the farms themselves?”

“We are down to 12 cows, 112 chickens, and 8 pigs. Enough to feed with the current calorie quotas for 3 weeks. We can cut the rations, of course. That is what the data suggests,” her chief engineer, Emerald Toffel, was a smart woman – intelligent beyond compare. But that’s all she was.

“No, we can’t cut the rations, Emerald.” Faith didn’t ask her next question; how long till the part printers are fixed? They’d been damaged almost beyond repair the General Riot of the last year. “Remember, the Riot? We cut their milk rations. That’s really all we did.”

“Well,” her chief sociologist, Fehan Gathrick, chimed in. “It was the first time in our history that we’ve had to introduce rationing. I had warned about the outcome before-hand.”

“We didn’t have a choice, Fehan.”

“I know, ma’am. I’m reminding you to say that we can’t cut rations again, not twice in two years.”

“Well then, I’ll whip the engineers,” Emerald was only half-joking. “They should have the synthesisers up in no time. There is some decent news, aside from that, though. The synthbeer and synthgin distilleries are now in perfect working order.” Faith smiled, but the smile was hollow.

“What about our vegetables?” she asked.

“We have stocks enough to last 2 more voyage years for all the important ones, and seed stocks enough to get us to Svarg-A without issue.” Emerald consulted her notepad. “Some of the exotic fruits, though, seem to be running low.”

“That’s fine – that’s all topdecker nosh, anyway. There’s hardly a dozen topdeckers left to care about dragon fruits or pomegranates.”

“Ma’am, there is another issue,” Major Stros spoke up. He was dressed in the Surveyors’ white dress uniform, crisp and smart. He kept his hair short, and was never seen without his pistol. “My boys still have not been able to find 16 of the rifles looted last year. We’ve turned the entire ship upside down. Someone is hiding them very cleverly.”

Faith was silent again.

“Major, there’s only 819 people left aboard. Surely, we can find the culprits?”

“Ma’am, the investigative team is only 32 men. All my other men are busy on policing duties. Since the population decline, the ship has only become easier to hide in. I need more men.”

“I can’t birth them for you, Major,” Faith wasn’t annoyed at Stros, not really. No, she was just upset at… everything else.

“I wasn’t suggesting that, ma’am,” Stros smirked.

“Well…” Faith stood up, her left ankle still nearly immobile from fighting off her attackers last year. “We have to be better.” She smiled weakly and dismissed the meeting.

The engines hummed as the meeting broke. Nothing could stop the engines from humming. They would only die when Svarg-A was reached – with the colonists or without them.

The CS Amisos was still 675 lightyears away from Svarg-A.

V.Y. 614

The boy looked down. Down was forbidden, he was told. Down was bad. Down below, there was darkness. There was no food down below. There was death down below. This is what he was told.

He couldn’t really believe it.

Behind him, the sky was beautiful. He liked the sky, the twinkling stars, the brilliant light. He wished he could turn it off.

In the stories his grandda told, the light could be turned off. People knew how to do that. Maybe the people were… down? Maybe they couldn’t find their way to the switch because it was so dark.

Why didn’t the light reach down? He didn’t know.

“Svari!” his mother called from inside. They’d made their home in old rooms that were filled with light. They slept in tents. There were 4 families with his, and they were all big. A mother, a father, and 2 children in each! Some, like his, even had grandparents! Apparently, it was important to have children. Svari didn’t know why.

“Dinner is ready, child!” she came to get him. She wasn’t happy at him for standing on the edge and looking down.

Svari didn’t know why down was bad. He would go down one day. Maybe when he went down, he could find The Humming God. He didn’t like it at first, but it helped him sleep when the nightmares came.

The CS Amisos was still 412 lightyears away from Svarg-A.