Vestige
Chapter 3

A Time…

The four-star systems within the Canis Major irregular galaxy had been gradually getting brighter—from the perspective of the residents of the generational Ship—for close to a year at that point. Many residents, at first, had not noticed the subtle changes in the gravitational-spinning colony, as the centrifugal speed slightly increased. Or that the artificial air had become richer—emergency crews all over the colony had noticed a marked increase in bigger fires within buildings and even in a few open-air fields where farming colonists swore they made sure to shut down their machinery to ensure nothing caught on fire. Such was due to the scientists within the governing organization pumping in a bit more oxygen, so that the Ship’s artificial air would gradually match that of planet cMaj.

There, actually, were educated and suspicious citizens that had noticed. There was a small movement of residents organizing themselves within their local sectors; forming what amounted to monitoring organizations that were counterbalances to the Ship’s official governing organization! But the actuator system dispatched an army of infiltrators to all those groups. The various agents within those local citizen organizations did a good job in tampering down many of the locals’ suspicions and monitoring of the Ship’s governance.

All that worked perfectly for the Ship’s government of its actuator systems and its large groups—or, “nodules”—of human professionals…But then came the news over Maintenance Technician Tyra Housenn’s personal media kiosk at her abode, within the immense, spinning colony’s residential sector…

The projection’s event-alert—as was custom for news of Tyra’s generation—was simple: it showed several pictions of various citizens, while in the background a moving piction of the event itself. Iconographics hovered, giving brief but poignant details of the event, and the news-alert was over…

That is to say, the news being the storming of the Office of Infrastructure’s headquarters by a large mob of residents that had enough of a year’s-worth of changes in the colony’s ecosystem and being told it was all in their heads!

“My stars,” Tyra blurted out to herself in her one-person residence. She looked around her abode; feeling a pit in her stomach after remembering that almost a year ago, the Ship’s governing-nodes of its actuator systems and the circles of human professionals had voted to keep the citizens of the Ship in the dark about the Ship’s dwindling supply of nuclear energy…and now, as a consequence of that vote nearly a year ago, a large portion of the Ship’s citizenry were suspicious of their governing-nodules and were, now, pretty much at an official revolutionary stage!

As Tyra quickly dressed herself from a simple domestic gown to a public attire, her own residential actuator inquired, in a female voice to match the resident living within, “Tyra, do you think it is a good idea to go out tonight, with the uprising at Infrastructure’s headqu—”

“It’s all the reason more for me to go, Home-Synth! I’ve never told anyone else—not even you—but I have some responsibility, in my own way, of what’s happening tonight!”

“I see…then I bid you good fortune, Maintenance Technician Tyra Housenn. I only hope I will see you again.”

Tyra knew it was the actuator’s way of trying to discourage her from going out. And it did not work…

She lived in a section within the Cylinder that was a bit further out from the center of the spinning, circular landscape of open lands and intermittent clusters of towns that were strategically scattered from each other…again, thank the ancestors for having the foresight to design a balanced planet-like ecosystem! But that was all deceptive, really, Tyra could now truly see…

Being a bit farther away also meant Tyra had to contract a vehicle from one of her local township’s mass-transit division. For during the artificial night-cycle there weren’t a lot of commuting land- nor air-transportation doing their pre-programmed routes. Given she was, obviously, in a hurry, Tech-Housenn ordered a single-flyer that was not much bigger than two adults put together!

She conducted her purchase at the kiosk of the transportation depo of her town, hopped into her leased single-flyer, selected her destination, and the vehicle zipped off into the colony’s artificial night sky; joining a traffic of flitting transporters already lighting the night…