Vestige
Chapter 4

The Infrastructure agency’s offices were much further down the central section of the Ship itself—away from the glitzy O’Neillian sector. Indeed, the Office of Infrastructure had moved to that strategic middle-section for logistical purposes generations ago as the Ship’s population grew, and those earlier generations of residents had expanded the Ship’s configuration. As far as Tech-Housenn’s generation could tell from some of the ancient records, those earlier generations had “docked” the Ship at a geo-centric orbit for a couple of asteroids and utilized their elements by mining them for building-materials…

That same Office that had spearheaded such lofty engineering feats those generations ago was now under attack by several thousand of the Ship’s citizens!

Maintenance Tech-Housenn was jostled among the horde of mostly younger people as she plowed her way through the knot! Along with human security, there was a battalion of tall synthetics that were of the specialty design—their specifications being more hardy and intimidating looks to mostly scare off rioting citizenry.

The captain of the enforcement forces recognized Tech-Housenn from previous businesses within the Ship. Standing next to him on the balcony, as they monitored the situation, were three nodule-members—Psychologist-Dambudzo, Shipmate Billamont Harvester, and Astrophysicist-Keyton venBot. Captain Marcus Sommerst got all three’s attention and pointed her out to them. They all flinched with surprised gasps at seeing the small, young woman within the boiling crowd as she clearly was having trouble trying to reach them!

The captain spoke into his comm-device and one of the militarized synth’s jets fired up and it flew over and then into the mob—rioters scattering just before it virtually crash-landed right in front of Tech-Housenn! The synthetic then grabbed Tyra and flew back over to the elevated section of the facility; joining Captain Sommerst and the three nodule-members. The synth stood by, waiting for Captain Sommerst’s next orders before it flew off to join the other synthetic enforcers.

“Don’t hurt them, Captain,” Tyra called out to him over the clamor as more of the towering synthetic beings were ordered by the captain to go out into the crowd and box them in! “They’re just frustrated about the living conditions we’ve imposed on them!”

Nodule members Dambudzo and Harvester both looked upon the young maintenance technician with appraising eyes, then glanced at each other but kept their thoughts to themselves.

“Where are some of the other nodule members,” Tyra asked any of the others nearby.

“We advised them to stay away after it started to turn this ugly,” Astrophysicist-venBot explained. “We didn’t expect you to come, otherwise we’d have sent you the same message, Tech-Housenn!”

“I was part of that meeting; I feel I should help!”

The scientists gave her a different appraising look from that of his colleagues. Respect…

The riot suppression by the synths was successfully walling off the rioters from the Infrastructure’s facilities; pushing the crowd down toward a more open area of the Ship’s interior.

“Of course, you know what this means,” Psychologist-Dambudzo put to the small group; all turning their attention to her. “This will be the start of the latest movement, of a long list of movements, of this ship’s very long history!”

The three other nodule members and the captain either nodded their heads or quietly absorbed the words of the psychologist.

“Hold them there,” Captain Sommerts said to his forces via his hidden comm, “let some of their agitation run its course…if they’re as logical as they’re portraying themselves to be, they’ll think otherwise and disperse without us having to take them into custody!”

Tyra could see from their high position on the balcony the seven-foot tall synths gradually form a mechanized wall of enforcers, and on the other side, the thrashing rioters. Some, she noticed, were gesturing to the nodes on the balcony—placing their hands over their throats, as if someone were choking them! An apparent reference to, in fact, the Ship’s scientists releasing a higher level of oxygen and other elements into the Ship’s artificial air; thinking it would do the populace some good to acclimate them to their up-coming dock with planet cMaj…

Which, by the way, the governing node-government, along with the Ship’s actuator system, had yet to tell the colonists about…and when they eventually do, they all knew, the real trouble with the populace would happen! Psychologist-Dambudzo’s words of a new movement were, indeed, poignant…