The sky was filled with stars, as it always was. But most of us cared about one, the sun. We measure how bright it is, to measure how far we’ve gotten. Every night the sun is less and less bright, and every night alpha centauri is brighter and brighter. My children’s children are destined to man this ship after I die. And someday when my body is ash and name is forgotten men and women will pour out onto the fields of an exoplanet, and it will be my seed, and it will be my legacy. They say on earth the sky was bright blue with white smoke swirling around, and the sun was so close no man could gaze upon it. Maybe when my descendents pour out onto a new planet they’ll be blinded by a light like that, as opposed to the searne calm of space.



In the year 2054 the Daedalus launched as a joint effort of NASA and Roscosmos. It was a spralling ship, the size of a town, and the living space of a large city. It was to sail the stars to colonize the planets of the distant star alpha centauri in the name of humanity. But the stars were far apart, so by the time the ship reached the planet the original crew would be dead, so many generations had to be born and die on the ship inorder for it to reach its mark. The men who stepped on the ship would never step off, it would be their grandchildren’s grandchildren’s grandchildren who got the job of exiting done.



I was born on the Daedalus in the year 2062, a member of the first generation to be born in space. To me the sun and the moon were things I heard of in story books. The civilizations on earth when my parents left were as mysterious and far away to me as Byzantium or Maya. Hell, even the humans still on earth had ruins, growing up I couldn’t even see physical proof of my ancestors planets. Just storys.



The year was 2084, we had just gotten done with celebrating the 30th anniversary of exiting earth. I saw a poster on an iron wall next to a door, it was a bright red that had been faded, white letters said: “Do you want to live forever? Have your name cataloged. FREE! More information inside.” I was half drunk from the anniversary celebration, and the idea of living forever sounded nice, so I decided to head inside on a whim.



Inside the door was the fakest brick known to humanity, everything on the ship was metal or wood. There was a desk, one open about being wooden. Behind it was an old man, his skin dark from a childhood on earth, he was small a skinny, with glasses that looked like they belonged in the 1800s. He’s not what my drunk self hoped for, when I read that song part of me hoped for a vampire. When I noticed a crucifix I knew what was going on.



I sat down anyway, the man at the desk spoke in a calm voice “Hello sir, what is your name?”



Dismissively I answered, “Eric Crosby, and what is it you want from me?”



The man at the desk answered, “Your name was a big part of it, we need it for your record.”



“What do you mean records? I thought this was some religious nonsense, not a sensus.”



The man composed himself, “We’re from the mormon church, we believe the soul dies when one is forgotten.”



I laughed a little, “I don’t need to be remembered my purpose is to live here on the Daedalus and spawn the next generation of colonists, I need nothing greater than that.”



“Do you yearn for anything beyond that?”



I said with all the honesty I could muster, “No, I really don’t.” As I left the room I mumbled to myself, “It’s never vampires is it.”



I headed home. The ship can get depressing at times, there’s no day to night cycle. The administration tries to lower and raise the lights every twelve hours, but still it never gives off the right vibe. Pretty much everyone has issues with sleep wake cycles. The ship is cramped too, there’s a person pretty much everywhere, most people live in one room apartments and small ones at that. It’s the dream of colonization that gives us hope, the thought that our descendants will live to see something more, that drives us to keep going. If I thought humanity would be in this ship forever, I’d have killed myself years ago.



When I got to my apartment I collapsed. My apartment was mostly just my bed and a few personal items. I looked at my hands, my skin was so pale I could see my veins. Older people never had skin this pale. It was from the lack of sun wasn’t it, from life under a dark sky. I decided to assume it’s perfectly healthy. At least they could recreate gravity with spinning `cylinders. Most people lived in either cylinders two or three. Three was purely residential, but two where I was living had a lot of stores and other businesses. Cylinder one had a few homes but was mostly the administration of the ship and offices for various companies. Cylinder five was the only one without any homes, it was flooded and pressurized and filled with an ecosystem of fish native to the sunless depths of the ocean, giving the ship a source of food. Four was my favorite of the cylinder, it was only half flooded making it a swamp of a cylinder, and with large artificial sun lights powered by energy collected from the old planet, trees could grow for our wood, there were even birds and reptiles that lived there, I remember going there as a kid, I don’t remember ever doing much but I loved it. I thought that if I ever saved up the money I’d move to a house in the swamps of the forth cylinder.



The next day I went back to my job. I worked at a restaurant in cylinder two. We didn’t get many customers, but it had good pay due to the high quality food. The chicken still wasn’t chicken but vulture is a better recreation of a chicken than a viper fish is.



I got a customer that day who seemed to be some sort of activist. He wore a brown leather jacket with images of a bird in a cage stitched into it. He wore a T-shirt with the words “it’s getting hot on this ship, let's open a window” on it in yellow letters. His hair was short and a white blond, his eyes were almost gold in their color. He seemed like he’d be an annoying customer, but there was something about him I found charming from looking at him.

He came up to the counter and started talking, “Hey, I’d like to order a sandwich.”



Sarcastically I replied, “Well, you should do that then.”



He seemed amused, “Yes, I’ll give you money to make me a sandwich.”



“There’s more than one type of sandwich here, and you have to order a specific one.”



He smirked, “Give me any of them.”



I sighed and said, “I’ll be needing your name.”



“You can call me Marcus.”



I got a gulper eel sandwich and false bread from the freezer in the back and handed it to Marcus. Before I left he handed me a card with an address alongside the sentence “you are not free” and a drawing of a bird cage.



That night I decided to go to the address, I tend to go to random things in order to quell my boredom. I took an external train to the area of dome three the address was in. Opposite to the civilizations on earth, the trains of the Dedulues ran on the outside while the city was beneath. The trains were a peaceful place, they were mostly empty. And on the exterior of the ship there was no gravity, so you could just float within your train car if you wanted to. And the stars could shine from above, and it was nothing so it was beautiful.



I went to the address. It was a strange and secret place. A large room filled with people, in the center a makeshift podium, most of the people wore yellow, gold, or tan. Marcus was there, his eyes still shining like fool’s gold under the artificial light.



I tapped Marcus on the shoulder, “I came.”



He replied after a few seconds, he was probably trying to remember me, “You did. I wasn’t expecting that.”



Man entered the room, everyone turned to him. He wore an alligator skin cloak painted gold, he wore a hat with the feathers of a crane. He covered his face in a gilded mask made from machinery. He stepped up to the podium and spoke with a voice like thunder, “My brothers and sisters of freedom, the sun shines dimmer every day, but still I assure you we will one day see freedom. Our parents chose to enter this ship years ago, now we are trapped here thanks to their choice. If we strike soon we will see earth by the time we are in our fifties and sixties, and no child will ever be condemned to live out their lives in this hopeless void. No man’s seed and no woman’s womb shall be their legacy!” He pulled a saber from his side and raised it in the air.



Who was this strange masked man? Does he want to send this ship floating back to earth? Not fully understanding what he was fighting for I spoke up, “You can’t turn this ship around! What about the legacy of humanity? What about the vision of new stars?”



Everyone laughed, Marcus seemed embarrassed. The masked man pointed his sword at me and spoke, “You seem new here, brother. You wear no yellow or gold, and you oppose our purpose. We are the children of the sun, and I am the shining one! You have been conditioned to be the slave of scientists and politicians who will never know your name, they have taken your legacy and exploited your body. Begone from this place unless you are willing to be free!”



I stepped outside, most of the people inside clapped. I sat next to the door, looking left and right I looked down the vast hallway. It felt like ten thousand generations of colonists were in front of me, all able to be snuffed out with a single coup.



Marcus left the room soon after me and sat down next to where I was. He touched my shoulder and spoke to me in a comforting voice, “Sorry about that, I didn’t expect the shining one to be so… aggressive. He’s usually more accepting of newcomers.”



I yelled out at him, “What the fuck is that place though, who are you hanging out with? Why are you doing this?”



“Why do you think you were born on this spaceship? How much better would your life be if you were born on earth? We were condemned to live worse lives for the choices our parents made. The Daedalus is a more restricted and more diminished civilization than the one that sent us to this hell.”



“But we have a purpose greater than just ourselves.”



“Why though? If all you exist for is to reproduce in a pen for the sake of greater men do you know what that makes you?”



I sarcastically asked, “What?”



“Cattle, it makes you cattle.”



“You act like this isn’t still a civilization we may be isolated but-”



Marcus but his finger on my lips, “Civilizations only become worse when they are isolated, from Tazmainia compared to mainland Australian natives, to North Korea and the rest of earth. By the time we get to the new planet earth might have faster than light travel.”



I took his finger off my lips, “Doesn't matter, you won't be able to cause a revolution in time anyways.”



Marcus seemed upset, almost crying, “I don’t want to die on this spaceship.”



I smirked, “I don’t want to die at all.”



…



For some reason Marcus and I felt like we’d always known each other, for the first time in my life I cared about something other than reproduction and survival of the ship. Marcus became a regular at my restaurant, and soon we began to meet up more and more.



As the months went on the children of the sun became more and more present. And as they became more known about association with them became more and more dangerous, yellow clothing was banned, and the administration of the ship put out bounties for any children of the sun, dead or alive. Security was beefed up, and all of it meant I was worried, worried about Marcus.



It was New years eve 2084 and I had gotten a call from Marcus to meet up at a mill in cylinder four. The swamps of cylinder four were a comforting place for me, the great sunlamps shining down, the small of spanish moss, the birds flying over head. It was one of the only peaceful places you could go on the Daedalus.



I saw Marcus in front of the mill, the great iron building looming over me. He greeted me with a hug, I resisted. Marcus opened the door of the mill and spoke, “Come in, it’s safe here.”



I objected, “There’s people working there. Even on new years.”



Marcus chuckled, “Probably not anymore.”



We stepped in, and all I saw was a dark and empty room, large but too dim for the back wall to be seen, almost like space. Marcus told me, “People used to work here, but they’ve gone on strike until the ship turns back around. They’ve gotten tired of working for someone else's legacy, human beings who may have lived much better lives on earth.”



I wanted to argue but barely could, “Don’t say that, you know how I feel about-”



Marcus pinned me to the wall and started kissing me, it wasn’t what I was expecting but I liked it. It felt like there wasn’t a world outside us, like we were just us.



But then Marcus tried to unbutton my shirt, and I realized though however much I wanted this it's not what my purpose was. I jerked myself away and started speaking frantically, “I’, sorry- this can’t be how my life goes. I’m needed for the Daedaus, I need to reproduce for the sake of humanity, and I just can’t do that with you…” I ran off in my cowardice.



…



I woke up sad new years day sad, but I didn’t remember why. Then I remember it was Marcus, and then I was more sad, and a but angry. Until the sadness turned to anger, “he tricked me” “he’s trying to seduce me, to turn me against my purpose”. I had come to the decision anyone making me feel such things isn’t a good influence, and as a child of the sun he must be reported.



But when I exited my home I noticed that the children of the sun were everywhere, they were holding bat, hammers, axes, and other tools that they used as weapons. The security of the Daedalus tried their best to fight them off with sabers and hounds.



I tried my best to maneuver my way through the chaos but it was impossible, reporting Marcus would be impossible, I could barely make my way back into my home. I huddled there for hours while the fighting went on.



Hours later I stepped out of my room, there was blood on the walls and bodies on the floor. I couldn’t tell who won but the battle was no longer raging in this area. Though from what I could tell from the bodies it was most likely the children of the sun lost.



Stepping through the halls to inspect I found a body that was still twitching. The dogs had torn him badly but I could recognize Marcus anywhere. His blond hair stained red with blood, one of his golden eyes crushed into pulp. It seemed Marcus only had a few seconds left in this bleack and crowded world.



I held his twitching body in my arms. Even when distorted by blood Marcus’s voice was still sweet, “I don’t want to die on this ship.”



I looked down at him and replied, “I don’t want you to die at all.”