Free This Long Vigil (A Short Story) by Rhett Bruno

 
    “INHABITANT 1724 IS UNDERGOING the recycling process. The
birthing of replacement Inhabitant 3287 will initiate immediately afterwards,”
Dan announced. He was the ship-wide artificial intelligence in command of the
Interstellar Ark,  Hermes .
    I groaned, got up out of my bed and rubbed my eyes.
“Understood, I’ll head there now,” I responded, though performing my usual
duties was the last thing on my mind.
    As the human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark  Hermes— the
sixth to be chosen for that designation since the ship departed Earth—it was my
job to be awake and attentive so that I could help with the few tasks which Dan
couldn’t handle alone. Typically that consisted of presiding over birthings, or
fixing pieces of malfunctioning equipment, but it was always under his careful
guidance. I was the pair of mobile hands able to reach the few areas of
the  Hermes  he wasn’t able to.
    Most days, however, I just spent my time waiting for my next
task and talking to Dan. He had no problem carrying out his many responsibilities
while simultaneously keeping me entertained. Everything I knew I had learned
from him: how to speak, how to think, what Earth was like—everything. Even my
name, Orion, was just the designation of a constellation of stars I’d taken a
liking to in my early days as I stared out of the tiny viewport in my room. I
never had human parents to give me one like I’ve heard is the customary
practice back on Earth, so that was what I chose. Though I suppose you could
say Dan was like my father.
    I stepped out of my quarters and into the long, cambered
hall of the  Hermes’  Living Ring. It was a looping passage
wrapping entirely around the ship’s central Conservatory and it rotated
continuously in order to produce a sense of serviceable pseudo-gravity.
    “What is always coming but never arrives?” Dan asked as I
began my trek.
    I smirked. Dan had a soft spot for riddles. Whether or not
he told them to distract me or himself—if that was even possible—I’m not sure,
but often times I spent days trying to come up with an answer. I got a few
right from time to time, but they were always challenging.
    “This is a simple one,” I replied.
    “You have the answer already?” If he could sound surprised I
imagined he would’ve. I never figured them out that quickly.
    “Not yet, but you won’t stump me this time.”
    I repeated the riddle over and over in my head as I made my
way down the Living Ring. It was nice to get to think about something else
besides the people floating in the glassy tubes running down both sides of the
passage. They were  Hermes’  Life-Chambers, holding the exactly
nine hundred and ninety-nine inhabitants hibernating on the  Hermes .
All of them slept quietly in their artificial wombs, showing no more motion
than the occasional twitch of an eyelid due to an unpleasant dream. There were
never any more in stasis and never any less. According to Dan, the ship’s
makers had calculated for its Conservatory to be capable of producing only the
precise amount of nutrients necessary to support that population.
    Only one chamber remained empty—the one I’d emerged from—and
it would remain so until I turned fifty-years-old and had to return to the long
sleep so that a new Monitor could take over and a new chamber would be vacated.
Presently, I was forty-nine, and my birthday wasn’t far away. My time walking
the halls of the ship was swiftly coming to an end, and seeing the docile faces
of the inhabitants only served to remind me of that fact each and every day.
    “Every day,” I said out loud. “Is the answer, tomorrow?”
    “Very good, Orion,” Dan responded almost instantly. “That
was your fastest time yet. Only four hundred ninety-seven seconds.”
    “I must be getting smarter in my old age,” I chuckled.
    Without even realizing, it’d taken me almost the entire walk
to come up with the solution. I stopped and looked left at Inhabitant 1724.