Prodigious Alignment: Chapter 5

By the time Gareth arrived home, Areanna was long asleep. It was past oh-two-hundred; most of the Arvad was in a sleep cycle. Feeling guilty about missing so much time with her, he crept into her room. Her large eyes often caused discomfort among those under her scrutiny, but with them closed, Areanna appeared positively inoffensive.

She looked a lot like her mother had on the day she died. Areanna was nameless, mere minutes old when Elisabeth passed. The physician’s assistant delicately carried the newborn from the room to place her in an incubation chamber while the doctors struggled valiantly to save Elisabeth’s life.

In one moment, her eyes were wide, searching for something but clouded by confusion. Then they fluttered shut, the wisps of her blonde eyelashes coming to rest on her cheeks. Elisabeth’s lips parted to allow a final breath; then, she was gone.

Grief was not the right word for what Gareth felt in the moments and days following Areanna’s birth and Elisabeth’s death. He thought of the ouroboros, the mythological serpent of old Earth that consumed itself from the tail and represented the cycle of death and rebirth. How cruel that Elisabeth was given no choice but to sacrifice her life so that her daughter could live. He became detached, unsure how to reconcile the loss of the most important in his life with the sudden responsibility for this new priority.

Luckily, he had support. Gareth was an engineer of some importance, so the resident physician checked or sent someone daily. Several friends stopped by in the first few weeks, and his neighbor Pam, a septuagenarian mother of five, gave him several crash courses in baby care. He was grateful for all of them and, with their help, recovered enough to be a father before a month passed.

The memories all hit Gareth instantly, threatening to overwhelm his exhausted mind. First the Scrubber’s Rebellion, now Elisabeth — it was too much for him to handle without sleep.

He leaned in to kiss Areanna on the forehead. She stirred when he touched her, mumbling, “that dinosaur can’t ride the pirate.” He paused, but she was still again, so he went to his room to finally get some rest.

–

Areanna was already at the table eating breakfast when Gareth stepped out of his room. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands as he sat down.

“Another long night, dad?”

“Yep,” he managed. “Sorry to keep coming home so late.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. Our teachers have been explaining how so much of our equipment isn’t really designed for the Adalia system.”

“That’s right.” Bless her; she had made him breakfast, too. A second bowl of porridge was to her right, his usual spot. He sat down and reached for the spoon that Areanna had laid out for him. “Thank you for making breakfast.”

“You’re welcome. I thought I heard you come in, actually. Did you kiss my head?”

“Yes, that was me. I didn’t think you woke up.”

“Just a little. I had a weird dream, and sometimes I wake up in the middle over and over, but for really short bursts. It can be hard to tell what’s real and what’s a dream. But when I wake up, I mostly just forget it.”

He struggled to keep up with her energy, so he took a bite of the porridge instead. It tasted bland like it always did, but at least it was hot. He finished the first bite and took a second before mustering the courage to speak again.

“So, ah, I know you’ve been exploring the off-limits areas of the administration offices again. This time with Natalie.”

Areanna dropped her spoon. “How did you know that?”

“I’m your dad. I see everything.”

Areanna rolled her eyes.

“I saw that, too. Look, the last time we talked, you said you were going alone. And that’s not even really the point; you said you wouldn’t do it again!”

This time, Areanna looked away. “I only went by myself, At least, the first two times. But I needed Natalie to see it, too, so we could talk about it.”

Fear and anger fought to be Gareth’s dominant emotions, which resulted in nausea. Gareth pushed the porridge away and squared his body to face his daughter.

“Areanna, listen to me, “ he said, using every ounce of self-control to maintain a level voice. “It is not safe for you to go back there. You could get in trouble, or you could get me in trouble. The Arvad and everyone living on her are in a precarious position, and if anything goes wrong, it could spell disaster for any of us.”

“But Dad, I really need to see each room-”

“Yes, I remember your goal,” he cust her off. “Exploration and knowledge are worthwhile pursuits in a young lady. But you need to respect me when I tell you not to do something or go somewhere. What’s more, you need to respect yourself and the significance of giving your word to someone.

Areanna continued to avert her eyes. “Okay, but I still don’t see what the problem is. No one uses those rooms anymore. All of the terminals are dark, and most of the light panels are off or broken. Why can’t we look around?”

Gareth sighed. “Have they taught anything about the Scrubber’s Rebellion?” The teachers, I mean. In school.”

“I knew who you meant, “ Areanna laughed, looking at her father for the first time in several minutes. “But no. I don’t think I’ve heard anything before.”

“Okay. This is an important event that I’m about to explain. It happened eleven years ago and affected you, me, and the entire ship.”

“How could it have affected me? I wasn’t even born eleven years ago.”

“That’s true. Your mother worked in that office.”

Areanna blinked. She had not thought about her mother in some time.

“I see that was sudden. Should I keep going?”

“Yes,” Areanna said. “I’m okay.”

“You know how we don’t take baths like most other families?”

“I do know, and I hate it.”

“Well, there’s a reason for that. Eleven years ago, we had a revolt. A rebellion aboard the Arvad. Do you understand what that means?”

“Is that when one group tries to take power and authority away from another by force?”

“That is an astute answer; I’m impressed.” Areanna grinned. “Yes, and that’s what happened. We live in the fore quarters, which you already know. But what you may not know that there are several additional fore living quarters in this section of the Arvad. We keep you children segregated from each other until your classes conclude, after which you are assigned to an area of the Arvad to learn a trade.”

“Like an apprenticeship?”

“How do you know all these big words?”

“I listen.”

Gareth snorted in amusement. “Fair enough. Like an apprenticeship, yes. But the point is, we are one of only several living quarters. The problem is, by most measurements, we inhabit the nicest living quarters.”

“Are the aft quarters worse than ours?”

“Not just the aft, but the lower fore section, as well. And yes, in some ways, they are worse. You see, the pipes, tubes, cables, and other infrastructure holding the Arvad together need to be efficient. Two critical components of the long-term efficiency of closed systems are redundancy and maintenance. Many sources of water, nitrogen, oxygen, and other resources that pump through the ship start in the upper fore living quarters, then make their way through the rest of the Arvad. Along the way they pick up impurities from people and equipment.”

“We learned that the Arvad collects CO2 and other byproducts and recycles them before being reused, though. Doesn’t that mean that the air and water is always fresh?”

Gareth threatened to smile, his eyes sparkling with pride for his bright daughter. ‘Excellent use of ‘byproduct,’ yes. You are correct. At least, you are correct in theory.

You see, it is impossible for equipment like that to operate perfectly all of the time. As they’re used, they wear down. Eventually, they break, or harmful particles leech in from lubricants and other components. Those imperfections can build up over time, which can cause a lot of harm if they make it into the general food and water that people consume.”

“In the beginning, all of the Arvad’s systems were new. From bow to stern, each living section received air and water of the same quality. As each resource traveled between decks and sections, systems of collectors, purifiers, reclamation systems, and filters removed most of the impurities. This is still how it works today. But that equipment is small and relatively weak by design, at least compared to the full purification suite towards the rear of the Arvad where those resources are stored before being reintroduced to the system.”

Arena considered this for a moment. “So when water and air enters the living quarters in the upper fore section, where we live, it has just been cleaned by the big, powerful equipment. As it travels for to aft, it collects impurities, and eventually becomes less fresh?”

“That’s correct! Over the course of 180 years, the air and water systems have slowly decayed. Many people work on them all day to keep them functioning, but the work has gotten more difficult the farther down the line you are. Since the department heads tend to live in the foreward parts of the ship, Arvad maintenance prioritized those sections, which led to resentment among many who lived further aft.”

Areanna nodded. “I think I see where this is going. The quality of life declined the farther aft you went, because the infrastructure that supported life got worse over time.”

“Exactly,” Gareth confirmed. “Anyway, the people assigned to maintain that system are called ‘Scrubbers.’ At least, that’s what we call them in the fore section.”

“We’ve met some scrubbers. A couple of them came and talked to us during career week last year. They didn’t explain things to us quite like this, though.”

“No, I suspect they kept it far simpler.”

“Yeah,” Areanna agreed. “Mostly they talked about the life support system as a complete, self-contained system that functioned perfectly all the time.”

“Definitely not all the time,” Gareth said.

“They seemed nice,” Areanna continued. “What did they have to do with a rebellion?”

Gareth’s face darkened, and Areanna was sorry she had asked the question, even though he had brought up the topic. When he spoke after a moment, his voice was rough. “Some of the scrubbers were angry with those of us that lived in the upper fore section. They believed we were stealing from them, or at the very least neglecting them to preserve our quality of life.”

“Were you?”

“Yes, I suppose we were,” Gareth said. “Not intentionally. At least, it wasn’t something your mother and I thought about.”

“Maybe you should have.”

Areanna’s statement stunned Gareth. HIs face flushed, but as he looked at Areana’s face and into he earnest eyes, he realized she meant no judgment or criticism. He took a deep breath to calm himself before answering.

“Yes, we should have. One day, around ten-hundred, several scrubbers broke into the administration offices on our floor.”

“The rooms behind the door labeled ADMINISTRATION?”

“Correct. They came through the service tunnels. You see, the floors of each section are connected, but only at specific points, like lifts and emergency shafts. In theory, these connections allow people to travel pretty freely between areas of the ship. In practice, though, most people stayed on their own floor.

The caveat is the service hallways. These are narrow and have short ceilings, plus they tend to be full of tubes and pipes, so it was never intended for people to move freely using them.”

“I think that’s how I got in. A service tunnel.”

“That seems likely. There are many tunnels, most of which connect to one another wherever possible, so it can seem pretty random and maze-like if you’re not used to them. These scrubbers were prepared, though, and knew where to go.”

“To ADMINISTRATION.”

“Where your mother worked. Where my parents worked.” Tears were in Gareth’s eyes as he spoke, his sadness finally breaking what control he had over his emotions. “They broke in, and they had weapons. Mostly knives or pieces of tubing, but a couple of them had makeshift slug throwers. Guns,” he clarified, seeing Areanna’s eyes narrow at the mention of slug throwers.

“We learned guns were banned on the Arvad?” she asked.

“They are, but these were homemade. The scrubbers broke into the administration offices and made demands. I suppose you would have found the demands pretty reasonable; they wanted the life support systems brought back to like-new performance for the remaining twenty years of the flight so the water and air in the aft sections were perfect again. They also wanted an increase in food rations and additional help cleaning and rebuilding their homes.”

“That does sound reasonable. Shouldn’t everyone have the same quality of life?”

“You’re not wrong. Everyone should. The problem is the Arvad doesn’t have infinite resources. Sometimes we’re stuck with design decisions made centuries ago because we don’t have the parts or technology to change anything. So while the Arvad self-sorted its population into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ over the generations, it was a social problem, not one that could be solved with equipment or manpower.”

“What happened, then, if we couldn’t solve the problem?”

“Violence. This was before Head of Security Sadeleman. The old Head was a woman, actually, but I can’t remember her name.”

“Sexist.”

“Woah, watch it, little lady. I know you’re nine years old now but I’m still your father.” He winked at her, and she winked back with a smile. “This Head of Security — I think her name was Barbara something? — took a pretty hard stance against citizens who weren’t pulling their weight. From her perspective, these scrubbers were no better than anarchists, or terrorists. Within the hour she made the decision to send in some Security Officers to bring the situation under control.

“Her mistake was assuming the scrubbers were bluffing. Within moments of the security teams arriving, we could hear gunshots. By now, most of the adults who weren’t supervising children or performing critical work were crowding that hallway, including me. We were surprised to see the security officers and even more surprised to hear the shots. They were so loud, it was unreal; it was as if the Arvad was functioning as an echo chamber.”

Areanna’s eyes were wide. She had played games with guns many times before, albeit at Oscar’s request and never her own. The concept of violence was largely an abstract one, a vocabulary word describing something that happened far away, or in the past. She had seen some scuffles between children, certainly, but never adults, and never with real weapons.

“So what happened?”

“Once the shooting started, the security team broke through the locked door very quickly. Seven administrators were killed. My parents were among them. The two scrubbers with guns died, too, before the others were subdued. Your mother was shot in the belly but survived. Enough damage was done to that office that most of its functions were moved elsewhere, and the powers that be decided to seal it up and move on as if nothing had happened.”

“The end?”

“Sadly, no. The remaining scrubbers that hadn’t been killed that day were sentenced to the lowest decks in the aft section. The Arvad doesn’t have a prison, you see, so there was nowhere to put them.”

“I thought we had a brig?”

“True, but it’s not designed to hold multiple violent criminals. We’re such a small population that the Arvad’s designers didn’t plan for something quite this… expansive. So a section of living area that had been largely storage became the home for about a dozen scrubbers and their families. They’ve been living there for the last decade or so, complete outcasts and largely forgotten.

“And then,” he started, but began to cry. Areanna reached out and put her hand on her father’s knee. “And then, two years later, you were born.”

Gareth looked at Areanna through his tears, a cocktail of sorrow and joy coursing through him. “Your mother didn’t survive the birth,” he managed. “Complications from the gunshot wound years earlier. You were healthy, beautiful, and perfect. But Elisabeth didn’t even have the chance to hold you before her injuries took her.”

Areanna sat silently. She had also begun crying, though she was not entirely sure as to why. Her father’s heartbreak certainly stirred her, and she felt like much of his distance and strange emotional responses over her life made more sense. But her tears came from more than empathy.

As she turned what her father had just explained to her, she realized that her forays into ADMINISTRATION were truly dangerous. That area was sealed for a reason. Whatever had transpired, right or wrong, they were too close to Adalia to risk making significant changes to the ship or to the living situations.

The events of the Scrubber’s Rebellion needed to be ignored. Not because the injustices were unimportant, but because there was no way to address them now. And for people like her father, for whom the events of the rebellion caused real hurt, what was needed was to move on and prepare for their new life.

“I won’t go exploring anymore, Dad.”

Gareth smiled at his daughter. Despite hearing about the tragedy of the rebellion and the tears streaming down both of their faces, Areanna’s heart soared.

“Thanks, kiddo. I knew you’d understand. Thank you.”

Later that evening, Areanna reflected on what her father had told her. Accidental inequality had led to death and pain. It was so unfair, so stupid. Her family had been destroyed in one day because other families had been hurt for years. There was nothing to be done about the past but learn from it, something she knew well. She was determined to study the lessons of the Scrubber’s Rebellion, the most recent historical event she had ever heard about.

Adalia was a new home for humanity, a new start. Areanna would ensure that they learned from their past so that no other family would be torn apart by inequality ever again.