[My schedule has not been kind to me lately, but hopefully I’ll have the time to write the next part of the Tale of Ayla within the next week. Here’s the first page of an idea I’ve been messing with]

Aboard the Rondôn

Morning on the Rondôn is much like any time of day. There is an official fleet clock that says when it’s morning, midday, night and so on, but in reality the concepts have lost all meaning to the passengers. We still observe them, acknowledge them, out of simple human stubbornness or because we’ll need to be in the habit of day/night cycles when we finally get there. Not that we will ever get there, but our children’s children’s children (ad nausea) will. Eventually.

All the other folks say “good morning” so I say “good morning” though it is neither a real morning, or particularly good. I suppose “average time-that-work-starts to you” doesn’t flow off the tongue as easily.

So it was an average time-that-work-starts when I meandered my way through the park on my way to said work. I’m a security officer aboard the Rondôn, and it’s my job to make sure everybody doesn’t kill each other. And, if they do anyway, to find whoever did it and pass them off to Civil Authority. The park was mostly empty at this time. the stay-at-homes were getting their little ones to school and all the hard workers were already at their posts. I have a bit of a more lax schedule. I’ve got my mobile, I’ve got my shocker, I might as well already be in my office honestly.

“Rondôn?” I mumbled to the air.

Yes? Came the response.
“Forward my office to my mobile, please.” I said through a yawn.

Done.

I found a bench and leaned back, looking ‘up’ at the reflected sky. The morning stars moved ever so slowly across the sky that was technically below me. A set of mirrors reflects natural light in from outside, which I’m told is healthy for you, but it seems that natural light is just about darkness anyway so I’ve never seen the damn point. It is a surreal experience though. You know it’s just a mirror, but if you lean back just right, so you can’t see the edges except in the corner of your eye, you get this sense that there is no ceiling. That the blackness up there is real, empty space. For a second your brain panics, ‘cause you know what happens outside, but you don’t feel the pull of the vacuum and you can breath just fine. You feel panic and safety all at once staring up at the ‘open sky.’ I wonder if our great-great-etc parents felt the same back where they came from. If they looked up and felt like they could fall into the blackness. Maybe that’s why they left Earth.

They looked up and felt the fear and the wonder.