Titan Song

by Leonard Petracci

“But I do!” I protested, and regret crossed his face.

  “Look, Horatius,” he said, “we gardeners, we keep the ship alive. Without us, there would be no food. There would be no one to carry water. Everyone would starve and thirst. But without the historians, well, we would lose stories. And we could do without that, Horatius. Food provides, stories do not.”

  Then he tucked me into bed, using the patched blanket he had mended from his own youth and still bore his scent, and departed.

  “A historian,” I had whispered before falling asleep, disregarding his last words. “A historian.”

  One year later, my father dropped me off at general assembly, where the twenty-five children of my year awaited their school assignments, each with a pack of vegetables for lunch and shy expressions. We had seen each other throughout the ship before, and Mitch, my best friend, was there next to me, but today was different. Never before had I been with that many people my age at the same time.

  “Welcome,” said an adult at the center of the auditorium. High above him was a single large glow light, surrounded by eight other lights that had appeared to have gone out, or perhaps were never installed, but were rather painted over with various colors. I remember being impressed with one that was swirls of green, white, and blue, and had situated myself underneath it.

  “Today, you will receive assignments to your schools,” continued the adult. “One of you to go to Empri, two of you to Hippoc, and twenty-two to Vertae. While these placements are permanent, I encourage you to work hard, as your final assignments will be conducted at the end of your schooling. It is not unheard of for a farmer to seek to become a chef, or a doctor a chief, but it comes only with hard work.”

  I remember nodding and waiting, my arms crossed over my chest. I was ready to learn stories, and I was ready to learn letters. I knew I could do both.

  “Elliott and Hannah,” said the adult, “both of you will be attending Hippoc, so please exit through the door on your left, where you will be escorted to the school’s chambers. As for Empri,” he said, scanning the crowd, his eyes landing on me as I burst into a smile. “Ah, yes, for Empri, Segni, if you’ll come with me.”

  I froze as another boy pushed past me, heading to the front of the crowd, his hair recently cut and his white smile reflecting the glow of the light above. I knew him from passing in the hall, when my father had pulled me to the side to allow the chief to pass with Segni following.

  “But – ” I said, though the adult cut me off.

  “But the rest of you will be attending Vertae,” he finished. “Remember, Vertae is the strength of the ship. Without Vertae, none of us could survive.”

  My father repeated those words when I came home with tears on my cheeks. And he repeated the same thing he had for the past year, assuring me of its truth.

  “Without food, we starve,” he said. “But stories, stories are not sustenance. We can manage without them.”

  And for two years, I nearly believed him. Until age six, when Vertae started training us in gardening the fields, and two stories of my own began.

  Chapter 3

  “What are you doing, Horatius? Trying to read again?” said Nean, shoving me into the wall as he walked past, sneering. “Go on, pick up your shovel, before I pick it up with your head.”

  I regained my balance, staring upwards at the squiggles that had held my attention, focusing on what I knew to be letters. On what those at Empri would be learning, and I, as a six year old in Vertae, would not.

  It was the second year of schooling, our first year spent learning about subjects such as roots, stems, leaves, and the other components of plants. We learned of the water reservoirs and how to use just the minimum amount of liquid in growth. And we learned of the sewer and compost troughs, which had to be included every few months or else the plants would not grow as well.

  “Why do we have to switch out the dirt?” I remember asking after following Nean into class, as Skip, our adolescent instructor, showed us how to spread the compost. “Why don’t we just use the old dirt?”

  “What do you mean why?” Skip had retorted, his expression accusing me of stupidity while Nean snorted behind him. “You just do.”

  “I get that, but why?”

  “It’s just what you do. You take the dirt, and you spread it. Plants grow, you pick them, you repeat. ‘Why’ doesn’t matter. Stop wasting our time with these questions. There is food to grow and work to do.”

  And by the end of six years of age, Skip trusted us enough to start preparing our own patches of garden, practicing with the easiest of seeds, the ones that could suffer the most abuse yet still have some yield. By now, he had grown accustomed to my questions, positioning me at the far end of the practice field near the wall, far away from the rest of the class where I could not interrupt him as he inspected their gardens.

  “No, no, no, you’re doing it wrong again, Horatius,” Skip had said, watching me as I planted seeds in a neat line. “Use the blade of your shovel to open up the dirt, not the handle.”

  “Seems faster to use the handle to poke a hole, see?” I said, showing him how I could indent the earth and place a seed inside, without actually scooping earth out.

  “It’s wrong. Just do things the right way. If you don’t improve soon, I’m going to have to reduce your marks. Just do it right.”

  “But it’s faster!” I complained, trying to show him again, though he had already moved on to the next student.

  With time, I discovered that so long as Skip’s back was turned, it didn’t matter how I planted the seeds. Mine grew just as well as anyone else’s, and I could plant that at about twice the pace, especially without him distracting me at the edge of the field. And more importantly, as my practice field moved farther away from the others, I discovered something that never would have occurred had I remained with the rest of the class.

  That if I gardened quietly, and stuck towards the edge of my field, I could hear voices. Voices that carried over to me from the other side of the wall, and though muffled, were intelligible.

  “Now, Segni,” said the voice, “we’re going to go over this again. In order to become chief one day, you’ll have to read. And to read, you’ll need to know your alphabet. Can you recite it for me?”

  “Why do I have to read to be chief? I can just talk,” replied the young boy’s voice.

  “No, you must read. Let’s go over it again. Here, listen, this is how you recite the alphabet. Start with A.”

  Each day, I listened in, paying close attention to Segni’s lessons, reciting the letters in my head. Learning the difference between vowels and consonants, and how to spell without knowing how the letters actually looked. Even with the wall between, I absorbed the lessons, eagerly accepting what Segni resisted as I planted my seeds.

  Within the next month, another instructed called Angie taught us at night when Skip’s morning classes ended, taking us to another learning patch and showing us how to plant slightly more difficult seeds. Skip had already warned her of my slowness to learn, so Angie had followed his example and placed me on the outskirts of the group, this time near the window that peered out into the starry expanse outside the ship.

  And as I planted, the rules that Angie reiterated to the rest of the group time and time again had already rooted and been improved upon in my brain, and I found myself practicing the lessons from the mornings in my thoughts. Finishing quicker than the others in planting, there were times my gaze flickered out through the window and to the other half of the ship, where figures moved in the distance.

  But each time I let my stare wonder, I always came to rest on a window to my left, near the end of the other half. Where a face constantly filled the glass, a face of a girl around my age, with red hair and her palms on the glass.

  A face whose eyes met mine, and who stared at me while I worked.

 

 

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