The Thesis

The paradox of freedom and control

Year 153

The body of his father rose slowly from the acid pit.

It did not rise whole.

No body ever did.

The pit released the dead in fragments first, then shapes, then memory. The workers who controlled the lifting hooks stood behind thick mineral glass, their faces covered with grey masks. The acid vapour distorted everything. It made the dead appear as if they were still moving.

The boy stood beside his mother and watched.

His father had entered the lower shaft thirty-two days earlier with a team of fourteen. The shaft had collapsed during the spin-shadow cycle. By the time the recovery crew opened the passage, the bodies had already begun dissolving into the energy stream. That was how the colony survived. The dead returned heat to the living.

The boy felt the warmth of the pit on his face, the way he had felt it at every rite since he could stand.

The warmth had a source now.

He tried not to understand this. He understood it anyway.

His mother did not cry. Nobody cried loudly during the monthly rite. Grief was permitted, but noise was not. Noise was considered ingratitude.