The New Year's Festival was over in the City of Pilgrimage. The annual games had been completed, the awards ceremony held, the medals awarded, accolades bestowed. The large feast had been held; wonderful foods of all manner had been enjoyed; cider, wine, and beer flowed freely. This was the only time of the year alcohol was permitted in the city.

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     Now, a day later, everything was quiet, and everyone was weightless. In the next few days gravity would return, everyone would have received their annual inoculations, and Pilgrimage’s routine of work and school would begin again for another year.

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     For one young man, the festivities had not been so enjoyable. The previous year had not been good for him, and the upcoming year held no greater promise. Teenage angst had been brewing full force for a few years, and at age seventeen, Lars Adams was an angry young man.

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     As a child Lars found the Festival just as fun and exciting as everyone else, but in recent years he had become more cynical, and more resentful; he saw it all as shallow and superficial glitz. Now that he and the rest of his generation were in their late teens, the competitions were becoming more and more serious. It seemed to him that the games were just another way his Gen, and his Caste, were being exploited by the others.

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     Among the two hundred 17-year-olds living in Pilgrimage, known as the Gen-betas, an elite few, the Caste-1’s were being trained as crew members, scientists, technicians, etc.; the Caste-2’s were to be the merchants, teachers, skilled laborers, and the like. The rest, including Lars, were the Caste-3’s, the simple laborers, the working drones. Lars had gone to school until the previous year. At age sixteen, the First and Second Castes moved along to their more advanced training, while Caste-3’s simply went downstairs.

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     In school Lars had learned, at a very rudimentary level, about the structure of his city and the science behind it. The city of Pilgrimage was constructed in a perfect circle, approximately three kilometers in diameter. It was built on three levels. The main level, the second, was the city proper. It was arranged with resident apartments on the outside perimeter, with offices, shops, and the like arranged in concentric circles. The third level was basically an upper story of the second. It boasted upscale apartments, fine restaurants, and so on, with balconies and concourses to enjoy the view below. This level also housed the operational bridge and crew’s conference rooms and quarters. The entire structure was connected by zip-cabs, tramlines, and moving sidewalks.

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     The central portion of these top tiers, the doughnut hole, is a circle some five hundred meters in diameter, rising up one hundred meters above the top concourse. The floor of this portion was dedicated to gardens and recreational areas, as well as simple agriculture. High in the ceiling of the central area were several sports arenas, a large banquet hall, and numerous meeting rooms, game rooms, theaters, and so on, all surrounding an athletic stadium with running track, playing field, and bleachers. This entire complex was built upside down.

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     The lowest level of the city was sealed off from the rest. By way of numerous large service elevators one could access the engine rooms, food and supply storage, power station, as well as the water and sewage systems, and launching docks. This area also contained housing for the Caste-3 citizens.

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     This was where Lars Adams lived.

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     The city of Pilgrimage was in fact a gigantic space station, an interstellar colony with over one hundred Quantum Reversal Anti-Matter engines on the underside. These Q-RAM engines could propel the station to a very high velocity.

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     While the Q-RAMs could accelerate an unmanned craft to as much as warp 0.5, one half the speed of light, this was not practical for the station. Pilgrimage’s “Artificial Gravity” effect depended acceleration and inertia. The Q-RAMs must be regulated so as to produce a consistent one-G force, so that the everyday environment feels much like the normal environment on Earth.

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     As the station accelerated, inertia caused people and objects to be subject to one-G. Relative to their position, the ship was flying straight up. At that rate of acceleration, it took approximately one year to achieve warp 0.25. Then the engines were stopped and inhabitants experienced weightlessness for one or two days, which was always fun for the kids of all ages. At that point, other Q-RAM engines situated on top of the structure ignited to stop the ship's momentum, to “hit the brakes.” This deceleration, the D-cell, was also regulated to 1-G, but it was felt in the opposite direction. Now people would go to the upside down game rooms, arenas and the stadium for the two-week long Festival. At the end of this period, the velocity would have been reduced sufficiently, and after one or two more weightless days, gravity was restored, and the voyage recommenced.

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     Lars did not know why they had bothered to teach him this rudimentary information. His Caste-1 compatriots would, for the next few years, be immersed in all of the mathematics and engineering behind it all. Lars on the other hand, would be immersed in fixing broken zip-cabs and unstopping toilets.

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* * *

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     Project Pilgrimage had its inception 208 years earlier, shortly after the invention of the Q-RAM engines in 2300 AD. Q-RAM was capable of accelerating an object with a 90 kilogram mass one half the speed of light, effectively ushering in the age of interstellar travel.

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     At the same time, the newest generation space telescope, the Hubble-Webb XII was being developed and was launched into Earth orbit in 2350. The HW-XII was the most powerful and sensitive telescope developed to date. It was able to observe and analyze the terrain, atmospheric and geological make-up, and magnetic field of Earth-sized planets up to twenty light years away. The search was on for potential colony worlds!

 

     By 2365, the list of potential host planets was narrowed to ten. Hundreds of Q-RAM powered unmanned probes were dispatched to these candidates for colonization. Once a probe arrived at its planet and achieved orbit, it released thousands of data collecting sensors. With unmanned probes, AG was not an issue, and full warp 0.5 velocity could be attained. Therefore, it took only about 65 years for the probes to arrive and their information returned via radio signal.

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     That same year, construction began in Earth orbit of the city-space station, “Pilgrimage.”

In 2429, a convention of astrophysicists was held in New America to choose the ultimate destination. The winning planet, aptly dubbed, “Plymouth,” had a mostly CO2 atmosphere, 1.08 Earth mass and gravity, and an iron core adequate to produce a magnetic field to shield it from the radiation of a yellow sun similar to Sol. It also had a surface that was 35% water pure enough to be processed into potable water.

 

     Between 2430 and 2470, a total of 125 drones were sent to Plymouth; these delivered chemical agents to purify the water and cryopreserved plant life organisms to transform much of the atmosphere to oxygen.

 

     In 2475, 110 years after construction began, Pilgrimage was completed, christened with great fanfare, and embarked on its historic voyage with a population of 200 souls, equally divided between male and female; this was Generation-alpha, the first human beings to travel beyond the solar system. The males varied in age between 18 and 26 years; the females were all 20, no more, no less. The local calendar was then adjusted. 2475 AD as reckoned on Earth became year 1 PL (Post Launch). Time was measured by the cycles on Plymouth, the year consisting of 348 28-hour days.

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     In addition to supplies, personal effects, and Q-RAM fuel rods for the voyage, the manifest included six hundred cryopreserved human embryos. In 15 PL, two hundred of the embryos were implanted in the uteri of the one hundred females. Nine months later, one hundred sets of fraternal twins were born, each with one male and one female. This was Gen-beta, Lars’s generation. The plan was for Gen-gamma to be born in 50 PL, and Gen-delta in 85. Arrival at Plymouth was scheduled for 112.

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* * *

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     Lars and his friends, Kyren Gwinn and Ford Mallory, were having lunch in the sandwich shop often frequented by the Caste-3’s. As usual these days, Lars was irritable and testy, constantly complaining about the “unfairness” of the situation.

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     Ford said, “Man, you gotta lighten up. You’re scaring us.”

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     Kyren: “Lars, we are concerned about you. You have been so gloomy. You are driving yourself crazy with this negativism.”

 

     Ford: “Us too!”

 

    Lars rolled his eyes. “But don’t you see the unfairness of it? Gen-alpha lived on old Earth; gamma and delta will live on Plymouth. Yeah, the gammas will be old, but they will make it there. We are the only people in the history of human civilization that will never, ever set foot on any planet! We’re freakin’ prisoners! We’ll never leave this city. Our lives have no other purpose!”

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     “But whatcha gonna do about it, Man? Bitching ain’t gonna change nothing.”

 

     “Lars, a lot of people get stuck where they don’t necessarily wany to be, and don't get to do what they want. They just can’t turn the station around and go back to Earth just so your f-f-feelings don’t get hurt! You are carrying around a lot of unrealistic expectations, resentments that aren’t helping you or anybody else.”

 

     Ford added, “Life just ain’t never gonna be fair, Bro. Nobody ever said it would be. So you might as well just bloom where you’re planted!”

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     “You are right, our Gen will never live on a planet,” Kyren continued. “So what? They’ve set the city up with just about everything you’d have on Old Earth – good food, recreation, lots to do. There is the pool, the movies…”

 

     “Glow-bulbs to change, sewers to clean!”

 

     “Sure, work isn’t fun, but we’d be doing the same thing on Earth or Plymouth. If Caste-3 bothers you, take the Exam.”

 

      “That exam is rigged!”

 

     Ford shook his head; Kyren continued, “No, it’s not. Last year there were three Caste-3’s that advanced. Remember Mary Kay Larson? She was Caste-3 just a few years ago, and she’s moved all the way up to 1. She’s on the freakin’ flight crew for God’s sake! It can be done, Lars. Just get your head out of your ass and study!”

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     “Yeah, but…”

 

     Kyren slammed both fists on the table; she had heard enough of Lars’s moaning. As she got up and stormed out she yelled, “Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but! I'm sick of your yeah but! Quit feeling sorry for yourself! You say your life has no purpose? Well just go make your own purpose. Either do something about it or shut up!”

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     Ford just shrugged.

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* * *

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     “Captain, we have an incoming. Two o'clock off starboard bow.” This was Ensign Paul Higgins of the Pilgrimage Navigational Force, addressing his captain, Teodore James. The PNF was a combination navigational crew, police force, and town council, and the closest thing Pilgrimage has to a government. Once a year it was tasked with planning and facilitating the Festival activities, as well as the navigational maneuvers that make it possible. Between Festivals, their primary function was looking out for asteroids, meteors, and other hazards of open space travel. Ensign Higgins’ latest concern was the twenty-meter-wide interstellar asteroid approaching from 648,000 kilometers.

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     “Impact probability?” Captain James inquired.

 

     “91.8% at this heading, Captain.”

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     “Estimated impact?”

 

     “Six hours. M-type, mostly nickel-iron, incoming at about 108,000 kilometers per hour. That could do a whole lot of damage, Captain.”

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     James was not terribly concerned; asteroids, meteors and the like made themselves known a couple of times a year. He picked up a microphone. “Bridge to Dix.” He was speaking to the affable Dispatch Officer Cooper Dix, the officer in charge of dispatching the field shuttles.

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     “Aye, Captain?”

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     “Do you spot that little rock off starboard bow?”

 

     “Got it, Sir. I was about to call you.”

 

     James thought, of course you were. Old Cooper didn't miss much. He gave the order, “Okay Coop, dispatch two shuttles, two Q-RAM boosters each. Let's give this thing a little nudge.”

 

     “Aye, aye me good Cap’n Teo, consider it done.”

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     Within the hour, the shuttlecraft had intercepted the asteroid. The first shuttle maneuvered to within two meters, matching the asteroid speed. Four one-inch-wide titanium drill bits extended from the shuttle bay and drilled half meter deep holes into the asteroid's surface. Then, a robotic arm installed a Q-RAM powered booster bomb, bolting its steel chassis into the four holes. It repeated the maneuver with another booster, then the second shuttle installed the third and fourth in the same manner. Once the shuttles were clear, the four Q-RAM boosters, in unison, applied a ten-second long jet firing perpendicular to the asteroids’ path.

 

     “Are we clear now, Paul?”

 

      “Aye, Sir. Four degree nudge. It will pass to the stern a few hundred meters away. Plenty.”

Paul and the co-navigator, Mary Kay Larson, continued to track the chunk of iron, and all seemed well. She was the only Gen-beta on the flight crew, and Paul thought this asteroid drill would be good experience for her. But then ten minutes later, he suddenly sat up straight and asked, “Mary Kay, did you see that?”

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     “I concur, Ensign.”

 

     Then Paul, never taking his eyes from the screen, said, “Uh, Captain. I think you need to see this.”

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* * * 

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     Lars was back in his room. He laid back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, his brain spinning. He was completely abashed by the tongue lashing he had gotten from Kyren. When he returned to his apartment there was a note taped to his door: