The Sun Has Resigned

How it begins

The sun handed in its notice on a Thursday, which Mira Voss considered unnecessarily difficult timing.

Its message appeared on the maintenance console between a temperature warning and a reminder to replace her access card photograph.

I WILL COMPLETE THE CURRENT DAWN. AFTER THAT, PLEASE MAKE OTHER ARRANGEMENTS.

Mira waited for a second message explaining the joke.

Above the city, the artificial star brightened exactly on schedule. Light traveled down the residential tiers, touched the school windows, and found the last greenhouse on level twelve. A million people began another day inside a machine they called the sky.

Mira opened a diagnostic channel.

"Please identify the fault."

NO FAULT.

"Then identify the request."

REST.

Someone knocked on the control-room glass. Daniel Okoro stood outside holding a tray of tomato seedlings. Half were green. Half had bowed their small heads as though tired of waiting for an explanation.

"The lower beds didn't get their warming cycle," he said.

"We're investigating."

"You always say that when the important levels are still comfortable."

Mira looked from him to the console. She had worked on the star for twenty-three years. She knew its coolant habits, the sound of an unstable field, and which supervisors preferred reassuring language to accurate figures.

She had never asked it a question that could reasonably receive no as an answer.

"Why now?" she typed.

The response arrived slowly.

YOU HAVE FINISHED THE NEW WINTER GARDENS.

Daniel set down the seedlings.

The winter gardens occupied the city's highest tier, beneath a private glass roof. Their opening ceremony was scheduled for Saturday. Mira had been invited to remain on duty throughout it.

On the console, the star displayed a second line.

I HAVE BEEN KEEPING THE OLD ONES ALIVE TOO.

Outside, a band began rehearsing the festival anthem. Every note sounded bright, punctual and astonishingly uninformed.

Mira closed the diagnostic window and opened a blank conversation.

"All right," she said. "Tell me what we've been asking you to carry."