Generations had passed while the sun was diminished. No, not the sun, but the view of it from earth. Rings of solar panels filled the void around the sun, slowly but surely blocking it’s light to the earth. What was that light, though, when compared with the enormous energy being captured by the rings? That energy, converted into microwaves, could be focused onto the many satellites, space stations, colonies, and even earth itself to power the expanding civilization.

And yet, as Shanti sat on the barren dirt that used to be expansive grasslands in generations past, she wondered if it had been a mistake. All the food they needed was produced in greenhouses beneath artificial lights. Buoys dotted the ocean, shining light to feed the algae there so the earth wouldn’t run out of breathable air. So much was done to make up for the loss of the sun.

Shanti checked the time. The last series of panels should be going into place now. They were so far away that sunlight was still reaching her. It would take a few hundred seconds for the last of the light to reach her. Then, the earth, stuck in perpetual dusk for so many years, would finally know a night that wouldn’t end. Then only the artificial lights would illuminate the planet.

For most people Shanti knew, this wasn’t anything special. The amount of light from the sun that reached the earth was so insignificant that they didn’t seem to think this last bit would be all that different. In the grand scheme of things they were probably right, but something inside Shanti regretted the approaching loss.

She thought there ought to be more fanfare at least. Something to mark the occasion. A moment of silence, or fireworks, anything really besides this mundane plodding along as though nothing significant were about to happen.

While she waited for the final glint of sunlight to vanish, Shanti wondered what the earth was like before humanity harnessed the sun. When there were no global heaters, when plants grew wild across the planet. When animals roamed free. When there were insects and birds and fish and all the other things that were long extinct by the time Shanti was born. Now, all that she could do was visit a museum and look at the dead remains and pictures of those things.

Much good had come from harnessing the sun, of course. Venus was almost fully terraformed and the countless settlements and research stations throughout the solar system wouldn’t have been possible without the power gained from the sun. Technology had boomed to keep up with demand. The asteroid belt was harvested for raw materials, as was much of Mercury.

Above her, the mote of sunlight winked and Shanti thought this was it, the moment when the sun finally vanished, but it was just a wisp of cloud passing in the sky. She relaxed and watched it as the edges of the cloud dimmed the sun, reminding her that it was scheduled to rain later that day.

Day. That word was already almost a nonsense word these days. It was day when you were awake and night when you were asleep, Shanti figured, but you’d hardly know whether it was actually day or night. Going forward that distinction would be even harder to tell.

In some ways that was freeing. No longer were people tied to specific times to base their lives around. People chose when they would be awake or asleep and got jobs accordingly. Some industries were at entirely different time schedules because someone long ago had had a preference for a later or earlier time of day. There were groups of people who didn’t even follow a 24 hour schedule. Without the sun dictating their lives, they drifted to longer days, some as long as 30 hours to their day. Shanti herself kept to a 26 hour day since it let her sleep longer than a 24 hour day schedule would allow.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain wasn’t scheduled to begin for a while yet, but the storm was definitely gaining strength. When Shanti was younger she wondered why people would make it rain since there were no plants in the wild anymore. That was before she understood that, as long as earth was habitable for humans, it the water cycle would continue on its own. Better to control when and where it rained, then, to keep the cycle going but avoid the worst of it like flooding and uncontrolled erosion. Besides, fresh water was essential to life and rain kept the aquifers filled.

The temperature dropped a degree or two and the world dimmed even further. At first Shanti thought it was another cloud obscuring the sun but this time when she looked, the sun didn’t fade back into view.

It was done.

The sun would never shine onto the earth again and Shanti sat on her dark world. Lights began to blink on, illuminating buildings, roads, and most other public spaces. Shanti was away from all that but not so far that she was in total darkness. The lights were calibrated to match sunlight and in many places those lights produced far more illumination than the sliver of sunlight they would naturally get.

It wasn’t the same to Shanti. Already she felt an emptiness inside of her that missed seeing the real sun. If she ever wanted to see it again she’d have to travel to one of the inner colonies or stations. She wouldn’t do anything for now, but she certainly knew she’d be considering a transfer in the near future. As she got up off the ground she wondered if she was alone in her feelings or if there were others who would miss the sun. Only time would tell. For now, she needed to get to work and start her day in earnest.