 Why does everyone begin to starve and grow thirsty?
When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's going, how can they tell when it has arrived? But ever since the engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone, from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his life, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings had grown. There had been a revolt—again a term without any real meaning, a term that could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and the elders were overthrown. The people had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and that it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They were born and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like little cogs in a great machine. He could see the look of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down upon him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of medicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of old age, the rays would no longer suffice. Rikud often thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future, not without a sense of alarm. True, this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but it proved the world was not perfect.
 Rikud broke the buzzer, and without it they don't know how to care for themselves.
 Without the buzzer, there is no food or drink to have.  The buzzer no longer works, and no one knows how to fix it.  Rikud broke the buzzer, and they're all waiting.  Rikud broke the buzzer, and without it they don't know how to care for themselves.