A Just Farewell by Brian S. Wheeler Page A

martyrdom must have been a glorious one
deserving of a magnificent story sewn upon his cape, for after
decades of silence, the castles again levelled their guns upon the
villages of the tribes.
     
    * * * * *
     
    “General Harrison, is there anyway we can
push the timetable forward? Is there anyway to more quickly execute
the ultimate answer?”
     
    General Harrison shook his head at Governor
Praxis’ face glowing within his communications monitor. “I’m afraid
it wouldn’t do us any good pushing ahead with the proposal after
Governor Spencer exercised his executive initiative and unleashed
that salvo from his castle cannons. Had Governor Spencer asked for
my advice, I may have warned him that such an attack would diminish
the collective energy reserve of our castles and delay the
implementation of our ultimate answer, even if Governor Chen had
already affirmed our plan with her final vote. Seeing as we’re not
going to have the capacity to move forward for some time now,
Governor, I see no reason to hurry Governor Chen’s decision.”
     
    Governor Praxis sighed. General Harrison
wondered if his face had aged as much as the governor’s apparently
had. The governors were feeling the danger. The general had warned
them not to underestimate the tribes’ cunning resolve. Time and
again, he had told those governors that, no matter how much faith
those living within the stars placed within their space stations,
the tribes, savages they might be, would sooner or later strike the
orbiting castles. Despite all their precautions, the tribes managed
to infiltrate another human bomb onto a rocket bound for Governor
Spencer’s castle. The tribes planted their explosive within a boy
who, from what accounts the general’s team gathered from the
ground, appeared to have been no older than twelve. General
Harrison’s heart saddened, for he so easily imagined how compassion
motivated some sentry at the rocket facility to let down his guard
so that a dirty, dusty child might ascend from a barbaric world and
discover a civilized life within the stars. They were fortunate
that the rocket’s captain conducted the precautionary scans
following his launch as the general had suggested so that the
explosives surgically implanted within that child were discovered.
The rocket crew sacrificed their lives and detonated their rocket
so that the child couldn’t reach Governor Spencer’s delicate space
station, and measurements recorded from that explosion clearly
showed that the child had packed enough firepower to fracture the
space station and expose it to the vacuum. General Harrison
shuddered to think of the lives that may have been lost and of the
series of failures that might have followed that may have doomed
the castle to a fiery end as it fell back into Earth’s
atmosphere.”
     
    “Perhaps Governor Spencer was wise when he
destroyed the rocket facility.”
     
    General Harrison shook his head. “He acted
rashly and foolishly. There are other rocket facilities on the
planet, surrounded by other tribes. His actions only wasted
resources and stranded more civilized refugees on the world.”
     
    “You’re telling me that all we can do is
wait?”
     
    General Harrison nodded. “All we can do now,
Governor Praxis, is try to conserve as much power as possible to
recharge our energy reserves. I recommend that we power down all
non-essential systems. That will make life uncomfortable for our
castle populations. People will have to cope with chilly living
quarters. Everyone will need to consume less and sleep more. But
any cutback we can make in our energy usage will bring us that much
closer to executing our ultimate answer.”
     
    “I’ll bring your suggestion before the
governors immediately.”
     
    General Harrison leaned forward. “Governor,
I suggest you take the same executive initiative that Governor
Spencer took when he unleashed those cannons and immediately limit
the consumption of power within your station. I