Never got to say it. Prof said, “You did exactly right, Manuel. You were acting head of government and the crisis was on top of you. I’m delighted that you did not throw away the golden moment merely because I was out of touch.”
What can you do with a bloke like that? Me with heat up to red mark and no chance to use it–had to swallow and say, “Spasebaw, Prof.”
Prof confirmed death of “Adam Selene.” “We could have used the fiction a little longer but this is the perfect opportunity. Mike, you and Manuel have matters in hand; I had better stop off at Churchill on my way home and identify his body.”
So he did. Whether Prof picked a Loonie body or a trooper I never asked, nor how he silenced anybody else involved–perhaps no huhu as many bodies in Churchill Upper were never identified. This one was right size and skin color; it had been explosively decompressed and burned in face–looked awful!
It lay in state in Old Dome with face covered, and was speech-making I didn’t listen to–Mike didn’t miss a word; his most human quality was his conceit. Some rockhead wanted to embalm this dead flesh, giving Lenin as a precedent. But Pravda pointed out that Adam was a staunch conservationist and would never want this barbaric exception made. So this unknown soldier, or citizen, or citizen-soldier, wound up in our city’s cloaca.
Which forces me to tell something I’ve put off. Wyoh was not hurt, merely exhaustion. But Ludmilla never came back. I did not know it–glad I didn’t–but she was one of many dead at foot of ramp facing Ben Marche. An explosive bullet hit between her lovely, little-girl breasts. Kitchen knife in her hand had blood on it–! think she had had time to pay Ferryman’s Fee.
Stu came out to Complex to tell me rather than phoning, then went back with me. Stu had not been missing; once fight was over he had gone to Raffles to work with his special codebook–but that can wait. Mum reached him there and he offered to break it to me.
So then I had to go home for our crying-together–though it is well that nobody reached me until after Mike and I started Hard Rock. When we got home, Stu did not want to come in, not being sure of our ways. Anna came out and almost dragged him in. He was welcome and wanted; many neighbors came to cry. Not as many as with most deaths–but we were just one of many families crying together that day.
Did not stay long–couldn’t; had work to do. I saw Milla just long enough to kiss her good-bye. She was lying in her room and did look as if she did be simply sleeping. Then I stayed a while with my beloveds before going back to pick up load. Had never realized, until that day, how old Mimi is. Sure, she had seen many deaths, some her own descendants. But little Milla’s death did seem almost too much for her. Ludmilla was special–Mimi’s granddaughter, daughter in all but fact, and by most special exception and through Mimi’s intervention her co-wife, most junior to most senior.
Like all Loonies, we conserve our dead–and am truly glad that barbaric custom of burial was left back on old Earth; our way is better. But Davis family does not put that which comes out of processor into our commercial farming tunnels. No. It goes into our little greenhouse tunnel, there to become roses and daffodils and peonies among soft-singing bees. Tradition says that Black Jack Davis is in there, or whatever atoms of him do remain after many, many, many years of blooming.
Is a happy place, a beautiful place.
Came Friday with no answer from F.N. News up from Earthside seemed equal parts unwillingness to believe we had destroyed seven ships and two regiments (F.N. had not even confirmed that a battle had taken place) and complete disbelief that we could bomb Terra, or could matter if we did–they still called it “throwing rice.” More time was given to World Series.
Stu worried because had received no answers to code messages. They had gone via LuNoHoCo’s commercial traffic to their Zurich agent, thence to Stu’s Paris broker, from him by less usual channels to Dr. Chan, with whom I had once had a talk and with whom Sm had talked later, arranging a communication channel. Stu had pointed out to Dr. Chan that, since Great China was not to be bombed until twelve hours after North America, bombing of Great China could be aborted after bombing of North America was a proved fact–if Great China acted swiftly. Alternatively, Stu had invited Dr. Chan to suggest variations in target if our choices in Great China were not as deserted as we believed them to be.