0300 Book 2 - 13. Chapter 13: The Funeral

Chapter 13: The Funeral

The next day, I asked Artie to come to my Ready Room. I sat on the couch, and asked him to sit beside me. That usually meant we were going to have a family talk. When we talked officially, I sat at my desk and he sat at a chair beside it. This was going to be an official talk, but I knew that he would need a hug before it was over. I was pretty sure I would, too.

“Artie, you know, don’t you, that Corey’s people brought in kids who were too hurt to survive? And some who were already dead. In fact, Corey said when they realized that they were rescuing kids, they brought in every body they could.”

Artie knew what I was not saying: that some of the littlest kids had committed to being suicide bombers when they reached Las Vegas and got into the Reverends’ compound. When the California Army was attacked by tanks, most of those kids had run to the tanks and blown themselves up. It hadn’t done any good, and there was no way their little bodies could be recovered.

Artie had tears running down his face. It was okay; in fact, it was good. He knew he could cry with me, and it helped keep him from crying in front of his troops. “Yeah,” he said. He held up his communicator. “The roster shows 68 bodies. Only 20 of them have names.

“The Reverends did funerals. They were all about how the person was now with the Reverends’ god, in heaven where the streets were paved with gold and there was hot water and always enough to eat. And, it was like church service, all day, every day. They said it was heaven; but, I think that would be like hell. I don’t think any of us believe any of that, any more. Not sure we believed it, then. We can’t have a funeral like that, but we have to do something. I don’t know what I should do”

I was happy he put it that way. He accepted responsibility, but he knew he was in over his head and was willing to ask for help.

“Let’s start with the easy questions,” I said.

“How do we honor their deaths, but at the same time deal with their bodies.

“You do know, don’t you, that whoever and whatever they were is no longer there?”

Artie nodded.

“Our funerals are not celebrations,” I said. “But they’re not entirely times of sadness, either. We honor who the person was, and we reflect on our own feelings of love and loss. There’s catharsis: we cry on each other’s shoulders, we promise to remember the person. Then, we go on with our lives.

“The person’s empty shell, his or her body, may be cleaned, dressed, and then wrapped in a shroud. If the funeral is on Earth, the body is usually cremated. The residue may be scattered over a place the person was especially fond of, or it may be thrown into the wind, to rest where nature and chance takes it.

“If the funeral is in space, the body may be deorbited into the atmosphere of a planet in which it burns and is scattered all over the planet.”

I paused for breath, and to think. Artie jumped in. “You could see them from Earth? Burning through the atmosphere?”

I nodded. I think I know where he’s going. And, yes, you could see them, especially if we added a little something.”

“Then that’s what we should do: deorbit them over our Earth where they’ll put on a show that the Reverends will see.”

Again I nodded but asked, “How will the Reverends interpret that? Will it just make them stronger?”

“Not if we prepare the way,” Artie said.

It took a while for me to understand what Artie meant. He’d been busy working with the signals and electronic intelligence people. The Reverends used microwaves to transmit their televisor signals to a town, and then used broadcast antennas to blanket the town. The principal signal came from Omaha, Nebraska. My boys had found places from which to intercept the signals. If they could intercept it, they could block it, and, covering the Reverends’ territory with a televisor signal from several satellites in synchronous orbit? No problem.

If we broadcast our own story, the fireworks over Las Vegas would not be a sign of the Reverends’ strength, but a sign of our defiance.

A catafalque stretched across the front of the auditorium. The bodies of 68 children, washed, dressed in gray and black uniforms, and wrapped in white shrouds, lay upon it.

After the roll of known dead—horribly short—was read, Artie told everyone that there were 48 children without names, plus an untold number whose bodies had not been recovered. He explained why, and then stepped aside.

Corey Long stood and walked to the catafalque on which the 68 bodies lay. “My name is Corey Long. I give my name to this unknown child . . .” Corey put his hand on the shrouded body. “ . . . who gave his life that his brothers might live. We are forever, one. He is forever a part of me. I will not forget him.”

Danny was next. He and Corey and Artie had vied for the honor of being first. I never asked how they had resolved it. “My name is Danny Stewart.” Danny put his hand on the next body. “I give my name, and my father’s name, to this child who gave his life that his brothers might live. We are forever one. He is forever a part of me, and he is my brother. I will not forget him.”

Artie was next. His promise was like Danny’s. I could not control my tears. Now, I had five sons, two of whom were dead, had died for their brothers. It was a good thing that I was not a part of the funeral.

The roll call continued, until each one of the little bodies had a name. Then, everyone—Fleet, the Long family, the U-Cal boys—stood and recited the words that had been offered them. “My name is Legion, for I am many,” they said. “I am those whose names are not known, but who sacrificed themselves for their brothers. I am the unknown but never forgotten.

“I am those thousands of unknown who will be called upon to sacrifice themselves that others might live in freedom.”

The funeral was broadcast throughout the Earth. The story of these children’s battle and their sacrifice had been planted in the media, and had been broadcast for weeks. According to the polls, the funeral was the most watched program on television that decade.