Where Spacemen Go To Die
He had arrived at the future and it didn’t include him.
His Personal Helper had packed him up and they both laughed. It was one box, mostly insignia from his work on biological station 143. He was proud of what he had done there. It was green and things were growing. He had even put up a permanent No Fight No Attack Zone all around it. Everything else he owned-it was just stuff. His PH had it disposed.
“I am not coming with you,” his PH had said, perfectly emanating sadness and concern from a program his Master had designed-oh so many years ago.
“I am talking to myself, it seems.”
“Excuse me, sir.”
“It’s alright. Just an old man’s lament.” He patted the PM on its arm. “Let’s go get bombed!”
The bar was empty, of course. Everyone had been retired.
“Do you want simulated patrons, sir?”
“Not tonight. Not tonight.”
They drank and his PH even told some wonderful bar jokes and got him laughing.
They sang an ancient song about a moon-with-a-face filled with the souls of lost lovers.
“They call, they call to us
Our craft approaches
And every time the Mission light glows
And we are called away
So far so far to places who knows?
We will be back,
After battles are fought
And those who still live
Will answer your calls.”
He woke up and his PH was gone. His box was next to him on a bare table. He sat up on the bed.
“I am indeed alone now.”
He didn’t know the protocol but expected it to be rapid, possibly painful. He sometimes really wanted to be extinguished but something inside told him to hang on. To what? All he had known was space, space battles, invasions. Space sleep. It was unfair never to simply die. More than unfair it was empty. The academies had even taught there was no death, only Duty! Would it be like space sleep?
He put on his favorite uniform, the one he had worn on 143. He stood at attention facing the door. His PH had only given him one clue. “Six-thirty”, he had said. It was six-twenty-nine.
Six-thirty.
The door opened. And then nothing.
*
Something bright forced him to look away and try to turn. He couldn’t but then was flipped over.
He felt a tapping on his back and heard voices-light, musical, warm voices and one voice that entered into him and made his eyes get drowsy.
Later he found his face pressed into something warm and damp and moist. His throat took it in until again he slept.
Crying, crying, crying was all he wanted to do. It felt great even though he felt awful. Finally, he was picked up and the same voice soothed him. This time he could see a color. He strained to see more but it was blurry. Green. It was green. He reached for it. The voice lowered him down. He grabbed it and put it in his mouth. Joy blew through his body like a jolt and then he forgot everything and gave up in the arms of mother.
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