as inevitable as those yearly dust storms I mentioned. I refuse to spend my life hiding behind a dense layer of MPG security forces who follow me to every errand I run, who plan out my every move in advance. I refuse this security for my own freedom even though I am a woman who has made many enemies on a planet where nearly every man, woman, and child owns a handgun. My death is coming and I accept this.
Attached to this email is a video file I made just an hour ago. It contains my final words to the Planet Mars and I want you to play it at my funeral, to let me have one last say before I'm committed to the ashes of the crematorium. I will program the computer to scan MarsGroup news files on a continuing basis. When it begins to detect news stories announcing my death then, and only then, will this email be sent to you.
Goodbye, my friend and don't grieve for me too long. I can guarantee you I died happy if I died on a free Mars.
Jackson had tears in his eyes as he read and then re-read the email. Of all the things Laura had done in the past to amaze him, this was perhaps the most amazing. She had spoken to him from beyond death. And now she wanted to speak to the planet from there as well.
He brought his finger down and touched the video file icon. The video player program automatically opened it up and began to play it. Jackson watched it all the way through, his mouth hanging open most of the time.
'My God,' he whispered and then broke into a grin. 'Laura... you're brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.'
He quickly saved the email and then the video file. He made several copies of the video and distributed them to different portions of the Internet where he could easily retrieve them. He then told his computer to contact Diane Nguyen, CEO of MarsGroup.
Diane appeared on the screen almost immediately. 'Hi, Kevin,' she said, her own eyes a little swollen and reddened. 'How are you holding up?'
'I'm doing better all of a sudden,' he said. 'I just got an email from Laura.'
'Excuse me?' she said.
He explained it to her and even sent her a copy of the text portion. 'You can print that up whenever you want. The video will remain in my possession until her funeral.'
'Can you give me at least a summery of what's in it?' she asked hungrily, itching for more of the story.
'No,' he said. 'I won't breathe a word of it until her funeral. Then the whole fucking planet can watch it.'
'Can I quote you on that?' she asked.
'Fuckin' aye,' he told her.
Jack Strough did not know what was in the video Laura Whiting had made three months ago, the video that was to be played at her funeral, but he knew he didn't want anyone to see it. He tried to use his influence on the legislature members who were now in charge of the planet in Laura Whiting's absence. Well over half of them had been converted to his way of thinking about things (as he liked to term it). He asked them to declare the video an unfair influence on the upcoming election and to order it suppressed, hopefully forever but at least until after the special election.
Though the legislature seemed to be seriously considering such a declaration Jackson was able to counter this thrust with a quite skillful parry of his own. He went on live MarsGroup the night before the funeral and made a short but effective speech.
'Jack Strough is trying to corrupt the legislature into suppressing the video of Laura Whiting,' he said. 'He is trying to keep you, the Martian people, from hearing her last words because they scare him. He's afraid that the speech she planned in the event of her death will make you change your mind, will make you lose faith in him.
'Don't let him get away with this. Laura Whiting wanted you to hear her words; she needed you to hear her words. I have seen this speech and it is moving and inspirational, a credit to the woman we all loved, that we all stood behind during our darkest hours. I implore you, start sending those emails to the legislature again. Let them know that they cannot silence Laura Whiting.'
The emails poured in. Millions upon millions of them in the two hours following Jackson's speech. The legislature voted unanimously to not suppress the video. Jack Strough, knowing that further attempts to suppress her voice would be ineffective and counter-productive, kept silent on the matter and simply hoped that a three- month-old recording would not be relevant to the events going on today.
He was wrong.
Capital Park, New Pittsburgh
January 6, 2147
The funeral started at 0900 hours. Laura Whiting's body lay in a simple casket made of cellulose, closed, as was Martian custom. The casket lay atop a platform before the capital park rose garden just outside the entrance to the Capital Building itself. Thousands upon thousands of grieving Martians from all walks of life gathered in the park to witness the ceremony. News cameras from MarsGroup were set up everywhere and broadcast the entire thing live.
It was short and to the point, as was also the Martian custom. General Jackson, in traditional MPG shorts and T-shirt, hosted. He gave a short speech about Laura's life and about her dream of making the planet free one day. He did not push the issue in any way. He knew that Laura herself would do a much better job of that then he could.
'I promised you all that I would play the video she sent me at the service today,' he announced. 'It is now keyed up and ready. My PC is linked to the MarsGroup broadcast equipment and when I tell my computer to play it, it will be seen on all MarsGroup channels as well as the large video screen behind me. And so, with no further ado...' He pulled out his PC and spoke a few commands to it. The screen behind him flickered and came to life. At the same time every PC and every video terminal that was tuned to MarsGroup — ninety-nine point seven of them according to later statistics — lit up as well. Laura Whiting's face appeared, looking tired but elated. A hush fell over the crowd, over the planet, as she began to speak.
'My fellow Martians,' she said. 'I am making this video in my office on September 3, 2146, between phases one and two of the first invasion of the Martian Revolutionary War. You are watching this at some point in the future, probably not more than a few months at most. I am dead, felled by an assassin. I have foreseen my own death and I have foreseen what will happen in these next few months. I make this video so I may share with you my hopes, my dreams, for the future of our planet and of our species.
'We will win our battle with WestHem. I know this to be true. As you are watching this, we might already have achieved that victory. There is no precognition at work here. I am not a psychic, not a prophet. General Jackson is the best military mind alive today. In the annals of history he will someday be included with the likes of Sun Tzu, Rommel, Macarthur, Patton, Li Chang, and Jacob Hornsby. Those WestHem marine commanders operating under a corrupt and flawed system are no match for General Jackson and the Martian spirit he has fighting for him. Military victory will be ours. It is only common sense.
'There is one other thing I foresee and again there is no divine influence involved here, only my common sense and my own knowledge of human behavior. What I am about to describe is as true as our assured victory and may already be underway by the time you view this video. This is something that is just as lethal to Martian freedom as a military defeat, only more gradual, more insidious.
'This is what I know. There will be those who will attempt to take advantage of our newly won freedom for their own purposes. These people will be fellow Martians, not Earthlings from EastHem or WestHem. They will be men and women with legitimate claim to citizenship on this planet but they will be those upon whom Martian values were lost at some point. They will be people in positions of power of some sort, people who know how to speak to large groups, who know how to get others to do what they want them to do, to believe what they want them to believe. I could name names of such people if I wanted to — there are ten or twelve right off the top of my head I consider most likely to do what I'm about to describe — but that is not necessary for my purposes here today.
'What these people will attempt to do is form a society that benefits them and those like them to the detriment of everyone else. They will attempt to form this society out of the fear, chaos, and confusion that will follow the withdrawal of the marines from this planet. It may be one person who tries this or it may be several, acting either independently or in conjunction with each other but their ultimate goal will be to usurp power for themselves and deny it to where it should go: to everyone. They will use your fear of further war, your hopes of prosperity, and your needs to put a quiet and painless end to the conflict against you in order to achieve their goals.
'The most likely scenario I foresee is an attempt to prematurely negotiate a peace treaty with WestHem and
