The Aftermath

A HIGHER LAW

The funeral service was brief and attended only by Dorn and the Zacharias family. And the security guards that followed Dorn everywhere. Big George would not willingly place himself in the same section of the habitat as Dorn; the people of Chrysalis II may have voted leniency for Dorik Harbin, but George would not be party to their decision.

The International Consortium of Universities had offered to send a representative to the solemnities, but Dorn decided not to wait. He went ahead with the funeral the day after Elverda died, her heart too frail to support her any longer, despite the stem cell therapy that had saved her life after her first heart attack. Her final words were to Dorn:

“It’s time for me to leave you. I’m too tired to go on.” He was kneeling at her bed in the habitat’s small hospital, like a grieving son at his mother’s bedside.

She stroked the etched metal of his skullcap with her skeletal, bloodless hand. “You must go on without me, Dorn. Can you find the strength to do that?” Her voice was a feather-light whisper.

He didn’t answer.

“There’s something that a very brave and wise man said, nearly two centuries ago,” Elverda rasped. “He said, ‘Life persists in the middle of destruction. Therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction.’ ”

Dorn muttered, “A higher law.”

“Gandhi said that. Can you believe it? Can you follow its path?”

“Is that what you wish?”

“Yes,” she said, with all of the little strength left in her. “Follow the law of life. You have much to give. You have much to live for.”

“I wish I thought so.”

“Do it for me, then. My dying wish. Live! Turn your back on death. Make your life mean something.”

For long moments he was silent. At last Dorn said, “I’ll try. I promise you—I’ll try.”

But by then Elverda Apacheta was dead.

* * *

Dorn commandeered an equipment pod for her sarcophagus and, with all four of the Zacharias family helping him, placed it in one of the habitat’s airlocks and fired it out into space.

“She will become an asteroid, circling the Sun just as her Rememberer does.”

Theo thought he saw tears glimmering in Dorn’s human eye. He heard his mother and sister sobbing softly behind him.

* * *

Hours later, feeling utterly wretched, Theo returned to the quarters that the rock rats’ administrative council had granted them: a string of three adjoining living units, with connecting doors between them.

Bone tired, weary and discouraged, he looked around the spare little compartment. The message from Selene University still flickered on his desktop screen. Where do I go from here? he asked himself. Not to Selene: they’ve made that clear enough. The university doesn’t want me. They turned down my application.

He heard a snuffling sound from the compartment next door. Putting his ear to the connecting door he listened for a moment. Angle’s crying, he realized.

Theo tapped on the door and called, “Angie?”

The sobbing stopped. “Thee?”

“Are you all right?”

He slid the door back and saw that her eyes were puffy and red, her cheeks runneled with tears.

“What’s the matter?” Theo asked, stepping into her compartment.

“It’s Leif,” she said, and broke into sobs again.

“Leif? The guy you were seeing…?”

“Leif Haldeman,” Angela choked out, wiping at her eyes.

“He was on Chrysalis,” Theo realized. “He was one of the people Dorik Harbin killed.”

Angela’s red-rimmed eyes widened. “No! He was on a mining ship when the attack happened.”

“Then he’s alive?”

“He’s married,” Angela said, struggling to hold back another burst of tears.

Theo tried not to laugh, not even smile. “Oh,” he said.

“He’s a father.”

He put his arm around his sister’s shoulders and held her close. “Don’t worry Angie. There are lots of other guys in the world.”

“But I loved him!”

He lifted her chin and smiled down at her. “Come on. Fix your face and come with me.”

“Where?”

“To the nearest bar. We can drown our sorrows together.”

“Our… you’ve got sorrows too?”

He sighed. “Yep. Selene University doesn’t want me. No scholarship. It’s been too long since I first applied.”

“But that’s not fair!”

“No, I guess not. But we’ve lost more than four years, Angie. And there’s nothing we can do about that.”

* * *

There was only one restaurant in the habitat, the Shoo-Shoo, owned and operated by an Italian cook and his Japanese wife. Neither Angela nor Theo was in the mood for eating, but the hostess- owner took one look at the two downcast young siblings and presented them with a delicate sushi selection before she brought the wine they ordered.

Wisely, she sat them at the sushi bar instead of a table. It was mid-afternoon: most of the tables were empty but there were half a dozen customers along the curving bar, chatting amiably with the sushi chefs (both sons of the owners) and one another.

Angela took an experimental sip of the red wine that Theo had picked at random from the list displayed on the bartop screen.

“Ugh!” She put the stemmed glass down. “People actually drink this?”

Theo felt his mouth tingling. “I guess it must be an acquired taste.”

“Try the sake,” said the young man sitting on Angela’s other side.

“Or a beer,” suggested the guy sitting on the next stool over. “Straight from the brewery on Vesta.”

Before long Angela was deep in conversation with the two of them: mining engineers who began explaining how nanomachines took atoms of selected metals out of asteroids and bypassed the old smelting process. Theo watched as he sipped at his wine and realized that Angie would not be lovelorn for long. Men are attracted to her. She’s sort of beautiful, I guess. Not like me.

On his other side, a few chairs down, a pair of older men were discussing Dorn’s trial.

“I never saw Big George so worked up,” said one of them. “He wanted that cyborg executed. I thought maybe he’d do it himself.”