A Just Farewell (14 page)

Kelly felt General Harrison arrive beside
her as she stared at the orb whose waters, despite all of the
land’s ruin, maintained such a blue glow.

“I still think it’s a shame,” Kelly
sighed.

“Because it is,” agreed the general.

“And yet we do it.”

“We must,” the general waved a server away
before she could present him with a polished tray of cheesecake
slices. “I’ve come to live with what we’re about to do by
convincing myself that the destruction of our homeworld is only one
more step in the natural chain of humankind’s ascendency. I tell
myself we’ve always been destined to step into the stars and leave
that world behind us. Consider all the great minds who have come
before us. Our forefathers and foremothers, Governor Chen, strove
to preserve that planet as long as possible. The ancestors of those
savage tribes did the very opposite. Our great-grandparents tried
to warn the world of the looming ecological disasters, did all they
could to convince the others to make simple sacrifices to stave off
the drought and the heat before it exploded into so much famine,
war, pestilence and death. Our ancestors argued as rationally as
they could. They collected all the objective data that they might.
And still, the ancestors of those savages chose to deny it all, on
account that any sacrifice was too much of an inconvenience, or
that any scientific paper was a threat to every single value they
claimed to have followed during their lifetimes.

“So our ancestors quietly resigned
themselves to the folly of their fellow woman and man. They
researched and built, while their neighbors and peers descended
deeper and deeper into ignorance. The dimwitted mocked the efforts
to build the great castles. The dull bemoaned about the cost to
raise those space stations just below the stars. And those who
chose to ignore all the signs of how the world unraveled despised
our ancestors when they started to lift into the heavens and leave
the foolish behind. Those who hated what our ancestors built
conducted so many wars and instituted so much slaughter until all
the old gods and bigotry melded together into a single deity of
cruelty irony named the ‘Maker.’ And then, those fools, who time
turned into savages, turned their killing upon us. Only by then, it
was too late, so that while their bombs, swords and guns claimed a
few of us still left upon the old ground, they failed to touch
those of us whose efforts built a place on the threshold of the
universe.

“I believe, Governor Chen, that we deserve
this place in the heavens, and that the tribes do not. Toil,
sacrifice and work have provided us with an opportunity to lift
humankind above a lost world’s rubble. I believe we’ll come to call
so many new planets home. I will not mourn for the old world, for I
know it’s simply time for us to rise.”

Governor Chen lifted a finger and caught the
eye of handsome server bearing a tray of mimosas. “I think I might
have a drink after all.”

The lights of the viewing deck dimmed just
as Governor Chen felt the drink’s warmth soothe her nerves. The
power reserves had reached their maximum, and the darkness signaled
that the time arrived for the castles to drift into their proper
positions for the ultimate answer’s execution. The blue world
beyond the wide window turned and shifted, and everyone held their
breath as a low hum vibrated through the walls and tickled through
the crowd of dress shoes. All the governors gasped as great beams
of golden light flashed from each space station to bind them
together into a cage that contained the planet below. A wave of
vertigo pulsed through Governor Chen’s mind, and pressure forced
her ears to pop. And then, the great, old and blue Earth simply
vanished in less time than was required to wink. No fiery explosion
blinded those observing in the viewing deck. No concussion caused
the space station’s walls to creak. No pinhole of a black hole
swirled at the center where the Earth had been. The homeworld was
simply gone, and the stars betrayed no melancholy as they continued
to twinkle.

“And so the savages are all dead?” Governor
Chen asked with a whisper.

General Harrison shrugged. “I suppose so.
But the engineers and scientists all agree that there just might a
chance we only delivered them and that ancient planet to another
parallel place. What matters most is that we’re finally safe. The
savages will never reach us in these stars.”

* * * * *

Chapter 12 – A Sight to Inspire Prayer

“You’re sure it’s not too small?” Blake
smiled as his wife Rachel planted a kiss on his cheek. “I know this
settlement cottage was a little smaller for the money than some of
the other catalog models, but I really thought this cottage was
much more solid.”

Rachel laughed and leaned back against the
tiles of her new settlement home’s roof. “Too small? How can
anything be too small when all the heavens expand over our
heads?”

Blake’s eyes beamed in delight. “This moon
named Regis sure provides one hell of a night sky.”

The purple and pink gas giant named Abingdon
loomed throughout much of the Regis moon’s eastern, night sky. Its
wispy clouds swirled and spun as Blake and Rachel watched that
planet’s furious storms rage against one another from the safety of
their settlement home’s rooftop. When they succeeded in calming
their racing hearts long enough to listen to the wind, they could
her the friction of that planet’s storms murmuring through their
sky, like some low chant that might’ve been hummed by strange and
hooded monks.

“It’s such a miracle,” Rachel grinned.

Blake chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure all the
mathematics and physics they made us study on the castles would
well enough explain it all if you took the time to work it
out.”

Rachel shook her head. “Oh, no they
wouldn’t. I just know all those scribbled numbers and equations
wouldn’t come close to accounting for any of it. The air’s too pure
in the lungs, and it tastes too sweet. It’s never too cold, and
it’s never too hot. Don’t you dare start preaching about
mathematical odds and possibilities, Blake. Don’t you dare break
the mood with that kind of talk. That sky is an absolute miracle,
and there has to be some kind of divine hand responsible for it
all.”

Blake playfully embraced Rachel and pulled
her body onto the blankets they unfurled across the rooftop.
“You’re sounding a little like some tribal savage.”

Rachel kissed Blake hard and long. “And
don’t you try to next tell me that you don’t like it when my blood
turns a little savage. I think I’m going to build a little
shrine.”

“A what?”

“A shrine,” Rachel extracted herself from
Blake’s roaming hands just long enough to take another long stare
at Abingdon’s whirling typhoons. “I thought I might collect a few
of those incredible flowers with the beads of gold that pulse
throughout their petals. They seem to grow so thick along that
gravel path to our front door. I thought I might tie some of those
flowers together and make a kind of wreath that I might place in a
kind of wooden shrine. Promise me you’ll make one for me,
Blake.”

Blake held up his hand. “But I don’t know
the first thing about building a shrine, or even what one might
look like.”

“Oh, but you did so well putting the pieces
of this settlement cottage’s kit together,” Rachel pressed herself
harder into Blake’s chest. “Just a little roof for the flowers.
Something to protect the wreath from the wind. Don’t you feel the
slightest urge to give thanks to whatever magic is responsible for
creating such a view as the one we’ve discovered on this moon?
Don’t you think we should at least give a little prayer to whatever
god made such a heaven? There can’t be anything wrong with
that.”

Blake nodded and let his hand drift a bit
higher up Rachel’s leg. “No, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with
building a shrine at all.”

* * * * *

About
the Writer

Brian S. Wheeler calls Hillsboro, Illinois home, a
town of roughly 6,000 in the middle of the flatland. He grew up in
Carlyle, Illinois, a community less than an hour away from
Hillsboro, where he spent a good amount of his childhood playing
wiffle ball and tinkering on his computer. The rural Midwest
inspires much of Brian's work, and he hopes any connections readers
might make between his fiction and the places and people he has had
the pleasure to know are positive.

Brian earned a degree in English from Eastern
Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. He has taught high
school English and courses in composition and creative writing.
Imagination has been one of Brian's steadfast companions since
childhood, and he dreams of creating worlds filled with inspiration
and characters touched by magic.

When not writing, Brian does his best to keep
organized, to get a little exercise, or to try to train good German
Shepherd dogs. He remains an avid reader. More information
regarding Brian S. Wheeler, his novels, and his short stories can
be found by visiting his website at
www.flatlandfiction.com
.