A Just Farewell Read Online Free PDF Page B

process, for
the governors didn’t need to know how the ultimate answer really
worked; they only needed to understand the scale of the proposal’s
destruction.
     
    The spider web of laser light grew brilliant
and pulsed before delivering ripples, rings of bent space and time,
into the heart of the Earth. The planet shimmered as one ripple
after another constricted upon it. The familiar land masses
contorted into strange shapes, pulled and stretched by the massive,
unseen forces that flowed through the very fabric of existence.
Then, in the time it took to wink, the great planet Earth, once
home to millenniums of life and civilization, collapsed upon itself
into a single mote of light, which pulsed once like a distant, new
start before simply vanishing from the heavens as if it had never
ben, leaving all fifty-one space station castles alone to encircle
empty space.
     
    “There’s not a single chunk of debris.
There’s not even an asteroid cloud.” Kelly sighed.
     
    The general nodded. “There will be nothing
left that might endanger any of the existing castles.”
     
    “But where does it go? What happens to
Earth?”
     
    “I don’t think any of the engineers and
scientists responsible for the ultimate answer know,” the general
replied. “Perhaps the small, black hole that exists for only a
moment delivers the Earth to some parallel universe. Or perhaps,
the Earth simply ceases to exist all together. What matters is that
the planet will no longer exist as far as we’re concerned. What’s
most important for us is that the tribes will no longer threaten
our survival, and that the savages will never deliver any of their
zealotry and savagery to any of the stars or worlds that wait for
us.”
     
    Kelly stared at black, empty space on the
screen where a glowing planet had been. “And now the decision
whether or not to go ahead with that proposal falls upon me. One
way or another, I must decide.”
     
    “You must. If you refuse vote, you decide to
spare the Earth and the savage tribes, a choice I believe only
keeps us in danger.”
     
    “I’m as afraid of the tribes as anyone else
who’s ascended into the castles, but how can I vote for this? How
can my soul live with? Do the tribes not have children who might
offer us all hope? Do any people deserve such a punishment?”
     
    “The tribes deserve it,” answered the
general. “What if I could prove to you that the tribes are
irredeemable? What if I could show you that they’re no longer even
human, that they’ve devolved into a kind of virus?”
     
    “How would you do that?”
     
    “You will find another file on my drive
currently installed into your system. Run that application, and I
can explain.”
     
    Kelly easily located the file, and a quick
double-tap with her fingers upon her armrest executed the program.
The silver screen winked a moment before revealing a view of a
dimly-lit chamber whose earthen walls suggested it to be
subterranean. The camera’s angle was very low to the ground, and it
moved about the chamber as if mounted to a pair of wheels. General
Harrison removed a small remote control device from another of his
jacket pockets, and his fingers rotated the small joysticks as the
camera focused upon a young boy nestled into the dusty blankets of
a cot.
     
    “What am I looking at? Who is that?”
     
    The general twisted the joysticks, and the
image settled upon a half-dozen large insects scuttling about the
floor, their shells painted in vibrant colors and illustrated in a
variety of patterns.
     
    “The men and women in castle intelligence
have little difficulty in infiltrating the tribe’s hovels,” the
general chuckled. “Our camera is mounted upon one of the large,
burrowing cockroaches so common now on old Earth. The tribes will
never suspect we watch them through such small eyes.”
     
    “You control the bug?”
     
    The general nodded. “We’ve fused small
circuitry directly into the insect’s nervous system.