Episode 58

Night Came Swiftly

Night came swiftly on Bonoplane. It came as the light of the pale yellow sun deepened, dusk stole over the plain, and then the sudden rush of darkness, all in the space of less than half an hour. And the night was strange. The thin, hot atmosphere did little to interfere with the light from the distant stars, which shone almost as brightly as they did in space itself. They twinkled and danced as their rays passed through the turbulence of high, fast-moving jet streams that Galton had described to her as some sort of nitrogen rivers.

After the landing, York walked out to view the wreckage with Benbow. Standing with the doctor, staring at the broken launch scattered across the broken terrain, she watched as suited figures moved among the wreckage, then slowly bore the burdens they collected there toward the burial ground blasted nearby by one of the launcher's cannons. They moved very nearly as slowly when they returned, as if reluctant to take up another depressing burden. Now and then she saw the violet, dancing shadows of cutting torches, an eerie sight on the black plain. And occasionally she saw Lieutenant Wexby's tall figure stalking back and forth in the glare of the floodlights as he commanded the operation.

“A hellish place to remain for an eternity,” Benbow murmured.

“We can seldom choose the time or place of our death,” she replied.

“No, but a man should be buried under his own sun.”

“Does it really matter?”

“Probably not. But one never knows.”

“There is that. I'm not concerned about it. Choice is seldom an option in my line of work, Doctor.”

“Or for these men.” Benbow replied sadly. “But at least they will be properly buried. At least we were able to give them that.”

It took several hours, but at last the lieutenant emerged with the news that all the human remains appeared to have been recovered. Captain Hull emerged from the lander, followed by Tregaski, Captain Pedrattus, and a pair of Marines. After them came the nine Rigel survivors, who had been brought down and the four battlesuited Marines who were escorting them. If the men from the Rigel noticed that they were effectively under guard, they gave no sign of it. Once Barngate caught York's eye and nodded.

No one spoke as they walked slowly toward the graveyard that had grown during the night. It was a silence born of solemnity, so deep that the crunching of boots in the gritty sand was clearly audible. Shivering as her ill-fitting suit labored against the freezing night, York wondered if ever before a human had been buried under this particular sun.

Lieutenant Wexby had built a small monument on which was displayed the Rigel's plaque. On it someone had engraved the names of the dead crew. They weren't all there, of course, the launch had only contained about sixty bodies. Several hundred were still missing, presumably having been ejected from air locks somewhere outside of orbit.

Wexby called the burial detail to attention as the captain arrived.

Standing before the monument, Hull bowed his helmet. Everyone followed suit. His voice was solemn. “We are gathered here to bury our comrades in the name of Terra and the human race.” With those words he began the age-old rite for men who had given their lives in the naval service.

York was moved by the compassion she could hear in Hull's voice. Hull might be a stickler for naval etiquette, and a firm believer in the disparity of Man when it came to ranks and responsibilities, but he clearly saw them all as comrades in death. He spoke well, she thought. And this was probably not the first time he had presided over such a ceremony.

As he spoke, York studied the Rigel survivors. They stood off to one side in a tight group, their faces unreadable behind their helmets, their bodies as stiff and rigid as the small stakes Wexby had set out to mark the area. How many of them were responsible for the men being buried, she wondered.

“No man who gave his life to the glory of Terra's Ascendancy will have died in vain,” Hull intoned, “for in dying, he has become a part of Man's empire for all the time to come.”

A man should die under his own sun. Benbow's words came back to her, and looking at darkness surrounding them on every side, she felt she better understood them now. Rigel's dead would soon be utterly forgotten. No human eye would ever again see their graves, nor would they be part of the endless circle of life that took place on the inhabited planets. Neither rain nor leaves would ever fall upon their graves. They would be the lost ones.

“The glory of Man's empire shall never diminish, even to the day when the universe shall end. These men have died in the service of Terra. We will not forget them.”

Vain words, York thought. But well-intentioned.

When the eulogy was complete, the captain ordered everyone to return to the launch. Once they had lifted from the surface of the planet, he contacted Draco.

“We're clear,” Hull informed the ship. “Light it up.”

“Nuclear fire?” came the request for confirmation.

“Nuclear fire,” he affirmed.

As the launch rose higher through the atmosphere towards space and the destroyer that awaited them, the wreckage and the burial ground vanished beneath a ball of weird greenish flame. Within seconds the flames collapsed into a molten mass which, converted into a gas, rose to merge with the nitrogen rivers in Bonoplane's night sky.

With the strange fires still burning below them, they shook off the last clutches of gravity and headed for their rendezvous with Draco.

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