“Crying in a spacesuit is… ill advised…”

“Fuck you.”

I suppose that was the start of a eulogy, incongruous as it was.

He was right though. At least we weren’t in microgravity so the tears traced a sluggish path down my cheeks and into the collar of my coolsuit instead of becoming little floating globules of nastiness.

The sun burned down upon us, casting every pebble and microcrater into sharp relief as the regolith crunched under our feet. The sky was the black of space, even the stars washed out by the fierce furnace which lit our way.

We had, at last, arrived at Fra Mauro Base and my duty was about to be completed. I had never expected what happened 30 years before, when I was bequeathed his ashes with clear instructions.

Far less had I expected to be accompanied by my children, my sister, her descendants…. as we carried out the instructions which had become the driving force behind a corporate empire.

“You will…”

No request… a directive. Not “Please do this thing” but “You will do this thing or die trying”.

“You will scatter ½ of my ashes around the Fra Mauro landing site and leave the remainder in the urn, open to space. You will carry the ashes of my crew and do the same for them. Mr. Pei has designed the memorial on which you will mount the urns.”

That was all that he said to me from beyond the great dirt-nap… but somehow that didn’t really matter. He had always been terse and economical with his speech unless he was on camera.

That and the people I’d gotten to know at his first funeral and later through various activities were all he left me but it was enough to respark a fire that had been in my belly since childhood.

The hunger for space, the fire for exploration, the need to lead the next wave of what humanity would become… The dreams of a child so wounded she didn’t know how to even live.

From that and time and years of endless work had sprung the Ceres corporation and the mining and manufacturing empire that had changed the face of humanity while so much else was in flux and on the edge of endless chaos.

There was no way to not think about that as I prepared myself.

“Mr. Chang informs me that crying in a spacesuit is a Bad Idea so keep that in mind!”

The crowd spread out before us was impressive enough for a funeral on Earth but on Luna it was stupendous. Sparkling domes surrounded the untouched majesty of Fra Mauro, the largest being the Cone Crater Arcology.

Shepard’s golf balls lay untouched, historical monuments to the infancy of humanity. The crowd carefully skirted the 20 meter perimeter of each one.

The roar that answered me was almost as impressive.

“We are here to honor not only 3 great men but the spirit that led them here. We are here to honor our infancy as a species and those who led us out of it and into our childhood. We are here to honor those who first crossed the landbridges to Australia and the Americas, those who first left Africa for the mountains of the Caucuses…”

Another hungry noise from the crowd.

“We are here to make a statement!”

The roar was deafening, even more so since I had disabled the automatic safety cutouts on my sound system.

I turned to face the Mariki and Uv’n’thork delegations. Giant amoebas who were their own spacesuit mixed with stalky aliens that looked for all the world like gigantic preying mantises and didn’t need spacesuits either, both made their gestures of approval.

“But before we make our statement we have a duty to our ancestors, to those who led us here. Those brave explorers who ventured out to our moon with unimaginably small amounts of computing power, who risked everything to make our first tiny steps into the void, toward our destiny. We are here today to convey their mortal remains to a final resting place.”

I had to take a moment and breathe as the tears threatened to choke me into silence.

I turned to my sister, standing beside me, her face streaked with tears the same as mine. Our extended family filled the dais, almost 400 strong.

“3 men made the same request… That half of their ashes be scattered here and the rest left to our descendants. All of their families are here to honor their Final Wishes.”

“They wanted to leave a monument, a memorial to the things they had achieved. Something that was beyond the reach of an Ozymandius moment… and we have followed their directives. The crew of Apollo 14 will forever rest in this place. They and their siblings in spirit will be the monument. Mr. Pei has kindly designed a structure to serve that honor, something that will stand until this moon dies.”

“Now we come to the crux of the matter. After so many long years we finally lay down the weight of our duty. We finally lie 5 of the best of us to their final rest, finally honor their souls as they wished.”

The crowd made a noise that was a mixture of grief and hope.

“After 10 long years of warfare we come together here, at this place, to seal that honor with a historic treaty, an agreement that ties our species into a web of mutual interdependence. An agreement that ends a war and begins something new, something more… something that will eventually include other species, all dedicated to the same vision.”

Silence…

“To these, our honored explorers of lore… Stuart Roosa, Alan Shepard and my own 2nd cousin, Edgar Mitchell… we add the ashes of The Uv’n’thork expeditionary Fleet commander, the Hive Guide and Warrior T’th’th’ma’ok”

I had to mute my mic for a moment and clear my throat after that one. Pronouncing Uv’n’Thork names is almost impossible for human vocal apparatus, painful if you tried it. Right up there with gargling razor blades. Still, it was essential to what we were trying to achieve.

“We also add the remains of the Mariki ambassador, the individual who was brave enough to venture into an oxygen atmosphere in a vain attempt to stop the war that overtook us all.”

Strangely sinuous movement from the Uv’n’Thork mixed with liquid undulations from the Mariki, their equivalents of polite applause.

“Today our two star systems bind a solemn treaty that holds true in all of our cultures and in so doing honor the best of us. Today we build a new thing, a union of separates, a bonding of equals. Today, we declare the formation of StarFleet!!!”

The roars and growls and gesticulations filled the senses, an overwhelming and palpable wave of enthusiasm tempered with grief and the remnants of anger.

There had been too much dying, too much grief… just too much for everyone concerned. 3 fully progressed sentient species and over 30 protosentient species voiced their feelings in a roaring babble, the beginnings of what would become so much more…

“But before we do that, we must attend to the business at hand.”

Wild Hunter answered my unspoken call and her pod followed her onto the dais, spindly looking hexapodal frames stumping over to surround me on 3 sides. Their fluked suits looked suitably alien as the translator turned her vocalizations into something the rest of us could understand.

“For this, I need my sister in spirit, Sharksbane Shiprider.”

She waited for a few moments as a smaller fluked form stumped onto the dais.

“We” she gestured to include her pod and SharksBane’s “Greeted these human heroes who led the way for us. They landed safe in our domain and we guarded them, buoyed them when their flotation systems failed… we stayed with them until their fellow humans came to get them.”

“Delphin, Orca, Human, we came to an understanding of each other. Because of one of these humans, we learned to speak with their kind just in time to save us all.”

She paused for a moment, allowing the dolphins to take their place of honor beneath the pitiless sun.

“Here, today, we honor that spirit. We honor an exceptional Human, one who led us to our current place, one who saved our world.”

“Today we honor a hero.”

The applause resounded through our helmet links. It was a rich velvety sound, redolent with emotion, with barely suppressed hero worship.

“Today we lie 5 of the best of us to rest, a monument to our war and even more a monument to our peace. Their ashes remind us of our suffering, of our understanding, of our grief long delayed.”

“Their ashes remind us that life is oh so short, that horror always lies just around the corner, that peace at long last is the thing we all seek…”

“My sister-daughter, our podmate, she who has spent time in the the endless deeps with us, who we have taken to our hearts… who has brought her children to meet us without fear…”

“We share her sadness.”

She paused for a moment, letting her words sink in as I let the tears run unchecked.

“But we also share her hope. The hope for a new world, a new alliance, a way for us all.”

“Today we put our differences to rest. Lie down our swords and turn them into pruning shears. Today we solemnize a treaty between our worlds, a peace that begins something new.”

“Today we hope…”

A moment of dead silence filled our ears, almost deafening in its completeness.

“Today, we are one. Joined in grief and the promise of a new way of being for all of us and we have one not of these 5 beings to thank for this. Gentlebeings, I give you the one who made all of this possible. I give you the Pod-mother!”

I’ve gotten used to effusive praise… it still doesn’t resolve the feelings of inadequacy. So many years later I think nothing will do but the moment compels me.

Again I take the place upon the dais that signals I am the primary speaker.

“My 2nd cousin was a pretty awesome guy. He led us to our current understanding before he died, left us with a legacy to shame all of our war-mongering instincts. He opened the world of what we used to call ESP… Together with students of Dr Rhine he proved the existence of Precog abilities and of Universal Navigators. He gave us the key to our StarDrive…. The key to unlock the universe.”

“As it turned out, he gave us the keys to war… And now, in this place, we lie that war to rest along with him.”

The silence of space answered my words.

“These 5 beings and their remains tie us into an unbreakable pact. We are all cousins, even those from other stars. Together we are more than we ever could have been apart…”

Another moment where the pitiless sun drank all sound.

“Now we begin a tradition, an honored place of burial for our heroes of whatever species… all of our dead from the War will be honored here, in this way.”

I fell silent as an interspecies band voiced the funeral drums. The slow rattling tap as the ancient caissons silently rumbled over the regolith added to the atmosphere, somehow made the occasion even more solemn.

There was almost nothing more to say.

Just the one thing, the thing I never had the chance to say in person.

“Godspeed Ed… May the universe greet you with endless wonder…”

In loving memory of my 2nd cousin Edgar Dean Mitchell, the 6th man to walk on our moon.

Godspeed Ed. May the universe greet you with endless wonder.