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"My Life For My Son's"
by John Danziger

"My life for my son's." Who would have thought the Terrians would be so f***ing literal? And, hell, when Devon Adair made that heartfelt plea, all that time ago, who could've possibly imagined that it would take the Terrians so long to get around to collecting.

Never make a Terrian a promise you don't intend to keep. They're tenacious bastards and they never forget. They're not much for forgiveness or understanding either. So much for that happy-sappy communal peace and love shit that Devon kept trying to wrap them up in. And so much for Devon in the bargain.

The Terrians had not cured The Syndrome as everyone believed. They had merely transferred it, from Ulysses Adair to his mother. Or if The Syndrome is not itself a disease but, as they say, a fatal "absence" of something, then perhaps it was Devon's life force that was transferred in the other direction. Ultimately, who gives a s**t? Uly is healthy and Devon is dead.

Are the Terrians cruel for letting us believe that all was well when they knew how it would end? Or was it a kindness to let Devon have those few months with her son, healthy and alive, unaware of her fate? I think we anthropomorphize these Diggers too much. Human motivations are beyond them or beneath them or whichever, just simply not applicable. Devon is dead and who gives a damn what the Diggers think about it?

We move on, figuratively and physically. Road-weary and mentally numb, we continue forward on this journey that she started but could not finish. There's no real point to it now, but no one wants to think about that. No one wants to think about the day when those colonists are going to come bounding out of that ship, full of dreams and plans and one of us will have a step forward and say, sorry buckaroos, but this isn't going to be quite what you bargained for.

You have to wonder. If the opportunity presents itself again, how many of them will say, "My life for my son's."



-The End-



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