Mighty Good Road

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The Memorial glowed in the somber light that mimicked Earth’s setting sun, or the reddened light of fires. It was a disturbing light, to anyone who’d spent any time on the orbital stations of the Loop, and deliberately so. At the center of the pool of light were the statues, twice life-size, a man and a woman crouching together, their bodies arched protectively over the huddled shape of a fallen child. The pale stone stood out in high relief against the blackened metal that sealed off what had once been the entrance to the Cross-Systems Railroad’s Platforms Four and Five. There were flowers at the woman’s feet, real flowers, already wilting a little from the heat of the lights: an extraordinary expense on any station, but especially here.

Gwynne Heikki shivered, seeing the frail bundle, and glanced for reassurance back over her shoulder toward the bustle of the still-working platforms. Signs flashed above the entrances, the mass of the most recent arrivals ebbing away through the multiple customs barriers. Few appeared to notice the statues, or the other signs of the disaster, the charred softiles, bare metal, melted wires hanging in tatters, that were still carefully preserved on the memorial wall. Nor did they pay much attention to the man who sat cross-legged on the floor tiles just outside the band of light that defined the memorial, protest banner dangling limply overhead. The green circle stood out sharply against the black background, three interlaced gold “R”s inscribed on its surface. They stood, Heikki knew only too well, for the Retroceders’ creed: Remember, Repent, and Return. Remember that the railroad has failed once, repent of your dependence on it, and return to the planets from whence you came.

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