the old man

is watching the evening news....they show the Earth bound orbital from a far tracking view....it spins serenely along through the stars.....and then the screen just goes bright white for a long instant....and then there is nothing left there, but the stars. He sits up in his recliner, his jaw slack, mouth open, heart beating....the audio says all were lost, men women and children...an inbound hammership isn't jammed full of migrants like an outbound,,,,but still the number is 1262 dead...1262 dead....the death remote still lies on the coffee table....and the rosewood box is there, still open....down in one corner is a little pop-pak with a white pill inside....he pops the pak, puts the pill under his tongue....everybody on Mars is on remote heart monitor, the EMT's are there in minutes....but the pill worked....the angry old man is a dead old man. Mary and I are still limping towards Mars when all this comes through....Mary is beat up by this news....the old man was some kind of distant cousin of hers....they say it took three signals to trigger the data bombs, his was but one. So there are still two bombers to look for? One theory is that maybe some of the angry old men left their remotes on a trip after they were gone themselves, so that, even in death, they could vote for the hammer coming down if anyone left alive punched the button....who knows? I've moved in with Mary for the time being....she doesn't know what she wants to do exactly .....stay on Mars, go back home....freeze up and take an outbound to the stars?