Archive for November, 2009
Today in the Obituaries
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Amelia Carol Buchanan, who has died aged 138, spent most of her life embroiled in controversy. Born in Launceston, Tasmania, she went on to study law at Universitas Indonesia. In her student days she was well known in activist circles, particularly in the Free Australia movement. Her activism cost her a scholarship, and she was very nearly jailed for her part in the Depok Uprising.
Entering New Zealand as a political refugee, Buchanan spent the next five years between Auckland and New York, attempting to argue for Australian independence. Her frustrating attempts to lobby the frightened Security Council led to her decision to abandon Earth altogether.
Emigrating to Mars in the Second Wave, she was allocated an agricultural work rota to pay off her passage. Like many other immigrants, Buchanan found it next to impossible to clear the debt. She was an instrumental figure in the formation of the Martian Emancipation League, and spent the next two decades in legal aid work.
She was given an honorary doctorate by Harvard, and Universitas Indonesia finally granted her the academic credentials owed to her following her expulsion. She famously destroyed these parchments in her acceptance speech, stating “under Australian skies, the oppressed demand no less of me.”
She entered the political arena at age 62, elected into the House of Representatives in the wake of the Fitzsimmons Constitutional Crisis. Buchanan was noted for her blunt approach to public life, and despite several attempts on her position she forced through a number of contentious bills. While the Human Bodies Recycling Act was seen as a much needed push towards sustainable living, the Kelly Mencken Act is still quoted as a text-book example of political excess.
Scare-mongering of unmedicated care-givers led to a generation of chemically castrated teachers, a decision which haunted Buchanan for the rest of her days. In her later years she became the patron of the Mencken Trust, an organisation dedicated to undoing the damage of the rogue nano-tech used in the castrations.
Following her second prosperous term as Premier of the Martian Parliament, Buchanan stepped aside and entered semi-retirement. She was still active with various honorary appointments, and eventually accepted a diplomatic posting to Earth. She was there the day that autonomy was returned to Australia, and was seated next to the incumbent Prime Minister during the emotional ceremony. It was her 127th birthday.
Refusing further Methusalen treatment, Buchanan died in New Gawler, Mars, surrounded by lifelong friends. She leaves behind an epic political legacy that few could hope to match.
• Amelia Carol Buchanan, politician, born 6 March 2077; died 1 September 2214
Flying Machines
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Even before Cal could make out anything in the sky, a blaring cacophony sounded up the Hudson toward where he stood among the crowd in Riverside Park. The sound grew louder and closer, and he realized after a moment that it wasn’t the flying machine that was making it, but the ships–pleasure ships, ferry boats, warships, cargo ships–tying their whistles open to shout in the new age of flight. But he held his judgment at first. He’d believe it when he saw it.
A knot of laughing young men jostled him, trying to get a glimpse of Wilbur Wright flying up the Hudson. A young lady nearby made a sort of muffled squeal, her face tilted to the sky.
And then there it was, soaring through the air as though its pilot had stolen all the secrets of gravity. It looked something like a box kite, with an oblong fin on the front and a red canoe tied underneath, apparently against an emergency water landing.
Cal shook his head, the last of his hope draining away, and said “Humanity has reached the age of flight.”
He knew what this meant: not simply box kites with motors, not simply public spectacles, but soon commercial flights, passenger flights … and though anyone around him would laugh if he made the claim, flight in space, flight to other planets, and someday to other stars.
Wright banked his machine in neat half-circle around Grant’s tomb and headed back down the river, hurried by the wind now at his back. Then a massive silver disc descended out of the clouds behind Wright, overshadowing him like a barrel lid overshadowing a mosquito. The telltale thundercrack of an ionic rendering beam sounded as Wright’s machine disappeared in a blinding, bluish flash. Someone screamed, and then there was general pandemonium. The surviving few fragments of Wright’s machine spiraled down, smoking, into the Hudson. Cal dialed up his gravitation constant so the panicked crowd wouldn’t trample him.
“It’s a damned shame,” Cal said into his communicator when the humans were gone. “I was hoping they’d have a few more years before we had to start all this.”
“Had to happen sooner or later,” rumbled the coordinating entity from the mothership, in their own language. “Now beam your tail back up here so we can get to the next job. Turns out he has a brother.”