Last Full Measure - Michael A. Martin [118]
The United Federation of Planets had come into being on that day, at least on paper. And he had felt optimistically certain then that the promise of lasting interstellar amity was the only hope of redeeming the millions of lives the Xindi had extinguished with their sneak attack more than eight years earlier—both the innocent civilians whom the Xindi had vaporized unawares, and those who later had knowingly given their lives in order to put paid to the Xindi threat. And without having to wipe out whole civilian populations, the way the Xindi did, the old man thought.
Earth had become embroiled in other conflicts since the Xindi attack, of course, though none of these quite compared in terms of enormity. Not even the aggression of the Romulans, whose savage, five-year war against Earth had ended less than a year before the Charter signing, had cost the family of humanity so dearly. The old man had believed then, or at least had hoped, that he was no longer so embittered as he once had been about what the Xindi had done to his family and his homeworld.
But even though he had always taken pride in resisting destructive if justifiable hatreds, he had remained certain that he would never get over the death of his baby sister, even if he somehow managed to live for another century; he knew even then that he could never completely accept that Elizabeth, his Lizzie, the talented architect he had protected since she was a little girl, the promising young woman whose life had been summarily snuffed out by blind Xindi violence, was gone forever, blasted to atoms along with so many others.
The great historic city of San Francisco, which lay sprawled over the hills to the east, had seemed to hold its breath as if in anticipation of whatever unexpected fallout might come in the wake of the Federation Charter’s signing. He had felt certain that this no doubt eventful future was already well on its way to arriving, whether or not the City by the Bay—or the human species, for that matter—was ready for it. Hell, the future already had arrived, the moment all those dignitaries had begun inking that piece of ceremonial parchment.
“Uncle Carl?
“Charles?
“Trip?”
It wasn’t until Marvick uttered that last syllable that the old man returned to the present. Trip. He hadn’t used that name in public for as long as the Federation had existed.
Charles “Trip” Tucker turned toward Marvick, whose youthful face was quickly becoming etched with lines of worry.
“Sorry, Larry. You know how we old people can get. Just woolgathering again.” Trip trailed off once again into silence.
“And?” Marvick prompted gently.
“And I have absolutely no idea why I’ve never come here before.”
Trip turned and knelt again at the base of the towering stone monument to Starfleet’s war dead. With hands that had lost most of their engineer’s steadiness years ago, he opened the duffel he had left on the pedestal, and slowly withdrew a large wreath festooned with flowers and leaves of every color and description.
Ignoring the involuntary tremor that seized his right hand, he slowly and gently set the wreath down at the monument’s granite base.
Why haven’t I come here before now? he asked himself. Had it been because the monument’s original focus—the millions murdered by the Xindi back in ’53—had been broadened right after its unveiling? Or simply because he’d been running from Lizzie’s memory all these years?
Still kneeling before the memorial spire, Trip suddenly realized then that he had known the answer all along.
He had simply never expected to find his baby sister’s presence here, or at any of the other monuments that had been so lovingly constructed since the time of the Xindi attack. Wherever she was now, Lizzie wouldn’t be found haunting some cold, dead stone