Scatter My Bones, A Space Colonization Short Story

Karl Bradford, a proud citizen of a space habitat at Lagrange Point 5, has a life-and-death problem. No, really, he does.His grandfather, the last living human being on Earth has just died, and a journalist wants to interview Karl about the old man's life.He had, after all, been the last refusenik, the last of the renegades who had refused to emigrate into space, to leave their homes in order to save the Earth from humanity's predations.Now, today's elites fear that many of the colonists are flirting with the same subversive questions that the refuseniks had harbored. How do we know that the situation had been that dire? Couldn't another way have been found? What does it mean to be both human and cut off from the Earth?Dangerous questions, indeed.Therefore, unless is notable death is handled with skill and ruthlessness, it might very well set off a dangerous cascade of political discontent . . . and of refusal.And because the stakes are so catastrophically high, Karl's answers must be absolutely correct. Otherwise, he is sure to be assigned to a reorientation battalion or much, much worse.