Seven Surrenders (Terra Ignota, #2)

by Ada Palmer

Strength left me, drained by that stone where his slim bones make their slow return to dust. It is half your fault he lies here, reader, and half mine. You denied him the Pantheon. I destroyed his chance to join his kin among the stars. The autopsy and chemical tests left what remained of Apollo’s body too contaminated to be processed into that organic essence which, after the rocket journey, will become the soil of Mars. Year after year, those Utopians who could not live to see the terraforming done at least become a part of it, each ounce of powdered flesh another fertile plot of their new world. All his brief lifetime Apollo watched the launches, yet in death he could not even send his dust where dust is precious. That is my guilt. As for yours, only a handful of Apollo’s kind have been buried on this Earth in the two and a half centuries since the Mars Project began, yet, for all Utopia has given you, you would not give this orphan shelter in your Pantheon.