Free Seeds of Earth by Michael Cobley

dread at the palm-sized object it contained.
    'Ah, so that's where the room put it,' Harry murmured. T can have it stored somewhere else if you like.'
    'No, no, it's all right,' Robert said. T can't keep on avoiding it. . .'
    It was an intersim, a flat octagonal pad, mainly pale blue in colour with ochre trim around the readout and fingertip controls on one of the sides. The projection plate on top was like dark, smoky glass within which clusters of faceted emitters were just visible. It had a certain solidity to it, like the weight of compacted technology, or the weight of memory.
    It was now almost a year since his daughter Rosa had died while on board the Pax Terra, z. refitted, unarmed scoutship owned by the protest group Life and Peace. The Pax Terra had been taking part in an attempted blockade of a wayport on the Metraj border from which Earthsphere and Sendruka Hegemony warships were leaving for the Yamanon Domain. The official version was that the protest boat was a suspected bombship pursuing a collision course with a Hegemony cruiser whose commander had no option but to open fire. Initially Earthsphere government had made mild objections, but soon dropped the matter.
    Robert and his wife Giselle were distraught, and the Diplomatic Service was thankfully swift to offer him compassionate leave. But Robert was unable to stay at home in Bonn and mourn - he had to know the truth about Rosa's death.
    Sitting at the end of a blue settle, he held the interactive sim in his hands and recalled the months spent tracking down witnesses to the blockade incident and speaking with her friends and colleagues at Life and Peace. What he learned utterly contradicted the official version of events, while confirming much of what he knew about his daughter, about her intellect and wit, and about her compassion and her willingness to put herself on the line for what she believed in. Millions had died when the Earthsphere-Hegemony coalition invaded the Yamanon Domain and bombarded the Dol Das regime's key worlds. Rosa had called those deaths an atrocity, a judgement he could no longer disagree with.
    'We taught her to love,' he once said in a message to his wife during his travels, 'and she did what she did out of love.'
    He was on Xasome in the Kingdom of Metraj, trying to glean corroborating data from public archive reports, when he received a package via the local Earthsphere consulate. It was from Earth, from his wife, and accom panying it was a short note that read: 'Dearest, I have found a way to bring the light back into our lives, and now you have one too. With love and joy - Giselle.
    Thinking it to be some compendium of images and other recordings from the family archive, Robert had placed the intersim on a desk and switched it on. The device had emitted three flashes, mapping the room, and a moment later, abruptly, Rosa was standing then, dressed in one of her favourite outdoor rigs, smiling at him.
    'Hi, Daddy!' she had said.
    So brightly she spoke, so vibrant with that delighted alertness of hers, that he almost said, 'Rosa! - you're alive . . .'
    But the words had choked in his throat as reason took hold, and he had stared at the simulation of his daughter in a wordless horror.
    'Daddy, how are you?'
    Unable to speak or look away, still he had reached out deliberately, with all of his will, and switched the device off. Looking at it now, resting on his palm, he knew what had driven Giselle to have such a thing made. He had understood and let the anger fade, knowing that part of the anger had been directed at his own despairing need for Rosa not to be dead.
    And yet . . . and yet he could not bring himself to destroy the sim, or at least have its memory wiped, not then and not now.
    Then, reaching a decision, he slipped the intersim into his jacket pocket, stood and resumed packing.
    'Are you sure that's wise?' said Harry.
    Robert smiled as he tucked away the last items of clothing. 'You think I may be putting my negotiating