TEXT:  
   
  The Game of Kings 
  A Space 1889 sketch by Anders Blixt 
   
  The Martian winds never cease – complete silence is unknown here. The local nomad 
  tribes tie the bodies of their dead to the tree branches in the few copses available and 
  proclaim these to be sacred ground. The belief is that the spirits of the dead are free to 
  roam with the winds. As time passes the ground between the trees is littered with 
  remains of bodies. We humans abstain, too, from entering these copses, though not for 
  reasons of piety. 
   
  My eyes wandered across the arid steppe. We had chosen the burial site that would be 
  visible from a distance. The knoll would stand when the relentless winds had torn down 
  the wooden cross and obliterated all signs of the grave; it would stand till the end of this 
  world. 
   
  Lieutenant Hård’s body lay on the ground in front of me. I had ordered him to be buried 
  in his field uniform; there is no need to waste our sole tarpaulin because the dead will 
  not care. However, Dr Laurell had kindly covered the head with a piece of cloth. A large-
  caliber revolver bullet leaves grisly marks when doing its gruesome business and there is 
  no reason to be reminded of that during the burial ceremony. 
   
  I am no believer, putting my trust only in Man and Nature, so I had charged Dr Laurell 
  with carrying out the ceremony according to the military manual. Lieutenant 
  Nordenskiöld held our banner aloft, the sun-coloured cross on cornflower blue. This was 
  supposed to connect us with home and hearth, but the flag’s flapping in the wind was 
  just an empty noise, like king Oscar’s patriotic ranting at our departure from Sweden a 
  long time ago. For this piece of cloth we are expected to sacrifice ourselves, or so those 
  in high places say. But they will not have to face the terror, the loneliness and the death 
  in the wilderness. 
   
  Our pack animals brayed behind us as sergeant-major Warg tried to keep them still. The 
  doctor commenced reading from the Bible. I ignored it and lifted my eyes to the 
  darkening evening sky. There it was, a bright double evening-star, our home in this dark 
  vastness, this cosmos. 
   
  Major Stenkvist tugged my arm gently. It was my time to say something. 
   
  “Hård was a man of action, a man of adventure. He was a good man – and those often 
  die first. He dealt with the traitor in our midst and died as a consequence. His death 
  seems meaningless. It is up to us to make it meaningful. How? I have no easy answer to 
  that. I am as bereaved as you are. We have a long struggle ahead before we can see the 
  walls of Parhoon and the British flag again. We just have to go on – that is what Hård 
  would have done and he would have been disappointed if we would not.” 
   
  I closed my eyes and heard the faint sounds when my men lowered the body into the 
  shallow grave. In the Game of Kings, the common people will only be losers. 
   
  From the notebook of Baron Carl Silfwersparre, dated 18 May 1890 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Space 1889/Unofficial/Space 1889 - The Game of Kings.pdf