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.At last we got the robot out, put the shovel attachment on it, and discovered that since it was a military machine, sure enough it had a preprogram for a burial.It crawled away a couple of dozen yards, sonar-sounding the soil to find a good place to dig, before settling on one location for a grave.Jesús and I cleaned up in a little bit of water while the dirt flew around over there.At least the robot had both the patience and the speed to make digging a real grave practical; it was going down six feet and making a level bottom, no matter what.By the time it had finished, we were as clean as we were going to get, which was pretty gritty, and we found ourselves elected as pallbearers, along with Helen and Esmé (since they were the two biggest women).We wrapped Ulrike up in a blanket, after brushing the clean parts of her hair out.One of the others, while we had been working on the robot, had gotten most of the removable gore cleaned up, but nothing could be done about the red crater in her forehead, and they had been unable to close her staring eyes, which were partially popped from their sockets^.As Jesús did some quick, rough stitching to get the blanket closed, he asked me, “And you were married to her in some worlds, but didn’t know her in this one?”“Yeah.”“It must have been terribly difficult for her.”“I think it was,” I said, “and it was worse because I didn’t feel attracted other than physically, and emotionally she was light-years from my type.I thought she was very pretty but she was somewhere around the end of the affair and I hadn’t started yet.But now I wish I’d done something or other for her.If I had known these were her last days, I might have.”“And what could you have done for her?” he asked, putting in the last few stitches.“I suppose you could have given her the impression that you cared for her, if you really knew she would end like this in a few hours—but if she had not died, and you had no very strong reason to think she would—well, what then? You chose not to behave like a cad.Why fret about the difference? It cannot make a difference to anyone else.”“You’re probably right.”“In this world, I’m right.Probably in billions of others, I am wrong.Just as she is dead here and alive in many other worlds.”“I think it’s more accurate to say that this Ulrike is dead, and many other Ulrikes are alive.It still makes a difference to this one.”He cut the waxed cord and looked over the package he had sewn together.“Lyle, my friend, nothing makes a difference to the dead.”Jesús, Helen, Esmé, and I lifted the body—surprisingly heavy, I guess because it settled to the middle of the blanket— and carried it to the grave without dragging it on the ground.Those who weren’t keeping watch came along with us, Roger standing guard over the funeral with his rifle.We didn’t have any gentle way to lower her, so Esmé and I climbed down into the grave and Jesús and Helen rolled her into our arms.Fortunately the grave had been dug wide enough for a regulation coffin, and so there was just room to lower her down till the body lay across our toes, and then, with a big heave from Helen on one hand and Jesús on the other, to get each of us back out of the hole.We weren’t sure what to say or do—we hadn’t planned on any funerals, after all—but before we had time to do more than feel a moment’s discomfort at the pause, the robot sprang back into business.Apparently its programming said that once all the live people were out of the grave it was time to get to work.“Dear friends,” it began, “in the name of the President of the United States, of the Congress, and of the People, it is my sad duty to declare that speak deceased’s name clearly.”We all stared at each other for a long minute before I figured out that that was a direction, and said, “Ulrike Nordstrom.”“It is my sad duty to declare that Already Morstung has died in the line of duty, defending the nation which you and she loved.She was a good comrade and a loyal friend.She had a deep and abiding faith in the god or gods of her choice or else she was true to her philosophical beliefs to the last.She had a solid, deep, and loving relationship with her family with whom she would deeply wish to be reconciled if-there are any publicly mentioned family issues.Already Morstung had her human failings, as we all do, but still she stands as an example of what a soldier should be.We will miss Already Morstung and we will keep her in our hearts always.We now commend her soul to the god or gods of her choice, with the thanks and grateful prayers of the President, of Congress, and of the American people.”A tinny version of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” began to play through the small speaker on the top of the robot, and it rolled forward to its dirt pile, which it began to energetically hurl back into the grave.We all stood and stared for a while, trying to think of something to say or do, I suppose, until Roger Sykes took charge.“Well,” he said, “it wasn’t a very nice funeral, but they never are.If anyone would like to say a few more appropriate words, we might all appreciate it
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