[Intro — static, a carrier tone locking, a relay operator half-whispering over comms] (Outpost Kepler-Nine. Relay log. Signal origin: Earth… date of transmission — eighteen sixty-one.) (Content follows. We cannot reply. We can only pass it on.) [Verse 1 — baritone, radio-filtered, patient, close] Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States — I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with what you hold. The Union of these States is perpetual. No government ever had, in its own law, a clause for its own end. (carrier drops, returns) Perpetual… perpetual… [Chorus — choir wide, the colony answering a voice it cannot reach] We hear you. We are far. The light you sent is older than our star. Say it again across the black — we cannot send a signal back, but we can hold the line you drew: the better angels — we heard you. [Verse 2 — baritone, steadier, a man reasoning with a room that is leaving] Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced — but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous after separation than before? [Bridge — drone thins; the operator, unfiltered, awake for one clear moment] (Relay note: the colony votes tonight. Two domes want their own flag. I played them the tape. Nobody spoke.) In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue. The government will not assail you. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy — while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend. [Final Chorus — baritone and choir together, horn rising] We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone — will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. [Outro — static returns; operator, very quiet; the carrier tone fading] (End of transmission. Logged. Forwarded to all domes.) (They voted to stay.) (…relay closing. Kepler-Nine, out.) (faint, filtered, from the tape) …the better angels…
