"Requiem" is a short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, a sequel to his science fiction novella " The Man Who Sold the Moon", although it was in fact published several years earlier than that story, in '' Astounding'', January 1940. The story was also performed as a play on October 27, 1955, on the NBC Radio Network program '' X Minus One''. It is also the first story in the retrospective '' Requiem: New Collected Works by Robert A. Heinlein and Tributes to the Grand Master''.

Plot

The story centers around

D. D. Harriman Delos David Harriman, known as D.D. Harriman, is a character in the fiction of science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein. He is an entrepreneurial businessman who masterminded the first landing on the Moon as a private business venture. His story ...

, the lead character of ''The Man Who Sold the Moon''. Harriman, a tycoon and latter-day robber baron, had always dreamed of going to the Moon, and had spent much of his career and resources making space flight a practical commercial enterprise. Unfortunately, his business partners prevented him from taking the early flights because they could not risk the public face of their company. Now an old man, Harriman has still not been to the Moon, a fact that frustrates him, since he lives in a world where space travel is so commonplace that carnivals have their own barnstorming spacecraft. Although no longer bound by his contractual obligations, he is now too old to pass the medical examination needed for space travel. Very wealthy, Harriman bribes two spacemen to help him get to the Moon after encountering them at a funfair in

Butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some a ...

, a small town outside

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

(and Heinlein's birthplace), where they sell rides on their old, somewhat run-down ship. The three of them fight many obstacles, including Harriman's heirs, who want him declared mentally incompetent or senile before he can spend their inheritance. In the end, Harriman finally makes it to the Moon, only to die on the surface soon after landing, content at finally having reached his goal. His body is left there, with his epitaph scrawled on the tag from an oxygen bottle. It is Robert Louis Stevenson's:

External links

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"Requiem"
on the Internet Archive 1940 short stories Short stories by Robert A. Heinlein Short stories set on the Moon Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact {{1940s-sf-story-stub