He went on and on about how important it was to keep my mouth shut, but it wasn’t necessary because I’d already decided that. And not because people would think I was crazy, because I’m smart enough to know that if you know the future you can prove it; you can bet who’s going to win the World Series and things. But I’m also smart enough to know why you shouldn’t. If people really are going to go to the stars, I’m sure as hell not going to mess it up.
I guess my sincerity showed through too, because finally he stopped and nodded his head. “OK. This is—what? The late 1950s, right? Let’s start off by telling you that there’ll be men on the Moon in a little over ten years.”
Ten years? I nearly gagged in disbelief. For Christ’s sakes…
But my reaction didn’t phase him at all. “That’s right, ten years. The next president of the United States will whip up public enthusiasm for a crash program, and we’ll do it just like he’ll say we will. Well, more or less the way he says; nothing works exactly as planned. But we’ll do it, almost right on schedule, just like he said. Says.”
He stopped for a moment and let me work on that. I gazed out again, into space, at that world which looked so close and yet so impossibly distant at the same time. I felt like a baby just learning how to walk being told he was about to leap across the Grand Canyon. I mean, the Moon… just the thought still makes me dizzy. “Wow.”
He gave me that look again and nodded. “Knew you’d like hearing that part.” Then his face got sober, and I mean real sober. Scary sober. “Now the part you won’t like. You see, you won’t care very much. Because while all this is happening you’re going to be hiding in a jungle halfway around the world, trying not to get your brains blown out.” He let me work on that too, and for a while longer this time. “Oh, you’ll survive. Some of your buddies—guys you’ll really care about, like they were your brothers—won’t, but you will. And that will mess with your head for a long time, because you’ll wonder why they died and you didn’t; but like I said, that’s just dumb stuff. I told you, we’re going to the stars, and that’s the thing you want to keep in mind, always, no matter what happens.”
Again that look, just like before, only this time he kept his hands to himself. A sort of weird half grin rose on his face; not a grin of amusement, but of something else—irony, I think they call it. “You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this,” he said. “Part is because you told me I would, of course. But that’s not the real reason.”
“It isn’t?” I tried not to tremble when I asked that, but the shivering came through despite me. I mean, Jesus, what he just told me…
“No.” He started to explain, then thought some. “You see, being through war isn’t the worst thing that’s going to happen to you. I said we’ll go to go to the Moon. But then we’ll stop. I mean dead, complete stop. No more lunar missions. No pushing on to other planets, building space colonies, or any of the things people thought we’d do. Nothing. Oh, we’ll still have manned space missions, but they’ll all be routine stuff; the only missions to other planets will be unmanned probes. And the politicians will cut back on the space budget more and more every year. And worst of all, people will do absolutely nothing to stop it.
“All of which is going to be unbearable to you. See, you may not know it yet, boy—excuse me, grandfather—but you’ve got the soul of a dreamer in you. I knew that growing up and listening to your stories about Apollo—” he bit his lip, as though he’d said something he knew he shouldn’t “—and those heady days of men first getting their feet off this planet and all that. The way your face would light up when you talked about it. But even if I hadn’t, I could tell it now just looking at you. It’s in your eyes. The way you seem to see beyond whatever mundane things are in front of you at the moment.
“That’s why the end of the Moon missions is going to be so hard. You’ll barely be back from Nam—that’s what you’ll call the place where the war will be—when not only will you realize that all that fighting for your country was just a sham, but that your country was throwing away its future too. That your buddies died for nothing. That’s when, when… when… there’s no nice way to put it: that’s when you’ll crack up. End up in a hospital. On dope and suicidal.”
He looked all apologetic, which more than anything else told me he was telling the truth. Which made me start to cry, at least on the inside…
“Sorry to be telling you these things,” he said. “But they’re going to happen whether I tell you or not, so you might as well know. Besides, and now you’ve got to understand, this is the real point of my being here: believe me, I wouldn’t take the chance, screwing with history like this if it weren’t so important.
“See, you survive that too. Because, at least I believe, you did know. Because I had come back and told you that all this was going to happen. And that it was going to be all right; everything is going to work out in the end.”
But it was too late. “All right? All right?” I tell you, I’ve never raised my voice at an adult before, and I hope to God I never do it again because it feels so awful, but I was screaming at the old man with all my strength. And didn’t care. “God damn you! How the hell can you come here and tell me all this, and then say it’s all right? It’s not all right! It’s the God damned lousiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life! Jesus Christ, I wish I were dead right now! I wish…”
It was my chance to go on and on, and I really let him have it, with all the cursing I could think of between the tears that were rolling out of my eyes; until I was just bawling incoherently, to nobody and everybody in particular and the hell with everyone and everything but mostly I just wanted to kill the old bastard, even if he really was my grandson. Shit. Fuck.
And here’s the—OK, the second strangest thing. He just sat there and took it. Try to imagine what would happen if you went at an adult that way, but that’s not what happened at all. He wasn’t even mad. No, it was weirder than that: he actually seemed scared, as though he were the kid being bawled out and me the adult. He even looked on the verge of crying himself.
Which was good, because it calmed me down and let me think: we’re going to the stars, remember? And that gave him the chance to pull himself together and tell me the rest. “Jump ahead about twenty years from the end of Apoll—the Moon missions. People start talking about going to other worlds again; this time, Mars. Problem is, it sounds hopeless: a bunch of experts get together and calculate it will take a few hundred billion dollars. All of which nobody, not even space enthusiasts, wants to do.
“But then along comes this guy by the name of Bob Zubrin, who shows how it can all be done at about the tenth of that price. And, well, never mind all the details—like I said, nothing ever works exactly as planned—but eventually we do it. And by we, I mean all humanity; not just America, but the Russians—that’s right, believe it or not—the French, the Chinese, the Japanese, the… I can’t remember all of them, but those were the major players, plus a host of others. We got to Mars and set up a permanent station, then a real colony, then… then the whole thing just took off. Back to the Moon, the asteroids, then the outer planets…” He sighed wistfully. “Damn, I wish I could tell you everything. Especially as—”
He stopped there, quite suddenly. But it was too late; I knew why. “Especially as I won’t be around to see it, you mean,” I finished it for him.