The new Vice President was known in the future for his advocacy of the space program—his almost lone-voice advocacy in the Nixon Administration. Agnew would be Chair of Nixon’s Space Task Group. The one that would propose NASA missions to Mars for the 1980s. The proposals that Mondale would ridicule and Nixon would kick aside in favor of the undernourished—unconscionably underfunded—Shuttle.
But what if Agnew were in a position not only to propose, but to start implementing NASA’s schedule for Mars?
“I’d love to,” Jeff said to Sam. “Let me just check with the board of directors at home to make sure we don’t have any conflicting plans.”
I’m just rapping with my friends, Ron…
How many times had Jeff heard Nixon say that, or something similar, in the mirror imagisms he’d seen as a kid—“the mirrorim: more pixels per byte, the retina’s delight”—Nixon in stark vivid detail in new productions and copies of holoscans and videos and movies made decades or more earlier? After JFK, Nixon had been the twentieth century president the twenty-first century had held in greatest fascination. And with good reason.
I’m just rapping with my friends, Ron… Nixon to his Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, who had come upon the President talking to a small group of antiwar protestors at the Lincoln Memorial, in the early hours of the National Day of Protest in Washington, five days after the slaughter of four students at Kent State. Except the kids at the Lincoln Memorial were neither his friends, nor was Nixon “rapping.” He was barely communicating with them at all—babbling, instead, about college football scores, oblivious to their anguish.
Nixon, with little or no Secret Service protection at the Lincoln Memorial before Ziegler had arrived—accounts differed, but all agreed he had impulsively left or snuck out of the White House, bent, perhaps, on explaining himself to whatever protestors he might encounter, or maybe just wanting to spend a few minutes with Lincoln, but certainly without the usual Secret Service compliment.
About as vulnerable as a president could be.
But that was still more than a year away…
“Jeff Harris?”
Jeff turned, and extended his hand. “Good to see you again, George.”
George G. Landry had bushy black eyebrows and a big moustache that looked out of place to Jeff, pasted on, but at the same time appropriate, even familiar. Then again, that’s the way just about everyone had looked to Jeff since the day he’d arrived in 1963, more than 20 years earlier than his team had intended to send him, to stop the Challenger from exploding. Nothing about this world seemed in its proper place to Jeff, yet it all seemed so well known to him—like Jeff himself, when he looked in the mirror. An historian’s dream come to life—except he was the history now.
“Quite a President,” George said, and looked up at Lincoln. “Don’t make them like that anymore, do they.”
“With the rosy vision of hindsight they all look pretty good,” Jeff said.
“Well, not all,” George said. “I doubt our incumbent will come out of this presidency smelling like a rose. You would agree, am I right?”
“Who are you?” Jeff hadn’t intended to be so blunt with Sam’s friend, who had had some very interesting things to say to them about the Space Program at lunch today. Sam had a plane to catch back to New York right after the meeting. George had asked Jeff if they’d like to resume their discussion a bit at the Lincoln Memorial, since the April evening promised to be balmy. Jeff was delighted to agree. This was the third time Sam and he had been in Washington with George in the past few months, and Jeff was eager to find out more. All he knew about George and his moustache at this point was that they toiled in some murky, unnamed division of the President’s “staff.”
George breathed in deeply. “I can still smell the tear gas,” he said, “from the October 1967 march on the Pentagon. Armies of the night. They were just kids, for crissakes. Exercising their constitutional right to assembly. Country’s going to hell. Going to get worse.”
Jeff thought about asking who he was again, but decided not to push it. Let him keep dropping these intimations of the future.
“I’m no one—at least as far as history is concerned,” George said. “No rosy wisdom of hindsight to see me in. I’m off the screen—you gotta be seen in the first place to be seen in rosy hindsight, right?”
Jeff said nothing.
“You hate this war?” George asked.
“Yeah,” Jeff replied. “The bitterness it’s created in this country, the fusing of Vietnam and military and space in the public mind, poisoned the space program. I’m sure of it.”
“And you’re right. But you gotta hate the war itself. Do you?”
“Well, it’s wrong,” Jeff said. “It’s unconstitutional—”
George grabbed Jeff’s shoulder. “There are things in this life more important than laws and even constitutions,” he said in a harsh urgent whisper. “You better think on that, my friend, before you do what you plan to do.”
Jeff stared at him, started to speak—
George interrupted again. “The Vice President is much better than Nixon on space—you were right in what you said this afternoon. But is he any better on the war? You think Agnew will get us the hell out of there any faster than Nixon?” George’s voice had risen to something more painful on the ears than a whisper.
“We were just talking hypothetically,” Jeff equivocated.
“I’m not going to belabor the point,” George said. “And I have a dinner engagement.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “So, with regrets, I’m going to have to terminate this interview. But you need to think: Which is more important to you, Vietnam or space? And, if both are important, you’ll need to think of a better way.” George half smiled, nodded, then turned with a flourish and strode away.
Jeff was alone in the Lincoln Memorial. Thirteen more months to May 9, 1970, when Nixon would be here, almost alone.
Jeff breathed in the blossom air. Maybe he could smell some of the tear gas too. He wasn’t sure.
“Space!” He shouted up to Lincoln, his fist clenched, his voice ringing. “We’ve got to get free of this planet!”
Laura was right—that was the only damned freedom that really counted in the long run. Why couldn’t this world see that?
Jeff was on the computer again, hands massaging the console like he was driving a car, kneading Rena’s back, making love to her face with his thumbs and his palms and his lips. He strained to see what was on the screen, but he couldn’t quite make it out. Words… that didn’t spell anything… They never did, this far away.
Something soft snuggled up behind him. He could feel taut nipples pressing against his neck, breasts warm upon his back. He turned. Rena… No, Laura…
She kissed him softly on the eyelid. “Time to get up,” she said. “It’s way too early for man or beast, but you’ll miss the bus if you don’t get up now.”
“OK,” Jeff said. He kissed Laura full on the lips, then leaned back and ran his hand through her hair. “I guess I was dreaming.”
Laura put her head on his chest. “Comes with the territory.”
“It’s still in the future when I dream,” Jeff said. “I’ve been cut off from it almost totally since I’ve been here, yet it’s still in my dreams. Like a man who still feels his feet after his legs have been amputated.”
“Lots of people maimed in the war—lots of people killed,” Laura said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to demonstrate in Washington. I’d just feel better if I came along—”
“No,” Jeff said. “I want you here.”