Nonsense. Watch it live. That’s why you moved here when you know Gina would’ve been happier over in Clearwater...
Tiny pang, deep inside his chest, hardly able to form. I keep expecting her to come out through the door, laughing, maybe even sit in my decrepit old lap... Has she really been gone for three whole years? Seems like only a few days have gone by. Making love in the dark one fine night, laughing together, falling asleep in each other’s arms... Waking up in gray light of morning, finding her so cold and unusually still...
Oh, back out of that one... Jesus. How the Hell did I get to be eighty-four years old...
The people on the little TV were counting down now, voices excited, 3... 2... 1... Static from the TV and a bright light forming in the distance, silent, Cape Canaveral just ten miles away. Brighter. Brighter... The light detached from the horizon, ball as bright as the sun blotting out reddening background sky, long tongue of flame seeming to flicker, climbing... Distant thunder, growing louder.
Watching it go, hydrogen burning in the sky, Mark thought, First flight. In three years, they leave for Mars, just about forty years behind schedule. If I’m lucky, I may still be alive...
o0o
A few days later, Mark was sitting on the porch again, facing into the warm morning sunshine, when Jerry and his family rolled up in their brand new BMW Comet II, electric/turbine drive system a barely audible whine, tires crunching softly in the gravel driveway. He opened his eyes, smiling, but was, momentarily, too tired to get up out of the chair. For the last few months, the swivel mount had been difficult to manage. Cold chill. Old, boy. Getting very old...
Car doors clunking, people getting out, Jerry tall and tanned, graying at the temples, but still young and handsome at thirty-nine, Lisa a slim and pretty redhead, lovely in a bright, patterned sundress. Matt dodged around them suddenly, popping through the gate, running toward him across the lawn, all freckles and dark red hair and bright blue eyes, feet clattering on the steps, flopping across his lap with a hug. “Hiya, Gramps!”
Mark squeezed him close. “Hiya, Mattie. How’s it going?” Gramps. I wonder what he calls Bill? Christ, my grandson is a middle-aged man!
Jerry and Lisa were on the porch now, looking down at them, smiling. “Hey, Grandpa. How’ve you been?”
Mark sat up a little straighter and shrugged. “Oh, all right. Enjoying the view at least.” He nodded to the car. “That a new one?”
Jerry looked at the sleek, silver and black thing and nodded. “Got it in the spring. Eleven thousand.”
Moment of surprise. German cars haven’t been that cheap in forty years. Balance of payments must be pretty good. Not to mention... “Magazine doing OK?”
Jerry nodded. “With the start you gave it?” Not only Future Life, of course, but its far less techie companion, Global Life.
Mark slid the boy off his lap and looked at him, young, bright-eyed. Eyes that’ll still be here when this century slides to a close. Maybe remember today, remember me, sitting with great-grandchildren of his own... He reached under the chair suddenly, trying not to wince from the too-sudden movement, pulled out a flat, gaily wrapped package. “What do you think, Mattie?”
Though he must have been anticipating a gift, the boy’s eyes widened with surprised pleasure, took it, hands on the ribbon, paused, smiling at him. “Thanks...” then ripped it open. “Wow...” Holding the black box at arms length.
“What is it? “said Lisa, stepping forward, unaccountably concerned.
Jerry looked over the boy’s shoulder and frowned. “Well. An MBB Spielraum hypergame deck. With nerve-induction interface clips.” He looked at the old man. “That must’ve set you back a pretty penny.”
It had, in fact, cost a little more than the new car. Mark looked up at him. “At my age, what else am I going to do with my money?” He gestured. “Just make a boy smile, that’s all.”
Matt slid up the unit’s SynchroNet antenna, then opened the storage compartment and picked up one of the radiosonde stickum tabs, turning it over in his fingers. “Can it run PlanetQuest 5?”
“Let’s find out.”
o0o
Walking along the beach, wind blowing in his hair, Jerry liked the way his wife’s body felt, pressed against his side, shoulder not quite tucked under his arm, her arm around his back, thumb tucked through a belt-loop. Familiar. Comfortable. Like we belong together. They’d been married for twelve years now and seldom had a difficult moment. Thanks, in part, to the old man’s monetary legacy. But...
Her words of concern as they wandered the beach. I know he means well, Jer. I just don’t know if this is a good idea. Matt’s a bright boy. I don’t want him distracted by something like this...
The new gaming devices could be hypnotic indeed, projecting their fantasy world directly into the minds of the players, and had caused some outcry, filled Future Life’s letters column for issue after issue...
Created a new psychological fad, brought business to a new generation of ill-trained, cultish therapists...
It’ll be all right, he said. Matt is a bright boy. Too bright to be seduced by mere fantasy, no matter how real it may seem...
But then they walked over the hill, back toward the house, and there the two of them sat, side by side on the divan, swinging gently, eyes shut, machine between them, inductabs on temple and forehead. Silent. Still. Then the old man’s eyes opened, eerie and bright. “My God, Jerry,” he’d whispered. “You oughta try this...”
And Matt, “Get back in, Gramps! Hurry. Mr. Vorhees is ready...”
They’d watched a while, then, reluctant, went back out on the beach.
Lisa stopped after a while and turned toward him, face pressed into his chest. Not knowing what to say, finally, “I think we’re going to have to...”
Jerry squeezed her close, and said, “Look. We’re only going to be here a few days. Once we leave we’ll talk it over with Matt and see how he feels. He’s our son. We can make sure nothing happens...” He kissed her on top of the head. “I haven’t seen Grandpa smile like that since Gina died, for God’s sake. I don’t want to take it away just now.”
She looked up at him, eyes serious, and said, “No. I guess not.”
“It’ll be OK.” Because nothing lasts forever.
o0o
Three years later, Jerry and Lisa stood on Mark’s lawn, shading their eyes from bright sunshine, waiting along with a few billion other people, for the crew transport of the Mars 1 expedition to lift off. Not really anything out of the ordinary. There’d been dozens of these over the past thirty-six months as the ship had been built in Earth orbit. This one was, however, the last one. When this crew took off, they’d be gone for a long time. Only three months to Mars and touchdown, hopefully on the north rim of Coprates, but the surface stay was two years long...
Lisa kept looking over her shoulder, back up at the porch, where Matt, tall and tan now at eleven, sat with the old man, the two of them tied together through yet another induction unit, the third one they’d bought since that first eerie day. Nothing untoward, of course, a lot of people used them, and Matt seldom touched the deck otherwise. Still...
The old man looked awful now, sunken-cheeked, eyes seeming to bulge from their sockets, painfully thin with his skin hanging away in long, loose flaps, mottled and dry, like some old-time cancer victim. Still in his right mind, though, bright-eyed and full of life. Maybe that was the worst part, that he could sit there, year after year, and watch himself die. Sometimes, the abolition of things like Alzheimer’s seemed like a mixed blessing. Well, Mark seemed happy enough, so long as he and the boy could net up once in a while, through SynchroNet every couple of weeks, live like this two or three times a year.
“I wish Matt would come off the porch and watch this for real...”
Jerry glanced back at them and nodded. “Yeah. Well. I guess I feel that way too, but...” He shrugged. “This morning Grandpa told me he’d arranged a netfeed from NASA, cost him around thirty-thousand bucks just
for one channel-track. They’re going to watch the launch from a chase plane, then switch over to an old military satellite that’s scheduled to be passing overhead. Ought to be quite a view...”
No more, then. Sudden brilliant light, north along the coast, and you could hear people shouting down on the beach, crowds all along A1A, arms lifted, pointing, shading their eyes. The light began its climb then, thunder rolling across the sea, back in over the land, fire in the sky, going upward, tipping away into the east, slowly getting farther away, twenty-six men and women on their way into the future.
When the light and thunder were over, crew transport just a bright spark far out over the sea, they turned back toward the porch. Lisa took a sudden step back, scream strangling in her throat. Sitting on the couch beside the boy, the old man’s head was thrown back, vacant eyes staring at the sky, mouth open, chest still.
“Dear God...” Jerry ran forward then, up onto the porch, and kneeled before his son, reaching out, shaking him. “Matt. Matt!”
The boy’s eyes opened and focused on him. “Dad?”
“Are you all right?”
The boy seemed to shrug, very distant as he looked over at the corpse beside him, staring at it, quite calm. Long moment, somber, then he looked back up at his parents, eyes brightening, full of... something.
“Sure,” he said. “Everything’s fine.” Another look at the old body. Everything’s fine, he thought, remembering a lovely evening twenty years before, when Gina’d smiled into his eyes and told him just how she felt. And now, everything seems so clean and new...
As he slowly picked the inductabs off his head, Matt said, “The view was tremendous. It made him happy again.” His parents helped him to his feet then, and, walking away, he glanced over his shoulder at Mark, thinking, You’re not gone so long as anyone remembers who you were.
The old man, lost in a distant dream, could only agree.
List of eBooks
These eBooks are available, or soon to be available, in various formats, from various on-line sources. For signed paper first edition pricing and availability, please visit williambarton.com, or email [email protected]. Please note individual short stories and novelettes are also available in collections, a better bargain if you want them all.
The Starover Universe
Hunting On Kunderer, 1972 novella.
A Plague of All Cowards, 1976 novella.
This Dog/Rat World, 978 novella.
Acts of Conscience, 1997 novel. Signed, unread copies available in Warner Aspect trade first edition and mass-market paperback.
A Last War for the Oriflamme, 2011 novella.
Loci of the Starover Universe, 2012 nonfiction.
The Portmanteau Universe
The Venusians, with Michael Capobianco, 1964 novella.
Under Twilight, with Michael Capobianco, 1978 novel.
The Silvergirl Universe
In the Cavern of the Night, five reprints and one new story.
When We Were Real, 1999 novel. Signed, unread copies available in Warner Aspect mass-market paperback first edition.
The Engine of Desire, 2002 novella.
Other Novels
Iris, with Michael Capobianco, 1990 novel. Signed, unread copies are available in Doubleday hardcover first edition and mass-market paperback for both Bantam and Avon editions. Limited availability of Doubleday trade paperback edition.
Fellow Traveler, with Michael Capobianco, 1991 novel. Signed, unread copies are available in Bantam mass-market paperback first edition.
Dark Sky Legion, 1992 novel. Signed, unread copies are available in Bantam mass-market paperback first edition.
Radio Silence, 1992 novel.
When Heaven Fell, 1995 novel. Signed, unread copies are available in Warner Aspect mass-market paperback first edition.
The Transmigration of Souls, 1996 novel. Signed, unread copies are available in Warner Aspect mass-market paperback first edition.
Alpha Centauri, with Michael Capobianco, 1997 novel. Signed, unread copies are available in Avon Eos hardcover first edition and mass-market paperback. Limited availability of trade paperback edition.
White Light, with Michael Capobianco, 1998 novel. Signed, unread Avon Eos trade paperback first edition and mass-market paperback.
Moments of Inertia, 2000 novel, parts serialized in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Urban Hiker, and The North Carolina Literary Review, with a related article, “Gold from Your Novel” in Writer’s Digest.
Other Novellas
Almost Forever, 1993 reprint.
Yellow Matter, 1993 reprint. Numbered and signed, unread copies of TAL chapbook first edition are available.
Age of Aquarius, 1996 reprint.
The Man Who Counts, 2003 reprint.
Off on a Starship, 2003 reprint.
Down to the Earth Below, 2006 reprint.
The Sea of Dreams, 2009 reprint.
In Search of a Lost Age, 2011 new
General Collections
Ambient Light, complete short fiction from the 1980s and 1990s.
Coronal Light, complete short fiction from the 2000s.
Zodiacal Light, short fiction from the 2010s and beyond, should I live so long. We’ll see!
Shadows in the Sky, tales of the very near future and the exploration of space.
Under the Simple Stars, odds and sods of science fiction, too short to be novellas, and don’t fit anywhere else.
Tales to Dishearten, short fiction from the 1960s and 1970s, including some Starover stories.
Melting in the Sun, a collection of memoir stories, true in spirit, if not in fact.
Shambles, a nonfiction assortment, articles on writing, software design, space exploration, and more.
Roaming in the Gloaming, with Michael Capobianco. Collaborative fiction and nonfiction.
We Are the Hollow Men, a sampler of short fiction, essays, and magazine articles on space exploration and computer programming.
Short Stories and Novelettes:
The Abyss Looks Back.
Cast a Cold Eye.
Changes.
The Devil in Drag.
Down in the Dark.
The Girl in the Golden Halo.
The Gods of a Lesser Creation.
Happy, Competent Men.
Harvest Moon.
Heart of Glass.
In Saturn Time.
In the Age of the Quiet Sun.
Me & Nicky Find an Elephant.
Melting in the Sun.
On the Beach.
Right to Life.
The Rocket into Planetary Space.
Slowly Comes a Hungry People.
Soldiers Home.
Though I Sang in My Chains Like the Sea.
Three Soldiers.
Tommy.
When a Man’s an Empty Kettle.
The Woman in the Door.
Table of Contents
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List of eBooks
Table of Contents
Changes
List of eBooks
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