You had to finish. "It was a monster."
That night I lay awake, the fears and doubts too frantic to let me sleep.
You've got to decide now, I told myself. You can't stay here. You've got to make a choice.
The teaching job was still open. The spot on the Odyssey was still open—and the big ship, it was rumored, was equipped to make it all the way to Pluto.
You can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a home and live to see what happens in this world sixty years from now.
Or you can see what's on the other side of the mountain. You can be a line in a history book.
I cursed. I knew what Charlie would say. He'd say, "Get the hell out of there, boy. Don't let a fool woman make a sucker out of you. Get out there on the Odyssey where you belong. We got a date on Mars, remember? At the Space Rat, just off Chandler Field on the Grand Canal."
That's what he'd say.
And yet I wanted you, Laura. I wanted to be with you, always.
"Oh God," I moaned, "what shall I do?"