Mrs. Sanchez was delighted with the views of the solar system and the surface scenes of the various planets. She had as much general knowledge of the planets as she had of India or France—which had all come to her through the distorting medium of television dramas. The moon had observatories and mad scientists; India had elephants and sinister maharajas; Mars had deserts and fragile ghost people; Venus had quinquaños and swamp dragons; and France was overflowing with sin.
Roberto did not utilize the projector narrative. He explained with his own intense words as he took his parents across the gulf to the constellations. He skipped about the Galaxy, astounding them with the sheer billions of stars. He insinuated the possibility of millions of inhabited planets and then he flung them across the abyss of space to view the Local Group of the Milky Way, its sister Andromeda and the satellite galaxies. Then he plunged them into infinity for a time-lost glimpse of the billion other galaxies thus far discovered.
The globe deflated, the lights went on and Roberto leaned toward his mother. "Does not the thought of all this catch at your heart a little?"
There was an uncertainty in her voice that Roberto missed because he was so intent upon her answer. "All those stars," she said. "Something like that I saw once on the television—about strange people who lived on those stars. I did not like it very much. Perhaps because it is not true."
"Not true?" Roberto echoed. "Yesterday, yes. Today, not quite. Tomorrow ... your own son is going to the stars!"
"It is beyond my understanding why men cannot be content to remain where they were meant to be."