Step Back - Part 29

Monday October 13. 1969

On the mess deck of the Eagle Alice and Judith were having breakfast. Judith spoke.

“Alice, could I ask you a personal question?”

“You can ask.”

“Are you a lesbian?”

Doctor Alice Boatman looked up from her breakfast. She clearly did not expect this question. But then a friendly visit from the Spanish Inquisition would have seemed more likely to her.

She gave Judith the straight answer.

“I’ve tried it, but I would rather do normal sexual intercourse.”

“Oh.” Said Judith.

Now Alice had her own question.

“So what brought up the question?”

“Um...I tried it myself.”

“Was it a summer camp or a boarding school?” Asked Alice.

“Summer camp.” Said Judith.

It was at this time that Evelyn appeared at the table with his usual breakfast of four scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browned potatoes, which was all covered with cheese sauce, and a glass of chocolate milk.

“Did I miss anything?” He asked.

Alice gave the straight answer.

“An intimate conversation about girl stuff.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow as he sat down. He then spoke again.

“Have you touched on why you’re not married yet?”

“Dad! You know why!”

Judith had to ask the next question.

“Alice, why not?”

Alice closed her eyes for a moment before calmly answering the question.

“There were only about a million men in the Alpha Centauri system altogether, and most of them were the wrong age or already married.”

The Evelyn spoke.

“This touches on why we mounted the rescue expedition to begin with. The fact of the matter is that the more functioning minds there are in a society the better off everyone in that society is in general. We didn’t come here out of altruism but out of a selfish desire to improve our own condition in the long run.”

“The more the merrier?” Said Judith.

“That’s one way to put it.” Evelyn replied.

A thought suddenly came to Alice’s mind.

“Remember what the dormouse said, feed your head...”

On that afternoon an Aeroflot passenger jet transport touched down at the Vienna airport. It carried a delegation from North Vietnam.

The rulers of the remnant of the Communist state in the north had decided to throw in the towel. Virtually the entire apparatus of the Communist State had been incinerated by the Uptimers from orbit. And there was no means by which they could continue the war of aggression against the Republic of Vietnam in the south. The only course of action open to the Communists was to seek peace on any terms.

In New York City the United Nations General Assembly continued their refusal to accept a delegation from the Republic of Biafra.

On Mars a mixed group of uptimers and American Astronauts walked up to the rim of Valles Marineris, the Great Canyon of Mars. The Americans were originally trained and equipped for walking on the Moon. But the spaceship Owl and her landers were available and the adapters were fabricated to allow the recharging of the life support systems of the suits from the Uptimer systems.

One of the Americans spoke to another.

“Jim, this is astounding!”

Jim Lovell looked out across the canyon. He had never thought that this day would have come. The appearance of the Uptimers was a surprise. The history files they brought back had been a shock to everyone at NASA. Lovell had personally watched as the service module that had been allocated to the Apollo 13 mission was taken apart for examination. And he was there when the faulty wiring in the fuel cell system that would have failed was exposed to the full view of everyone.

Now he was walking on the planet Mars. But he wasn’t simply playing a tourist. One of the goals of the mission was to confirm the history files on the physical resources of the red planet. The resources had been discovered and developed by colonists in the original timeline. They were here to perform a survey to verify those records.

There was much work to be done.

In Dallas within the headquarters of the former William Grant Ministries his widow Katherine was in a deep state of rage.

“How dare they!” She shouted. “How dare they mock our Lord Jesus Christ!”

On the table in the boardroom was the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine. It was open to a page with a cartoon. The cartoon depicted a terrestrial human having a conversation with what would eventually become known as a Gray Alien. The alien was speaking to the human.

“Oh yes. Jesus came to us too, we gave him some candy and he comes back to us every couple of weeks. Why, what did you guys do?”

To the Reverend George Muller it was clear to him that if the Widow Grant didn’t calm down she would blow a blood vessel in the brain.

He spoke calmly.

“Katherine, they are not mocking our Lord Jesus Christ, they are mocking mere mortal men, and honestly most men these days could use a good mocking.”

The Widow Grant spun to face Reverend Muller. With the whites of her eyes fully visible as she responded.

“How can you say that?”

Muller calmly replied.

“Because it’s the truth.”

The Widow Grant stared at him silently. Again Muller spoke.

“In this case what The New Yorker did was to reprint a cartoon that originated a bit over fifty years from now on the original timeline.”

The Widow Grant was livid. She shouted back at Muller.

“You believe the lies of the creations of Satan?”

Muller gently shook his head before calmly replying.

“Katherine, only God may create life and matter, and the fallen angel has no power except that which WE grant to him.”

With full fury the Widow Grant pointed to the door and shouted.

“GET OUT!”