Rollback

But not in time, damn it. I’m eighty-nine! If you’d just call McGavin, just pull a couple of strings. That’s all I’m asking — for old times’ sake."

"I’m sorry," Don said. "I really am."

"Damn you, Halifax! You’ve got to do this. I— I’m going to die. I’m going—"

Don slammed the handset down and sat quaking in his chair. He thought about going upstairs to see Sarah, but she couldn’t understand what he was going through any more than Randy Trenholm did; he so wished he had someone to talk to. Of course, there were other people who had undergone rollbacks, but they were totally out of his league — the financial gulf separating him from them was so much greater than their shared experience of rejuvenation.

Eventually, he did head upstairs, went through the motions of getting ready for bed, and, at last, he lay down next to Sarah, who had already turned in, and he stared at the ceiling — something he found himself doing more and more these days.

Randy Trenholm was right, in a way. Some people probably should be kept around.

The last of the twelve men who had walked on the moon had died in 2028. The greatest thing the human race had ever done had happened in Don’s lifetime, but no one who had actually ever set foot upon the lunar surface was still alive. All that was left were photos and videos and rocks and a scant few poetic descriptions, including Aldrin’s "magnificent desolation." People kept saying it was inevitable that humans would someday return to the moon. Perhaps, thought Don, he might now live to see that, but, until they did, the actual experience of those small steps, those giant leaps, had passed from living memory.

And, even more tragic, the last survivor of the Nazi death camps — the final witness to those atrocities — had died in 2037; the worst thing humanity had ever done had also passed out of living memory.

Both the moon landing and the Holocaust had their deniers: people who claimed that such wonder, and such horror, never could have happened, that humans were incapable of such technological triumphs, or of such conscienceless evil. And now, every last one of those who could gainsay that from personal experience was gone.

But Donald Halifax lived on, with nothing special to attest to, no important experience to which he alone bore witness, nothing that needed to be shared with future generations. He was just some guy.

Sarah stirred in her sleep next to him, rolling onto her side. He looked over at her in the darkness, at the woman who had done what no one else had ever done: figured out what an alien radio message meant. And, if Cody McGavin was right, she was the best bet to do it again. But she’d be gone all too soon, while he would go on. If the rollback were only going to work for one of them, it should have been her, Don knew. She mattered; he didn’t.

He shook his head, his hair rustling against the pillow. He knew logically that he hadn’t taken the rejuvenation away from Sarah, that its success with him had nothing to do with its failure for her. And yet the guilt was oppressive, like the weight of six feet of earth pressing down upon him.

"I’m sorry," he whispered into the dark, facing the ceiling again.

"For what?" Sarah’s voice startled him. He hadn’t realized she was awake, but now that he turned his head to face her, he could see little reflections of the dim outside lights in her open eyes.

He scooched closer to his wife and gently hugged her to him. He thought about letting the words he’d spoken apply only to his having been short with her earlier that evening, but there was more — so much more. "I’m sorry," he said at last, "that the rollback worked on me but not on you."

He felt her expand in his embrace as she took a deep breath, then contract again as she let it out slowly. "If it could only have worked on one of us," said Sarah, "I’m glad it was you."

He hadn’t been expecting that at all. "Why?"

"Because," she said, "you’re such a good man."

He could think of no reply, and so he just held her. Eventually, her breathing grew regular and noisy. He lay there for hours, listening to it.

Chapter 17

It was time, Don knew, that he got a job. Not that he and Sarah were desperate for money; they both had pensions from their employers and the federal government.

But he needed to do something with all the energy he now had, and, besides, a job would probably help get him out of his deepening funk. Despite the physical wonders of being young again, it was all weighing heavily on him — the difficulty in relating to Sarah, the jealousy of old friends, the endless hours he spent staring into space while wishing things had turned out differently.