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?" * * * * * Next morning the door chimes pealed, and you went to the door and brought back the audiogram. It was addressed to me; I wondered who could be sending me a message. I pressed the stud on the little gray cylinder, and a rasping, automatic voice droned: "Luna City, Luna, July 27, 1995. Regret to inform you of death of Charles Taggart, Chief Jetman...." Then there was a Latin name which was more polite than the word "lung-rot" and the metallic phrase, "This message brought to you by courtesy of United Nations Earth-Luna Communication Corps." I stood staring at the cylinder. Charles Taggart was dead. Charles Taggart was Charlie. Stardust Charlie. My heart thudded crazily against my chest. It couldn't be! Not Charlie! The audiogram had lied! I pressed the stud again. "... regret to inform you of death of Charles ..." I hurled the cylinder at the wall. It thudded, fell, rolled. The broken voice droned on. You ran to it, shut it off. "I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly--" Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I remembered Charlie's coughing, his gaunt features, his drugged gaze. The metallic words had told the truth. I sat for a long time on my bed, crying inside, but staring dry-eyed at Charlie's faded tin box. Then, finally, I fingered his meager possessions--a few wrinkled photos, some letters, a small black statue of a forgotten Martian god, a gold service medal from the Moon Patrol. This was what remained of Charlie after twenty-five years in space. It was a bitter bargain. A statue instead of a wife, yellowed letters instead of children, a medal instead of a home. _It'd be a great future_, I thought. _You'd dream of sitting in a dingy stone dive on the Grand Canal with sand-wasps buzzing around smoky, stinking candles. A bottle of luchu juice and a couple of Martian girls with dirty feet for company. And a sudden cough that would be the first sign of lung-rot._