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Time Enough for Love

Page 72

by Robert A. Heinlein


  2

  When the Howard Families seized the Starship New Frontiers only a few were more than a century and a quarter old; all of that few—save the Senior—are dead, at times and places on record. (I except the strange and possibly mythical case of life-in-death of Elder Mary Sperling.) Despite genetic advantage and access to the longevity therapies known collectively as “the immortality option,” the last died in 3003 Gregorian. By the records it would seem that most of them died through refusing further rejuvenation—that being still the second commonest cause of death today.

  3

  (1) Ira Johnson was less than eighty at the time the Senior claims (elsewhere) to have left home. Ira Johnson was himself a Doctor of Medicine. How long he practiced, and whether or not he ever let another Doctor of Medicine attend him, are not known.

  J.F. 45th

  (2) Ira Howard—Ira Johnson—This appears to be a chance coincidence of given names at a time when Biblical names were common. Families’ genealogists have been unable to trace any consanguinity.

  4

  Ira Johnson was seventy when Lazarus Long was ten.

  5

  This anecdote is too obscure to be elaborated here. See Howard Encyclopaedia: Ancient weapons, chemical-explosives firearms.

  6

  While this passage bears inner contradictions, the idioms are authentic for North America of the twentieth century. They name certain types of financial dishonesty. See “Swindles” under “Fraud” in Krishnamurti’s New Golden Bough, Academe Press, New Rome.

  7

  This doggerel is attributed to the twentieth century. See appendix for semantic analysis.

  8

  There is no record that the Senior ever attended a school for militaro-naval officers, or any military school. On the other hand, there is no proof that he did not. This story may be autobiographical to whatever extent it is true; “David Lamb” may be one more of the many names used by Woodrow Wilson Smith.

  The details are consistent with Old Home’s history so far as we know it. The Senior’s first century coincides with that century of continuous war which preceded the Great Collapse—a century of much scientific progress paralleled by retrogression in social matters. Waterborne and airborne ships were used for fighting throughout this century. See appendix for idioms and technicalities.

  9

  From the noun “chaperon.” This word has two meanings: (1) A person charged with preventing sexual contacts between males and females not licensed for such contacts; (2) a person superficially performing such disservice while in fact acting as a benign lookout. It appears that the Senior uses the word here in its first meaning rather than in its antithetical second meaning. See appendix.

  10

  Context implies second meaning.

  11

  The Gatling gun (Richard J. Gatling, 1818-1903) was obsolete by the time Lazarus Long was born. This allegation is barely possible if one stipulates that an obsolete weapon might be used in some small, out-of-the-way insurrection.

  12

  Sequence of events cannot be reconciled. Perhaps a similar ship?

  13

  All is well

  Without punishment,

  The time is for playing;

  Comes the hour

  Without delay

  For laying (school) books down.

  Purists will see that the Senior gave this jingle a poor translation. But one wonders why he did not continue in the same vein with the cheerfully bawdy triple pun available in the last line by substituting “liberos” for “libros”? That he could have missed it seems out of character. Our Ancestor’s capric disposition is everywhere evident; his occasional professions of asceticism have at best a hollow ring.

  14

  Correction: Hedrick Family. This woman Laura (one of the ancestors of the undersigned) did carry the surname “Foote” under the archaic patrilineal tradition—a source of confusion in old records, as the more logical matrilineal system has always been used in the Families in assigning clan membership. But the genealogies were not revised to show this until Gregorian Year 3307. This misnomer offers a means of dating this memoir . . were it not that other records show that reindeer were not introduced onto Valhalla until approximately a century and a half after the date that the Senior—beyond question—did marry Laura Foote-Hedrick.

  But more interesting is the Senior’s allegation that he used a pseudogravity field in that year to facilitate childbirth. Was he the first tocologist to use this (now standard) method? Nowhere does he assert this, and the technique is usually associated with Dr. Virginius Briggs of Secundus Howard Clinic and a much later date.

  J.F. 45th

  15

  And descended from the Senior as well (through Edmund Hardy 2099-2259) although the Senior may not have been aware of it.

  16

  Fifth. James Matthew Libby was her fourth.

  Books by Robert A. Heinlein

  ASSIGNMENT IN ETERNITY

  THE BEST OF ROBERT HEINLEIN

  BETWEEN PLANETS

  THE CAT WHO WALKS THROUGH WALLS

  CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY

  THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

  DESTINATION MOON

  THE DOOR INTO SUMMER

  DOUBLE STAR

  EXPANDED UNIVERSE: MORE WORLDS OF ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

  FARMER IN THE SKY

  FARNHAM’S FREEHOLD

  FRIDAY

  GLORY ROAD

  THE GREEN HILLS OF EARTH

  HAVE SPACE SUIT—WILL TRAVEL

  I WILL FEAR NO EVIL

  JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE

  THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON

  THE MENACE FROM EARTH

  METHUSELAH’S CHILDREN

  THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS

  THE NOTEBOOKS OF LAZARUS LONG

  THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST

  ORPHANS OF THE SKY

  THE PAST THROUGH TOMORROW: FUTURE HISTORY STORIES

  PODKAYNE OF MARS

  THE PUPPET MASTERS

  RED PLANET

  REVOLT IN 2100

  ROCKET SHIP GALILEO

  THE ROLLING STONES

  SIXTH COLUMN

  SPACE CADET

  THE STAR BEAST

  STARMAN JONES

  STARSHIP TROOPERS

  STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

  THREE BY HEINLEIN

  TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE

  TIME FOR THE STARS

  TOMORROW THE STARS (ED.)

  TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET

  TRAMP ROYALE

  TUNNEL IN THE SKY

  THE UNPLEASANT PROFESSION OF JONATHAN HOAG

  WALDO & MAGIC, INC.

  THE WORLDS OF ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  PRELUDE

  COUNTERPOINT

  VARIATIONS ON A THEME

  INTERMISSION

  SECOND INTERMISSION

  DA CAPO

  CODA

  THE LOST FLEET

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