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... but a more meaningful way,
for terrestrials, is to ask who first set foot on Luna. Who in your world?"
"Eh? Chap named Neil Armstrong. With Colonel Buzz Ald-rin."
"Exactly. An enterprise of NASA, a government bureau, if I recall
correctly. But in this universe, my world and that of Lazarus Long, the first
trip to the Moon was financed, not by a government, but by private enterprise,
headed by a financier, one D. D. Harriman, and the first man to set foot on Luna
was Leslie LeCroix, an employee of Harriman. In still another universe it was a
military project and the first flight to Luna was in the USAFS Kilroy Was Here.
Another- Never mind; in every universe the birth of space travel is a cusp
event, affecting everything that follows. Now about the Senior- In my universe
he was one of the earliest space pilots. I was for many years archivist of the
Howard Families... and from those archives I can show that Lazarus Long has been
a practicing space pilot for more than twenty-four centuries. Would you find
that convincing?"
"No."
Justin Foote nodded. "Reasonable. When a rational man hears something
asserted that conflicts with all common sense he will not-and should not-believe
it without compelling evidence. You have not been offered compelling evidence.
Just hearsay. Respectable hearsay, and in fact true, but nevertheless hearsay.
Odd. For me, I have grown up with it; I am the forty-fifth member of the Howard
Families to bear the name 'Justin Foote,' the first of my name being a trustee
of the Families in the early twentieth century Gregorian when Lazarus Long was a
baby and Maureen was a young woman-"
At this point the conversation fell to pieces
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