Time Enough for Love.
by Heinlein, Robert A.
The Lives of the Senior Member of the Howard Families (Woodrow Wilson Smith; Ernest Gibbons; Captain Aaron Sheffield; Lazarus Long; "Happy" Daze; His Serenity Seraphin the Younger, Supreme High Priest of the One G.o.d in All His Aspects and Arbiter Below and Above; Proscribed Prisoner No. 83M2742; Mr. Justice Lenox; Corporal Ted Bronson; Dr. Lafe Hubert; and others), Oldest Member of the Human Race. This Account is based princ.i.p.ally on the Senior"s Own Words as recorded at many times and places and especially at the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic and at the Executive Palace in New Rome on Secundus in Year 2053 After the Great Diaspora (Gregorian Year 4272 of Old Home Terra)-and supplemented by letters and by eyewitness accounts, the whole then arranged, collated, condensed, and (where possible) reconciled with official records and contemporary histories, as directed by the Howard Foundation Trustees and executed by the Howard Archivist Emeritus. The result is of unique historical importance despite the Archivist"s decision to leave in blatant falsehoods, self-serving allegations, and many amoral anecdotes not suitable for young persons.
INTRODUCTION.
On the Writing of History.
History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion-i.e., none to speak of.-L.L.
The Great Diaspora of the Human Race which started more than two millennia ago when the Libby-Sheffield Drive was disclosed, and which continues to this day and shows no sign of slowing, made the writing of history as a single narrative-or even many compatible narratives-impossible. By the twenty-first century (Gregorian)1 on Old Home Terra our Race was capable of doubling its numbers three times each century-given s.p.a.ce and raw materials. on Old Home Terra our Race was capable of doubling its numbers three times each century-given s.p.a.ce and raw materials.
The Star Drive gave both. H. sapiens spread through this sector of our Galaxy at many times the speed of light and multiplied like yeast. If doubling had occurred at the twenty-first-century potential, our numbers would now be of the order of 7 x 109 x 2 x 268-a number so large as to defy emotional grasp; it is suited only to computers: 7 x 109 x 2 x 268 = 2,066,035,336,255,469,780,992,000,000,000. = 2,066,035,336,255,469,780,992,000,000,000.
-or more than two thousand million billion trillion people -or a ma.s.s of protein twenty-five million million times as great as the entire ma.s.s of our race"s native planet Sol III times as great as the entire ma.s.s of our race"s native planet Sol III, Old Home. Old Home.
Preposterous.
Let us say that it would be preposterous had not the Great Diaspora taken place, for our race, having reached the potential to double three times each century, had also reached a crisis under which it could not double even once-that knee of the curve in the yeast-growth law in which a population J.F. 45th J.F. 45th can maintain a precarious stability of zero growth only by killing off its own members fast enough . . lest it drown in killing off its own members fast enough . . lest it drown in its own poisons, commit suicide by total war, or stumble into some other form of the Malthusian Final Solution. its own poisons, commit suicide by total war, or stumble into some other form of the Malthusian Final Solution.
But the Human Race has not (we think) increased to that monstrous figure because the base figure for the Diaspora must not be thought of as seven billion but rather as a few million at the opening of the Era, plus the unnumbered, small-but-still-growing hundreds of millions since, who have migrated from Earth and from its colony planets to still more distant places over the last two millennia.
But we are no longer able to make a reasoned guess at the numbers of the Human Race, nor do we have even an approximate count of the colonized planets. The most we can say is that there must be in excess of two thousand colonized planets, in excess of five hundred billion people. The colonized planets may be twice that number, the Human Race could be four times that numerous. Or more.
So even the demographic aspects of historiography have become impossible; data are out of date when we receive them and always incomplete-yet so numerous and so varied in reliability that several hundred humans/computers on my staff keep busy trying to a.n.a.lyze, collate, interpolate and extrapolate, and to weigh them against other data before incorporating them into the records. We attempt to maintain standards of 95 percent in probability of corrected data, 85 percent in pessimistic reliability; our achievement is closer to 89 per cent and 81 percent-and getting worse.
Pioneers care little about sending records to the home office; they are busy staying alive, making babies, and killing off anything in their way. A colony is usually into its fourth generation before any any data reach this office. data reach this office.
(Nor can it be otherwise. A colonist too interested in statistics becomes a statistic himself-as a corpse. I intend to migrate; once I have done so, I won"t care whether this office keeps track of me or not. I have stuck to this essentially useless work for almost a century partly through inducements and partly through genetic disposition-I am a direct-andreinforced descendant of Andrew Jackson Slipstick Libby himself. But I am descended also from the Senior and have-I think-some of his restless nature. I want to follow the wild geese and see what is happening out there-get married again, leave a dozen descendants on a fresh uncrowded planet, then-possibly-move on. Once I have the Senior"s memoirs collated, the Trustees can, in the Senior"s ancient idiom, take this job and shove it.) What sort of man is our Senior, my ancestor and probably yours, and certainly the oldest living human being, the only man who has taken part in the entire pageant of the crisis of the Human Race and its surmounting of crisis through Diaspora?
For surmount it we have. Our race could now lose fifty planets, close ranks, and move on. Our gallant women could replace the casualties in a single generation. Not that it appears likely that this will happen; thus far we have encountered not one race as mean, as nasty, as deadly as our own. A conservative extrapolation indicates that we will reach in numbers that preposterous figure given earlier in a few more generations-and move on out of this Galaxy into others before we finish settling this one. Indeed, reports from farther out indicate that Human intergalactic colony ships are already headed out into the Endless Deeps. These reports are not verified-but the most virile colonies are always a long way from the most populous centers. One may hope.
At best, history is hard to grasp; at worst, it is a lifeless collection of questionable records. It is most alive through the words of eyewitnesses . . and we have but one witness whose life spans the twenty-three centuries of crisis and Diaspora. The next oldest human being whose age this office has been able to verify is only a little over a thousand years old. Probability theory makes it possible that there is somewhere a person half again that age-but it is both mathematically and historically certain that there is no other human alive today who was born in the twentieth century.2 Some may question whether this "Senior" is the member of the Howard Families born in 1912 and also the "Lazarus Long" who led the Families in their escape from Old Home in 2136, etc.-pointing out that all the ancient methods of identifica- J F. 45th J F. 45th tion (fingerprints, retinal patterns, etc.) can now be beaten. True, but those methods were adequate for their time and the Howard Families Foundation had special reason to use them with care; the "Woodrow Wilson Smith" whose birth was registered with the Foundation in 1912 is certainly the "Lazarus Long" of 2136 and 2210. Before those tests ceased to be reliable, they were supplemented by modern unbeatable tests based first on clone transplants and, more lately, on absolute identification of genetic patterns. (It is interesting to note that an impostor showed up about three centuries ago, here on Secundus, and was given a new heart from a cloned pseudobody of the Senior. It killed him.) The Senior whose words are quoted herein has a genetic pattern identical with that of a bit of muscle tissue removed from "Lazarus Long" by Dr. Gordon Hardy in the Starship New Frontiers New Frontiers about 2145, and cultured by him for longevity research. Q.E.D. about 2145, and cultured by him for longevity research. Q.E.D.
But what sort of man is is he? You must judge for yourself. In condensing this memoir to manageable length I have omitted many verified historical incidents (the raw data are available to scholars at the Archives)-but I have left in lies and and unlikely stories on the a.s.sumption that the lies a man tells tell more truth about him-when a.n.a.lyzed-than does "truth." he? You must judge for yourself. In condensing this memoir to manageable length I have omitted many verified historical incidents (the raw data are available to scholars at the Archives)-but I have left in lies and and unlikely stories on the a.s.sumption that the lies a man tells tell more truth about him-when a.n.a.lyzed-than does "truth."
It is clear that this man is, by standards usual in civilized societies, a barbarian and a rogue.
But it is not for children to judge their parents. The qualities that make him what he is are precisely those needed to stay alive in a jungle-or on a raw frontier. Do not forget your debt to him both genetic and historic.
To understand our historic debt to him it is necessary to review some ancient history-part tradition or myth, and part fact as firmly established as the a.s.sa.s.sination of Julius Caesar. The Howard Families Foundation was established by the will of Ira Howard, who died in 1873. His will instructed the trustees of the foundation to use his money to "prolong human life." This is fact.
Tradition says that he willed this in anger at his own fate, for he found himself dying of old age of old age in his forties-dead at forty-eight, a bachelor without progeny. So none of us carries his genes; his immortality lies only in a name, and in an idea-that death could be thwarted. in his forties-dead at forty-eight, a bachelor without progeny. So none of us carries his genes; his immortality lies only in a name, and in an idea-that death could be thwarted.
At that time death at forty-eight was not unusual. Believe it or not, in those days the average age at death was about thirty-five! But not from senility. Disease, starvation, accident, murder, war, childbirth, and other violences cut down most humans long before senility set in. But a human who pa.s.sed all these hurdles still could expect death from old age sometime between seventy-five and one hundred. Very few reached one hundred; nevertheless every population group had its tiny minority of "centenarians." There is a legend about "Old Tom Parr" who is supposed to have died in 1635 aged one hundred and fifty-two years. Whether or not the legend is true, probability a.n.a.lysis of demographic data of that era shows that some individuals must have lived a century and a half. But they were few indeed.
The Foundation started its work as a prescientific breeding experiment, as nothing was then known of genetics: Adults of long-lived stock were encouraged to mate with others like them, money being the inducement.
Unsurprisingly the inducement worked. Equally unsurprisingly this experiment worked, as it was an empirical method used by stockbreeders for centuries before the science of genetics came into being: Breed to reinforce one characteristic, then eliminate the culls.
The Families" Archives do not show how the earliest culls were eliminated; they simply show that some were eliminated from the Families-root and branch, all descendants-for the unforgivable sin of dying of old age too young.
By the Crisis of 2136 all members of the Howard Families had life expectancies in excess of one hundred and fifty years, and some had exceeded that age. The cause of that crisis seems unbelievable-yet all records both from inside and from outside the Families agree on it. The Howard Families were in extreme danger from all other humans simply because they lived so "long." Why this was true is a matter for group psychologists, not for a record-keeper. But it was true.
They were seized and concentrated in a prison camp, and were about to be tortured to death in an attempt to wrest from them their "secret" of "eternal youth." Fact-not myth.
Here the Senior comes into the story. Through audacity, a talent for lying convincingly, and what would seem to most people today a childish delight in adventure and intrigue for its own sake, the Senior brought off the greatest jailbreak of all time, stealing a primitive starship and escaping right out of the Solar System with all of the Howard Families (then numbering about 100,000 men, women, and children).
If this seems impossible-so many people and just one ship-remember that the first starships were enormously bigger than the ones we now use. They were self-sustaining artificial planetoids intended to remain in s.p.a.ce for many years at speeds below that of light: they had had to be huge. to be huge.
The Senior was not the only hero of that Exodus. But in all the varied and sometimes conflicting accounts that have come down to us, he was always the driving force. He was our Moses who led his people out of bondage.
He brought them home again three-quarters of a century later (2210)-but not into bondage. For that date, Year One of the Standard Galactic calendar, marks the opening of the Great Diaspora . . caused by extreme population pressure on Old Home Terra, and made possible by two new factors: the Libby-Sheffield Para-Drive as it was known then (not a "drive" in any true sense, but a means of manipulating n-dimensional s.p.a.ces), and the first (and simplest) of effective longevity techniques: new blood grown in vitro.
The Howard Families caused this to happen simply by escaping. The short-lived humans back on Terra, still convinced that the long-lived families possessed a "secret," set about trying to find it by wide and systematic research, and, as always, research paid off serendipitously, not with the nonexistent "secret" but with something almost as good: a therapy, and eventually a sheaf of therapies, for postponing old age, and for extending vigor, virility, and fertility.
The Great Diaspora was then both necessary and possible.
The Senior"s great talent (aside from his ability to lie extemporaneously and convincingly) seems always to have been a rare gift for extrapolating the possibilities of any situation -then twisting it to suit his own purposes. (He calls it: "You have to have a feeling for what makes the frog jump." Psychometrists who have studied him say that he has an extremely high psi talent expressed as "forerunners" and "luck"-but what the Senior has to say about them them is less polite. As a record-keeper, I refrain from opinion.) is less polite. As a record-keeper, I refrain from opinion.) The Senior saw at once that this benison of extended youth, although promised to everyone, would in fact be limited to the powerful and their nepots. The billions of helots could not be allowed to live beyond their normal span; there was no room for them-unless they migrated to the stars, in which case there would be room for each human to live as long as he could manage. How the Senior exploited this is not always clear; he seems to have used several names and many fronts. His key corporations wound up in the hands of this Foundation, then were liquidated to move the Foundation and the Howard Families to Secundus-at his behest, he having saved "the best real estate" for his relatives and descendants. Sixty-eight percent of those then living accepted the challenge of new frontiers.
Our genetic debt to him is both indirect and direct. The indirect debt lies in the fact that migration is a sorting device, a forced Darwinian selection, under which superior stock goes to the stars while culls stay home and die. This is true even for those forcibly transported (as in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth centuries), save that the sorting then takes place on the new planet. In a raw frontier weaklings and misfits die; strong stock survives. Even those who migrate voluntarily still go through this second drastic special selection. The Howard Families have been culled in this fashion at least three times.
Our genetic "debt" to the Senior is even easier to prove. Part of it needs only simple arithmetic. If you live anywhere but on Old Home Terra-and you almost certainly do if you read this, in view of the present miserable state of "The Fair Green Hills of Earth"-and can claim even one member of the Howard Families among your ancestors-and most of you can-then you are most probably descended from the Senior.
By the official Families" genealogies this probability is 87.3 percent. You are descended from many other twentieth-century members of the Howard Families, too, if you are descended from any of them, but I speak here only of Woodrow Wilson Smith, the Senior. By the Crisis Year 2136 nearly one-tenth of the youngest generation of the Howard Families were descended from the Senior "legitimately"-by which I mean that each linking birth was so recorded in the Families" records and ancestry confirmed by such tests as were available at the time. (Even blood typing was not known when the breeding experiment started, but the culling process made it strongly to a female"s advantage not to stray, at least not outside the Families.) By now the c.u.mulative probability is, as I have said, 87.3 percent if you have any any Howard ancestor-but if you have a Howard ancestor from a recent generation, your probability climbs toward an effective 100 percent. Howard ancestor-but if you have a Howard ancestor from a recent generation, your probability climbs toward an effective 100 percent.
But, as a statistician, I have reason to believe (backed by computer a.n.a.lyses of blood types, hair types, eye color, tooth count, enzyme types, and other characteristics responsive to genetic a.n.a.lysis)-strong reason to believe that the Senior has many descendants not recorded in genealogies, both inside and outside the Howard Families.
To put it mildly, he is a shameless old goat whose seed is scattered all through this part of our Galaxy.
Take the years of the Exodus, after he stole the New Frontiers. New Frontiers. He was not married even once during those years, and ship"s records and legends based on memoirs of that time suggest that he was, in an early idiom, a "woman hater," a misogynist. He was not married even once during those years, and ship"s records and legends based on memoirs of that time suggest that he was, in an early idiom, a "woman hater," a misogynist.
Perhaps. Biostatistical records (rather than genealogies), when a.n.a.lyzed, suggest that he was not that unapproachable. The computer that a.n.a.lyzed it offered to bet me even money on more than one hundred offspring fathered by him during those years. (I refused the bet; that computer beats me at chess even though I insist on a one-rook advantage.) I do not find this surprising in view of the almost pathological emphasis placed on longevity among the Families at that time. The oldest male, if still virile-and he certainly was-would have been subjected to endless temptation, endless opportunity, by females anxious to have offspring of his demonstrated superiority-"superiority" by the only criterion the Howard Families respected. We can a.s.sume that marital status would not matter much; all Howard Families marriages were marriages of convenience-Ira Howard"s will insured that-and they were rarely for life. The only surprising aspect is that so few few fertile females managed to trip him when unquestionably so many thousands were willing. But he was always fast on his feet. fertile females managed to trip him when unquestionably so many thousands were willing. But he was always fast on his feet.
As may be-If today I see a man with sandy red hair, a big nose, an easy disarming grin, and a slightly feral look in his gray-green eyes, I always wonder how recently the Senior has pa.s.sed through that part of the Galaxy. If such a stranger comes close to me, I put my hand on my purse. If he speaks to me, I resolve not to make wagers or promises.
But how did the Senior, himself only a third-generation member of Ira Howard"s breeding experiment, manage to live and stay young his first three hundred years without without artificial rejuvenation? artificial rejuvenation?
A mutation, of course-which simply says that we don"t know. But in the course of his several rejuvenations we have learned a little about his physical makeup. He has an unusually large heart that beats very slowly. He has only twenty-eight teeth, no caries, and seems to be immune to infection. He has never had surgery other than for wounds or for rejuvenation procedures. His reflexes are extremely fast-but appear always to be reasoned, so one may question the correctness of the term "reflex." His eyes have never needed correction either for distance or close work; his hearing range is abnormally high, abnormally low, and is unusually acute throughout his range. His color vision includes indigo. He was born without prepuce, without vermiform appendix, -and apparently without a conscience.
I am pleased that he is my ancestor.
Justin Foote the 45th Chief Archivist, Howard Foundation
PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.
In this abridged popular edition the technical appendix has been published separately in order to make room for an account of the Senior"s actions after he left Secundus until his disappearance. An apocryphal and obviously impossible tale of the last events in his life has been included at the insistence of the editor of the original memoir, but it cannot be taken seriously.
Carolyn Briggs Chief Archivist Chief Archivist
Note: My lovely and learned successor in office does not know what she is talking about. With the Senior, the most fantastic is always the most probable.
Justin Foote the 45th Chief Archivist Emeritus Chief Archivist Emeritus
PRELUDE.
I.
As the door of the suite dilated, the man seated staring glumly out the window looked around. "Who the h.e.l.l are you?"
"I am Ira Weatheral of the Johnson Family, Ancestor, Chairman Pro Tem of the Families."
"Took you long enough. Don"t call me "Ancestor." And why just the Chairman Pro Tem?" the man in the chair growled. "Is the Chairman too d.a.m.n busy to see me? Don"t I rate even that? that?" He made no move to stand, nor did he invite his visitor to sit down.
"Your pardon, Sire. I am am chief executive for the Families. But it has been customary for some time now-several centuries-for the chief executive to hold the t.i.tle "Chairman Pro Tem" . . against the possibility that you might show up and take the gavel." chief executive for the Families. But it has been customary for some time now-several centuries-for the chief executive to hold the t.i.tle "Chairman Pro Tem" . . against the possibility that you might show up and take the gavel."
"Eh? Ridiculous. I haven"t presided at a meeting of the Trustees for a thousand years. And "Sire" is as bad as "Ancestor"-call me by name. It"s been two days since I sent for you. Did you come by the scenic route? Or has the rule that ent.i.tles me to the ear of the Chairman been revoked?"
"I am not aware of that rule, Senior; it was probably long before my time-but it is my honor and duty-and pleasure -to wait on you at any time. I will be pleased and honored to call you by name if you will tell me what your name is now. As for the delay-thirty-seven hours since I received your summons-I have spent it studying Ancient English, as I was told that you were not answering to any other language."
The Senior looked slightly sheepish. "It"s true I"m not handy with the jabber they speak here-my memory has been playing tricks on me lately. I guess I"ve been sulky about answering even when I understood. Names-I forget what name I checked in by when I grounded here. Mmm, "Woodrow Wilson Smith" was my boyhood name. Never used it much. I suppose "Lazarus Long" is the name I"ve used oftenest-call me "Lazarus." "
"Thank you, Lazarus."
"For what? Don"t be so d.a.m.ned formal. You"re not a kid, or you wouldn"t be Chairman-how old are you? Did you really take the trouble to learn my milk language just to call on me? And in less than two days? Was that from scratch? It takes me at least a week to tack on a new language, another week to smooth out accent."
"I am three hundred and seventy-two standard years old, Lazarus-just under four hundred Earth years. I learned Cla.s.sic English when I took this job-but as a dead language, to enable me to read old records of the Families in the original. What I did since your summons was to learn to speak and understand it . . in North American twentieth-century idiom-your "milk language" as you said-as that is what the linguistic a.n.a.lyzer computed that you were speaking."
"Pretty smart machine. Maybe I am speaking it the way I did as a youngster; they claim that"s the one language a brain never forgets. Then I must be talking in a Cornbelt rasp like a rusty saw . . whereas you"re speaking a sort of Texas drawl with an Oxford British overlay. Odd. I suppose the machine picks the version out of its permanents closest to the sample fed into it."
"I believe so, Lazarus, although the techniques involved are not my field. Do you have trouble understanding my accent?"
"Oh, none at all. Your accent is okay; it"s closer to educated General American of that time than is the accent I learned as a kid. But I can follow anything from Bluegum to Yorkshire; accent is no problem. It was mighty kind of you to bother. Warming."
"My pleasure. I have a talent for languages; it was not much trouble. I try to be able to speak to each of the Trustees in his native language; I"m used to swotting up a new one quickly."
"So? Nonetheless a courteous thing to do-I"ve felt like an animal in a zoo with no one to talk to. Those dummies"-Lazarus inclined his head at two rejuvenation technicians, dressed in isolation gear and one-way helmets, and waiting as far from the conversation as the room permitted-"don"t know English; I can"t talk with them. Oh, the taller one understands a little but not enough for gossip." Lazarus whistled, pointed at the taller. "Hey, you! A chair for the Chairman-chop chop!" His gestures made his meaning clear. The taller technician touched the controls of a chair nearby; it rolled away, wheeled around, and stopped at a comfortable tete-a-tete distance from Lazarus.
Ira Weatheral said thank you-to Lazarus, not to the tech -sat down, then sighed as the chair felt him out and cuddled him. Lazarus said, "Comfortable?"
"Quite."
"Anything to eat or drink? Or smoke? You may have to interpret for me."
"Nothing, thank you. But may I order for you?"
"Not now. They keep me stuffed like a goose-once they force-fed me, d.a.m.n them. Since we"re comfortable, let"s get on with the powwow." He suddenly roared, "WHAT THE h.e.l.l AM I DOING IN THIS JAIL?"
Weatheral answered quietly, "Not "jail," Lazarus. The VIP suite of the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic, New Rome."
" "Jail," I said. All it lacks is c.o.c.kroaches. This window-you couldn"t break it with a crowbar. That door-it opens to any voice . . except mine. If I go to the john, one of those dummies is at my elbow. Apparently afraid I"ll drown myself in the pot. h.e.l.l, I don"t even know whether that nurse is a man or a woman-and don"t like it either way. I don"t need somebody to hold my hand while I go pee-pee! I resent it."
"I"ll see what can be worked out, Lazarus. But the technicians are understandably jumpy. A person can get hurt quite easily in any bathroom-and they all know that, if you are hurt, no matter by what mischance, the technician in charge at the time will suffer cruel and unusual punishment. They are volunteers and are drawing high bonuses. But they"re jumpy."
"So I figured out. "Jail." If this is a rejuvenation suite . . WHERE WHERE"S MY SUICIDE SWITCH?"
"Lazarus-"Death is every man"s privilege." "
"That"s what I said! That switch belongs right there; you can see where it has been dismounted. So I"m in jail without trial, with my most basic right taken from me. Why? Why? I"m furious, man. Do you realize what danger I"m furious, man. Do you realize what danger you you are in? Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left. Old as I am, I could break your arms before those dummies could reach us." are in? Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left. Old as I am, I could break your arms before those dummies could reach us."
"You are welcome to break my arms if it pleases you."
"Huh?" Lazarus Long looked baffled. "No, it"s not worth the sweat. They would have you patched up good as new in thirty minutes." He suddenly grinned. "But I could snap your neck, then crush your skull, about as fast. That"s one injury beyond the power of rejuvenators."
Weatheral did not stir, did not tense. "I feel sure you could," he said quietly. "But I do not think that you would kill one of your descendants without giving him a chance to parley for his life. You are my remote grandfather, sir, by seven different tracks."
Lazarus chewed his lip and looked unhappy. "Son, I have so many descendants that consanguinity doesn"t matter. But you"re essentially right. In all my life I have never killed a man unnecessarily. I think." Then he grinned. "But if I don"t get my suicide switch back, I could make an exception in your case."
"Lazarus, if you wish, I will have that switch remounted at once. But-"Ten Words"?"
"Uh-" Lazarus looked ungracious. "Okay. "Ten Words." Not eleven."
Weatheral hesitated a split second, then counted on his fingers: "I learned . your . language . to . explain . why . we . need . you."
"Ten by the Rule," Lazarus admitted. "But meaning that you need fifty. Or five hundred. Or five thousand."
"Or none," Weatheral amended. "You can have your switch without giving me any any chance to explain. I promised." chance to explain. I promised."