Leaving people was not that much harder. People reacted to the news with varying levels of surprise and sadness, since everyone knows that once you join the Colonial Defense Forces, you don't come back. But it's not entirely like dying. They know that somewhere out there, you're still alive; heck, maybe after a while, they might even come and join you. It's a little what I imagine people felt hundreds of years ago when someone they knew hitched up a wagon and headed west. They cried, they missed them, they got back to what they were doing.
Anyway, I told people a whole year before I left that I was going. That's a lot of time to say what you have to say, to settle matters and to make your peace with someone. Over the course of the year, I had had a few sit-downs with old friends and family and did a final poking of old wounds and ashes; in nearly every case it ended well. A couple of times I asked forgiveness for things I didn't particularly feel sorry about, and in one case I found myself in bed with someone who otherwise I'd rather I hadn't. But you do what you have to do to give people closure; it makes them feel better and it doesn't cost you much to do it. I'd rather apologize for something I didn't really care about, and leave someone on Earth wishing me well, than to be stubborn and have that someone hoping that some alien would slurp out my brains. Call it karmic insurance.
Charlie had been my major concern. Like many fathers and sons, we'd had our go-rounds; I wasn't the most attentive father, and he wasn't the most self-directed son, wandering through life well into his thirties. When he originally found out that Kathy and I intended to join, he'd exploded at us. He reminded us that we'd protested against the Subcontinental War. He reminded us that we'd always taught him violence wasn't the answer. He reminded us that we'd once grounded him for a month when he'd gone out target shooting with Bill Young, which we both thought was a little odd for a man of thirty-five to bring up.
Kathy's death ended most of our battles, because both he and I realized that most of the things we argued about simply didn't matter; I was a widower and he a bachelor, and for a while he and I were all we had left. Not long thereafter he met and married Lisa, and about a year after that he became a father and was re-elected mayor all in one very hectic night. Charlie had been a late bloomer, but it was a fine bloom. He and I had our own sit-down where I apologized for some things (sincerely), and also told him equally sincerely how proud I was of the man he'd become. Then we sat on the porch with our beers, watched my grandson Adam swat a t-ball in the front yard, and talked about nothing of any importance for a nice long time. When we parted, we parted well and with love, which is what you want between fathers and sons.
I stood there by the kiosk, nursing my Coke and thinking about Charlie and his family, when I heard Leon's voice grumbling, followed by another voice, low, sharp and female, saying something in response. In spite of myself, I peered over past the kiosk. Leon had apparently managed to corner some poor woman and was no doubt sharing whatever dumb-ass theory his beef-witted brain stem was promulgating at the moment. My sense of chivalry overcame my desire to hide; I went to intervene.
"All I'm saying," Leon was saying, "is that it's not exactly fair that you and I and every American has to wait until we're older than shit to get our chance to go, while all those little Hindis get carted off to brand-new worlds as fast as they can breed. Which is pretty damn quick. That's just not fair. Does it seem fair to you?"
"No, it doesn't seem particularly fair," the woman said back. "But I suppose they wouldn't see it as fair that we wiped New Delhi and Mumbai off the face of the planet, either."
"That's exactly my point!" Leon exclaimed. "We nuked the dot heads! We won that war! Winning should count for something. And now look what happens. They lost, but they get to go colonize the universe, and the only way we get to go is if we sign up to protect them! Excuse me for saying so, but doesn't the Bible say, 'The meek shall inherit the earth'? I'd say losing a goddamn war makes you pretty damn meek."
"I don't think that phrase means what you think it does, Leon," I said, approaching the two of them.
"John! See, here's a man who knows what I'm talking about," Leon said, grinning my way.
The woman turned to face me. "You know this gentleman?" she asked me, with an undercurrent in her voice that implied that if I did, there was clearly something wrong with me.
"We met on the trip to Nairobi," I said, gently raising an eyebrow to indicate that he wasn't my companion of choice. "I'm John Perry," I said.
"Jesse Gonzales," she said.
"Charmed," I replied, and then turned to Leon. "Leon," I said, "you've got the saying wrong. The actual saying is from the Sermon on the Mount, and it says, 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' Inheriting the earth is meant to be a reward, not a punishment."
Leon blinked, then snorted. "Even so, we beat them. We kicked their little brown asses. We should be colonizing the universe, not them."