further than Saturn. Saturn, for them, and for astrologers still, was the planet of limitation. This was the so far and no further planet, the warning, the boundary.
Now it seems there are no boundaries. The universe has no centre. Every limit can be crossed. Even the speed of light – 300,000 kilometres per second – is not the speed limit of the universe. If we could warp space, we could break the light barrier.
One day we’ll do it all.
For now, we’ve landed on the moon and we’ve sent BEAGLE 2 to Mars. We know so much more than Mir. We know more about outer space than anyone ever. But all we know is just the start. These are jottings, hesitations, small facts, big gaps.
Like all dreams, the details are strange.
Atlas would miss Mir. He had been watching it for years. They both watched it. It was television for him and the dog.
Laika had told Atlas all about the world he had never seen. Of course, her world stopped in 1957, and it was the Soviet Union, so Atlas thought that everyone now ate beetroot and turnip and shivered in zero temperatures in concrete apartments.
The dog said that the earth was full; soon its inhabitants would have to live in space. Atlas had got used to his own company, and he didn’t want humans he had never met flying round his face intheir tinny pods. He was a prisoner but he had rights.
They had both seen the moon landing in 1969. Atlas assumed that the men wore those ridiculous clothes because it was so cold on earth these days. He thought of the sun warming his garden, and how he had always gone barefoot. Laika assured him that no one went barefoot in Russia.
‘Where is Russia?’ said Atlas.
‘Over there,’ said Laika, wagging her tail.
Atlas looked round at the jigsaw of the earth. The pieces were continually cut and re-cut, but the picture stayed the same; a diamond blue planet, ice-capped, swirled in space. Nothing was as beautiful. Not fiery Mars nor clouded Venus, not the comets with their tails blown by solar winds.
Then Atlas had a strange thought.
Why not put it down?
Desire
What can I tell you about the choices we make?
I chose this story above all others because it’s a story I’m struggling to end. Here we are, with all the pieces in place and the final moment waiting. I reach this moment, not once, many times, have been reaching it all my life, it seems, and I find there is no resolution.
I want to tell the story again.
That’s why I write fiction – so that I can keep telling the story. I return to problems I can’t solve, not because I’m an idiot, but because the real problems can’t be solved. The universe is expanding. The more we see, the more we discover there is to see.
Always a new beginning, a different end.
* * *
When I was a kid my parents were still living in the war.
My father had been in the D-Day landings. My mother was a young woman in 1940. They adopted me late in life, and I was raised among gas-masks and rationing. They never understood that the war was over. They remained suspicious of strangers, and kept themselves closed off in the personal air-raid shelter they called home.
My mother had a war-time revolver she hid in the duster drawer, and six bullets waxily embedded in a tin of furniture polish. When things were bad, she took out the gun and the polish and left them on the sideboard. It was sufficient.
On revolver nights, I crept to bed and switched on my light-up universe. I used to travel it, country by country, some real, others imagined, re-making the atlas as I went.
My journeys were matters of survival; crossing nights of misery into days of hope. Keeping thelight on was keeping the world going. It was a private vigil, sacred to stop things falling apart – her, me, the life I knew – however impossible – the only one.
Looking at the glowing globe, I thought that if I could only keep on telling the story, if the story would not end, I could invent my way out of
Now it seems there are no boundaries. The universe has no centre. Every limit can be crossed. Even the speed of light – 300,000 kilometres per second – is not the speed limit of the universe. If we could warp space, we could break the light barrier.
One day we’ll do it all.
For now, we’ve landed on the moon and we’ve sent BEAGLE 2 to Mars. We know so much more than Mir. We know more about outer space than anyone ever. But all we know is just the start. These are jottings, hesitations, small facts, big gaps.
Like all dreams, the details are strange.
Atlas would miss Mir. He had been watching it for years. They both watched it. It was television for him and the dog.
Laika had told Atlas all about the world he had never seen. Of course, her world stopped in 1957, and it was the Soviet Union, so Atlas thought that everyone now ate beetroot and turnip and shivered in zero temperatures in concrete apartments.
The dog said that the earth was full; soon its inhabitants would have to live in space. Atlas had got used to his own company, and he didn’t want humans he had never met flying round his face intheir tinny pods. He was a prisoner but he had rights.
They had both seen the moon landing in 1969. Atlas assumed that the men wore those ridiculous clothes because it was so cold on earth these days. He thought of the sun warming his garden, and how he had always gone barefoot. Laika assured him that no one went barefoot in Russia.
‘Where is Russia?’ said Atlas.
‘Over there,’ said Laika, wagging her tail.
Atlas looked round at the jigsaw of the earth. The pieces were continually cut and re-cut, but the picture stayed the same; a diamond blue planet, ice-capped, swirled in space. Nothing was as beautiful. Not fiery Mars nor clouded Venus, not the comets with their tails blown by solar winds.
Then Atlas had a strange thought.
Why not put it down?
Desire
What can I tell you about the choices we make?
I chose this story above all others because it’s a story I’m struggling to end. Here we are, with all the pieces in place and the final moment waiting. I reach this moment, not once, many times, have been reaching it all my life, it seems, and I find there is no resolution.
I want to tell the story again.
That’s why I write fiction – so that I can keep telling the story. I return to problems I can’t solve, not because I’m an idiot, but because the real problems can’t be solved. The universe is expanding. The more we see, the more we discover there is to see.
Always a new beginning, a different end.
* * *
When I was a kid my parents were still living in the war.
My father had been in the D-Day landings. My mother was a young woman in 1940. They adopted me late in life, and I was raised among gas-masks and rationing. They never understood that the war was over. They remained suspicious of strangers, and kept themselves closed off in the personal air-raid shelter they called home.
My mother had a war-time revolver she hid in the duster drawer, and six bullets waxily embedded in a tin of furniture polish. When things were bad, she took out the gun and the polish and left them on the sideboard. It was sufficient.
On revolver nights, I crept to bed and switched on my light-up universe. I used to travel it, country by country, some real, others imagined, re-making the atlas as I went.
My journeys were matters of survival; crossing nights of misery into days of hope. Keeping thelight on was keeping the world going. It was a private vigil, sacred to stop things falling apart – her, me, the life I knew – however impossible – the only one.
Looking at the glowing globe, I thought that if I could only keep on telling the story, if the story would not end, I could invent my way out of
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