Midsummer Day, 5,000,000,000 A.D., And After

(Here we see the book on someone's table, an evocative image, the book in our world, its cover showing the universe and the tau equation.)

Poul Anderson, Tau Zero, CHAPTERs 18-19.

The Leonora Christine is passing through a large, rich clan (group of group of galaxies) but moving too fast to slow down, enter a galaxy and search for a planet. The ship is more likely to find a resting place if she continues to accelerate.

Anderson makes the ship's passage between and through clans seem routine. A whole series could have been set in this scenario, not interstellar, intergalactic or inter-cluster but inter-clan.

Lindgren prepares the captain's Midsummer Day address five or six billion years after leaving the Solar System when Earth itself might be gone. The autumnal equinox is not celebrated.

The ship quivers as it passes through another galaxy. Such passages are daily more frequent. Each accelerates the ship further. The Time Traveler saw the end of life on Earth. The Leonora Christine has gone much farther, into places that Wells did not know about. The Time Machine was published in 1895 whereas other galaxies were confirmed in 1925, thirty years later, ninety four years ago.