Two very different men, the Time Traveller from the late nineteenth century and a psychotechnician from the Galactic centre, visit the far future Earth:
"...an eclipse was beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing across the sun's disk. Naturally, at first I took it to be the moon, but there is much to incline me to believe that what I really saw was the transit of an inner planet passing very near to the earth."
-HG Wells, The Time Machine (London, 1973), 14, p. 94.
"The evening star twinkled forth, low and white on the dusk-blue horizon. Venus - or was it Mercury? He wasn't sure. He wished he knew more about the early history of the Solar System, the first men to ride their thunderous rockets out to die on unknown hell-worlds - the first clumsy steps toward the stars."
-Poul Anderson, "The Chapter Ends" IN Anderson. The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 3 (Riverdale, NY, July 2018), pp. 195-215 AT p. 202.
The Time Traveller comes from a time before space travel. Wells later wrote about The First Men In The Moon.
The Time Traveller sees the eclipse at a time long after human life has ended. The Psychotechnician sees the evening star at a time when its last human inhabitants are about to evacuate Earth. The Time Traveller sees his "Further Vision." The psychotechnician is present when "The Chapter Ends." The two men resonate across the timelines.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That quote from Wells is, unfortunately, scientifically absurd. An expanding Sun will destroy Mercury. But I do realize Wells did not know that at the time he wrote THE TIME MACHINE. It took decades before astronomers came to a better understanding of how stars evolve.
Ad astra! Sean
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