Good-byes

A space traveller says good-bye to Earth. Se the previous post.

A time traveller says good-bye to the Sun:

"So good-by, Sol, he thought. Good-by, and thank you for many million years of warmth and light. Sleep well, old friend."

-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT CHAPTER SIX, p. 284.

That time traveller, Martin Saunders, has no alternative but to continue onward beyond the end of the universe whereas his literary predecessor, HG Wells' Time Traveller, having watched the setting of the swollen red sun, was able to turn back and return to the late nineteenth century. These are past visions of remote futures. We look back at them and forward into our own future.