“A coconut went through the wing a couple of days ago. I’ve not had time to repair it because of that problem with the fishtraps. Anyway, it’s not equipped for night flying.”

The mayor gave him a long, hard look.

“I hope my car’s working,” she said sarcastically.

“Of course,” Brant answered, in a hurt voice. “All fuelled up, and ready to go.”

It was quite unusual for the mayor’s car to go anywhere; one could walk the length of Tarna in twenty minutes, and all local transport of food and equipment was handled by small sandrollers. In seventy years of official service the car had clocked up less than a hundred thousand kilometres, and, barring accidents, should still be going strong for at least a century to come.

The Lassans had experimented cheerfully with most vices; but planned obsolescence and conspicuous consumption were not among them. No one could have guessed that the vehicle was older than any of its passengers as it started on the most historic journey it would ever make.

4. Tocsin

No one heard the first tolling of Earth’s funeral bell — not even the scientists who made the fatal discovery, far underground, in an abandoned Colorado gold mine.

It was a daring experiment, quite inconceivable before the mid-twentieth century. Once the neutrino had been detected, it was quickly realized that mankind had a new window on the universe. Something so penetrating that it passed through a planet as easily as light through a sheet of glass could be used to look into the hearts of suns.

Especially the Sun. Astronomers were confident that they understood the reactions powering the solar furnace, upon which all life on Earth ultimately depended. At the enormous pressures and temperatures at the Sun’s core, hydrogen was fused to helium, in a series of reactions that liberated vast amounts of energy. And, as an incidental by-product, neutrinos.