He always told me he worked remotely. I think that’s what he said. It’s hard to keep track of details these days. But I see the light from his room, a pale line crawling under the door slit upstairs, whenever I wake in the dead of night.

My wife, Helen, was the one who spoke to him. "Such a polite man," she told me weeks ago, looking up from her crossword. "And his eyes, dear. A lovely hazel. The...

Through the triple-paned viewport of my quarters, I watched the wind scour the ice plains outside. A small display integrated into the window frame glowed with the external reading: -229°C. It made no sound, but the sight of that number was enough to raise a phantom chill on my skin, a memory of the brutal cold waiting just centimeters away.

_13:17 Pluto time,_ I reminded myself. _I have to be th...

The broadcast flickered to life, not with the usual news from the Jupiter mission, but with the digitally smooth face of a 90-year-old actress advertising 'Aeturnum Gel.'

"Why visit the stars when you can be one forever?" she purred to the camera, her smile perfect and unnervingly still.

In the year 2122, this was the obsession that truly pulled at humanity. We had colonized Mars and sent probes...