Introduction

The air is very cold and still: except for the sound of my own breathing, the silence is absolute. The dry, powdery snow crackles whenever my boot touches down. Its perfect whiteness, lit by starlight, gives the terrain a luminous, eerie brilliance, while the stars fade into a continuous glow across the black celestial dome. The night is brighter on this desolate planet than on my own home world. Beauty, but of a cold and lifeless kind: a place for metaphysical contemplation if ever there was one.

Alone, I'd left the safety of the base, to think about the day's events and to watch the sky for meteors. But it was impossible to think of anything other than the sheer enormousness and impersonal nature of the universe. The pinwheeling of galaxies, the endless expansion of the universe, the infinite coldness of space, the heat of stars being born, and their final death throes as red giants: surely this must be the point of existence.

Man-life in general-seems irrelevant to the workings of the universe: a mere smudge of water, grease, and carbon on a pinpoint planet circling a star of no special consequence.

Earlier, during the short stingy sunlight hours, Curt, Kip, and I had hiked about a mile to the Russian compound to see if we could find some Ivans to talk to. Stephen had wanted to come with us but his wheelchair could not navigate the snowdrifts. The derelict compound, just a few low rusted corrugated-metal buildings, looked deserted. We banged on the doors, but no life appeared. I cracked open the door and peered into the spooky interior darkness, then decided to brave entry and have a look around. As cold inside as it

...