He also said - pointedly - that space travel nowadays was an escape from the problems of Earth. That is, one took off for the stars in the hope that the worst would happen and be done with in one's absence. And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I had peered anxiously out the porthole - especially when returning from a long voyage - to see whether or not our planet resembled a burnt potato.

We are the cause of our own sufferings.

I wanted to stop her; in the darkness and silence we occasionally managed to throw off our despair for a while by making each other forget.