Pascal looked out the transparent walls of the Vectoriel train as it flew westwards soundlessly along its superconducting tracks. Lutèce was even more beautiful in the evening when the Sun neared the Martian horizon, its unfiltered golden light reflecting off the urban streaks of the northern façade in the distance. One can almost be forgiven for thinking that the rest of the universe doesn’t exist.

Pascal stood near the head of the train. He enjoyed remaining upright; it gave him a sense of possibility and agency that letting external appliances support his weight reduced. Over his formal diplomatic attire he had added a layer of intertwining laces and strips that wound across the length of his body, meticulously adhering to its weight distribution. Its close fit emphasised his lean, focused physique which did not subvert his presence rather than hint at the potential energy he kept hidden yet still noticeable. Pascal was decently tall, but he never used it to project himself. Superficial attributes did not lend nearly as much credence to a person’s character as actions taken from a place of genuine belief.

The external garment was a loading layer used to regulate the gravity that its wearer felt. Most Martian citizens configured it at exactly one g, and this contributed to the long-term physical wellbeing of Francosphere society; Pascal also set it as such. Lutèce was veritably permeated with electromagnetic infrastructure, and this allowed the loading layer to take effect almost everywhere across the city. By invoking a precise magnetic field on the space around it, the network of fieldresponsive fibres and nodes carefully distributed additional weight through the wearer’s body to compensate for Mars’ low gravity.

Pascal shifted his gaze away from the valley towards the escarpment’s urban terraces on his left. Elegantly stacked stratum by stratum, the structure of the city’s façade made its artificial infrastructure appear like natural continuations of geological time. Within each stratum, he saw the outlines of public appliances, commercial buildings, and ornamental designs that, from his wholistic perspective, harmonised as currents of a laminar river instead of separate units.

As the train slowed to a stop at the Vectoriel station, Pascal entered one of the connective corridors that recurred every few strata and directed himself home. When he crossed the familiar halls, he noted the multitudes of quotidian shapes and conveniences that appeared perfectly in place in any modern city on Earth, an especially profound feature, it seemed to him, having so recently seen Paris.

Pascal approached his front door and it opened, sensing his identity and intent. He entered the oblong common room and found his father resting in his chair by the hearth, looking beyond the large windows into the Martian landscape that Lutèce had made its own. The moment Étienne Fourier heard Pascal enter he instantly rose and turned towards his son, his kind face, so similar to Pascal’s with its gently aquiline features, radiating a warm smile that made the hearth but a spark in comparison. They embraced, and only then did Pascal truly feel at home.

They spoke for a while about simple things, the kind of things a caring and concerned father would inquire of a son newly returned from an arduous business trip. They exchanged ordinary pleasantries and talked of times past, of old memories and sweet intentions. Each worried after the other’s welfare, and each responded that he was just fine as usual, thank you very much. Étienne offered Pascal a dish he had made; Pascal refused, saying he had eaten on the Mistral, but his father made him relent eventually. So they spoke, and so they spoke, displaying the utmost filial and fatherly devotion.

And yet, there was an invisible line on the contours of their conversation which neither acknowledged nor crossed. When they discussed the past, they recalled only as far as twelve years back before retreating to the present. For twenty-two years they had known and loved each other, but ten of those years were so closed off from their minds that it seemed their relationship only began a decade after meeting each other. The past was not wholly as inaccessible as people made it out to be. Memories were the adhesive linking the past to the present; they were the proof that the universe had history, a journey that continued to be written up to the immediate, something that could not have been made yesterday. However, there existed memories that, to preserve the fragile coherence of one’s present identity, had to be sacrificed alongside the past attached to it. Thus, they continued speaking, laughing, and remembering, but only to the extent that allowed them to be sure they would continue speaking, laughing, and remembering tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that.

It was not going to end today. Étienne broached the topic of Earth the only possible way to avert internal catastrophe.

“Pascal, I learned of what happened in Paris. Everyone has.” He looked at his son expectantly.

Pascal sighed gently, looking down. “We really tried, father. We went having opened up our hearts and souls only for them to be torn from us and left to despair in nonexistence. There is no treating with them anymore.”

Étienne nodded, a faint sadness filling his brown eyes. “Then what do you mean to do now?”

Pascal raised his eyes again to meet his father’s. “As a physicist, when you encounter a problem that you cannot solve within its initial boundaries and conditions, what do you do?”

“I would make sure I fully understood the problem and its related conditions first. Solutions often escape us because of the limits of our own knowledge.”

“And if that doesn’t help?”

“I would inquire of the perspectives of colleagues or experts more well versed than I in the subject.”

“And if they too lack the answers?”

Étienne sighed in his turn, placing a hand on Pascal’s. “You want to leave the system. You truly believe that there is no longer a way for humanity to resolve its internal affairs without venturing outwards to where humanity is not?”

Pascal tightened his gaze. “I know it.”

Étienne’s eyes filled with sympathy. “I understand, and I won’t try to stop you. I know you will do great things in Concorde. My worry is that you will become so besieged by politics that you forget what it means to be a man of science.”

Inadvertently, Pascal’s eyes widened. “A physicist is who I am in my very essence; I would never forget that. I don’t want you to think that I would.”

“I don’t question your sincerity; I worry because, despite your vast intellect, you are still twenty-two years old. You lack the knowledge of the world that comes only from time and age. People specialise in their fields for a reason. Not just to be more efficient or for society to seem more orderly, but also to prevent any one person from thinking they have all the knowledge it takes to make the right decisions for everyone. I fear that you, out of a sense of duty and honour, will feel compelled to take such action when necessity arises, and I fear you may forget that you are still only human.”

Pascal did not have a response.

“I have raised you your entire life. You will always do what you believe is right; I have no doubt about that. It also does not help that you are right in almost every case; that makes the one time you are wrong all the more dangerous.”

Pascal rose from his chair next to Étienne’s by the hearth and approached his father, lowering himself to embrace him again. “I promise you,” he whispered, “I will not lose myself. I swear it by my honour, the heavens above… and her memory.” The invisible line extended itself to the limit. “When I return from Concorde you will be able to judge for yourself.”

Étienne, visibly pained by Pascal’s words, held him closer in his arms. “I can never judge you. You are all that I have left in this world. You are my son. You will always be my son.”