I was chatting with my son, Tom, and we got onto the pace of technological change. Long-term space flight seemed problematic to us, because once you’ve launched you’re stuck with the technology you started with. ‘Wouldn’t it be funny,’ Tom said, ‘if you set off to colonise a planet and when you got there other people had already arrived.’ I started to write that humorous story, then tore it up and wrote this one instead. ~ First Published Arc 1.3 (www.arcfinity.org), 2012 Also available in the short story collection, Open Waters, from the EXAGGERATEDpress