• Russian translation by Alexey Sedunov

It brings tears to my eyes, the power it must have taken to do this.

The planets Allatiouray A and B were close together to begin with. When they were discovered, their atmospheres were abrading against each other, slowly leeching momentum. They were only a few hundred years away from colliding. And there was no reason not to let them; the planets were bald and sterile; their collision would have been spectacular, but unproblematic. But some insane sculptor had a better idea... and when you have power...

Recruiting an enthusiastic fleet of like-minded sentient starships, he stripped both planets of their atmosphere, spiralling the cocktail of gases off in a thousand-kilometre-wide display which is still on the system's outskirts, a work of art in its own right. Then he siphoned heat energy from the planets' interiors, cooling them and slowing the magma motion inside them until they became inert. That would prevent minor gravitational fluctuations from perturbing their shared orbits. Then he flattened them, and killed their (nominal) magnetic fields. There could not be imperfections.

Inert, rigid, solid spheres. It could have been done with the atmosphere and the rest still present, sure - but it would have required constant maintenance, and that wasn't the point. He wanted his work to be free-standing, and for that he needed to remove additional variables.

After that it was just mathematics; unbelievably ancient mathematics, applied with surgical precision. Rotation. Relative motion. Matching. Matching perfectly, to make Allatiouray A and B two planets, locked permanently face-to-face in orbit around each other...

Using my suit's inertia controls I pivot in space and plant my feet on fused marble, below me. Then I stretch up and plant my palms against the rock ceiling above.

Allatiouray A and B are locked in orbit around each other. And they are separated by a distance of six feet.

I am Atlas, stopping the sky from falling. I am an action hero, being crushed in a villainous trap. I am gravity, invisibly binding worlds together.

I am Ed MacPherson, and I am standing on one planet while touching another.