Eventually they settled on this chap whose name was Adam. Well, he had the perfect name, didn’t he? And he had a nice family with three sons and was an all-round nice fellow. And a very good spaceship pilot who flew flights to Uranus. And so Adam said that he would be pleased to go, even though it meant that he might never see his family again, but he felt certain that he would, because it was such a good spaceship and the scientists were so clever and everything.

So, there were a lot of broadcasts on everyone’s wrist televisions and a big parade and Adam got into the spaceship and waved goodbye and was frozen up and the rocket blasted off into space.

And that was the last that anyone on Earth ever saw of Adam.

He travelled across the universe at the speed of light, covering unimaginable distances, and his spaceship went on and on and on, searching for the perfect planet.

And then one day – it must have been thousands of years later – his spaceship eventually found the perfect planet and landed and Adam unfroze and opened the door and stepped out of the spaceship.

And found that he was back on Earth.

Well, at least it looked just like Earth.

And not just because of the trees and flowers. But because of the buildings and flying cars and all the people who were gathered around looking up at his spaceship.

And then out of the crowd appeared this chap who looked just like Adam. Just like him. And this chap said, “Hello, Dad,” and another chap said, “Hello, Granddad,” then another appeared and said, “Hello, Great-Granddad,” and another who said, “Hello, Great-Great-Granddad.”

And they all looked like Adam.

And Adam got a little confused.

And so the one who had said, “Hello, Dad,” explained the situation to him. He said, “Well, Dad, after you’d gone, time passed and I grew up, and I became a scientist and I looked at the plans for your spaceship and I said, ‘I can improve on that. I can make a spaceship that will travel twice the speed of light.’ So I did and I got in it and I got here in half the time it took you to get here. But when I did, I found that my own son was already here, because while I’d been gone he’d grown up and become a scientist and looked at the plans of my spaceship and said, ‘I can improve on that,’ and built a spaceship that could go four times the speed of light and he’d got here in half the time it had taken me to get here. But when he’d got here, he’d found that his own son was already here, because he’d grown up and improved the spaceship even more and got here in half the time again. But when he got here, he found that his son was already here because—”

“Stop, stop,” said Adam. “This is driving me insane. How many generations of me are there here?”

“Thousands and thousands and thousands,” said the son, “and not just here, but on every other habitable planet in the universe. The universe is now all completely overcrowded by generations and generations of you.”

Adam went back into his spaceship, and if he’d had a revolver to hand he would have shot his brains out. But he didn’t. Although he might well have done. But he was a very nice man and none of this was really his fault, so he left his spaceship and went down to the crowd and was carried shoulder-high by the crowd, for being such a pioneer and everything, and finally he had a meal out at a nice restaurant that had about three thousand tables in it, so that a few of his descendants could dine with him too.

And it was over the meal that his son put a proposition to him.

“Dad,” said his son. “As the universe is all full up now, mankind is looking for new places to live in and your great (to the power of 23,000,000)-grandson has come up with this new spaceship drive system that will take a pilot into an alternative universe in another dimension. And we’re looking for someone to pilot the ship.”

And Adam, who was frankly pretty much off his rocker by now, said, “I’ll do it. Can I do it now, or at least as soon as I’ve finished my dinner?”

And his son said, “Sure thing, Dad. First thing in the morning. The ship’s all fuelled up and waiting. We knew you’d want to volunteer.”

So the very next morning there was this big procession and a broadcast on wrist televisions that went out to planets all over the universe and Adam got into the special new interdimensional spaceship and got frozen up in the very modern cryogenic capsule. And his son pressed the launch button and the spaceship vanished into an alternative universe.

And you’ll never guess what happened when the spaceship landed on the first habitable planet it came to in the alternative universe in another dimension.

“What did happen?” I asked Dave, after he had said, “THE END.”

Dave rolled his eyes. “Same thing,” he said. “Except that now it was far more complicated, with more millions of descendants involved. And one of them had invented another spaceship that could travel into an alternative alternative universe. I had to end the parable somewhere, so I ended it there. I did toy with the idea that on his final voyage in an infinitely alternative universe Adam took a woman with him for company. And, as it turned out, when he reached the next habitable planet in a universe so many times alternative from the first one that it didn’t have a number to cover it, he finally found himself on a planet that no descendant of his had got to before him. Because the spaceships they’d designed had finally reached the point where they could no longer be improved upon. So there was only him and his woman all alone on this new planet that was just like Earth but no one had ever been to before. The woman’s name was Eve, by the way.”

“That’s a far better ending,” I said.

“Nah,” said Dave. “That’s a stupid ending. Too far-fetched.”

I removed my finger from my nose and scratched at my head with it. “I always thought that parables were supposed to have a moral to them,” I said.

“They are,” said Dave.

“So what’s the moral to yours?”

“It’s obvious,” said Dave. “Think about it.”

I thought about it. “Oh yes,” I said. “I get the moral. I understand it.”

Dave nodded thoughtfully. “I knew you would,” he said. “I only wish that I did.”

7

I lay behind the hedge with Dave and thought about his parable. It was a pretty good parable, as parables go, because it did have spaceships in it. But the more I thought about the substance of that parable, the more I realized that it really didn’t work at all.

The space pioneer Adam could never have met his own son on that far-away world. He’d have died there thousands of years before. And how could there be all those generations of descendants all still alive? Had they discovered the secret of immortality? But all the same it was a good parable and I thought that if the time ever came to tell it I’d tidy it up somewhat and put my interesting ending at the end.

But the time never came for me to tell it, so I didn’t.

“I’m growing impatient with all this lying around in wait,” I said to Dave. “We should do something to precipitate some action.”

“Do speak English,” said my bestest friend.

“Go and knock on the door, or something.”

“Just be patient,” said Dave to me. “Pretend you’re an adult: wait.”

And so we waited a little while more and finally our patience was rewarded.

“A police car,” said Dave. “I’ve been expecting that.”

“You have?”

“I have. When I left the wake house before you, I telephoned the police.”

“Why?” I asked, which seemed a reasonable question.

“So we could have time alone with Mr Penrose.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, and I didn’t.

“Just watch,” said Dave. “Just watch and learn.”