I stared at the finger marks, mesmerised by my own thoughts. Someone had been looking through this lens a lot more recently than two hundred years ago, but they hadn't kept at it very long. From the minimal displacement of dust it looked as if the programming keys had only been used once. On a sudden impulse, I moved up to the telescope and followed the line of its barrel out over the sea to where visibility blurred in the haze. That far out. the angle of elevation would give you a view of empty air a couple of kilometres up. I bent to the eye-piece as if in a dream. A grey speck showed up in the centre of my field of vision, blurring in and out of focus as my eyes struggled with the surrounding expanses of blue. Lifting my head and checking the control pad again, I found a max amp key and thumbed it impatiently. When I looked again, the grey speck had sprung into hard focus, filling most of the lens. I breathed out slowly, feeling as if I'd had the cigarette after all.