When Kari gathers herself, we have a discussion about gravity, that you will not notice that you are on a globe if you don't specifically test for it, and that the earth she is standing on is a globe, which is the reason she can't see far over the sea and the horizon. I can only guess how difficult it is to understand, but she accepts that what I say is true. And we have magnification, so we could just find a very high coastal cliff and watch a ship disappear over the horizon, only to reappear as we climb up, and the hull will disappear first. It feels impossible, that water and people just don't fall off, but I've done so much that is like magic so she accepts it is so. The Earth have its own sejd that pull everything in towards the center, even if she doesn't understand gravity, and I don't touch on time dilation. My measuring tools like the sextant works because it is true. But she knows that swinging a bucket in a circle can hold water in an open vessel, and there is evidence of how forces affect each other. Planetary scale is just bigger and works a little differently. Kari understands why Asta stared at the Globe, as Asta who thought she had sailed everywhere and seen most things now understands it is such a small part of the world, and there is an end as it loops back on itself, and Asta deeply wants to know and experience what is out there. She wants to know what there really is far across the sea that isn't infinite.

We sit on the couch in my bedroom and I show her a couple of pictures of Earth from space. I explain that the technology that makes it so one can talk and see pictures from one side of the globe does not have to be limited to the globe, because it goes through the air. I continue to explain about rockets, that are insanely powerful machines can leave the Earth's strong gravity and go straight up and up. Machines far far more impressive than my tiny fireworks, but based on the same principle. Machines taller than the castle that travel faster than arrows fly. Faster than sound. Straight up, far higher than any mountain or birds reach, into space. I show pictures of Astronauts in orbit. The selfie picture Mike Fossum took on himself while space walking, where you can see the camera in his hands and the reflectors in the visor, which really sells it and makes it real for her. She sees the camera and other things in the background. She recognizes a those types of cameras, not least after she herself was the one who travelled and bought Tom's camera, and it's such a human thing to take a selfie picture. Kari has done it. All our mobiles and tablets have cameras, and both Tom and I had large cameras as well, so of course people take one with them when they travel into space. She would.

Kari sees that I have many pictures of a lot she doesn't understand, and that I only select a few. I show a couple of pictures of illuminated big cities, and she understands when I say it is a variant of electric light where people are in the dark, like the flashlights and room lights, but on a vastly different scale. She stops me slowly changing picture and is actually crying as she see Tracy Caldwell lying in the dome of the ISS and looking out over the Earth below. I knew it would get a response. That is another thing she can understand - looking at the view through a window. And that is a hell of a view to have.

Something like ten minutes pass as Kari just sits and hugs me, staring at the picture. Her world will never be the same again. Finally, she asks me about the moon. What is the moon? So I explain that it's a globe like the Earth, but just a big rock with nothing on the surface. No water, no atmosphere, no people and no life. Just stone, and it also spins around the Earth due to gravity. Technically, there is water in the form of ice, and much of the regolith is oxygen and metals, but this is neither the time or place for the nerd in me to be that correct. I tell her that the moon is huge, but small compared to Earth. The moon looks big in the sky, but it is actually so much much bigger; it is just so incredibly far, far away, but if you were to travel there and look up, you would see Earth with its sea blue color, green forest cover land and sand deserts, covered by white clouds. Earth would be much bigger in the sky but still only a small part of the whole sky.

It is with some trepidation that I browse through my directory for the moon and the Apollo program. I show Buzz saluting the flag. It's just a couple of funny man shaped thick suits on a flat sandy gray surface with the weird lander and a flag in front of him with dark sky - but it makes an impression. The horizon is flat and there are footsteps everywhere. I explain that the sky is dark because there is no air, so even though it is in the middle of the day you see the night sky. It's hard for her to understand. I show another picture of the camera and the moon car, and a GIF video where the moon car drives and bounce around. Kari understands it is a carriage with built-in hidden magic horses, which is her way of thinking about cars. I have 97 images in just this directory, but show only a few, like Earth Rising. I don't think Kari is ready to see more pictures and get told more information today. So I turn it off and put the tablet aside, saying it's enough for today. Kari hugs my wrist so hard, stares in front of her and tells me to continue. Asks me to continue with a very serious look. To please continue with a pleading look and voice.

My attempts to say she has to contemplate what she's seen fall at deaf ears. She wants to know how much further Midgård humans have gone, and I explain we haven't. The space is so unpleasant to travel in. There is nothing there. Everything has to be brought along on the journey, and even though we can travel so much faster than she ever imagined, and have to do it just to be able to escape Earth's gravity, it is not far enough. The space and distances are so enormous it is impossible to compare with anything down here.

Stolen novel; please report.

I restart the tablet and show Earth Rise. She now knows how much bigger the world is so I give an example of how far, far away it is in that scale. I say it is 10 times longer to the Moon than Earth is to travel around in a straight line. With the globe in our library, the moon is equivalent to the other end of the room. Travelling between with the high speed they had in the Apollo program took them 3 days if I remember correctly. With Millennium Eagle's highest speed it had taken almost 3-4 years. No obstacles, full speed. Kari stares and confirms. 3 days what had taken my ship 3-4 years without stopping? I just nod. When their capsule travelled back down to Earth's surface, they had to slow down from 12km/s. With that speed the distance to Borgarsandr takes about 4 seconds, and I count slowly: "Here, 3, 2, 1, Borgarsandr.

Kari might have heard of or seen some stars move slowly across the sky compared to the rest, a little different each night. That is other planets, places like the moon and the earth. But to travel to the next planet - our closest neighbour in the universe that humans call Mars? With the high speed that was only 3 days to the moon? Half year or year. Living in a small enclosed capsule, and then you have to have everything with you to survive. Air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat. Take care of what you poop and pee. If you land, you will not return. You can not leave gravity again due to the fuel it requires, so must send another ship there before to have fuel and supplies for the return journey. If there is any major problem during the journey, you are dead. So humans have not travelled to Mars and travelled no further than the moon.

But many are working every day to make it possible. Humans could travel to Mars, and have been able to for a while. But it's not worth the effort, the silver and the time, and they travel to their death even if there are volunteers. Some want to be first no matter what. It is not possible to live and have children on Mars yet. There is no water and nothing can be grown. So just a short visit is possibly, but the journey back and forth then takes about 3 years due to the planets moving apart and the timing must be very exact. But Mars is only slightly better than the moon. Humans have sent machines there. With radios and cameras. It is a reddish stone desert without any life. I show a couple of pictures and panoramas of Mount Sharp. I displays an image where Curiosity takes a picture of itself. It makes me remember that the next robot - Perseverance - that humanity will send there has my name on its microplate. I added my name to the list this spring. I hope the landing goes well.

I turn of and fold up the tablet. I might show her the Pale Blue Dot some other time, as well as the other planets, and explain about Voyager and other probes like New Horizon.

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Kari avoid people for the rest of the day, and when she accompanies me to bed for the evening, we don't have sex - she just wants to lie and hold me and be held. I repeat a few things and explained some details. Kari asks if Iselin knows this too, and I confirm she has for 3 months. Iselin knows more because she so desperately wants to know, and doesn't stop asking. Iselin looking for things to ask about. For her, everything just becomes more sejdish and wonderful when she gets it explained or shown. She feels hope and a desire to discover. But I don't demand that Kari or Ciara learn it. It's their choice. Only if they really ask, and I think they can handle it. Ciara probably doesn't care, as her focus is quite focused on me.

Kari wonders if Jane knows all this. Hard to say. She knows most things, even though she probably doesn't know the times and distances. Iselin has already asked her a lot to confirm. This and much more is generally known knowledge that we learn in school, and can easily read about. The pictures on my tablet are available to everyone and so much more. Three is researched published each day. With home-built equipment, we can listen to the radio signals from what humanity has sent into space if we want, and if I had had the corresponding amount in gold in Midgård, we could have built our own small satellite and had it launched. All our mobiles and wristwatches also have something called GPS, which means global positioning system, and the mobiles listen to machines with radio transmitters that spin around the earth and from their precise coded radio signals, the mobiles calculate exactly where we are on the earth's surface, down to a few meters. I show her the map on my wristwatch.

The reason why Tom and Jane got lost the first day is that they relied on it during their hike and it of course stopped working when they came here. Had it worked here, Asta with a mobile phone in her pocket would have been able to know exactly within a few meters where she is over land or sea, how fast she travels, in which direction and how far it is to her destination. It is accurate enough to be able to tell where the ship's bow is in relation to its center and its stern. Asta could have had maps on her mobile that showed exact depth, warns of shallow ground and seen currents. She could have received weather forecasts. There are machines in space looking on the clouds, and we can see storms coming. There is also a built-in small North arrow in the mobile, and I show her how it works and how the mobile can also feel how it tilts etc, and the flashlight, and shows similar functions on the wristwatch. Add that the mobile can be used to take pictures and call someone else and send messages etc.

Kari understands why most people have a mobile phone.