Malcolm Fairbairn

A vast, dark cloud of gas stretched across the young universe. Inside it, like invisible fingers, magnetic field lines left over from the very birth of the cosmos threaded through. These fields act on charged particles, pushing them together, like a gentle breeze gathering fallen leaves into piles.

Strike a tuning fork with a mallet — it vibrates, and the sound gradually fades. A black hole behaves much the same way when disturbed: it emits gravitational waves — ripples in spacetime itself — and then settles down.

In 2034, a rocket leaves a spaceport with an unusual payload: two spheres the size of a large globe, each weighing nearly a ton. No engines, no electronics. Just a mirrored surface of hundreds of corner-cube reflectors — tiny prisms that return light exactly to where it came from. This is the future space tuning fork.