In the heart of the Italian Alps, a family of eight has taken refuge in the forest, without electricity or running water. Anne, Gerd, and their six children are German; the parents once fled their Bavarian city, their intellectual professions, and the pollution, as the Chernobyl cloud passed overhead. On the other side of the mountains, in southeastern France, the ITER experiment continues its solar quest. This cutting-edge international laboratory, unique in the resources allocated to it, seeks to reproduce the energy of the Sun on Earth through atomic fusion.