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unit off," ZORAC said. "I could only do that by taking the
Shapieron away into space and I'm certain that he didn't intend that. What did
he mean?"
Hunt grinned to himself as he allowed his head to sink back into the pillow
while he contemplated the ceiling. He had been back on board Jupiter
Five for several hours and was relaxing in his cabin after a strenuous day
while experimenting further with his Ganymean communications kit.
"It's an Earth saying," he replied. "It doesn't mean what the words mean
literally. It's what people sometimes say when they're not interested in
listening to somebody. Probably he was tired and needed to sleep. But don't
you say it when you talk to Earthmen. It conveys irritation and is a little
insulting."
"I see. Okay. Is there a word or phrase for a saying that doesn't mean what it
says literally?"
Hunt sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. Suddenly he had nothing
but admiration for the patience of school teachers.
"I suppose we'd call it a figure of speech," he said.
"But surely speech is formed from words, not figures, or have I made a mistake
somewhere?"
"No, you're right. That's just another saying."
"A figure of speech is a figure of speech then. Right?"
"Yes. ZORAC, I'm getting tired too. Could you save any more questions about
English until I'm ready for it again? There are some questions I'd still like
to ask you."
"Otherwise you'll instruct me to get lost and switch off?"
"Correct."
"Okay. What are your questions?"
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Hunt hoisted his shoulders up against the end of his bunk and clasped his
hands behind his head. After a moment's reflection, he was ready. "I'm
interested in the star that your ship came from. You said that it had a system
of several planets."
"Yes."
"Your ship came from one of those planets?"
"Yes."
"Did all the Ganymean people move from Minerva and go live on that planet a
long time ago?"
"No. Only three large ships went and their carried-ships. Also there were
three very large machines that propelled themselves like spaceships. The
Ganymeans went there to test a scientific idea. They did not go there to live.
All came back in the Shapieron but many have died."
"When you went to the star, where did you travel from?"
"From Minerva."
"Where were the rest of the Ganymean people -- the ones who didn't go with you
to the star?"
"They remained on Minerva, naturally. The work to be done at the star needed
only a small number of scientific people."
Hunt's incredulity could no longer be contained. The thing that he had been
beginning to suspect for some time was really true.
"How long ago was it when you left the star?" he asked, his voice catching
slightly as he formed the words.
"Approximately twenty-five million Earth years ago," ZORAC informed him.
For a long time Hunt said nothing. He just lay there, his mind struggling to
comprehend the enormity of what he had learned. Just a few hours before he had
been standing face to face with beings who had been alive long before the
species called Homo sapiens had ever begun to emerge. And they were still
alive now, and had been through the unimaginable epochs between. The very
thought of it was stupefying.
He did not imagine for one moment that this could represent anything like a
normal Ganymean life span and he guessed it to be the result of relativistic
time-dilation. But to produce an effect of such magnitude they must have
sustained a phenomenal velocity for an incredible length of time.
What could possibly have induced the Ganymeans to journey the vast distance
that this implied? And, equally strange, why should they willingly inflict
upon themselves what they must have known would be a permanent forfeiture of
their world, their way of life and all the things that were familiar to them?
What significance could their expedition have had, since nothing they could
have achieved at their destination could possibly have affected their
civilization in any way whatsoever -- not with that discrepancy in time
scales? But hadn't Garuth said something about everything not having gone
according to plan?
Having sorted his thoughts into something resembling order once more, Hunt had
another question. "How far from the Sun was this star?"
"The distance that light would travel in nine point three Earth years,"
ZORAC answered.
The situation was getting crazy. Allowing for the speed that would have been
necessary to produce the time-dilation, such a journey should have taken
hardly any time at all...astronomically speaking.
"Did the Ganymeans know that they would return after twenty-five million
years?" Hunt asked, determined to get to the bottom of it.
"When they left the star, they knew. But when they left Minerva to go to the
star, they did not know. They did not have a reason to believe that the
journey from the star would be longer than the journey to the star."
"How long did it take them to get there?"
"Measured from the Sun, twelve point one years."
"And the journey back again took twenty-five million?"
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"Yes. They could not avoid traveling very fast. I believe that the results of
this are familiar to you. They orbited the Sun far away many times."
Hunt replied with the obvious question. "Why didn't they just slow down?"
"They could not."
"Why?"
ZORAC seemed to hesitate for a fraction of a second.
"The electrical machines could not be operated. The points-that-destroy-
all-things and move in circles could not be stopped. The space-and-time-
joining blendings could not be unbent."
"I don't understand that," Hunt said, frowning.
"I can't be more clear without asking more questions about English,"
ZORAC warned him.
"Leave it for now." Hunt remembered the stir caused by speculations about the
propulsion system of the Ganymean ship beneath Pithead, which dated from about
the same period as the Shapieron. Although the UNSA scientists and engineers
could not be certain, many of them suspected that motion had been produced not
by reactive thrust, but by an artificially induced zone of localized
space-time distortion into which the vessel "fell" continuously.
Hunt felt that such a principle could allow the kind of sustained acceleration
needed for the Shapieron to attain the speeds implied by ZORAC's account. No
doubt other scientists were putting similar questions to ZORAC; he would
discuss the matter with them tomorrow, he decided, and not press the matter
further for the time being.
"Do you remember that time," he asked casually. "Twenty-five million years
ago, when your ship left Minerva?"
"Twenty-five million years by Earth time," ZORAC pointed out. "It has been
less than twenty years by Shapieron time. Yes. I remember all things."
"What kind of world did you leave?"
"I don't fully understand. What kind of kind do you mean?"
"Well, for example, what was the place on Minerva like that you departed from?
Was the land flat? Was there water? Were there structures that the
Ganymean people had built? Can you describe a picture of it?"
"I can show a picture," ZORAC offered. "Please observe the screen."
Intrigued, Hunt reached out to pick up the wrist unit from where he had placed
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