"Short time? Nonsense. They flew in subspace for an hour, it took us a half hour to land on Eureka, and Billy spent another half hour digging pay-dirt. After which we raced off for, say a half hour or maybe an hour before we went into space two. Our stay in space two was about fifteen minutes, and the passage through space one was made in less than a minute. Call it a total of three hours."
Rhodes checked his chronometer. "We've been gone about three hours," he said into the set. The answer came back immediately, for all to hear. "Like the devil. You've been fifteen minutes since you fastened on to the star and were jerked off of VMS I."
"What's your nav-chronometer say?" asked Billy.
"Seventeen-forty-three."
"And we left the scene about seventeen twenty-eight?"
"Approximately."
"Well, chew this over. Our nav-chron says twenty fifty-one."
"Snap on the differential timer," suggested Hendricks.
Microsecond pulse signals crossed space, both ways. The timer started counting. Three hours and twenty-three minutes and eleven seconds went by before the timers stopped. There Hendricks and Thompson went into another conference.
"We have the following observations regarding subspace: One is that the matter is unlike Terrene matter. The other is that there is a differential in time passage. The latter may be quite useful. We'll have the gang check everything possible, of course, and probably even set up a laboratory in the lower spaces. This lack of gravity—has me stopped cold," said Hendricks.