"Like New Year's Eve," he grunted.
The crowd opened to let Edith through. She came toward the desk as Tom unraveled himself and sat on the top. "A fine bunch of wolves," she chuckled gleefully. "Tom, have you ever been kissed by twenty-two men?"
"Wouldn't care for it," he said. "They're not my type. And besides, it's twenty-three." He made the correction himself.
Then things calmed down. They were—as one man put it—"a long way from home!"
"But what I want to know is why we can see the sun when we're going away from it at several times the velocity of light?" demanded Tom.
"Well, your own problem answers your own question," said Edith, patting her hair back into place. "Remember the square-wave problem? Well, in the transition-period, you are simultaneously obtaining all degrees from maximum negative to maximum positive including zero. Zero is where the ship, being out of space-warp, must drop below the speed of light. The sun receding is due to the persistence of vision that lasts between transition periods. Lord only knows how far we travel between each transition."
"We can find out," said Tom. "I'd hoped to develop a velocimeter by using the doppler effect, but that's not possible, I guess. I'd suggest that we find out where we are and then head back for Sol. Might as well get for home and start the real thing cooking."
"What was that sun we passed?"
"I'll not tell you now," said Tom. "One of the nearby stars but I don't know which. We might stop, though, and take a closer look at an alien star from close up."