“Take it easy,” Ramsey told her.
“But the ship’s swooping. I can feel it. I thought you weren’t supposed to feel movement in hyper-space!”
“Relax, will you? There are eddies in hyper-space, that’s all. If you want an analogy in terms of our own universe, think of shoals in an ocean—unmarked by buoys or lights.”
“You mean they have to be avoided?”
“Yes.”
“But this particular shoal—it’s midway between Irwadi and Earth?”
“There isn’t any ‘midway,’ Margot. That’s the paradox of hyper-space.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“Look. In the normal universe, extension is measured by time. That is, it takes a certain amount of time to get from point A to point B. Conversely, time is measured by extension in space. On Earth, a day of time passes when Earth moves through space on an arc one three-hundred-sixty-fifth of its orbit around the sun in length. Since there isn’t any time to measure extension with in hyper-space, since time doesn’t exist here, you can’t speak of mid-points.”
“But this—shoal. It’s always encountered in hyper-space between Earth and Irwadi?”