Len knew the opportunity offered him was a dazzling one—not only far more money than he'd ever seen before, but the chance of breaking out of the system. He was afraid though, terribly afraid. "I've never made the Jump," he told the second officer in a quavering voice.
"You'll never be a real spaceman until you do." The second officer was patient, because he knew Mattern was his only chance of making the crew up to its full complement.
"I've heard tell that—things change their shapes in Hyperspace."
"Maybe they do; maybe it's their real shapes you see out there. Who's to tell what the truth is?"
Len licked dry lips and tried again. "They say there're people—beings, anyway—living in hyperspace." That tale he had heard from spacemen who had made the Jump. Even if he'd believed in the flluska's demons, he would have had the good sense not to admit such a thing to a starship officer—a man of sophistication from the Near Planets, perhaps even Earth herself. Still, spacemen were notorious myth-spinners. Perhaps he had made a fool of himself, anyway.
But the second officer wasn't laughing. "Federation law says we should have nothing to do with the creatures of hyperspace. If we leave them alone, they don't bother us."
It would have been better if the officer had laughed at him and said there was nothing in hyperspace but space. "Will we see them?"
"Does a ship going through ordinary space see any of us?" the officer returned. "The creatures of hyperspace live on their own planets, and we give those planets a wide berth. Simple as that." He added, "What are you so afraid of, boy? Not a ship's been lost in hyperspace for over two centuries, and there haven't been any blowups for years."
"Blowups?" Len repeated.
"Accidents. A technical term. You've taken worse risks shipping out in those tincan tramps."