"Maybe. Clean across the galaxy, Kit."
Temple whistled softly. "It isn't something you can grasp just by hearing it. Across the galaxy...."
"That isn't too important just now. How long did you think the journey took?"
Temple nodded eagerly. "That's what gets me. It was amazing, Alaric. Really amazing. The whole trip couldn't have taken more than a moment or two. I don't get it. Did we slip out of normal space into some other—uh, continuum, and speed across the length of the galaxy like that?"
"The answer to your questions is yes. But your statement is way off. The journey did not take seconds, Kit."
"No? Instantaneous?"
"Far more than seconds. To reach here from Earth you traveled five thousand years."
"What?"
"More correctly, it was five thousand years ago that you left Mars. You would need a time machine to return, and there is no such thing. The Earth you know is the length of the galaxy and five thousand years behind you."