"Greetings, young friend. You stumbled upon our location, but it is of no consequence. We know that you bear us no ill will." "Indeed not," replied Graham. "In fact, I am honored to make your acquaintance. I've always wanted to meet a space person." "Well," replied the other being, "you are a space person, too." "I am?" said Graham incredulously. "I'm afraid you're mistaken ... I am from earth." "And where, my little friend, do you think earth is? Is it not suspended in space like all of the other planets? And does it not make a complete rotation upon its axis every twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes and four point zero-nine seconds, and at a speed of a thousand miles per hour? And does it not orbit your sun every three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours and nine minutes and nine point five seconds, and at a speed of about twenty miles per second? And does it not revolve along with the moon, around a common center of gravity, and move with the entire solar system through your local star system at thirteen miles per second? And does not your local star system move within the Milky Way at the rate of two hundred miles per second, and does not the Milky Way drift with respect to the remote external galaxies at the rate of one hundred miles per second and in all different directions, and does not your galaxy itself make a complete rotation about an axis every two hundred million years? And does it not travel through space with over a hundred billion other suns of its galactic family, not to mention an untold number of other planets?" Graham nodded meekly. "I knew our planet was in space. I just didn't know all the details." "Well," continued the being, "even if you mortals could travel at the speed of light, it would still take you a hundred thousand years to cross your galaxy from edge to edge." The spaceman motioned toward the craft. "However, our ship could visit the Andromeda galaxy, which is about two million one hundred thousand light years from earth, and return before you could say _Stephen Hawking_. I'd say that is a little bit faster than the speed of light. We could not afford to waste two million years--actually, over four million years round trip! We'd never get anything done." "Now, wait just a minute," said Graham. "You can't go faster than the speed of light. They told us in school that would be against the laws of physics!"