"I agree, Captain. Strange, though, that they're not mobbing us. They couldn't take this delta-winged job for one of their ships!" It _was_ strange. I looked up at the observation ramp's occupants--people who except for their bizarre dress might well be of Earth--and saw no curiosity in the eyes that sometimes swept across our position. "Be that as it may, Harry, we certainly should cause a stir in these pressure suits. Let's go!" We walked up to a dour-looking individual at a counter at the ramp's end. Clearing my throat, I said rather inanely, "Hello!"--but what _does_ one say to an extrasolarian? I realized then that my voice seemed thunderous, that the only other sounds came from a distance: the city's noise, the atmosphere ships' engines on the horizon-- * * * * * The Centaurian ignored us. I looked at the atmosphere ships in the clear blue sky, at the Centaurians on the ramp who appeared to be conversing--and there was no sound from those planes, no sound from the people! "It's impossible," Harry said. "The atmosphere's nearly Earth-normal. It should be--well, damn it, it _is_ as sound-conductive; _we're_ talking, aren't we?" I looked up at the Centaurians again. They were looking excitedly westward. Some turned to companions. Mouths opened and closed to form words we could not hear. Wide eyes lowered, following something I could not see. Sick inside, I turned to Albrecht and read confirmation in his drawn, blanched face. "Captain," he said, "I suspected that we might find something like this when we first came out of hyperspace and the big sleep. The recorders showed we'd exceeded light-speed in normal space-time just after the transition. Einstein theorized that time would not pass as swiftly to those approaching light-speed. We could safely exceed that speed in hyperspace but should never have done so in normal space-time. Beyond light-speed time must conversely accelerate! "These people haven't seen _us_ yet. They certainly just observed our landing. As we suspected, they probably do have speech and radio--but we can't pick up either. We're seconds ahead of them in time and we can't pick up from the past sounds of nearby origin or nearby signals radiated at light-speed. They'll see and hear us soon, but we'll never receive an answer from _them_! Our questions will come to them in their future but we can never pick answers from their past!" "Let's go, Harry," I said quickly. "Where?" he asked. "Where can we ever go that will be an improvement over this?" He was resigned. "Back into space," I said. "Back to circle this system at a near-light-speed. The computers should be able to determine how long and how slow we'll have to fly to cancel this out. If not, we are truly and forever lost!" Transcriber's Note: