“Transfer operates at a thousand times the distance, at a thousandth the cost in energy,” Pnotl continued. “This is because so much less actually has to be transmitted. Only the Kirlian ambiance moves; the body is left behind. It is my Kirlian force alone that animates this body—and it will quickly fade if I do not return to my own body, which is quite alien in comparison. Thus transfer is by no means a substitute for matter transmission, or even for physical travel through space. It is merely our most economical means of communication over galactic distances. And though it is a million times as efficient as matter transmission, it can still be costly in energy.”
The Minister of Technology nodded. That was the great liability of mattermission: its cost. A million dollars’ worth of energy had to be expended to transmit a hundred pounds one light-year, approximately. In fact, that had become the practical definition of the modern dollar. The expense cubed as the distance squared, so that it cost a billion dollars to transmit that same mass ten light-years and a trillion dollars to move it a hundred light-years. Consequently very little freight was shipped that way; most mattermissions consisted of microscopic coded message capsules. It was still an essential means of maintaining Imperial communications.
Transfer, at a millionth the effective cost, would still have to be used sparingly, if it were not to deplete the Imperial exchequer. But it would lay open the entire galaxy to human contact, and the benefits could be enormous. For if there was one thing more valuable than energy, it was knowledge.