"Plus another eighteen years — for them — too — for the flight back. For you thirty-six years in all. You'd return to Terra in the year — " She calculated. "2050 A.D. I'd be sixty-one years old; Theodoric Ferry, even Horst Bertold, would be dead; perhaps Trails of Hoffman Limited wouldn't even exist, any more... certainly Dr. Sepp von Einem would be dead years ago; let's see: he's in his eighties now. No, he'd never live to see you reach Whale's Mouth, let alone return. So if all this is to make him feel bad — "
"Is it insane?" Rachmael said. "To believe, first, that some unhappy persons must be stuck at Whale's Mouth... and yet we're not hearing, via THL's monopoly of all info media, all energy, passing back this way. And second — "
"And second," Freya said, "to want to spend eighteen years of your life in getting there to rescue them." Professional, intent, she eyed him. "Is this idealism? Or is this vengeance against Dr. von Einem because of his Telpor construct that made your family's liners and commercial carriers obsolete for inter-system travel? After all, if you do manage to leave in the Omphalos, it'll be big news, a novelty; it'll be fully covered on TV and in the 'papes, here on Terra; even the UN won't be able to squelch the story — the first, sole, manned vessel to go to Fomalhaut, not just one of those old-time instrument packages. Why, you'd be a time capsule; we'd all be waiting for you to arrive first there and then, in 2050, back here."
"A time capsule," he said, "like the one fired off at Whale's Mouth. Which never arrived here on Terra."
She shrugged. "Passed Terra by, was attracted by the sun's gravitational field; was swallowed up unnoticed."
"Unnoticed by any tracking station? Out of over six thousand separate monitoring devices in orbit in the Sol system none detected the time capsule when it arrived?"