"There's the rub, isn't?" said Rich. "You could go back home. But if you do, everything in space goes all to hell. Back before this, I barely ever had time to go back to Earth anymore."
A pause.
"I barely ever had time to even slow down. At one point after the Annihilation war, I was getting distress calls in the tens of thousands. Most of them 8X8s -- planetary distress calls. And I was the only one around to answer 'em."
He looked upward, racking his brain to measure the time. He didn't have Worldmind in his head anymore to instantly calculate things for him.
"I was away a solid year dealing with it all." He snorted. "It worked the same in reverse, naturally. I left all that time, came back, and it was Earth that'd all gone to hell. It's always no-win."
no subject
A pause.
"I barely ever had time to even slow down. At one point after the Annihilation war, I was getting distress calls in the tens of thousands. Most of them 8X8s -- planetary distress calls. And I was the only one around to answer 'em."
He looked upward, racking his brain to measure the time. He didn't have Worldmind in his head anymore to instantly calculate things for him.
"I was away a solid year dealing with it all." He snorted. "It worked the same in reverse, naturally. I left all that time, came back, and it was Earth that'd all gone to hell. It's always no-win."