Tau Zero

by Poul Anderson

Consider: a single light-year is an inconceivable abyss. Denumerable but inconceivable. At an ordinary speed—say, a reasonable pace for a car in megalopolitan traffic, two kilometers per minute—you would consume almost nine million years in crossing it. And in Sol’s neighborhood, the stars averaged some nine light-years apart. Beta Virginis was thirty-two distant.

illimitably

Good word

“You have always held most of you hidden. I don’t imagine I’m the first woman to tell you so.” “You aren’t.” She could hear the difficulty he had in saying it. “Are you certain you weren’t making a mistake?” “What’s to explain? I’ve scant use for those types whose chief interest is their grubbly little personal neuroses. Not in a universe as rich as this.”