 What is the meaning of the lag between Herell’s radio and the Jodrell Bank?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963. Whatever it was, he had no business in it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jump from Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. He had read off the azimuth angles from the computer sights, automatically locked on their beacon stars, and found them correct; then out of long habit confirmed the locking mechanism visually. There simply was no way for him to get from a warm, bright navigator's cubicle on Starship Jodrell Bank to this damned, dark, dismal hole of a place where everything was out to hurt him and nothing explained what was going on. A spacesuit, yes; he knew that he could construct a logical explanation for that with no trouble—maybe a subspace meteorite striking the Jodrell Bank , an explosion, himself knocked out, brought here in a suit ... Item, a short time ago—subjectively it seemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank with nothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meeting one of the female passengers for coffee. "This is Herrell McCray," he said, "calling the Jodrell Bank ." "This is Herrell McCray, calling Jodrell Bank . Someone was watching Herrell McCray, with the clinical fascination of a biochemist observing the wigglings of paramecia in a new antibiotic—and with the prayerful emotions of a starving, shipwrecked, sailor, watching the inward bobbing drift of a wave-born cask that may contain food. The staff is preparing a technical description of the forces now, but I can say that they are electromagnetic vibrations modulating a carrier wave of very high speed, and in turn modulated by the vibrations of the atmosphere caused by the subject's own breathing." His chemistry is not ours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism is closer to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves." The Central Masses team has just turned in a most alarming report." If the Old Ones have seized one of our probers our time margin is considerably narrowed. It was just like the council to put the screws on; they had a reputation for demanding results at any cost—even at the cost of destroying the only thing you had that would make results possible. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revolting physical differences between the Earthman and his own people.
 Because the radio transmits faster than the speed of light, the lag indicates Herrell is nearly 500 light years away from his ship.
 Because the radio transmits faster than the speed of light, the lag indicates Herrell is nearly 400 lightyears away from his ship.  Because the radio transmits faster than the speed of light, the lag indicates Herrell is too far from his ship to ever be rescued.  Because the radio transmits faster than the speed of light, the lag indicates Herrell is nearly 500 light years away from his ship.  Because the radio transmits only a bit slower than the speed of light, the lag indicates Herrell is only 500 light years away from his ship.