How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Even when separated by the inevitable leap years of time-debt, no colonial or independent world could help to match the power of the Hegemony. (2.178)
Distance isn't just measured in miles anymore, it's measured in time. (Someone tell Han Solo.) Is exploration worth it when your children will be older than you when you return?
Quote #5
Mother sent me [...] on a trip that took one hundred and twenty-nine shipboard years, with an objective time-debt of one hundred and sixty-seven standard years! (3.61)
We don't know which would be worse: finishing a long-distance space voyage and having all our friends and family, who we left behind, dead of old age; or being on a spaceship for a century and a half with Martin Silenus.
Quote #6
[Sol and Sarai] knew that [Rachel's] field work in quest of dissertation would soon take her beyond the Web, into the Outback where time-debt ate away at the lives and memories of those left behind. (4.179)
Rachel's education is accruing more than just thousands of dollars in student debt: she's accruing time-debt, which can never be repaid.