The span of a metric space is
the least upper bound of numbers α such that, roughly speaking, two points can
move over the same portion of the space keeping a distance at least α from each
other. The surjective span is obtained if it is required that, in addition, the whole
space be covered by each of the moving points. These geometric ideas turn out to
be important in continua theory. In the present paper, a simple triod is
constructed such that the span of it is strictly greater than the surjective
span.