almost green. Dimly, he remembered the old story
of a "red shift" in the lights of approaching stars, but here he saw it
pure, a sight no human eyes had ever seen. A sight that _no_ eyes had
seen, human or otherwise, for the Lhari could not see it....

"Time," he said briefly to Vorongil, "Fifteen seconds...."

Rugel looked across from his couch. Bart felt that the old, scarred
Lhari could read his fear. Rugel said through a wheeze, "No matter how
old you get, Bartol, you're still scared when you make a warp-shift. But
relax, computers don't make mistakes."

"Catalyst," Vorongil snapped, "Ready--_shift!_"

At first there was no change; then Bart realized that the stars, through
the viewport, had altered abruptly in size and shade and color. They
were not sparks but strange streaks, like comets, crossing and
recrossing long tails that grew, longer and longer, moment by moment.
The dark night of space was filled with a crisscrossing blaze. They were
moving faster than light, they saw the light left by the moving Universe
as each star hurled in its own invisible orbit, while they tore
incredibly through it, faster than light itself....

Bart felt a curious, tingling discomfort, deep in his flesh; almost an
itching, a stinging in his very bones.

_Lhari flesh is no different from ours...._

Space, through the viewport, was no longer space as he had come to know
it, but a strange eerie limbo, the star-tracks lengthening, shifting
color until they filled the whole viewport with shimmering, gray,
recrossing light. The unbelievable reaction of warp-drive thrust them
through space faster than the lights of the surrounding stars, faster
than imagination could follow.

The lights in the drive chamber began to dim--or was he blacking out?
The stinging in his flesh was a clawed pain.

Briscoe lived through it....

_They say._

The whirling star-tracks fogged, coiled, turned colorless worms of
light, went into a single vast blur. Dimly Bart saw old Rugel slump
forward, moaning softly; saw the old Lhari pillow his bald head on his
veined arms. Then darkness took him; and thinking it was death, Bart
felt only numb, regretful failure. _I've failed, we'll always fail. The
Lhari were right all long._

_But we tried! By God, we tried!_

"Bartol?" A gentle hand, cat claws retracted, came down on his shoulder.
Ringg bent over him. Good-natured rebuke was in his voice. "Why didn't
you tell us you got a bad reaction, and ask to