The Colors of Space

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 sign out for this shift?"

he demanded. "Look, poor old Rugel's passed out again. He just won't

admit he can't take it--but one idiot on a watch is enough! Some people

just feel as if the bottom's dropped out of the ship, and that's all

there is to it."

Bart hauled his head upright, fighting a surge of stinging nausea. His

bones itched inside and he was damnably uncomfortable, but he was alive.

"I'm--fine."

"You look it," Ringg said in derision. "Think you can help me get Rugel

to his cabin?"

Bart struggled to his feet, and found that when he was upright he felt

better. "Wow!" he muttered, then clamped his mouth shut. He was supposed

to be an experienced man, a Lhari hardened to space. He said woozily,

"How long was I out?"

"The usual time," Ringg said briskly, "about three seconds--just while

we hit peak warp-drive. Feels longer, so they tell me, sometimes--time's

funny, beyond light-speeds. The medic says it's purely psychological.

I'm not so sure. I itch, blast it!"

He moved his shoulders in a squirming way, then bent over Rugel, who was

moaning, half insensible. "Catch hold of his feet, Bartol. Here--ease

him out of his chair. No sense bothering the medics this time. Think you

can manage to help me carry him down to the deck?"