"I doubt it, princess. Outside this little welcome-mat I'll bet my pilot's papers there's a destructive field of some kind that'd blast the dye out of your hair at ten light-years. One gets you a thousand that this is the only way you get to see the top brass. And you don't do that without an O.K. from a big somebody." The minute hand on Cragin's wristchron made seven complete circuits before the gateway again began expanding to receive them on the telescreen. And then they were past its opening, and hurtling headlong down its great length at what Cragin knew must be a speed which, although no longer requiring flight by comptometer, would have taxed his skill to the utmost. He and the girl watched the telescreen in silence for minutes, watching the pin-points of light on either side grow from minute flecks in the blackness to great spheres of flame within so many seconds, and then pass.... "Look!" "Yeah, it's a great show. But--hell! It couldn't be a--" The scintillating point of light which lie dead ahead, in the exact center of the gateway and at its extreme end, could not, Cragin realized, be a planet. Unless it were a perfectly polished reflector, it could not show so much like the miniature stars at either side. It was a star, itself. "It must be just illusion," he said evenly. "It's got to be." "Oh no," Lin Griffin said. "Of course they live in the center of a star! They rule all, don't they? They're the great masters of all creation, aren't they? Certainly you don't think your great masters would live on anything so simple as a mere planet! But of course they live where the temperature is only several billion degrees--" She began laughing and Cragin slapped her across the face. "Cut it, kid, CUT IT!" There were tears coming from her eyes and her face remained in the twisted contortions of hysteria even after her voice had become soundless. She pulled away, and Cragin left her to herself. In a little while she began to cry and he could hear her sobbing above the even hum of the telescreen, but he left her alone. And he knew one thing. It _had_ to be illusion. Damn it, Owners or not, no matter what the hell they were, it had to be illusion! Cragin had never felt shaken through to the inside of him before. Fear and awe had been banished from the minds of men for five centuries. Yet he felt as though he were staggering blindly, and he knew he was helpless. The pin-point had become a searing, blinding thing, and even as he shielded his eyes, it filled the screen. They were going into it. Into it. Into a live star. No, was the only word he could think. No. NO! He spun away, wrenching the telescreen off as he did so. But nothing changed, and he did not die. Somehow, there was no change at all. He sat upright, rigid, as though self-hypnotized for what could have been hours or minutes. And there was no change, no awful, searing wave of white heat, no last instant of torture before death. Simply, suddenly, a light jar.