Gant's face showed concern. "What happened, Dusty?" Dusty told the Marandanian, and Gant smiled knowingly. "Don't worry about it. It will happen again and again, and maybe worse. But so long as you keep the course beacon centered properly, you will pass by--and not through--those interfering stars. Now, as soon as your beacon star shows a disc, steer up to keep the beacon centered on Line H-001. Once you pass the beacon, look for another beacon on Line F-312 and bring the point-of-drive to center on the new one. Follow?" Dusty nodded at Gant's image on the screen along the bottom of the viewpanel. Another star detached itself from the backdrop of stars and hurled itself into Dusty's teeth. The actor flinched but held his drive. The star passed in a bright flash and a quick wave of heat and was gone. Dusty licked dry lips and forced the grip of his hands to relax. Far to one side another star passed in a majestic sweep, too distant to bring them either heat or more light than the ones called 'fixed' on the viewpanel. Dusty eyed the star-beacon suspiciously. Was it showing a disc yet? And how much time did he have to shift the drive once the disc became certain? Dusty felt a cold wave wriggle down his spine and he knew that cold beads of sweat were beginning to ooze out of his face; he was remembering the staggering speed with which the first star had come leaping at him. * * * * * Another star passed him in its characteristic wave of light and heat, and Dusty realized that what looked dangerously close on the viewpanel was in reality quite distant. It meant that so long as his ship was pointed into a clear space, there would be no danger of running into a star no matter how precarious it looked. But the cold sweat came because the beacon star lay winking at him dead in the intersection of the crosshairs that marked the drive. Disc? Did it show a disc? Does Sirius show more of a disc than Polaris? Dusty's hands pulled the 'Tee' bar slightly to move the winking eye ever so subtly upward. That way he would not be aiming his spacecraft dead into the searing hot maw of a variable star. He took a shaky breath and relaxed. Gant Nerley shook his head. "I see what you are doing, Dusty, and you must not. You'll make a wide curve and get off the beam. Or worse, you'll hit a star lying close to the course. You have no idea of how wide you'll run. Center it up, Dusty, and keep a close watch, for it will become a disc. You'll have time. Relax."