Reluctantly Dusty returned the 'Tee' bar to the central position, and the star winked through the crosshairs at him, itself no larger in diameter than the width of one line. It was not obscured by the lines because of the construction of the panel, a design that Dusty could not quite understand. Dark lines should have hidden the stars behind them, but on this gadget they did not. He looked closer and found that the stars themselves lay on top of the lines rather than under them, and he wondered how they managed that stunt. It was, of course, a matter of design. Dusty's experience had been with small telescopes, but this device was not an optical device, so the simple laws of optics did not obtain. As he watched, the winking star became a winking disc and Dusty's nerves twitched. When had the change started? Dusty realized that he had been half-hypnotized by the wink ... wink ... wink that meant both safety and ultimate danger. The disc was expanding rapidly, and as Dusty tried to move the disc to Line H-001, the edge of the winking beacon expanded faster than the point of aim moved. He wrenched the 'Tee' bar hard and saw the crosshairs move sluggishly below the exploding circle. Then the beacon flashed past in a wave of heat far greater than any of the other stars, and he was blinded by the light for a second or more. But as the blindness died, there on Line F-312 there was a distant wink ... wink ... wink. X Dusty gripped the 'Tee' bar and started to turn the ship toward the new beacon. His approach to dead center was ragged--he overshot and over-corrected, but finally he made it. And then with a burst of good sense, Dusty released the 'Tee' bar very gently and leaned back in his pilot's chair. The crosshairs stayed on their winking beacon. Gant Nerley nodded. "Turn the presentation to 'Polar' again, and keep a sharp eye out for a slow beacon along Radius Q-103. You probably made a wide curve around that other beacon and you may be a bit too close to a gas field. You'd burn up in milliseconds if you hit it at your present speed. By the way, what color is the presentation now?" "It's getting lighter. Sort of yellowish-white, like." "Good. But if and when it begins to blue-up a bit you'd better let up on the 'Force' pedal by a notch or more. Competent pilots can run with their screen in the violet, but you're far from being a competent pilot." He saw the look on Dusty's face and added hastily, "I mean that you've had no experience in galactic travel, Dusty Britton. You're doing magnificently so far. We'd best take no dangerous chances, though, until you have driven interstellar craft as many hours as you've driven your own interplanetary ships." Barbara made a choked sound and then covered it by saying, "I see the slow beacon, Dusty. Out there on Circle D-212, along Radius Q-103."