"A light-year long if it's a foot," Cragin said in a low voice. "And at the end—"
They watched as the pattern shifted; the dots grew larger until they were coruscating balls of white flame. And then, with a majestic slowness, the entrance to the gateway became a static, unchanging picture of unprecedented geometric symmetry.
"It's—we've stopped," the girl said.
"Cut our gun, that's all. Probably waiting for clearance to enter. The whole damn fleet of us."
"It's—it's pompous ridiculousness!" Her voice was edged with frustrated anger and it mounted as she spoke. "A gateway, a show-piece—a stupid affectation of the ultimate in egocentricity! With or without their little pathway, there's all of Space from which to make an approach—"
"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....