CHAPTER IIIThe universe was swallowed up in golden light, in racing, streaming tides of luminous dust. Like an undersea ship of old the Starsong raced with the gleaming currents and burst through denser, darker deeps where the stars were faint and far away, to leap once more into a glory of wild light where the drowned suns burned like torches in a mist. And the voice in the calc-room rose to an unhuman crying as the computers strained to take in the overwhelming surge of data from defensive radar, analyze it, and send imperative commands to the control-relays.
It had almost a sound of insane music in it, that voice, and the Starsong danced to it, whirling and swaying between the fragments of the drift that threatened her with instant destruction if she faltered for a fraction of a second
