Bart remembered, as if it were yesterday, how he and his father had
first passed through this doorway. And his father, looking up, had said
under his breath "Not for always, Son. Someday men will have a doorway
to the stars, and the Lhari won't be standing in the door."
Inside the building, it was searingly bright. The high open rotunda was
filled with immense mirrors, and glass ramps running up and down, moving
staircases, confusing signs and flashing lights on tall oddly shaped
pillars. The place was crowded with men from all over the planet, but
the dark glasses they all wore gave them a strange sort of family
resemblance.