Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

entering it duly in the Grand Log, was almost too much for anyone in the

control barrel of the Javelin to bear, though it had its fans in the

ward-rooms; but they were spared this. Among those aboard the Kestrel whom

the plague had passed over, there was evidently still one brave woman …

or man.

The Kestrel ceased to exist. No one saw it go, but suddenly it was gone,

beacon, carrier wave and all.

Exactly what happened could never be known, but all the same there was

hardly any doubt about it. Someone had had the ultimate courage to blow up

the ship.

“But could so few people do it?” jorn asked, afterward.

“One person could do it,” Ertak said somberly. “That’s the penalty that

complexity pays. It takes thousands of people to keep an enterprise like

the javelin alive; but only one man can kill it … if he knows how.”

Jorn shuddered. “I wonder…”

And aLL the Stars a Stage 101

“Um. What!

I, I was wondering if Id have had the nerve. The Ghost award him, whoever

he was.”

“Yes,” Ertak said abstractedly, shifting his shoulders as though they were

a burden to him. “Or whoever she was. But there~s more to it than that,

Birn. Do you realize what a hole this leaves in the flight plan? I never

did think that the Kestrel would be able to bring off a landing if she

found anything promising; but there were three ships in her vicinity that

could have been diverted to any promising target she sighted, at least at

any time during the next ten years –one of them the Dart, which is in

near-perfect shape. But now thafs no longer possible. And yet the one