planetfall. Stand by.”
The hammer fell. As the Javelin began to settle complacently into the
outermost reaches of the atmosphere of that abandoned, incredibly rich
planet, the smooth, blown-steel, pilot-fish shapes of the blind little
ships came raining down around her out of the blackness, spitting needles
of white fire. The computer rang all its bells at once, radio heat red
orange yellow green blue indigo violet ultra-violet X-ray and panic, but it
was too late. Above the bubble ships which were seeing to it that the
Javelin continued to go down, turret-bumpy forts as big as small moons
crashed into orbit out of nothingness, indifferently forcing the entire
metrical frame of local space-time to bear their malignant tumorous masses
with groans profound enough to be heard, should anyone with
And all the Stars a Stage 149
ears for gravitational waves be listening, almost to the center of the
galaxy.
The computer yelled its mechanical horror so loudly in the control barrel
of the lavelin that it was almost impossible to think. After a brief moment
of fury and bafflement, Ertak cut its power; and then, for thirty seconds
of ringing, desperate silence, he turned his back on the barrel and pressed
his temples with the heels of his hands.
“We are fordone,” he said at last in a high, white voice. ‘We will maintain
our landing trajectory. We have no other choice. Ailissl”
“Great Ghost. Yes, Director.”
“Try to raise someone out there. Find out what they want; try to convince
them that we’re harmless. They’ve got us-there’s no other way out.”