“Radio silence until we pass the light barrier,” Ertak ruled, mopping his
brow. “And we’ll keep the computer off, too. I strongly suspect that those
devils could overhear it thinking, if they could pick up its probes from
three light years out-and if it is in some sort of contact with computers
in the other ships, so much the worse. After we pass light speed, we’ll
risk using my communicator to pass the word, but not before.”
He turned toward his quarters, steadying himself with one band against a
bulkhead; suddenly he seemed to be all gone at the knees. Jorn could well
understand why; he was grateful that be himself was already sitting down.
Then, surprisingly the Director turned back.
“Masterly piloting, Ailiss,” he said. “And not as rough as I expected; but
Doctor, you’d better check around for injuries. Jorn, you’d better find out
where we’re headed.”
And then be vanished.
Her drivers still snarling under the maximum emergency overload, the
Javelin raced outward from her second defeat.
And this one, Jorn sensed dimly, was crucial. It would never be completely
forgotten; eventually, if any of them survived, it might retreat into the
mists of mythology, but it could never be expunged from the racial memory.
It was one thing to be driven off a verdant world by blind natural forces
… and quite another to be scourged away with whips and con-
154 James Blish
tempt, by a people very like their own-whose last words had been a promise
of undying hatred for so long as any member of either race remained alive.