Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

squadron once, and was sufficiently panicked to fortify against any such

visitor again; so they built the lunar station, equipping it to act the

moment it detected an intruder, long before the people themselves could.

“After a while-who can guess bow long a while?-160 James Blish

the computer malfunctioned. It went mad, if you like. It decided that the

black race itself was the invader against which it was instructed to act,

and it so acted. If each of the two wrecks we saw was a refugee from a

separate supernova explosion, as we are, then that race has been dead at

least six hundred years, and probably more. The cities are in poor enough

shape to support that estimate. But the trap is still there, and it very

nearly made us its third victim-or, counting the black race, its fourth.”

For a while Jorn could think of nothing to say. At last, he found one

unanswered question:

“So then if we’d just bombed that lunar installation -but how long ago did

you find this out? Wasn’t there any other ship nearby who could have gone

in there and done what we failed to do? It would be easy enough to pretend

to walk into the trap, and then hit the lunar station with a fusion

salvo-and after that, that whole beautiful system—“

“Yes, I know,” Kamblin said. “That’s what’s hurting the Director’s sanity.

He could have sent a message to the Quarrel; she was still close enough,

though we weren’t any longer.

“But he didn’t. And now it’s too late. We lost our opportunity.”

The story, like a worm at the heart of a fruit,

gnawed incessantly at Jorn, for * no reason that he