Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

it into the control barrel and cast itself into the plotting tank, making

faint glints among the little, hair-fine wires which guided the fields in

that compact planetarium. It turned Kamblin’s face into a skull.

Ertak was moving along the bridge, with the utrnost care. He was so thin

that his joints inside his ancient, tissue-paper uniform seemed far larger

than the shafts of his limbs. High on his agony-bent back the hump rode,

exuberantly strong, pulling at his arms as though demanding him to help

himself. In contrast, he seemed to have no belly left at all.

Somehow he reached the lectern by the communications desk where the Grand

Log was kept. He looked down at it for a while, breathing heavily, but

without seeming to see or to care what was written there. Then, pulling all

his wobbly parts together, he lifted it, and carried it clutched to his

collapsed chest, by inches, into his stateroom.

They could hear him sobbing for breath. just as obviously, he could not.

The door closed, and they heard the slight sound of the lock. Then, ‘with

a dead slam, they heard the Grand Log fall to the deck.

None of them ever saw it again.

i

13

jorn was playing Castles with Ailiss in the dimness of their cabin when the

chimes began, soft with distance but quite clear. He paid no attention, nor,

as far as he could see, did she. Almost all of the remains of the original

crew had cabins now, thanks to the fact that the differential birth rate on

the Javelin was negative –or, to put it another way, that there were fewer