Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

ready for suicide. But this one looks like something different; if so, I’m

still interested.”

The Director smiled a wintry smile. “Exactly so,” he said. “Then, I’ll

proceed. This project emerges from a discovery in basic physics called the

Ertak Effect, named after me, as is quite proper since I’m its discoverer;

my name is Helminth Ertak. This effect is primarily that of the propagation

of patterns-patterns of any kind-to remote, pre-selected areas of space.

They go as transforms of the motion-waves of their constituent sub-atomic

particles, but essentially without losing their integrity … Forgive me,

Mr. Birn, but you have the expression of a man who is not following me very

well.”

“I’m hardly following you at all,” Jorn confessed. “The terms are more or

less familiar, but I can’t seem to make them coherent.”

“Then we’ll skip the theory-there’ll be plenty of time for that later-and

concentrate on the consequences. Primarily, what I was looking for was some

method of communication with interplanetary ships and planetary colonies

which would be reasonably fast, preferably instantaneous if that was

possible. One reason we have so much trouble in recruiting for space

research is that we can’t keep in decent touch with our volunteers once

they’re launched. They come to feel as though they’d been abandoned very

early in the game, which effectively they have though through no fault of

ours; and somehow or other, the word leaks back home, and results in just

such an attitude toward ordinary space research as you have just exhibited.