Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

“I check you also,” said Kamblin’s voice. “Provided you don’t run into a

storm on the way down. I’ll call meteorology and report back.” The screen

went blank.

“Damn,” Ailiss said. “I was going to ask him why they loused up my

mission.”

“He didn’t give any hint at all?” jorn said, emboldened by this sudden

outburst of confidence.

50 James Blish

“Not much. The Director has called a joint meeting of staff and crew, for

right now, or maybe ten minutes sooner.”

“And you’ve no idea why he might do that?”

“The only reason that occurs to me,” Ailiss said grimly, “is that the funds

have been cut off-and The Project is cancelled. Stand by, here comes

Kamblin with the weather.”

Even the Director’s big office could not have contained a joint meeting of

staff and crew, if by “crew” was meant all trainees, both stand-by and

throwaway; Ertak had to settle for the brevet ranks alone. Nor could he

have his meeting “right now or ten minutes sooner,” for a number of the

people he needed had been long distances away at the time the call went out

–some of them farther than Ailiss.

Nevertheless, when the meeting assembled, twentyfive rumor-filled hours

after Ailiss’ and Jorn’s last-teacup-of-propellant landing, it was sizable

enough. Most of the people there Jorn had never seen before, or seen only

briefly without knowing who they were. Besides Ertak and his four personal

staffers, there were Ailiss, Dr. Chase-Huebner, Kamblin, and &U the

surviving members of Jorn’s class and their section leaders. (This,

however, did not include Jurg Wester; there were no stand-by trainees of