Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

he had no spare minutes worth mentioning. But in a way be too was

responsible for Jung’s having enlisted in the first place, so he listened

patiently.

“I just want you to know,” Jurg said in an even voice, “that this outfit

dosen’t fool me for a minute, no matter how well they manage to bamboozle

you. Do you think I don’t know what the news is, already? I saw to it that

I had a friend at the meeting, you can take that from me. I know about the

nova, and I know about the fleet.”

“All right, why not?” Jorn said. “There’s always a grapevine, especially on

a thing this size. I don’t see what harm it does. Everyone in the world

will know in another week, anyhow.”

“They’ll know what they’ll be told, which will be half lies,” Jurg said.

“Ertak won’t mention that he busted out most of his best men to begin with,

will he? He knows that he’d never be able to call those boys incompetent

and make it stick-not on me, and not on most of the others he’s booting

into the beltways. But It won’t do any good for them to clam up about it,

because I know the story already, and I’ll see to it that it spreads.”

“What story?” Jorn said, confused. “Why do you care what I think, anyhow?”

“Because I think you might still be salvageable, once you get the

superiority klax pounded out of your head.

And all the Stars a Stage 57

They fired me and the rest of the boys out of The Project because they’re

going to pack their survival fleet with women. What else? It was another

matter when a star-trip looked like pure, expensive, ‘disin-