Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

terested’research. Then, men were plenty good enough to throw away on it-the

usual suicide fodder. But now it’s different, isn’t it-now that only the

people on those ships are likely to live more than five or six yearsf”

“That makes no sense,” Jorn said. “They won’t perpetuate the race very well

if they concentrate on one sex.”

“Oh, they’ll carry a few studs along-nice complaisant types.” Jurg did not

specify whom he meant, but he hardly had to. “At least that’s obviously

what they’re planning. Well, I may upset their pushcart for them before

they’re done. I didn’t go along with their Project for a ride to the stars,

in the first place.”

“I remember your telling me you didn’t. But Great Ghost, Jurg, if you

didn’t want to go, they why are you making such a fuss about it now?”

“Because now I want to go, bero. And I’m going to go. I haven’t made up my

mind whether or not to take you along. Think about that a while. The boys

and I have a lot of very valuable military training under our jackets right

now, thanks to The Projectand The Project is turning us loose with it. ItT

be no trouble to pass most of that training on, to as many cadres as we

have men for noncoms. We even have a few little items of equipment we’re

taking with usand it won’t do you any good to blab to old wormy Ertak about

that, because we’ve got them taken down and distributed among us in a way

none of his female inspectors and other trained animals could detect in a

million years. We had a long head start on this

58 fames Blish

before The Project, by the way. Then it was a men’s liberation movement. And