Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

And all the Stars a Stage 59 she said. “Once I step out the

door, I’m deaf as a post.”

“Well . . . don’t you think something ought to he done? I mean, like

alerting the inspectors, so their packs can be pulled apart as they go out

the door?’

“They don7t have anything worth stealing, my dear,” the sergeant said. “My

goodness, you don’t think I’d let anybody leave my base carrying anything

dangerous, do you? After all, they might hurt somebody. just sign here, and

here, and I’ll issue you your compass, that’s a good boy.”

Jorn signed and the sergeant disappeared back into her shop. He felt

considerably better.

All the same, it was perfectly true that the survival ships’ passengers-as

well as their crews-were going to be women, by a vast majority. After all,

that was only a matter of simple biology: one man could start an almost

unlimited number of children; but one woman, only a few at a time.

Nevertheless, it rankled.

4

Being young, jorn was not immediately able to rid himself of his notion-no,

it was more than a notion, it was a fact of his brief experience-that five

years was a long, long time in the future. He was astonished to see how

rapidly Ertak and his staff forced themselves to make huge decisions, which

ordinarily should have been weighed for several months at the very least.

Now four or five of these might be made on a single typical day.

For a sufficient example, take ship design. The Project’s ship on the ways,

the javelin, had been planned as a vessel which would return home well

within the lifetime of its original crew. Now it had to be thought of,