Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

about oil, but nobody had bothered to tell him money is even more necessary

and valuable. Skyscrapers, battleships, satellite stations or survival

fleets all require a high-energy economy, which means that almost all the

goods and services in the world-and hence almost all of the money-must

continue to be devoted to keeping that economy at the highest possible

leveL The farmer may not leap from her combineand take up a hammer on the

nearest incomplete intersellar ship; the submarine freighter engineer may

not abandon the engines which are propelling titanium ore or sponge

platinum from one continent to another; the baker may not cease to make

bread; the banker may not take her hands away from the guidance of credit,

the raw material of political unity and the only enduring testimonial to

man’s confidence in man; even the newscaster may not cease from telling all

the rest, who in fact do not know how to hold a hammer and cannot feel or

see the escape

And all the Stars a Stage 63

fleet growing, that grow it does, and any job weH done is an investment in

The Project.

All this takes money; nothing else will serve.

“Of course we’re trading for the moment on the fact that most of the people

don~t really believe a word of it,” Ertak remarked. “They’re willing to go

along because the government’s buttered on a little inflation; that!s how

you ease civilians into any war. But that won’t last long enough. By the

end of the next year the bombs will start falling, and then they’ll want to

run the war themselves, for their own personal protection. That’s when the