Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

time for post-mortems. The sixteen of them were packed into the lock like

fish in a jar, and the outer door swung ponderously, unfeelingly shut on

the battle and on the whole outside world… for good.

As it sealed, a hairline semi-circle of light, intolerably brilliant after

the near-blac4mess of the field, began to widen on the other side of the

lock. Jorn was momentarily startled; it had not occurred to him that the

interior of the ship might be fully litalthough, since she had no ports,

there was no reason why she shouldn’t have been; and besides, her pas-

sengers had been living aboard her ever since she was finished. In the

first influx of light he was startled to find Ailiss OKung standing next to

him, white and sweating with strain.

And all the Stars a Stage 77

“Very good,” the armorer said, a little more quietly, but not much. “Posts,

ladies and gentlemen. And thank you.”

Proper enough, jorn thought deliriously, since the armorer was the only one

in the party who was not an officer. Still the speech had all the

irrationality of a dream.

Everything had been rehearsed over and over long before this. jorn headed

for the control barrel almost by instinct, Ailiss trotting by his side. In

the big blinking cavern he ran a fast tally of his navigation section and

found them there; he did not stop to count Ailiss~ crew, but he had a vague

feeling that she was at least one officer short.

Ertak was there, hunched in the command chair above them. That was his

right, since the Javelin was the flagship. But it was the first time that