Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

at all. Ertak had twice counselled her captain to turn back, each time to

be refused. jorn could hardly blame the man; between the probability of

death in space, and the absolute certainty of being pulled to pieces very

slowly after returning home, the choice was narrow but clear. Evidently

Ertak thought so too; at least, the Director did not take the risk of

turning his recommendation into a direct order.

Finally-and about this there was precisely nothing that could be done-there

was the ineluctable fact that the ships had not been designed to do what

they were now being asked to do. Coping with their deficiencies as arks was

an obviously impossible task, and yet one which had to be faced every day,

day after day, end without world. The Javelin, since she was the piptotype

of them all, was the worst ship in the fleet in this respect; but even the

most recent, the Peregrine, could boast of very few ameliorations of the

problem. jorn hated to think of what daily life aboard the Kestrel must be

like; luckily, perhaps, he had no time to.

And all the Stars a Stage 83

Yet even in the midst of all this feverish, desperate activity there was a

common emotion, brooding over everything, difficult to label yet so

palpable that jom could almost imagine himself breathing it in with the

air. People’s faces had no expression, as though they had withdrawn almost

wholly into themselves. Conversation between crew members was limited

almost entirely to duty matters and technicalities, even at mess.

The work load slackened significantly after the first week of the second