born and raised in one where he had been something not much better than
trash. That kind of deep, irrational conviction is notably difficult to
unlearn, and in fact is never unlearned entirely.
Nevertheless shipboard society, as a new society in itself, was showing
increasing signs of strain from this source. The passengers were the first
to feel it, since they had relatively less to do with their time (though
they were by no means idle-no one could be). The first sign was a sudden
surge of covert and then open promiscuity, followed by an equally sudden
outbreak of family realignments, the latter usually signalled in advance by
midnight scuffling and snarling and morning black eyes. At this stage the
strain was not so noticeable on the bridge and in the control barrel, but
it was there, and growing.
It grew steadily as time went by, daylessly, nightlessly, but without let
or surcease. In the five yearscould that be right? Yes, incredibly, it had
been that long-since the light barrier had been broken, not a ship in the
armada had made an even slightly promising planet-fall. There had been
false alarms, but even those were growing rarer, as the ships’ computers
learned by experience. The keeping of the Grand Log became a duty, and
then, finally, a positive cbore, there simply was no longer anything
interesting to report, except for scraps of astrophysical data which held
meaning only for Kamblin and his counterparts
96 fames Blish
elsewhere in the fleet. Otherwise, what each ship found to say was very much