Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

losses in terms of skills, the survivors set about shutting down most of

the rest of the ship. This was for personal survival only, and for the sake

of a few possible children in the future, for the Kestrel could never make

a planet-fall now. Grimly, the survivors set about making her instead into

a planet.

But they failed. The food went first. They still had a fusion engineer, who

promised them that she could make them anything they needed out of the

hydrogen sweepings of the interstellar gas. But by this she meant chemical

elements, which can indeed be made by simple, straightforward atomic

processes if only enough energy is available; and the Kestrel still had the

energy. Putting together chemical compounds like protein molecules,

however, is of an altogether higher

100 James Blish

order of complexity, and there was no one left aboard the Kestrel who knew

how to program the computers who had handled this task before. An attempt to

do it by the handbook poisoned half the pitiful remainder, including the

only man capable of servicing the shiVs one remaining electrical converter;

the fusion engineer had always thought simple electricity beneath her

notice. The temperature began to drop; the air gradually became foul; and

starvation followed after in the cold black eaves. The fusion engineer

locked herself in with her little sun, and spent her time synthesizing

torrents of undrinkable water. Sometimes she could be heard singing.

The prospect of having to listen to this process going to completion, and