All These Worlds

Now the long wait was ending. On yet another world, intelligence had been born and was escaping from its planetary cradle. An ancient experiment was about to reach its climax. Those who had begun…

The black rectangular slab that suddenly appeared before him was like an old friend. He had seen it on the Moon; he had encountered it in orbit around Jupiter; and he knew, somehow, that his…

He was no longer radiating wastefully, but had almost mastered his control of energy, as once he had mastered lost though not forgotten limbs. He sank like a mist into the earthquake-proof vaults…

If he wished, he could focus his attention upon any one of its hundred billion stars. *Here* he was, adrift in this great river of suns, halfway between the banked fires of the galactic core and the…

But that would never happen. If the heat shield failed, the ship would crumple instantly, hammered flat by a solid wall of gas. There would be no pain; his nervous system would not have time to react…

"One minute to ignition." His mind flashed back to the here and now. This was the minute that counted; for almost a hundred years, on launch pads and in control centers, this was the longest sixty…