From John Rickett
Oh, shame on John Gribbin! In his review of The Ascent of Wonder (11 February) he mentions a Tom Godwin story (The Cold Equations, in fact), reminds us that the spaceship in it is on a mercy mission (carrying urgently needed medical supplies to a scientific mission based on a little-known planet) and then blows it by talking of the stowaway and “his excess mass”.
The whole poignancy of this excellent short story, one of the best known and loved in all the science fiction canon, resides in the fact that the stowaway is a young girl, the sister of one of the planet-based scientists, desiring only to see her brother again. Yet her excess mass it is that endangers the mission. To save the group of scientists The Cold Equations demand that she be “spaced” and this the pilot of the spaceship does, much against his grain as the act may go.
Thus the scientists are (presumably) saved and the girl dies. “It was the only logical thing to do, Captain,” as Mr. Spock might have said.
