So Proudly We Hail.

'''Merril, Judith. "So Proudly We Hail."' In Star Science Fiction Stories [1]''. Frederik Pohl, ed. New York: Ballantine, [1953]. Coll. Survival Ship and Other Stories. Toronto: Kakabeka, [1974].

Loading of Terran ship for colonizing Mars: "The metal dragon swallowed all they fed it, . . . letting itself be stuffed, for now, with bits and pieces of paraphernalia, oddiments of fiber and metal, of glass and wood. But all the while it waited, knowing the feast that was coming soon, brooding and hungering for the living flesh that would feed it this night" (Survival Ship 157). The loading of the colonists is described as "the human sacrifice that would slake the dragon's thirst and make it go away" (164).