Take a Match

Take a Match is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in Robert Silverberg's 1972 anthology "New Dimensions II" and reprinted in the 1975 collection "Buy Jupiter and Other Stories".

A spaceship is stranded between the stars but out of distance of the interstellar gases that it requires as fuel. The Fusionist, a highly sensitive and eccentric individual who is in charge of the ship's power, is unwilling to try any alternative methods of gathering fuel. A school teacher travelling as a passenger suspects what the trouble is and realises, from his experience of teaching children, that there is an alternative; that of utilising the 'primitive' technology of chemical combustion. He manages to convey his idea via a pretty female passenger to the Fusionist, who successfully tries it.