The lean face became gentle. "Taught you that myself, didn't I,
son...? Well--inventory. What've we got, right here?"
"Thirty days' rations for three, packed eleven years ago. Two
automatic rifles, one shotgun, three automatic pistols, three hundred
rounds for each weapon. Should have transferred more from the ship,
but--we didn't. Three four-inch hunting knives, very good----"
"They at least won't give out. With care."
"Right. Two sealed cases of garden seeds--anybody's guess about them.
Six sets of overalls, shorts, and jackets. Three pairs of shoes
apiece--the Federation allowed that you and Ann might grow a little,
Dot--plasta soles and uppers, should last several years. Carpentry
tools. Ed's boat has the garden tools instead. Sears did pack his
microscope, didn't he?"
"Oh my, yes," said Dorothy, in affectionate mimicry of the fat man's
turn of speech.
"Each crash suit has first-aid kit, radion flashlight (good for two
years maybe), compass, field glasses, plus whatever else we had sense
enough to stuff in. Set of technical manuals, mostly useless without
the ship, but I think there's one on woodcraft, primitive tools and
weapons--survival stuff----"
"Oh, the books!" Wright clutched his hair, groaning. "The books----"
"Just that woodcraft----"
"No, no, no--the books on _Argo_! Everything--the library--I've only
just understood that it's gone. The whole flowering of human
thought--man's best, uncorrupted--_Odyssey_--Ann's music, the art
volumes you selected, Paul, and your own sketches and paintings----"
"No loss there----"
"Don't talk like a damn fool! Shakespeare--_Divina commedia_----"
Dorothy twisted in the narrowness to put both arms around him.
"Doc--quiet, dear--please----"
"I can remember pages of _Huck Finn_--_a few pages_!"
Dorothy was wiping his face with a loose comer of her jacket.
"Doc--subside! Please now--make it stop hurting inside yourself. Oh,
quiet...."