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——"