"Most everybody does. Few are content to lie down and get it over with. One lifetime is not long enough to content one's self. No alert, willing, intelligent human being can be content with Thanatopsis."
"I don't know it."
"I don't know it too well, either. Something about, 'When thy summons comes to join the innumerable caravan that moves, et cetera, like one who wraps the draperies of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams.' Or something like that."
Bluntly he said, "It's nine days."
From the top of the ladder, Charles Andrews repeated his familiar refrain, "Nine days at a hundred per hour."
Norton turned swiftly. "Yeah," he drawled. "But we'll have that argument later, Andrews. Right now it's time to blast out with a distress signal again. They've got to know we're still alive, no matter what else."
"Okay—okay."
"So you fire up the infrawave transmitter and I'll pedal the generator, as before."
Norton disappeared below. Andrews went to the small panel and sat there watching the one meter, his hand resting on the one switch.
"Hell of a note," he grumbled.