Wofforth lowered the razor in his good hand and glared at the two. They grinned in the bright light opposite him. They looked as if they hoped he'd see the joke.
"I said it's a dying man that's talking," said Jenks again. "Won't you let me say my dying say, lieutenant? Let's all die honest."
"I'm going to get you there," Wofforth insisted.
"Ah, now," said Corbett, as though persuading a naughty child. "You think they've left twenty years' worth of supplies to keep us going? The ship didn't carry that much, even if they left it all." He grinned mirthlessly. "I can figure what you're figuring, lieutenant," he went on, with a touch of Jenks' sly manner. "You die, young and brave. You'll shave up again before you lie down and let go. And when the next shipload arrives there'll be you, lying like a statue of your good-looking young self, frozen stiff. Am I right?"
Corbett was right, Wofforth admitted to himself. The man was more than a great meaty lump, after all, to see another man's unspoken thought so clearly.
"Then," Jenks took it up, "First Mate Lya Stromminger will have a look. She may command the new expedition. She'll be promoted away up to Admiral or higher—twenty years of brilliant service—gone gray around the edges, but still a lovely lady. There you'll lie before her eyes, young and brave as you was when she deserted you. She'll cry, won't she? And hot tears can't thaw you out or wake you up—"
"Shut your heads, both of you!" shouted Wofforth, so fierce and loud that the foil tent wall vibrated as with a gale in the airless night.
But they had guessed true. He'd wanted to be found at Base Camp. He'd wanted Lya Stromminger to know, some day, that she'd blasted off and left behind the man most worthy of all men on all worlds....
"Everybody takes a hot bath tonight," said Wofforth. "We'll all sleep better for it. Tomorrow's our last day on the trail."
"To do two thousand miles?" said Jenks.