"Or a wife," agreed Ganti. "Here!"
He offered food. Jorgenson ate, scowling. Afterward, near sundown, he went over the island.
It was rock, nothing else. There was a pile of small broken stones from the excavation of the cave. There were the few starveling plants. There was the cordage with which Jorgenson had been lowered. There was the parcel containing food and water. Ganti observed that the plastic went to pieces in a week or so, so it couldn't be used for anything. There was nothing to escape with. Nothing to make anything to escape with.
Even the dried seaweed bed was not comfortable. Jorgenson slept badly and waked with aching muscles. Ganti assured him unemotionally that he'd get used to it.
He did. By the time the copter came to drop food and water again, Jorgenson was physically adjusted to the island. But neither as a business man or as a person could he adjust to hopelessness.
He racked his brains for the most preposterous or faintest hope of deliverance. There were times when as a business man he reproached himself for staying on Thriddar after he became indignant with the way the planet was governed. It was very foolish. But much more often he felt such hatred of the manners and customs of the Thrid—which had put him here—that it seemed that something must somehow be possible if only so he could take revenge.
III
The copter came, it dropped food and water, and it went away. It came, dropped food and water, and went away. Once a water-bag burst when dropped. They lost nearly half a week's water supply. Before the copter came again they'd gone two days without drinking.
There were other incidents, of course. The dried seaweed they slept on turned to powdery trash. They got more seaweed hauling long kelp-like strands of it ashore from where it clung to the island's submerged rocks. Ganti mentioned that they must do it right after the copter came, so there would be no sign of enterprise to be seen from aloft. The seaweed had long, flexible stems of which no use whatever could be made. When it dried, it became stiff and brittle but without strength.