"If comes the ship to make us free,
It killeth you, it killeth me."
"Do you mean we could have saved them if we'd come in with engines silent?" the skipper asked.
"I don't know," Ernest said. "They certainly didn't think much of their potential. There's a fatalism, a sense of thwarted destiny running all through their literature. Their hope died on the vine, so to speak. If you can stand one more of their verses, this one might sum up their philosophy:
"This they give to us they make:
They give us thirst, deny the slake."
The skipper was silent for a time, staring down at the little mounds of gray dust.
Then he said to his technicians:
"You've done a good job, all of you. We'll send a coordinated report to the Flagship tomorrow and stand by for orders. In the meantime, if there's anyone here with an honest physical thirst, I'd be glad to have him join me in slaking it in my cabin. No offense implied, Ernest."