“So we live comfortably,” he told them with irony, “until our food and water and minimum night-comfort run out together. Anything we do to try to stretch anything is useless because of what happens to something else. Redfeather tells me you accept the situation. What are you doing—since you accept it?”
Dr. Chuka said amiably:
“We’ve picked a storage place for our records, and our miners are blasting out space in which to put away the record of our actions to the last possible moment. It will be sandproof. Our mechanics are building a broadcast unit we’ll spare a tiny bit of fuel for. It will run twenty-odd years, broadcasting directions so it can be found regardless of how the terrain is changed by drifting sand.”
“And,” said Bordman, “the fact that nobody will be here to give directions.”
Chuka added benignly:
“We’re doing a great deal of singing, too. My people are ... ah ... religious. When we are ... ah ... no longer here ... there have been boastings that there’ll be a well-practiced choir ready to go to work in the next world.”
White teeth showed in grins. Bordman was almost envious of men who could grin at such a thought. But he went on grimly:
“And I understand that athletics have also been much practiced.”
Redfeather said:
“There’s been time for it. Climbing teams have counted coup on all the worst mountains within three hundred miles. There’s been a new record set for the javelin, adjusted for gravity constant, and Johnny Cornstalk did a hundred yards in eight point four seconds. Aletha has the records and has certified them.”