Luis Gofredo was just as distrustful of them as
they were of the Terrans; he kept the camp lighted, a strong guard
on the alert, and the area of darkness beyond infra red lighted and
covered by photoelectric sentries on the ground and snoopers in the
air. Like Paul Meillard, Luis Gofredo was a worrier and a pessimist.
Everything happened for the worst in this worst of all possible
galaxies, and if anything could conceivably go wrong, it infallibly
would. That was probably why he was still alive and had never had
a command massacred.
The wheelbarrows, four of them, came down from the ship by midmorning.
With them came a grindstone, a couple of crosscut saws, and a lot of
picks and shovels and axes, and cases of sheath knives and mess gear
and miscellaneous trade goods, including a lot of the empty wine and
whisky bottles that had been hoarded for the past four years.
At lunch, the talk was almost exclusively about the language problem.
Lillian Ransby, who had not gotten to sleep before sunrise and had
just gotten up, was discouraged.
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