Page:Astounding Science Fiction (1950-01).djvu/81

 easily dismayed. But now he was certain that they were hard upon a dead star—nay, already struck.



"Master?"

"Hippocrates," said Ole Doc, "we've only got two bottles of wine left!"

Hippocrates saw that the ship was running along on all drives, that the instrument panel, which he could see from where he stood in the passage, half a ship length forward from the salon, was burning green on all registers, that they were on standard speed and that, in short, all was well. He wiped a slight smear of mustard and gypsum from his mouth with a guilty hand—for his own supplies of delicacy were so low that he had stolen some of Ole Doc's plaster for casts.

"The formula for making wine," began Hippocrates with his phonograph record-wise mind, "consists of procuring grapes. The grapes are then smashed to relieve them of juice and the juice is strained and set aside to ferment. At the end of—"

"We don't have any grapes," said Ole Doc. "We don't have any fuel. We have no food beyond ham and powdered eggs. All my shirts are in ribbons—"

"If you would stop writing on the cuffs," said Hippocrates, "I might—"

"—and I have not been fishing for a year. See what's on that tape. If OLE MOTHER METHUSELAH