The figure "1.41" was familiar enough. It was the square root of two,
carried to two decimal places. But what was Jonner dividing by it, and
why?
He frowned in concentration. There was something familiar about the
numbers, something that had to do with him and Jonner, and Jonner
wouldn't be working arithmetic just for amusement.
He saw Jonner moving on the horizon, just his head visible against
the black sky, his body hidden by the curve of the planet. Jonner was
circling.
The sudden realization of danger wiped other thoughts from his mind.
Until he saw the epitaph Jonner had written for Stein, Kraag had
thought Jonner looked at this as he did: one man against the other, and
winner take all. But Jonner intended to win even if he lost, because
Jonner was not fighting just for Jonner's survival but for due process
of law.
Jonner was trying to make certain that, even if Kraag killed him,
Martian law would punish Kraag for Stein's death. And if Jonner got
into the sphere, he could get his message to Marsport or the rescue
ship simply by turning on the radio.
Kraag turned and raced back to the sphere. He arrived, panting
heavily. Jonner was nowhere in sight, but he knew Jonner, circling,
could not have gotten there ahead of him.
He must kill Jonner before nightfall, if he could, but he must not get
far enough from the sphere to let Jonner slip in behind him. He was not
ready, yet, to destroy the radio to keep Jonner from it.
He walked around the sphere. There was Jonner on the other side, only
his head above the horizon, moving clockwise. The sun flashed and
gleamed from Jonner's helmet.
There was no sense in shooting at so small a target as a head. A mile
away, Jonner's whole body was a small enough target. A carefully gauged
leap carried Kraag to the top of the sphere. Here, 40 feet higher, his
range of view was increased considerably. He could see Jonner well.
Jonner could see him, too. Jonner stopped to hurl a stone. It took a
while for the missile to cover the distance. It passed below Kraag's
level, some distance away from him.
"Why don't you give it up, Jonner?" asked Kraag. "You can't hurt me
with a rock, at this distance."
"Why should I?" retorted Jonner. "All I have to do is wait till night."
"Sure, wait. But I'm not waiting, Jonner. One of us is going to win
this thing before night, or I'm going to blast the radio so you can't
reach Marsport. If I have to do that, I'll track you down tomorrow--and
I think I can stay outside and fight you away from the sphere tonight."
"Getting desperate enough to fight like a man now, aren't you, Kraag?
If you want a showdown today, I'm willing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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