"A little innovation of mine, to make things more interesting,"
said Jonner. "In case you ever want to use the idea, I made me a
super-slingshot out of two of the jeep inner tubes from the cargo, and
a couple of crowbars I could drive into crevices. Fixed it up yesterday
for bombardment purposes."
The duel went on.
There came the time when the hammer of the pistol clicked on an empty
chamber.
"How do you refuel this thing, Jonner?" asked Kraag pleasantly. The
sun was still high. He could retreat to the interior of the sphere and
figure it out if he had to.
"It's pretty hard to do with spacesuit hooks," replied Jonner. "Be glad
to demonstrate, if you'll toss me the gun."
Kraag laughed, a laugh with more triumph in it than humor, because in
his fumbling he had just hit the button that ejected the magazine. To
push in a fresh one was the matter of a moment.
He had hoped Jonner would move in closer when he knew the pistol was
empty, but no such luck. Jonner stayed put.
Kraag's first effort with the new magazine brought no results, for he
had neglected to prime the weapon by pushing the outer covering back on
the barrel. He did this, and resumed his methodical firing.
As the time wore on, Kraag began to appreciate the difficulties
involved in hitting a moving target, even a slowly moving one, when the
marksman was as inexperienced as he was. The trouble was that, at that
distance, he could not see where the bullets were striking and had no
way of knowing how wide of his mark he was shooting.
He was on the fourth magazine and the sun had passed the meridian
when he felt the sphere vibrate faintly and momentarily beneath him.
He twisted around, alarmed. He could see nothing. It wasn't one of
Jonner's rocks, because a big one had just missed.
His eye detected a shining streak that stretched a few inches along the
curve of the sphere's meteor shield, at about the level of his feet. He
bent to examine it. Something had struck it at high speed, a glancing
blow.
It couldn't be one of Jonner's rocks. Small meteor?
A jagged hole suddenly appeared in the observatory dome near him.
Kraag moved up and examined it closely. It had been made by some small
object. Through the glassite he could see a similar hole in the other
side of the dome.
Did Jonner have some sort of new weapon? He couldn't. Even Jonner
wasn't resourceful enough to invent a high-powered weapon with the
innocuous cargo they were carrying for the Titan colony.
Something struck Kraag a powerful blow in the left chest, a blow that
hurled him sideways, to tumble off the sphere and fall slowly to the
ground below. There was a great pain in his chest, and he released his
hand-hooks in agony, so that the pistol fell away from him.
Kraag gasped for breath as he struck the ground and bounced. He coughed
up blood.
He fell slowly again, and bounced again. The third time he settled
jarringly, prone on his back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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