"You don't. But I said it's insulting. So, if you want to see the coin,
you'll have to fight me!"
"Never mind," said Barling, climbing into his vac-suit. "You get first
try." And all of them garbed in their vac-suits once more, the men of
the _Frank Buck_ departed.
"Get those beaters out again!" Teejay was calling into her microphone,
and Kevin grasped Steve's arm, said:
"Go ahead, boy. Look at the coin."
Steve did. It had two heads.
And later, Teejay said to him: "Listen, Stedman. All the beaters are
out now, but frankly, I don't trust Schuyler."
Steve said he did not blame her, and Kevin was there to nod his red
head.
"So, Stedman, the beaters have their jobs to do. That's almost
everyone. But temporarily at least, it leaves you and Mac here with
nothing to do."
"That's true," said Kevin.
"But not for long, Mac. Schuyler may try something, I don't know what.
You two are probably the strongest men on this ship. I know what you
can do, Mac--and I saw a sample of Stedman at work when he had that
little run-in with LeClarc. All right: you two hop into a couple of
vac-suits. That is, if Stedman's ready to fight for us if he has to--"
Steve chuckled. "I don't go around carrying two-headed coins, Teejay,
but I know a rat when I see one. I'll go, and your friend Schuyler
better not try anything." Almost, he was surprised at his own words.
Teejay had a way of commanding respect, and if he didn't watch himself,
he'd be talking like Kevin soon. Well, perhaps the woman merited it....
His thoughts took him that far, and then he remembered Charlie. "I'll
go," he said again, almost growling.
"But you still have a chip on your shoulder--well, never mind. I'll
expect quarter-hourly reports from you two."
"You'll get them," said Kevin, and climbed into his vac-suit.
* * * * *
Incredibly, Steve found himself out on the bleak, desolate surface of
Ganymede, walking with Kevin past the long, silent length of the _Frank
Buck_. And here, outside the confining walls of their spaceship, the
Ganymede-fear seemed stronger. Steve felt it as something palpable,
clutching at his heart and constricting it, bringing sweat to his
forehead and clouding the inside of his helmet with moisture.
Fear--of what?
Not of the frontier world itself, surely. Not of some unknown menace
lurking out among the craterlets and ringwalls. No, for while Ganymede
was not yet as familiar as Mars or Venus, mankind still had explored it
extensively. There were the strange anthrovacs, animals which looked
like over-sized and less brutish gorillas but which were not protoplasm
creatures and which took their energy directly from sunlight and cosmic
radiation. But that was all--no other life existed on Ganymede, and the
anthrovacs on their frigid, airless world were something of an oddity.
Then what caused the fear? And was the fear responsible in any way for
what had happened to Charlie?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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