Asteroids -- Fiction; Attempted murder -- Fiction; Mines and mineral resources -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
"No," he said. "We're killing each other. Come on in, Sam. I won't hurt
you. I promise."
"Thanks, Joe," Hervey said. "But I don't think I trust you any more.
Tell you what. You go on back to the ship, and I'll go to the station.
Or vice-versa. Any way you want. But I don't think I want to be in the
same place with you."
"You'd call Base," Berne said pettishly.
"Oh, certainly," Hervey answered. "We'd have to report, wouldn't we?
And I'd have to tell them that you didn't like me any more, wouldn't I?"
For a moment Berne thought desperately of taking a chance, of
letting Hervey into the station, and then trying to brazen it out,
of accusing Hervey of being the one who had wanted to murder....
His shoulders sagged. It wasn't any good. He knew that they would
believe Hervey--Hervey with his reputation, careful, reliable old Sam
Hervey.... It was almost over.
"Damn you," he said. He heard Hervey laugh again.
It went on forever, Berne thought. The little robot figures went on
with their dance, they advanced and fled, circled and quartered. His
eyelids drooped, his head fell forward in the helmet. With a jerk he
pulled himself into wakefulness. Hervey was moving like a shot, racing
for the ladder of the ship. Screaming, Berne hurtled toward him. Hervey
saw him, wavered while he gauged the distance, and knew that he could
not make it. He leaped away. It was close. Berne almost caught him.
When the big man finally halted, choking for breath, Hervey was barely
a hundred yards away. It might as well have been a mile. Curiously
shrunken upon himself, Berne turned and went heavily back to his post.
Hervey waited until he sat down, then drifted back a little and sat
down beside a rock, watching.
Joe Berne slumped down, waiting for a move. He was starting to gasp for
air now, and he was staring hungrily at the inviting open air locks of
the ship and of Astarea Station. His head was hurting him, and his eyes
were not focussing properly.
Twice he thought he saw Hervey get up and start toward the ship, and
both times he struggled to his feet and dashed after him. Both times
he had been wrong; Hervey had not moved. Berne shook his aching head.
Was he beginning to imagine things? Maybe ... maybe Hervey was dead. He
moved toward the fat bulbous bulk that was Hervey. Hervey got up and
walked away, looking back. He wasn't dead, then. He was waiting out
there in the Jupiter-light for Joe Berne to die.
"You'll die, too!" he screamed into his mike. "You'll die, too!"
The voice that came back was weak, tired, and he realized that his own
voice had been choked and almost strangled. The sweat was streaming
down his face, mingling with the tears, wet inside his suit. His feet
were like lead.
"Yes," the voice said. "I'll die, too, Joe. But will that do you any
good? There are no uranium strikes where you're going, Joe--no nothing,
Joe, unless you get oxygen quick."
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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