The range was too great. He missed again, but Hervey turned away. Silhouetted against the circle of the station air lock, he made a good target--but running amid the nightmare shapes of the black rocks, Berne could barely see him. Hervey realized that he would not be able to make it into the safety of the station. He swerved away, leaping high with each huge step, and sped into the wild darkness. Berne leaped down the ladder and ran toward the station, peering into the half-light, finger on the switch. Then he saw him, sitting calmly on an outcropping, watching. Berne switched on his communicator. "You can't get away, Sam," he said. The answer came back, thin in the earphones. "I'm going to try, Joe," Hervey said. "Have you gone out of your mind?" Berne laughed into the throat mike. "No," he said. "I'm sane, Sam. I just decided that I wasn't going to split the money with you, Sam. Or wait three years to get it, either." He heard the other's soft, "Oh." Hervey got up and moved away from the outcropping, looking back. Berne took up a position about midway between the ship and the station, watching him. Hervey was finished, he told himself; it was just a matter of time ... Berne could cover both havens. He was so sure of victory that when he heard Sam Hervey starting to laugh, he was genuinely shocked, and he was a little afraid. What...? "Joe?" The voice was in his ears. "Yeah, Sam." "You wouldn't want to blast an old friend, would you, Joe?" "It would be a pleasure, Sam." The laugh sounded again. "Now, Joe, you're not using your head. Always careless, that's you, Joe. What would the Space Patrol say when they find me full of rocket fragments? Might be a little tough on you, Joe." Joe Berne gasped, and then the truth swept over him. Ye Gods, he thought, what a fool I am! I almost got him, almost brought him down with the projector. The heavy weapon slipped from his nerveless fingers. He sat down heavily on a rock, staring bitterly into the dimness. "You can't stay out there forever, Sam," Berne said dully. "Maybe I can't kill you with a rocket, but I can kill you with something else." "I know I can't fight you," Hervey said reasonably. "You're bigger and you're stronger. But you've got to catch me, Joe--and I can run faster than you ever could, you big dumb ox." Berne shook his head. Everything was wrong. What had happened? "You can't stay out there forever, Sam," he repeated. The chuckle came again, thin and ghostly in the earphones. "No," Hervey said. "But Joe--neither can you!" What did Hervey mean? Berne looked back at the ship, then at the dull metallic dome of Astarea Station. And then it came to him, what Sam Hervey had tried to say. * * * * *