Read Ebook: The Road and the Roadside by Potter Burton Willis

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Ebook has 362 lines and 31698 words, and 8 pages

Kraag knew Jonner too well to try to keep up the pretense any longer. He tried another tack.

"Okay, so I shot Stein," he admitted. "That doesn't mean I'll shoot you. Come on in and talk it over. We can make a deal."

"If you shot Stein, why wouldn't you shoot me?" asked Jonner logically.

"There wasn't enough air for three. There is for two."

Jonner was silent for a moment.

"So that's why you did it," he said then. "Figured it pretty close, didn't you, Kraag?"

"I'm the guy who has to watch supplies on this boat. I checked the oxygen after the crash broke open those three compartments on the supply deck. There's 3800 pounds of oxygen left. It'll take about 22 months for the rescue ship to get here from Mars. At 2.8 pounds of oxygen a day, you and I can make it, but it would have lasted the three of us only 15 months."

Jonner cursed him for a full minute, not loudly but with such intensity that Kraag felt his face getting warm.

"You damn murderer!" finished Jonner. "You damn cold-blooded murderer!"

"Cut it out, Jonner," growled Kraag. "I can't understand you and Stein. What were you expecting to save us? A miracle?"

"I don't feel like talking about it now," said Jonner warily. "If you had only ... Hell, Kraag, we'd been together a long time. Even if all of us had thought we were going to die, I didn't think we'd kill each other off like animals."

"Self-preservation is the first law of nature," said Kraag cynically. "Better that two should die than three. Come on in, Jonner."

"That's self-preservation? No thanks, Kraag. You know I'll turn you in as a murderer when the rescue ship gets here. I have no hankering to walk up where you can burn me down."

"Okay, stay out there till your air gives out."

The airlock was not a comfortable place to spend one of the asteroid's seven-hour nights, but Kraag was afraid not to stand guard there with his heat-gun. He was afraid to sleep, too, for the airlock combination was virtually noiseless and Jonner could open it from the outside. Jonner was unarmed, but Kraag had no hankering for a hand-to-hand fight with the powerfully built captain inside the personnel sphere. Because the air would swish out of the lock instantly if Jonner opened it, Kraag had to wear a spacesuit.

He tried to talk to Jonner several times, but got no answer. Toward dawn, Kraag dozed off, only to be brought awake with a start by Jonner's voice in his earphones.

"Good morning, Kraag," said Jonner. There was iron in his voice. "Have a good night's sleep?"

"About as good as yours, I'd say," retorted Kraag, wishing he could get his hands inside his helmet to rub his eyes.

"I slept fine. Found me a good foxhole just beyond the horizon."

"Damn you, Jonner! Where are you now?"

"Go on and have breakfast, Kraag. I'm far enough away for you to see me. Take a look."

Kraag peered out of the uppermost airlock ports, one by one. They slanted at a bad angle, but through one of them he made out Jonner, standing half a mile away. Uncannily, as though he could see Kraag's helmet at the port, Jonner waved.

Kraag was afraid to take off the spacesuit now because the supply deck had no ports and Jonner could get to the ship in a hurry if he wanted to. He took off the helmet, though, and went up to the center deck. Hurriedly, he opened the cover of the port in the direction he had seen Jonner. Jonner was still in the same place, sitting down.

Kraag heated breakfast and ate it with an eye on the port. Jonner didn't move. Kraag felt better when he had eaten, and went up to the control room.

"Why don't you give it up and come on in, Jonner?" he asked. "The oxygen in that suit's not good for more than another 15 hours."

"That's where you're wrong, Kraag, and that's what's so tragic about your murdering Stein," said Jonner quietly. "You either forgot that we carried oxygen instead of nitric acid as the fuel oxidizer this trip or, being an engineer, you didn't think of it except as fuel.

"There's enough oxygen in the tanks scattered over the landscape to keep a dozen men alive until the rescue ship gets here. It's hard for me to get at, but I've already found I can manage it."

Kraag was profoundly shocked. For a moment the enormity of what he had done in killing Stein almost overwhelmed him. It had been completely unnecessary.

Then his self-reproach turned into a growing anger against Jonner. Jonner was always so reticent, always required his orders to be obeyed without explanation. During the whole argument about taking an orbit around the asteroid, during the whole time it had taken to spiral down to a crash, he had not told Kraag how he expected them to stay alive until they were rescued.

Kraag hadn't asked him, of course. Kraag had assumed Jonner was thinking in terms of his own figures.

"I'm sorry about Stein," said Kraag, and meant it. "But it can't be helped now, Jonner. There's enough air for both of us, if you'll keep your mouth shut when the rescue ship gets here."

"If I promised, I still wouldn't trust you and you wouldn't trust me. No, Kraag. The only way it'll work is for you to come out unarmed and let me go in and get the guns. Then I'll lock you in the control room till the rescue ship gets here."

"One of us is a fool, Jonner, and you seem to think it's me. I'm not going to burn for murder. I've got the whip hand. You may have oxygen, but you've got to have food and water, too."

Jonner laughed, without humor.

"I've got enough of that for three Earth days and I can last longer," he said. "Before that time, I'll come and get you, Kraag. Don't go to sleep!"

Kraag cursed and switched off the loudspeaker. But he kept an eye on Jonner through the glassite. Always, he had to watch Jonner--or stay on guard in the airlock.

If there were only some way to lock Jonner out! But the only real lock was on the control room, and a man couldn't live in the control room with an enemy below who could cut the water and oxygen lines.

Kraag would have to sleep some time. Jonner couldn't know when, but Jonner already was seven hours sleep up on him. Jonner could pick his own time to slip up to the sphere under cover of darkness, he could pick his own time to come through the lock. Maybe Kraag would be awake and could burn him down--but maybe not.

There was only one thing to do. He'd have to take the attack to Jonner.

Still watching Jonner through every port he passed, always watching Jonner, Kraag hung a heat-gun on one of the hooks at his spacesuit's belt. He went back below, put the helmet on, and went out through the airlock.

The shadow of the sphere stretched away toward his left. He was in sunlight.

Jonner, still in the same spot, got to his feet but made no move to approach.

"Welcome to the great outdoors," said Jonner.

"I'm going to get you, Jonner," said Kraag grimly. "One way or another, I'm going to get you."

He moved toward Jonner. Each step was a long, floating leap and it was hard to stay balanced before landing. Jonner moved, not away from him but sidewise.

Kraag stopped. The effective range of the heat-gun was no more than 100 feet. If he tried to get close enough to Jonner to use it, Jonner could circle and get to the personnel sphere.

There were the oxygen tanks, the big ones used for fuel. If Kraag could get to them and burn them open, Jonner couldn't last long outside. But they were scattered pretty far from the personnel sphere. Jonner would get to the sphere for sure if he tried that.

"Okay, Jonner, I know when I'm licked," said Kraag. "Come on in."

"I'm not too far away to see the gun, Kraag."

"I'll take it back to the sphere and leave it."

"Why not just toss it away?"

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