Jonner. "Sure we're on Ceres?"

Stein looked at the notes he had made from the ship's instruments, before the crash.

"The escape velocity was 1,552.41 feet per second," he said, "and the diameter 0.06. I figure the mass at .000108."

"All those figures are off according to the latest table for Ceres," said Jonner.

"The fellows that made that table were on Mars," reminded Stein. "Vesta doesn't have a 480-mile diameter. It must be Ceres."

"You're the navigator," surrendered Jonner. "I'll take your word for it."

The personnel sphere of the ship rested on the ground, tilted at almost a 20-degree angle from the horizontal. The tilt was no inconvenience, however. Each of the men weighed only five or six pounds here, and slippage was hardly noticeable.

"I'll turn you over to Kraag," said Stein at last, glancing up at the chronometer. "It's my day to fix supper, you know."

It was the signal Kraag had been waiting for. He reached behind him and fumbled in the rack for a gun.

The one he brought out was Jonner's, and it wasn't a heat-gun but the ancient pistol Jonner swore by. Kraag put it back hurriedly, but not before Stein had turned in his chair and seen it.

"What's up, Kraag?" asked Stein without alarm. "Why the gun?"

Kraag pulled a heat-gun from the rack.

"Nothing's up," he said, and shot Stein.

The ray burned into Stein's shoulder, and Kraag swung it down across Stein's chest to his stomach before relaxing his pressure on the trigger.

"My God, Kraag!" gurgled Stein. Summoning a last effort, he croaked into the microphone: "Jonner! Watch out! Kraag shot...."

Kraag blasted him in the face, cutting him off. Stein's body floated forward and upward out of the chair and began to settle slowly toward the slanting floor.

"What's going on, Stein?" came Jonner's alarmed voice over the loudspeaker. "Stein? Stein!"

"It's all right, Jonner," said Kraag as calmly as he could, when he could reach the microphone. "Stein just fainted."

There was 

 Prev. P 2/23 next