silence from Jonner.

"I'll take care of Stein and then take over the mike till you get ready to come in," said Kraag into the microphone.

"I want to talk to Stein when he comes around," said Jonner. His voice sounded cold.

So Jonner suspected something. Well, that couldn't be helped. Maybe he could be talked around.

"All right, Jonner," agreed Kraag soothingly.

Stein's body had to be hidden from Jonner, just in case. Jonner got into the personnel sphere alive—something Kraag did not intend for him to do. When he had taken care of Jonner, he could dispose of both bodies before the rescue ship got there.

Dragging Stein's body was like towing someone through water. It floated through the air of the sphere at Kraag's tug, settling slowly. His only problem was getting good leverage for pushing. After some cogitation, he jammed the body into an empty food compartment two decks below the control room.

Back in the control room, Kraag looked out the port. Jonner was closer to the personnel sphere now, looking toward it but not moving.

Other portions of the ship, some jettisoned, some crumpled and broken apart by its crash, lay at varying distances from the personnel sphere. Some of the parts were scattered out of sight beyond the horizon, a mile away.

Kraag had not wanted to fool with the asteroid. There had been no question that they had to swing back off their original orbit toward Titan when the meteorite slashed open both of their hydrazine tanks. But Kraag's idea had been to stay in space and try to turn back toward Mars before the fuel gave out.

As the engineer, Kraag resented Jonner overruling him. Jonner had felt it safer to take an orbit around the asteroid and wait for rescue. But the fuel pumps had failed before they could adjust to the orbit. Kraag would never forget that helpless waiting as they circled and circled, spiraling downward to the inevitable crash.

He went back to the microphone.

"Okay, Jonner," he said. "What's going on out there now?"

"Where's Stein?" countered Jonner. "I want to talk to him."

"He's not feeling so good. Said 

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