"And have you beat me to it and get the drop on me? We'll leave the guns in the sphere and I'll meet you on even terms."

"I'll believe it when I see it."

Kraag went back to the sphere. He couldn't stand in shadow without looking suspicious, but he took the heat-gun from his belt ostentatiously and swung it in an arc, apparently tossing it through the open outer lock. Instead, he held onto it and hung it by the trigger guard to a belt hook at the back of his suit.

"I'm all clean, Jonner. Come on up," he invited.

"Let's see the hooks, Kraag," said Jonner.

Kraag held his arms aloft, wriggling the empty steel fingers of the spacesuit. Jonner came toward him, floating high above the surface with each step. At just about the extreme range of the heat-gun, he stopped. Kraag kept his arms outspread, but tensed himself.

"Clean, so far," said Jonner drily. "Now turn around, Kraag."

"And have you jump me from behind? Not hardly."

"Gun on the back hook, eh, Kraag?"

"Damn you, Jonner!" Kraag reached behind him for the gun and at the same time leaped toward Jonner. Jonner, ready, jumped back, and Jonner was a more powerful man. Handling a heat-gun with the hand-hooks of a spacesuit is awkward business, and by the time Kraag could bring the weapon to bear on Jonner and press the trigger, Jonner's distance was such that the ray obviously did no worse than make things uncomfortably warm for him.

"I didn't think that surrender rang true," commented Jonner. "If you'd been level, you'd have tossed away the heat-gun."

Then Jonner revealed that he was not entirely weaponless. As he hit the surface, his arm moved in an arc and a good-sized rock came hurtling through space toward Kraag.

Kraag writhed frantically, two feet off the ground, and the stone missed him by inches. Kraag landed on his side and bounced again. Jonner hit once more and hurled another rock. Evidently he was armed with several of them. This one ricocheted off the ground near Kraag just as Kraag finally slid to rest.

Getting to his feet and turning to flee was agonizingly slow, when every frantic movement lifted him off the ground. Another stone came sailing by, to strike the personnel 

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