are you doing? What if you're the real one? Oh, Doyle...." she moaned irrationally.

Beta went back to the engine room. He waded through the fuel with the girl-dupe behind him.

"We have another bet, just in case," Beta said. "Those hoses...." He pointed at the wall above the humming engines.

The dupe's eyes brightened.

"If only we have time!" she said. "I'll get them. It's dangerous up there. You might be electrocuted. It doesn't matter with myself."

Beta started to protest, then he saw the logic of the girl's suggestion. He nodded curtly, and helped her climb upon the engine. She teetered precariously, slipping on the slime of the fuel which was on her feet.

She reached up and twisted the nozzle of a hose, unscrewing it from the engine. Her face was twisted awry with effort, her slim body bent in straining against the stubborn threads. It loosened and she dropped it down to Beta who was standing in the swirling blue fluid, waiting.

He snatched it up.

"Get the others, quick!" he shouted, watching with horrified fascination as the fuel crept up to meet the network of sparks.

The girl struggled silently. Beta could hear her quick breathing in his head phones. The engines whirred, the sparks flashing down towards the explosive fluid.

She dropped another of the hoses to Beta. The third one was free and in his hands when she began working on the fourth. She slipped; the sparks danced up, touching the legs of her suit. The lower part of her suit burst into flame, soaked as it was with the fuel. She watched the flames, her face blanched white, as they ate into her suit.

"Katherine!" Beta gasped. This was no duplicate, he thought frantically; this was Katherine, blazing, burning. She would die; he knew that. If she fell back into the fuel, both of them died. He started climbing the engine, reaching for the girl as she hung onto the hose, her gloved hands frozen to it in a rigid grip.

"No!" she screamed. There was a plea, in the voice that stopped Beta, brought him back to sanity. He dropped to the floor, watching her....

In the ship that circled the asteroid, there was silence. Alpha sat in the seat by Miss Kanton, a hand gripping his knee, feeling it, waiting for 

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