"Where's the rest of the crew?" he asked. He looked at me.

"That's all there is," I said. "There isn't any more." I didn't see any use in lying to him, but I didn't see any use in telling him the truth, and I would sooner lie to him than not. That's the way I felt about it.

"Wise, huh?" he said. His expression didn't change. He didn't have any expression.

He turned to Betty. "Where's the rest of the crew?"

"There aren't any more. There's just the two of us." Good girl. She was going to back my play. If I had any play. I was trying, but looking at that face slowed my mind down into first gear.

Back to me again. "Where's your ship?"

"Ship?" I asked. The innocent line. "We don't have a ship."

He looked toward the rest of his gang. Two of them came up alongside of me and grabbed my elbows.

"Do you hear that?" he complained. "They don't have any ship. They walked all the way out here." He moved in close to me. His face wasn't really rock or I could have seen the moss on it.

"Look, chum," he said. "Do you have to get wise? This ain't no game of marbles. I'm telling you."

"Take it or leave it," I cracked. "What would we want with a ship? They bring us out here and leave us, and a year later they come back to get us and drop off the new crew." It sounded like a good way to run an asteroid station at that.

He cursed. It had a horrible sound, in that muted rocky voice of his. He faced Betty again. "That true?"

"Of course it's true!" The contempt in her voice would have withered him, only stones don't wither.

I still couldn't see where we were getting. Hold him here until the Patrol cruiser came in? That wouldn't work. If the Patrol boat came in first they would think the Astra was the expedition ship, and Ed Day would think it was the Patrol. And Stoneface here would sit back just like a hunter in a duck blind and wait for an easy shot. If we could figure out some way to signal. Come on, Denby, think it out. There's an answer to everything.

He was talking again. "How long have you been here?"

"Six months."

"When's that ship due?"

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