They were gone—all three of them, McIvers and the Major and Jack Stone—buried under a thousand tons of rock and zinc and molten lead. There wasn’t any danger of anybody ever finding their bones.
Peter Claney leaned back, finishing his drink, rubbing his scarred face as he looked across at Baron.
Slowly, Baron’s grip relaxed on the chair arm. “You got back,” he said.
Claney nodded. “I got back, sure. I had the tractor and the sledges. I had seven days to drive back under that yellow Sun. I had plenty of time to think.”
“You took the wrong man along,” Baron said. “That was your mistake. Without him you would have made it.”
“Never.” Claney shook his head. “That’s what I was thinking the first day or so—that it was McIvers’ fault, that he was to blame. But that isn’t true. He was wild, reckless and had lots of nerve.”
“But his judgment was bad!”
“It couldn’t have been sounder. We had to keep to our schedule even if it killed us, because it would positively kill us if we didn’t.”
“But a man like that—”