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 he'd rather not try to get back up to the control room right now."
"Tell him to come to the mike anyhow. I don't want to talk to you till I talk to Stein."
"Stein can't talk, I tell you. If you don't want to talk to me, then are you ready to come in?"
"And get shot?" retorted Jonner.