He picked up the chart book and with ruffled brow turned its alumin-foil pages, his tongue between his lips. The page found, he held it before Jordan.
"See that? A dinky space-apple that's been passed up by every claiming bureau in the system. Ten miles through. Just big enough to keep you from drifting free where a nosy patrolship might find you. It's the nearest asteroid—I'd dump you on Pluto if it weren't out of my way."
"Asteroid H277 plus," read Jordan calmly. "Not exactly exciting. Why not ray me here and chuck out the remains?"
Akars swore. "Because you're supposed to be with what's left of the Cinnabar—damn you. I can't take you back there—salvage ships may be out by now. And I can't throw you out where you may be picked up by a patrol. I've got to ditch you where you'll stay put—"
"So it's H277 plus for me?" murmured Jordan. "The plus part of it sounds interesting. What does it mean, Akars?"
"How the hell would I know? And what do you care? You won't live long enough to worry about it."
But Akars himself was worrying as the asteroid floated into sight. He'd had to go off-course to reach it, when he should be making a bee-line for earth. There was a slight chance that the tender might be observed stopping here—a risk he had to take, but which could be minimized by haste. To cut the time shorter he'd let Jordan wear a space suit and walk out of the airlock. That would save time. Otherwise, if he killed Jordan on board, there would be some delay while he disposed of the body. Besides, there was a savage satisfaction in marooning the navigator alive, in letting him live out those last hopeless hours in slow torture of body and mind. Akars himself shuddered as he thought of it—the fate reserved for murderers taken aboard ship. A ten hour tank of oxygen—and a barren island of the sky such as this.
Asteroid H277 plus was a bleak lump of pitted rock, roughly oval in shape, gleaming where the sunlight fell, pitch-black in the shadows. No ship would ever come close enough to it to make out a man's body, even if it lay in the light. In fact, space-ships avoided such masses as this just as the ancient steamers avoided icebergs. The chance of rescue was practically non-existent.
"Almost there, aren't we?" asked Jordan from the floor. "What do I do—a swan dive from the emergency lock?"