Garth shook his head sadly. "You jump to conclusions like a Venusian Polywog. Nobody's said that the six, or that any of them, have survived. A light was seen, that's all; maybe it was a meteor. Anyway it's not for us to believe it or doubt it, our job is to find out."
"Still, it's damn funny where that life-boat could have got to," Prokle growled. "The way this whole section's been scoured. Our own detector would have picked it out anywhere in a thousand-mile radius."
"Yes, I've been thinking of that. And I sort of lean to the belief they landed somewhere; Captain Lambert was probably right about that light he saw."
"But after three weeks," Prokle protested, "and only a few days' oxygen and provisions? For six that'd be impossible, and even for one man—well, that's a long stretch on oxygen and food."
Garth turned to his partner and said, "You know, Prokle, that's one thing I like about you. You're unimaginative. You're always yourself. You never can put yourself in the other fellow's place. You and me, we don't put a high value on our lives anymore, but other people still value life highly, they cling to it tenaciously. Isn't that quaint?"
"Skip the sarcasm," Prokle said. "I know what you mean. The oldest story in the world, the survival of the fittest."
"Exactly. They can't all have survived. But I'm sure someone did."
They reached the edge of their half-mile world and stepped into the lock where the two-man cruiser waited, Garth having decided against the solo cruisers. Something told him they ought to stick together on this venture.
They sped away into the blackness, Prokle at the controls. Garth looked back at their tiny glass-enclosed world and the wreck of the Martian Princess anchored there, bordering almost one entire edge. She was a rather helpless looking "Princess" now, but her lines were still regal. Garth smiled as he remembered the wreck, three weeks ago. Station M6, with its larger crew, had done most of the rescue work; but the hull of the huge liner had drifted toward M3 and so Garth and Prokle got the salvage job, to the envy of every other Station this side of the belt. But that was the inviolable law of the Stations. The two men were now leisurely engaged in putting the liner back into condition for the inspection crew who would be due out here at the end of the month.