Ron bit back his answer.
"But you named one o' the charges wrong, son," chided Joe gently. "You called it attempted murder." He chuckled. "That's one thing ol' Joe Braun ain't ever gonna be guilty of. Whyn't ya come outa that shadder an' get it over with?"
Crag did not answer. He looked toward the catatread. There was not a single rock or spire between it and him to protect him. The cliffs of the Alps rose sheer and precipitous from the level of the crater floor, and for most of the distance to the vehicle the very base of the cliffs was brightly illuminated in the earthlight. But here and there a black shadow did jut out from the base of the precipice, cast by jagged peaks, eight thousand feet above the tiny basin. Those shadows formed an irregular chain of black splotches over the pumice-covered floor between Crag and the catatread.
Crag wasted no time weighing his chances. Blood beat fiercely in his temples as he tensed. He darted out into the earthlight, then retreated back into the same shadow as a livid ribbon of flame streaked by just in front of his visorport. He knew it was excellent shooting for a hand-gun at that range. It would take Joe Braun ten seconds to recharge and readjust the gun, and in that time—
Ron Crag darted out into the earthlight again, and fled for the nearest shadow a hundred feet away. He ducked into the blackness only split seconds ahead of another bolt of flame. If Braun only nicked his suit, his oxygen tank, or his thermocubes it would finish him, and the gunman was getting his range.
Joe Braun was out in the light now, dashing for the shadow of a spire nearer Crag's catatread. Ron Crag raised his gun and pressed the trip; a bolt of flame cleaved space just behind the hurtling shape.
A disappointed oath ricocheted about the close walls of Crag's helmet. He quickly pressed the charge poles of the gun against the battery posts in his accessory belt and recharged the gun. He then turned the range dial to seventy-five yards, leaving the bolt diameter at one inch. He crouched in the shadow, peering across the intervening area between himself and his assailant.
"Missed, son!" Joe Braun guffawed. "Want to make it to your catatread, eh? Well, two can play the same game."
Crag swallowed an angry retort. Despair was again rising in him like a dense fog.