He waited, listening. He had Repeater One as well as Two set so it would retransmit any local pickup on helmet-phone frequency, but it was half an hour before anything but the peculiar singing murmurs of empty space came from the loud-speaker. Then he heard heavy breathing.
He heard a colloquy between Kent and Holmes, far away in the lunar mountains. They were evidently climbing somewhere, and part of the climb necessarily took them through deep shadow, where the temperature of the rock was down to night temperature. Their space suits could handle the cold for a certain length of time, but the teeth of one of the men were chattering before he came out into sunlight at the end of the climb.
McCauley heard Holmes say sarcastically:
"I needed that last pull. Want me to thank you for it?"
Kent's voice snapped as he answered Holmes.
"I did it solely because McCauley would court-martial me if I came in alone!"
A pause, then the remote, transmitted sound of space shoes on stone. Holmes spoke.
"There's a way I can kill you easily. All I need do is get myself killed."
He laughed without mirth, and Kent said bitterly, "Go ahea—" Then there was silence.
The communications officer brought McCauley a message from Lunar Base congratulating Grimaldi Base for completing the communications link between the two hemispheres of the moon.