Al shook his head. "Last stages," he said. The commander went to a tier of built-in drawers across the room from the control panel. His arm reached out, pulled on the third drawer from the bottom. From this drawer he took an old-fashioned revolver and a box of shells. Not ordinary shells. The bullets were plastic, strong enough to pierce flesh, too soft to rupture the walls of the space ship.
"Don't do it, Al," Oakey said, watching the commander.
Al shook his head. He slipped bullets into the cylinder.
"We're the last earthmen, let's not die killing each other," pleaded the young man. "This thing will catch us all before long. Let's stop fighting it. Joe's our pal. Let him live."
"We're the last earthmen and we're going down fighting," said Al.
"We've fought. For ten years we've fought. Now we're in space, Al. So far from the sun we can't tell it from any other star. There's no earth women here. Even if we live a few years longer, the strain of earth-blood dies with us. We're licked, Al. Let's surrender gracefully."
"We're earthmen," said Al. "We fight."
"The last earthmen. There's nothing left to fight for—"
"Except life," said Al. "Now listen, Oakey. I'm still commander. I know what I'm doing and you take orders from me—or it's mutiny. Yeah, I know the Quinnies have covered the earth. From the Arctic to the tropics men died shooting sparks like fireworks. But the earth isn't the only planet in the Galaxy where men exist. You didn't take that first trip this ship made, did you, boy?"
Oakey laughed. "That was ten years ago. I was a kid in high school then."