"Shut up."
"Why don't you make me?" he demanded. "Why don't you kill me?" He brightened. "Do you know how I killed your brother?"
The blood drained from Lt. Logan's face.
"It was at the Jovian Feast of the Moons," Snyder related. "I had an argument with a Martian girl and he tried to interfere. I killed them both. She was a little cheat and he was a threat. I had to break both his arms before I could use the knife. He had a strong heart. He bled...."
Somehow the Patrol officer found the control bucket. He swallowed a full handful of Synthetic Sleep capsules. The mirror blurred and he tried to watch Snyder and think of Bates and the native and the motorsled in the snow. He told himself he had guts, but he was too tired and sick to hear his own thoughts. He wanted to kill.
Mars loomed up a swollen orange and swept astern. At thirty-six hours he attached a leash to the Moon mimic's fur hidden collar. It stopped the inane jumping.
The hands of the chronometer spun and there began a series of blank spaces which neither realization nor Synthetic Sleep could stop. He saw Johnny and the spaceline, Bates, the lobster-faced Jovians. The roaring jets became a lullaby.
At forty-one hours he pulled out the blaster and moved to confront Snyder. The fat man looked up with the same cynical smile.
"Give it to me," Logan ordered.
"What?"