'What are you going to do with us?' asked the senator.
'Leave you here,' said Spike. 'I'm going to take your ship and leave you here.'
'But that's murder,' shouted the senator. 'We'll die. We only have about four hours' air.'
Spike chuckled again. 'Now,' he said, 'ain't that just too damn bad.'
Jurg Tec spoke.
'But you lived here somehow. It's been three weeks since you escaped. You haven't been in a space suit all that time. You haven't had enough air tanks to hold out that long.'
'What are you getting at?' asked Spike.
'Why,' said Jurg Tec, 'just this. Why don't you give us a chance to live? Why don't you tell us how you did it? We might be able to do the same, keep alive until somebody found us. After all, you are taking our ship. It won't serve any purpose to kill us. We haven't done anything against you.'
'Now,' said Spike, 'there's some reason to that. And I'll tell you. Friends of mine fixed up a part of this old ship, walled it off and installed a lock and a small atmosphere generator. Atmosphere condenser, rather. 'Cause there's air enough here, only it ain't thick enough. When I made my getaway I came out here and waited for a ship that was supposed to pick me up. But the ship didn't come. Something went wrong and it didn't come. So I'm taking yours.'
'That's sporting of you.' said the senator. 'Would you mind telling us whereabouts in the ship you've got this hideaway?'