"I don't remember. Probably, it was like that."
Teejay flung him away from her. "Does that satisfy you, Steve?"
"For that part, yes. But what about the rest of it?"
"Not much to tell. I was out alone on Ganymede, a few miles from the ship. I thought I heard voices, sort of inside my head. I went forward to explore, just like you did, and also like you, I almost didn't have enough air to get back. Especially since I found your brother on the way."
"And he was dead?" As he spoke, Steve looked at his brother, standing right there in front of him, and wondered if anyone ever asked a more impossible question.
"Yes. He was dead. I don't know how he died, but I placed my ear against the chest of his vac-suit. The heart-beat is amplified through it, you know. But there wasn't any. After that, I ran back to the Gordak, and I had barely enough air to make it. I reported Charlie's death, of course."
Charlie's death. Well, she sounded sincere. But there was Charlie, standing two paces to her right and apparently listening to an account of his own demise.
Charlie cleared his throat. Quite evidently, it wasn't Charlie at all, but Steve could think of the man in no other way, for down to the smallest physical detail, he was Charlie. "That will suffice," he said. Again, it was Charlie's voice, but expressionless. "Enough of bickering. You will all march with me toward those hills, and we have a long journey before sunset."
The nine-foot anthrovacs took up their positions one on each side of the column and one behind it, and no one disobeyed. Once Steve looked back over his shoulder and saw the purple mists had almost completely swallowed the Frank Buck.