The hours crept by, and the dim light waxed and waned as the planetoid spun in the void. Like clumsy fat robots, like puppets on a puppet master's strings, the two figures advanced, retreated, circled, attacked and fled. They danced their macabre minuet among the twisted, tortured black rocks, and always the soft, mocking laugh was in his earphones as Berne lunged panting after the darting puppet ahead of him. And finally he sank down at his post, breathing in sobbing gasps and tasting the salt of the bitter tears that trickled down his cheeks. The oxygen was sinking; not much more. At the rate they were using it, it would not last much longer.
"Hervey!"
The other stirred in the shadow of a rock pinnacle.
"I'm still with you, Joe."
"Okay, Sam," Berne said. "I've had enough. Come on in."
There was silence, then, from far away, the ghost of a chuckle.
"Don't you want to play any more, Joe?"
Berne snarled, then with an effort regained control of himself.
"No," he said. "We're killing each other. Come on in, Sam. I won't hurt you. I promise."
"Thanks, Joe," Hervey said. "But I don't think I trust you any more. Tell you what. You go on back to the ship, and I'll go to the station. Or vice-versa. Any way you want. But I don't think I want to be in the same place with you."