"You'd call Base," Berne said pettishly.
"Oh, certainly," Hervey answered. "We'd have to report, wouldn't we? And I'd have to tell them that you didn't like me any more, wouldn't I?"
For a moment Berne thought desperately of taking a chance, of letting Hervey into the station, and then trying to brazen it out, of accusing Hervey of being the one who had wanted to murder.... His shoulders sagged. It wasn't any good. He knew that they would believe Hervey—Hervey with his reputation, careful, reliable old Sam Hervey.... It was almost over.
"Damn you," he said. He heard Hervey laugh again.
It went on forever, Berne thought. The little robot figures went on with their dance, they advanced and fled, circled and quartered. His eyelids drooped, his head fell forward in the helmet. With a jerk he pulled himself into wakefulness. Hervey was moving like a shot, racing for the ladder of the ship. Screaming, Berne hurtled toward him. Hervey saw him, wavered while he gauged the distance, and knew that he could not make it. He leaped away. It was close. Berne almost caught him. When the big man finally halted, choking for breath, Hervey was barely a hundred yards away. It might as well have been a mile. Curiously shrunken upon himself, Berne turned and went heavily back to his post. Hervey waited until he sat down, then drifted back a little and sat down beside a rock, watching.
Joe Berne slumped down, waiting for a move. He was starting to gasp for air now, and he was staring hungrily at the inviting open air locks of the ship and of Astarea Station. His head was hurting him, and his eyes were not focussing properly.
Twice he thought he saw Hervey get up and start toward the ship, and both times he struggled to his feet and dashed after him. Both times he had been wrong; Hervey had not moved. Berne shook his aching head. Was he beginning to imagine things? Maybe ... maybe Hervey was dead. He moved toward the fat bulbous bulk that was Hervey. Hervey got up and walked away, looking back. He wasn't dead, then. He was waiting out there in the Jupiter-light for Joe Berne to die.
"You'll die, too!" he screamed into his mike. "You'll die, too!"
The voice that came back was weak, tired, and he realized that his own voice had been choked and almost strangled. The sweat was streaming down his face, mingling with the tears, wet inside his suit. His feet were like lead.
"Yes," the voice said. "I'll die, too, Joe. But will that do you any good? There are no uranium strikes where you're going, Joe—no nothing, Joe, unless you get oxygen quick."