"Can't tell, George," I said in a higher voice. "Might be. Might not.
But we're getting close, that's for sure. Good thing we found those old
Ruskie charts."
Oh, I was having a glorious time. I said, for George, "We could blast
those other guys out of their dome any time we want. So why are we
waiting?"
I was getting cocky, and I used a deep bass this time. "You know the
chief wants to have some fun with that weapon. 'No place better to try
it,' he told me, 'than on our friends over there.' Just wait."
* * * * *
An inspiration hit me, all at once. I had our weapon. "Yeah," this
was my George voice again, "but what an awful way to die. I wonder if
those charts are really true; you press a button, and anyone around who
happens to be in contact with iron or steel just gets broiled alive."
I poured it on in my middle-sized voice. "That's it, okay. The charts
wouldn't lie. Can you imagine what those Ruskies could have done with
that in the War?"
"Uh-huh. That woulda hit everyone. You carry a blaster, it's steel.
Disintegrator, too. Wear a spacesuit, you also get broiled. Go near a
radio, same thing. Man, it scares you: hope the chief knows what he's
doing."
"He knows," my good new friend George said, and because I figured
they had heard enough for now of my terribly selective yet horribly
universal weapon, I marched off my pinnacle and made my way back over
the rubble toward our dome. I chuckled softly to myself. Clair and
Gramps had doubtlessly heard of my new weapon via their intercoms, and
I thought they'd be mightily pleased. It had infinite possibilities in
this war of nerves.
They were waiting for me outside the dome-lock, and I thought that was
funny because I had expected to find them within the dome.
And then I ran. One, two, three figures stood within the dome, staring
out solemnly at Gramps and Clair. I reached them and I tried the lock.
I didn't have to--I don't think I could have entered with a blow torch.
I looked at Clair and Clair looked at me, and then we both looked at
Gramps. He shrugged eloquently enough, and after taking one last angry
look at the three men within our dome, we turned and walked away. The
angry looks made them smile, as we left one of them even thumbed his
nose at us. That gesture, too, was eloquent. It said, _suckers!_
We retreated to the base of my pinnacle of rock, where we couldn't be
seen from either dome. What had happened was simple. In my enthusiasm
I had left our dome deserted, and apparently our trio of friends back
there had found it that way. The dome-locks, of course, are manipulated
from within, and there's no way to secure them from the outside. So the
trio had walked in, closed the lock behind them, and we were stuck out
on the cold, dark, airless surface of 4270.
I tried to scratch my head and nearly succeeded in cracking my helmet
with a leatheroid glove. Gramps and Clair had gone out before me: they
had perhaps an hour's air supply left. Maybe I had three, with luck.
The Karden didn't have enough air within its old hulk now to satisfy a
lungfish in suspended animation, and by the time we could get its old
generators working again, we'd be three asphyxiated corpses.
So, we could do two things. We could wait out in the open like sitting
ducks and wait for the unknown enemy to take us, or we could just sit
here near our pinnacle of rock and suffocate.
I cursed myself soundly, but I stopped and tried to comfort her when I
saw that Clair was crying. It isn't easy, not through a spacesuit and
not when you think you'll be dead in not much more than minutes.
Gramps felt the fear too, he was muttering to himself. Clair murmured.
"Jerry.... Oh, Jerry ... I don't want to die!"
* * * * *
I had to think fast. I had to think faster than I ever thought in my
life, and generally I like to explore my way around a problem, looking
at it from all angles. But the air left for Gramps and Clair could be
measured in minutes now, and mine wasn't much more.
I said, "What are you worrying about? George and Harry and the other
boys will have that thing rigged up in a couple of hours, sure. We'll
give those guys in both domes a little bit of hell. Won't be a one left
alive." I tried to make the butterflies remain in my stomach, to have
them go anyplace but in my voice. It almost didn't work.
Clair and Gramps looked at me like I might be crazy or something, and I
raised a gloved finger up and tried to line it up in front of my mouth
to tell them to shut up.