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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58748 ***
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+                            ESCAPE VELOCITY
+
+                        BY CHARLES L. FONTENAY
+
+             _It was a duel to the death and Kraag had all
+            the advantages, including offense and defense.
+          Jonner had neither, but he employed an old equation
+            peculiarly adaptable to the situation. And the
+                 proper equation properly worked...._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+              Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1954.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+Murdering Stein was easy. Kraag waited until Jonner donned his
+spacesuit and went out to have a personal look at the asteroid. Even
+then Kraag held his patience, because he wanted Jonner to come back to
+the ship unsuspecting.
+
+Kraag sat tensely at the back of the control room while Stein, the
+navigator and communications man, operated the radio. There was a brief
+period when Stein talked with Marsport, then he got in touch with
+Jonner. Until Jonner got some distance from the wrecked ship, most of
+their conversation was an argument.
+
+"I still think two of us ought to go out and one stay at the ship,"
+argued Stein. "Kraag agrees with me. What if you fall into a crevice?"
+
+"There's not much danger, and you've got a directional fix on me,"
+replied Jonner's voice through the loudspeaker. "If we had a large
+crew, I'd agree we ought to explore in pairs. Since there are just
+three of us, only one ought to be endangered at a time. I'm the
+captain, so I'm it."
+
+"Well, don't get out of sight," warned Stein. "We don't have an
+atmosphere here to bounce radio waves over the horizon."
+
+Through the glassite port, Kraag could see Jonner poking around at
+the asteroid's surface with his steel probe. Against the incredibly
+curved horizon, Jonner's suited figure leaned at a slight angle under
+the black, star-studded sky. The distant sun gleamed from the sphere of
+his helmet.
+
+"Pretty smooth terrain," remarked Jonner. "It's not much of a planet,
+but it seems to have enough mass to pull down any mountains. Looks like
+there should be some hills, though. It must have been in a molten state
+when the original trans-Martian planet was broken up."
+
+"That ought to mean high albedo," said Stein. "Higher than it ought to
+be."
+
+"Sounds more like Vesta," said Jonner. "Sure we're on Ceres?"
+
+Stein looked at the notes he had made from the ship's instruments,
+before the crash.
+
+"The escape velocity was 1,552.41 feet per second," he said, "and the
+diameter 0.06. I figure the mass at .000108."
+
+"All those figures are off according to the latest table for Ceres,"
+said Jonner.
+
+"The fellows that made that table were on Mars," reminded Stein. "Vesta
+doesn't have a 480-mile diameter. It must be Ceres."
+
+"You're the navigator," surrendered Jonner. "I'll take your word for
+it."
+
+The personnel sphere of the ship rested on the ground, tilted at almost
+a 20-degree angle from the horizontal. The tilt was no inconvenience,
+however. Each of the men weighed only five or six pounds here, and
+slippage was hardly noticeable.
+
+"I'll turn you over to Kraag," said Stein at last, glancing up at the
+chronometer. "It's my day to fix supper, you know."
+
+It was the signal Kraag had been waiting for. He reached behind him and
+fumbled in the rack for a gun.
+
+The one he brought out was Jonner's, and it wasn't a heat-gun but the
+ancient pistol Jonner swore by. Kraag put it back hurriedly, but not
+before Stein had turned in his chair and seen it.
+
+"What's up, Kraag?" asked Stein without alarm. "Why the gun?"
+
+Kraag pulled a heat-gun from the rack.
+
+"Nothing's up," he said, and shot Stein.
+
+The ray burned into Stein's shoulder, and Kraag swung it down across
+Stein's chest to his stomach before relaxing his pressure on the
+trigger.
+
+"My God, Kraag!" gurgled Stein. Summoning a last effort, he croaked
+into the microphone: "Jonner! Watch out! Kraag shot...."
+
+Kraag blasted him in the face, cutting him off. Stein's body floated
+forward and upward out of the chair and began to settle slowly toward
+the slanting floor.
+
+"What's going on, Stein?" came Jonner's alarmed voice over the
+loudspeaker. "Stein? Stein!"
+
+"It's all right, Jonner," said Kraag as calmly as he could, when he
+could reach the microphone. "Stein just fainted."
+
+There was silence from Jonner.
+
+"I'll take care of Stein and then take over the mike till you get ready
+to come in," said Kraag into the microphone.
+
+"I want to talk to Stein when he comes around," said Jonner. His voice
+sounded cold.
+
+So Jonner suspected something. Well, that couldn't be helped. Maybe he
+could be talked around.
+
+"All right, Jonner," agreed Kraag soothingly.
+
+Stein's body had to be hidden from Jonner, just in case. Jonner got
+into the personnel sphere alive--something Kraag did not intend for
+him to do. When he had taken care of Jonner, he could dispose of both
+bodies before the rescue ship got there.
+
+Dragging Stein's body was like towing someone through water. It floated
+through the air of the sphere at Kraag's tug, settling slowly. His only
+problem was getting good leverage for pushing. After some cogitation,
+he jammed the body into an empty food compartment two decks below the
+control room.
+
+Back in the control room, Kraag looked out the port. Jonner was closer
+to the personnel sphere now, looking toward it but not moving.
+
+Other portions of the ship, some jettisoned, some crumpled and broken
+apart by its crash, lay at varying distances from the personnel sphere.
+Some of the parts were scattered out of sight beyond the horizon, a
+mile away.
+
+Kraag had not wanted to fool with the asteroid. There had been no
+question that they had to swing back off their original orbit toward
+Titan when the meteorite slashed open both of their hydrazine tanks.
+But Kraag's idea had been to stay in space and try to turn back toward
+Mars before the fuel gave out.
+
+As the engineer, Kraag resented Jonner overruling him. Jonner had felt
+it safer to take an orbit around the asteroid and wait for rescue. But
+the fuel pumps had failed before they could adjust to the orbit. Kraag
+would never forget that helpless waiting as they circled and circled,
+spiraling downward to the inevitable crash.
+
+He went back to the microphone.
+
+"Okay, Jonner," he said. "What's going on out there now?"
+
+"Where's Stein?" countered Jonner. "I want to talk to him."
+
+"He's not feeling so good. Said he'd rather not try to get back up to
+the control room right now."
+
+"Tell him to come to the mike anyhow. I don't want to talk to you till
+I talk to Stein."
+
+"Stein can't talk, I tell you. If you don't want to talk to me, then
+are you ready to come in?"
+
+"And get shot?" retorted Jonner.
+
+So Jonner's suspicions were that definite. It was to be expected after
+the words Stein had been able to shout into the microphone. Jonner was
+nobody's dumbbell.
+
+Kraag tired once more.
+
+"That's a ridiculous idea, Jonner," he said. "I can't figure why you'd
+say such a thing."
+
+"You shot Stein," said Jonner positively. "There's no use your denying
+it. I know you shot Stein, and I'll know it until Stein himself tells
+me it isn't so."
+
+Kraag knew Jonner too well to try to keep up the pretense any longer.
+He tried another tack.
+
+"Okay, so I shot Stein," he admitted. "That doesn't mean I'll shoot
+you. Come on in and talk it over. We can make a deal."
+
+"If you shot Stein, why wouldn't you shoot me?" asked Jonner logically.
+
+"There wasn't enough air for three. There is for two."
+
+Jonner was silent for a moment.
+
+"So that's why you did it," he said then. "Figured it pretty close,
+didn't you, Kraag?"
+
+"I'm the guy who has to watch supplies on this boat. I checked the
+oxygen after the crash broke open those three compartments on the
+supply deck. There's 3800 pounds of oxygen left. It'll take about 22
+months for the rescue ship to get here from Mars. At 2.8 pounds of
+oxygen a day, you and I can make it, but it would have lasted the three
+of us only 15 months."
+
+Jonner cursed him for a full minute, not loudly but with such intensity
+that Kraag felt his face getting warm.
+
+"You damn murderer!" finished Jonner. "You damn cold-blooded murderer!"
+
+"Cut it out, Jonner," growled Kraag. "I can't understand you and Stein.
+What were you expecting to save us? A miracle?"
+
+"I don't feel like talking about it now," said Jonner warily. "If you
+had only ... Hell, Kraag, we'd been together a long time. Even if all
+of us had thought we were going to die, I didn't think we'd kill each
+other off like animals."
+
+"Self-preservation is the first law of nature," said Kraag cynically.
+"Better that two should die than three. Come on in, Jonner."
+
+"That's self-preservation? No thanks, Kraag. You know I'll turn you in
+as a murderer when the rescue ship gets here. I have no hankering to
+walk up where you can burn me down."
+
+"Okay, stay out there till your air gives out."
+
+The airlock was not a comfortable place to spend one of the asteroid's
+seven-hour nights, but Kraag was afraid not to stand guard there with
+his heat-gun. He was afraid to sleep, too, for the airlock combination
+was virtually noiseless and Jonner could open it from the outside.
+Jonner was unarmed, but Kraag had no hankering for a hand-to-hand fight
+with the powerfully built captain inside the personnel sphere. Because
+the air would swish out of the lock instantly if Jonner opened it,
+Kraag had to wear a spacesuit.
+
+He tried to talk to Jonner several times, but got no answer. Toward
+dawn, Kraag dozed off, only to be brought awake with a start by
+Jonner's voice in his earphones.
+
+"Good morning, Kraag," said Jonner. There was iron in his voice. "Have
+a good night's sleep?"
+
+"About as good as yours, I'd say," retorted Kraag, wishing he could get
+his hands inside his helmet to rub his eyes.
+
+"I slept fine. Found me a good foxhole just beyond the horizon."
+
+"Damn you, Jonner! Where are you now?"
+
+"Go on and have breakfast, Kraag. I'm far enough away for you to see
+me. Take a look."
+
+Kraag peered out of the uppermost airlock ports, one by one. They
+slanted at a bad angle, but through one of them he made out Jonner,
+standing half a mile away. Uncannily, as though he could see Kraag's
+helmet at the port, Jonner waved.
+
+Kraag was afraid to take off the spacesuit now because the supply deck
+had no ports and Jonner could get to the ship in a hurry if he wanted
+to. He took off the helmet, though, and went up to the center deck.
+Hurriedly, he opened the cover of the port in the direction he had seen
+Jonner. Jonner was still in the same place, sitting down.
+
+Kraag heated breakfast and ate it with an eye on the port. Jonner
+didn't move. Kraag felt better when he had eaten, and went up to the
+control room.
+
+"Why don't you give it up and come on in, Jonner?" he asked. "The
+oxygen in that suit's not good for more than another 15 hours."
+
+"That's where you're wrong, Kraag, and that's what's so tragic about
+your murdering Stein," said Jonner quietly. "You either forgot that we
+carried oxygen instead of nitric acid as the fuel oxidizer this trip
+or, being an engineer, you didn't think of it except as fuel.
+
+"There's enough oxygen in the tanks scattered over the landscape to
+keep a dozen men alive until the rescue ship gets here. It's hard for
+me to get at, but I've already found I can manage it."
+
+Kraag was profoundly shocked. For a moment the enormity of what he had
+done in killing Stein almost overwhelmed him. It had been completely
+unnecessary.
+
+Then his self-reproach turned into a growing anger against Jonner.
+Jonner was always so reticent, always required his orders to be obeyed
+without explanation. During the whole argument about taking an orbit
+around the asteroid, during the whole time it had taken to spiral down
+to a crash, he had not told Kraag how he expected them to stay alive
+until they were rescued.
+
+Kraag hadn't asked him, of course. Kraag had assumed Jonner was
+thinking in terms of his own figures.
+
+"I'm sorry about Stein," said Kraag, and meant it. "But it can't be
+helped now, Jonner. There's enough air for both of us, if you'll keep
+your mouth shut when the rescue ship gets here."
+
+"If I promised, I still wouldn't trust you and you wouldn't trust me.
+No, Kraag. The only way it'll work is for you to come out unarmed and
+let me go in and get the guns. Then I'll lock you in the control room
+till the rescue ship gets here."
+
+"One of us is a fool, Jonner, and you seem to think it's me. I'm not
+going to burn for murder. I've got the whip hand. You may have oxygen,
+but you've got to have food and water, too."
+
+Jonner laughed, without humor.
+
+"I've got enough of that for three Earth days and I can last longer,"
+he said. "Before that time, I'll come and get you, Kraag. Don't go to
+sleep!"
+
+Kraag cursed and switched off the loudspeaker. But he kept an eye on
+Jonner through the glassite. Always, he had to watch Jonner--or stay on
+guard in the airlock.
+
+If there were only some way to lock Jonner out! But the only real lock
+was on the control room, and a man couldn't live in the control room
+with an enemy below who could cut the water and oxygen lines.
+
+Kraag would have to sleep some time. Jonner couldn't know when, but
+Jonner already was seven hours sleep up on him. Jonner could pick his
+own time to slip up to the sphere under cover of darkness, he could
+pick his own time to come through the lock. Maybe Kraag would be awake
+and could burn him down--but maybe not.
+
+There was only one thing to do. He'd have to take the attack to Jonner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Still watching Jonner through every port he passed, always watching
+Jonner, Kraag hung a heat-gun on one of the hooks at his spacesuit's
+belt. He went back below, put the helmet on, and went out through the
+airlock.
+
+The shadow of the sphere stretched away toward his left. He was in
+sunlight.
+
+Jonner, still in the same spot, got to his feet but made no move to
+approach.
+
+"Welcome to the great outdoors," said Jonner.
+
+"I'm going to get you, Jonner," said Kraag grimly. "One way or another,
+I'm going to get you."
+
+He moved toward Jonner. Each step was a long, floating leap and it was
+hard to stay balanced before landing. Jonner moved, not away from him
+but sidewise.
+
+Kraag stopped. The effective range of the heat-gun was no more than 100
+feet. If he tried to get close enough to Jonner to use it, Jonner could
+circle and get to the personnel sphere.
+
+There were the oxygen tanks, the big ones used for fuel. If Kraag could
+get to them and burn them open, Jonner couldn't last long outside. But
+they were scattered pretty far from the personnel sphere. Jonner would
+get to the sphere for sure if he tried that.
+
+"Okay, Jonner, I know when I'm licked," said Kraag. "Come on in."
+
+"I'm not too far away to see the gun, Kraag."
+
+"I'll take it back to the sphere and leave it."
+
+"Why not just toss it away?"
+
+"And have you beat me to it and get the drop on me? We'll leave the
+guns in the sphere and I'll meet you on even terms."
+
+"I'll believe it when I see it."
+
+Kraag went back to the sphere. He couldn't stand in shadow without
+looking suspicious, but he took the heat-gun from his belt
+ostentatiously and swung it in an arc, apparently tossing it through
+the open outer lock. Instead, he held onto it and hung it by the
+trigger guard to a belt hook at the back of his suit.
+
+"I'm all clean, Jonner. Come on up," he invited.
+
+"Let's see the hooks, Kraag," said Jonner.
+
+Kraag held his arms aloft, wriggling the empty steel fingers of the
+spacesuit. Jonner came toward him, floating high above the surface with
+each step. At just about the extreme range of the heat-gun, he stopped.
+Kraag kept his arms outspread, but tensed himself.
+
+"Clean, so far," said Jonner drily. "Now turn around, Kraag."
+
+"And have you jump me from behind? Not hardly."
+
+"Gun on the back hook, eh, Kraag?"
+
+"Damn you, Jonner!" Kraag reached behind him for the gun and at the
+same time leaped toward Jonner. Jonner, ready, jumped back, and Jonner
+was a more powerful man. Handling a heat-gun with the hand-hooks of a
+spacesuit is awkward business, and by the time Kraag could bring the
+weapon to bear on Jonner and press the trigger, Jonner's distance was
+such that the ray obviously did no worse than make things uncomfortably
+warm for him.
+
+"I didn't think that surrender rang true," commented Jonner. "If you'd
+been level, you'd have tossed away the heat-gun."
+
+Then Jonner revealed that he was not entirely weaponless. As he hit the
+surface, his arm moved in an arc and a good-sized rock came hurtling
+through space toward Kraag.
+
+Kraag writhed frantically, two feet off the ground, and the stone
+missed him by inches. Kraag landed on his side and bounced again.
+Jonner hit once more and hurled another rock. Evidently he was armed
+with several of them. This one ricocheted off the ground near Kraag
+just as Kraag finally slid to rest.
+
+Getting to his feet and turning to flee was agonizingly slow, when
+every frantic movement lifted him off the ground. Another stone came
+sailing by, to strike the personnel sphere and rebound at an angle,
+before Kraag could jump back, away from Jonner.
+
+Perspiring and panting, he clambered hastily back into the safety of
+the airlock.
+
+Jonner's rocks were a better weapon than a heat-gun, Kraag realized.
+They weighed only a fraction of an ounce and Jonner could fling them
+an amazing distance. But their mass was just the same as ever, and a
+jagged one could rip a fatal hole in a spacesuit. He had no intention
+of engaging in a stone-throwing duel with Jonner, in which Jonner would
+be at least on equal terms with him.
+
+On the other hand, it was even more imperative than before that he
+eliminate Jonner as soon as possible. A rock could be a deadly weapon
+if Jonner got inside the sphere, too.
+
+At any rate, there was no point in concealing Stein's body from
+Jonner any longer and Kraag couldn't take chances on it polluting
+the atmosphere of the sphere. He dragged the corpse from the food
+compartment, down to the airlock, and pushed it out onto the surface of
+Ceres. The body settled stiffly to the ground a few feet away.
+
+Kraag removed his helmet and hand-hooks, went back up to the control
+room and settled himself to watch Jonner. Jonner walked around freely,
+periodically hurling rocks at the sphere. The rocks bounced off without
+damage, but every time one of them hit the hull, the sound of it rang
+through the sphere.
+
+Kraag switched on the communications system.
+
+"Do you have to do that?" he demanded in irritation. "It's not doing
+you any good."
+
+"Keeping me in practice," replied Jonner cheerfully. "I developed a
+pretty good arm throwing grenades in the Charax Uprising."
+
+Jonner was a veteran of that brief but savage war on Mars, and
+sometimes reminisced about it. It was there he had developed his
+preference for the old-style projectile pistol over the heat-gun.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kraag's eyes lingered on Jonner's pistol, hanging in the rack with the
+heat-guns, and slowly an idea spread through his mind. The heat-gun
+range was the same anywhere, but the range of a projectile weapon
+should be greater here than on Mars or Earth. Its range should be far
+greater than Jonner's rocks.
+
+Kraag took it from the rack and turned it over in his hand, studying
+it. He wasn't sure of its principle, but thought it was something on
+the order of rocket fuel. It should fire without an atmosphere around
+it.
+
+There were some figures stamped on the barrel: "COLT 1985, Cal-.45,
+MV-1100, Ser-45617298." Kraag puzzled over them. He knew the first
+one was the make and year and the last undoubtedly was the serial
+number. He deduced that "MV-1100" probably was a figure showing the
+relationship between the projectile's mass and velocity. But it had
+been a long time since projectile weapons were common.
+
+He called on the memory of a demonstration of the weapon Jonner had
+given his companions once on Mars. There was something that had to be
+done to prepare it for firing. Holding it in his right hand, Kraag
+grasped the barrel with his left. After a moment of hesitant tugging,
+he hit the right movement and the whole outer casing of the barrel slid
+backward and clicked. It snapped back into position as Kraag released
+it, and he remembered.
+
+The gun was primed now. All he had to do was press the trigger and it
+would fire. It would automatically prime itself again after firing. It
+would fire each time he pressed the trigger now, until it exhausted its
+projectiles.
+
+Exultant, he laid it carefully in a contour chair, where it wouldn't
+slide out. He put his helmet back on and replaced the hand-hooks of his
+spacesuit.
+
+He looked out several ports before he found Jonner. The captain was not
+more than 150 feet away, casually lobbing rocks at the sphere.
+
+Kraag picked up Jonner's pistol and made his way down to the airlock.
+He emerged and walked around the sphere to the side where he had
+located Jonner.
+
+Jonner was moving away now, though he couldn't have known Kraag was
+coming out. He was about 300 feet away--too far for a heat-gun, but
+certainly within range of the projectile weapon. He seemed to be headed
+toward one of the big fuel tanks.
+
+Kraag levelled the pistol toward Jonner and pulled the trigger. To his
+astonishment, he was hurtled backward, heels over head.
+
+The kick of a .45 on an asteroid is pretty powerful. Kraag must have
+bounced 50 feet backward over the terrain before he slid to rest on his
+stomach. But he held on to the pistol--and, since he never had a chance
+to release the pressure of his hand-hook on the trigger, it did not
+fire again.
+
+When he struggled upright, Jonner was standing at the edge of the fuel
+tank, watching him.
+
+"Using my gun now, eh, Kraag?" Jonner said. "You'd better stick to
+weapons you know something about."
+
+With that, he disappeared behind the fuel tank.
+
+Kraag got to his feet and advanced confidently. His heat-gun was still
+hanging at his belt if he got close enough to Jonner to use it, and
+he could fire the projectile weapon at Jonner when Jonner was out of
+heat-gun range.
+
+He was learning. One had to point the projectile gun accurately before
+firing. It couldn't be swung around and focused while pressing the
+trigger, like a heat-gun. He might miss a few times, but he ought to be
+able to hit Jonner at least once before the ammunition was exhausted.
+Once should be enough.
+
+Heat-gun ready in his left hand, projectile gun in his right, Kraag
+circled the fuel tank. Keeping it between them, Jonner had headed
+straight for the horizon, running in long, shallow leaps. He was at
+least half a mile away.
+
+Kraag pointed the projectile pistol and pulled the trigger. Nothing
+happened. Then he realized that he had never released the pressure of
+his hand-hook on the trigger after firing the first time. He let up on
+it and pressed it down.
+
+And again Kraag was hurled backward, but this time he was smashed
+against the fuel tank and rebounded forward, falling on his face.
+By the time he reached his feet again, Jonner had vanished over the
+horizon.
+
+Cursing softly, Kraag made his way back to the personnel sphere. He had
+hoped to get Jonner with that shot. He was very sleepy, and now he was
+faced with another night on guard.
+
+He entered the airlock, pushed himself gently upward to catch the rungs
+of the metal ladder and turned the wheel of the airlock's inner door.
+
+Nothing happened. The door did not open.
+
+Fear gripped him like a paralyzing hand. For a moment he thought Jonner
+had managed to get to the sphere ahead of him and somehow had locked
+him out. But that was impossible. Then he thought the inner door might
+be jammed, and he and Jonner locked out together.
+
+He glanced frantically below him, then broke into relieved laughter. He
+had left the outer airlock door open. As a safety measure against the
+sphere's accidentally losing its air, neither door would open unless
+the other was shut.
+
+And that meant he could lock Jonner out of the sphere simply by leaving
+the inner door of the airlock open!
+
+His laugh was full and genuine now as he pulled the outer door closed.
+
+"Having fun, Kraag?" asked Jonner in his earphones.
+
+"Just looking forward to a good night's sleep, for a change," retorted
+Kraag triumphantly. "Prowl around all you want to, Jonner. I can wait
+you out, now."
+
+"The airlock, eh? I wondered when your guilty conscience would
+settle down and let you remember about that airlock," said Jonner
+phlegmatically. "You know, Kraag, I had no idea you wouldn't think
+about a simple thing like that, till I looked through the airlock port
+last night and saw you huddled up there with a heat-gun. You should
+have turned out the light."
+
+Jonner was silent for a few minutes. Then he added:
+
+"I don't think I'd laugh yet, though, Kraag. Remember, you're fighting
+with my weapons."
+
+Kraag wasn't sure what he meant by that: whether he was talking about
+Kraag's using the projectile pistol or the fact that they were in
+space, Jonner's natural element. Kraag himself had been in space 10
+years, most of it with Jonner, but before then he had never left
+Earth. Jonner had been born and raised on Mars, where a man needed a
+suit to go to the next settlement, and he had been on a ship since he
+was 15.
+
+As for using the pistol, Kraag could see danger for no one but Jonner.
+He had proved, twice, that he could fire it. He was quite sure the
+old-fashioned weapon was no more likely to explode than a heat-gun. The
+only trouble he foresaw was figuring how to reload it if he used up all
+its projectiles before hitting Jonner.
+
+Kraag shrugged and removed his suit. He was hungry, and he was
+looking forward to a supper better than Jonner had available in the
+concentrated supplies in his spacesuit. Jonner's food and water by now
+had dwindled to less than 60 hours' supply, unless he was weakening
+himself by going on slim rations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As he wolfed down his supper, Kraag took stock of his situation. He
+could see no flaw in his position. All he had to do was sit back and
+wait.
+
+He decided not to destroy the tanks that were Jonner's supply of extra
+oxygen. After all, Jonner could not last beyond his food and water
+supply. The presence of the oxygen made his case airtight. He could
+dispose of the bodies of Stein and Jonner and tell the crew of the
+rescue ship they had wandered off on an exploration tour and never
+returned. With plenty of oxygen for the three of them, no motive could
+be established against him for the murders.
+
+He began to feel rather sorry for Jonner. They had been companions,
+and Stein with them, for a long time.
+
+After eating, he went up to the control room and turned Jonner in on
+the communications system. He was genuinely regretful that Jonner had
+to die so soon. It would be lonesome on the asteroid with no one to
+talk to.
+
+"I hope you've been keeping the radio open to Marsport, in case there
+were any inquiries," said Jonner. "If they get the idea we're all dead
+out here, they may call off the rescue."
+
+"The last time they called was right after you left the ship," said
+Kraag. "Stein was going to tell you, but I suppose he forgot it.
+Marsport knows where we are. A rescue ship should have blasted off by
+now."
+
+"That's the advantage of being on Ceres instead of in space," Jonner
+pointed out. "They know Ceres' orbit, but they'd have to have several
+directional fixes on us, spaced several days apart, to pinpoint us if
+the ship were in space. What did Stein say the escape velocity here is?"
+
+Surprised at the unexpected question, Kraag consulted the notes Stein
+had left lying in the control room.
+
+"EV 1,552.41 feet per second," he replied. "Not figuring on jumping off
+the planet, are you, Jonner?"
+
+"Maybe," said Jonner.
+
+"Well, don't wake me up if you do. I'm really going to pound the pillow
+tonight."
+
+Jonner laughed shortly, and Kraag heard the click as the captain
+switched off his helmet radio. He grinned.
+
+Kraag was asleep almost as soon as he hit the bunk.
+
+He came awake slowly, reluctantly, knowing he had not had all the sleep
+he needed. Something was pounding noisily somewhere, ringing through
+his head.
+
+He shook his head to clear it. For just an instant there was silence in
+the utter darkness. Then:
+
+CRASH!
+
+Like a clap of thunder the noise reverberated through the metal hull of
+the sphere.
+
+Kraag started violently, and only the bunk straps kept him from
+rocketing to the ceiling. Again:
+
+CRASH!
+
+And Kraag could feel the sphere shiver with the blow.
+
+He switched on the lights just as another terrific crash sounded. This
+time he could see everything on the central deck quiver with the impact.
+
+One of the four small ports around the central deck was uncovered,
+and the light threw a beam out into the black night of the asteroid.
+It brought a temporary cessation of the regular blows. During the
+interval, Kraag unstrapped himself and tumbled up to the control room,
+to switch on the communications system.
+
+"Jonner!" he shouted. "Jonner, what in hell?"
+
+"I'm not deaf," said the loudspeaker resentfully. "Give me a chance to
+turn down my volume, if you're going to holler."
+
+"What the devil are you doing out there, Jonner?"
+
+"What I promised you. I'm coming in after you."
+
+Kraag swore.
+
+"I'm going to blow you off the damned planet," he threatened, and
+leaped for the gun rack.
+
+"You'll have to come outside to do it," reminded Jonner. "If you try to
+shoot through the ports, you'll save me a lot of work."
+
+Kraag raced up and down the sphere twice before he had sense enough
+to turn out all the lights and use the searchlight. Then he located
+Jonner, clinging to the sphere outside the astrodome on the navigation
+deck. Jonner had a sledge hammer from the ship's cargo section in his
+hand.
+
+Jonner grinned at him and moved quickly out of the searchlight's beam.
+Ten seconds later, another thunderous crash sounded, apparently from
+the other side of the sphere. Kraag swung the light in a circle, but
+Jonner could move faster than the beam.
+
+Hastily, Kraag made another tour of the sphere, this time closing all
+the metal covers over the ports. When he reached the control room,
+Jonner's voice was calling him over the loudspeaker, repeating his name
+every few seconds.
+
+"What do you want?" demanded Kraag, panting.
+
+"Just wanted to tell you I could have knocked out the astrodome or one
+of the ports before you woke up," said Jonner cheerfully. "I don't want
+to kill you, Kraag. I just want you to surrender, and if you don't I
+can eventually batter through the meteor shield and the hull, and ruin
+the sphere for you."
+
+"We'll see about that," gritted Kraag. Hurriedly he donned a spacesuit.
+Hanging Jonner's pistol at his belt, he took a heat-gun in his right
+hand and a flashlight in his left and ventured out through the
+airlock. He did not make the mistake of switching on the airlock light,
+but Jonner seemed to know when he emerged, possibly from the vibration
+when the lock opened.
+
+"Nice night out, isn't it, Kraag?" Jonner welcomed him.
+
+Kraag grunted. The night was black as pitch. The only way he could tell
+where the ground ended and the sky began was that the sky was jewelled
+with stars.
+
+He turned the light on and flashed it over the sphere. No sign of
+Jonner. But a rock struck his helmet and bounced off with a clang that
+nearly knocked him down and left him momentarily dizzy.
+
+"I'm behind you, Kraag," said Jonner pleasantly. "Better go back
+inside. I promise not to break your shell open tonight."
+
+Kraag twisted around and fired the heat-gun even as he searched for
+Jonner with the flashlight. Both beams pierced emptiness. Jonner just
+laughed at him.
+
+Afraid now that Jonner would get into the sphere, Kraag scuttled back
+around to the airlock. Heat-gun ready, he turned on the light before
+closing the outer door, and breathed a sigh of relief at finding it
+empty.
+
+Trembling with reaction, he closed the outer lock, left the inner one
+open and made his way up to the center deck. He needed coffee.
+
+"I see you've gone back to the heat-gun," said Jonner. "That's smart."
+
+"You'd like to see me exhaust the fuel tank of your pistol shooting it
+in the dark, when I can't hit you, wouldn't you?" retorted Kraag. "No,
+thanks. I'll keep it for long distances."
+
+"Fuel tank? Oh, you mean the magazine." Jonner laughed. "I'd stay away
+from that old .45 of mine if I were you, Kraag. It's been with me too
+long. It's a lot more likely to turn on my enemies than to do me any
+harm."
+
+"Rot!" snapped Kraag. "It's a gun. All I have to do is get the hang of
+aiming it properly."
+
+"I wouldn't use too much power tonight, either," warned Jonner. "You
+don't get much with the solar mirror this far out. Anyhow, I took the
+mirror off while you were having your nap. The batteries should give
+out in a few hours."
+
+Without answering, Kraag switched off his radio and removed his
+helmet. That last bit of information was a blow. Gradually, Jonner was
+stripping Kraag down to his own subsistence level.
+
+Power or not, Kraag was determined to have his coffee. But first he
+went over the sphere again and switched off all unnecessary lights.
+
+Jonner was a man who kept his word, but Kraag couldn't afford to trust
+him. Jonner might change his mind and try to break open the sphere
+again before morning. Kraag kept his spacesuit on. He did not sleep too
+well, for about once every 30 or 40 minutes something--either a large
+rock or Jonner's sledge hammer--would strike the sphere a resounding
+blow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Kraag's watch told him it was morning, he opened the ports of the
+center deck and let the weak sunlight stream into the sphere. Off to
+the east, he saw Jonner digging with a pick from the cargo. Jonner was
+far enough away for his legs from the knees down to be hidden by the
+extreme curvature of the little planet.
+
+Kraag's first impulse was to go out and take a pot shot at him.
+Instead, he switched on the short-wave cooker and prepared some
+breakfast. Taking it up to the control room, where he could switch
+on the communications system, he opened the eastern port and watched
+Jonner. This high, he could see Jonner's feet and the hole he was
+digging--and Stein's body.
+
+Jonner had taken Stein's body from the spot outside the sphere where
+Kraag had pushed it. He was burying Stein.
+
+Jonner finished his excavation and laid Stein gently to rest in it. He
+pushed rocks back in to fill it up, and wrested a boulder that would
+have weighed a ton over it for a monument. Then he murmured a brief
+prayer over the grave.
+
+Kraag was ashamed and then, unaccountably, angry. But he stood at the
+port, drinking his coffee and watching Jonner, and said nothing.
+
+Either with chalk or with some soft rock he had found--Kraag could not
+tell which--Jonner wrote something on the big stone that was Stein's
+monument. Then he stood up and turned toward the sphere.
+
+"Kraag," he said. "Kraag, are you tuned in?"
+
+"Yes," replied Kraag shortly.
+
+"You have today to surrender. Tonight I'm going to hatch you out of
+your comfortable egg."
+
+Kraag switched off the communications system and paced the room, anger
+burning slowly inside him. This was ridiculous. He held all the cards.
+He had the guns, he had the sphere. Jonner was outside, weaponless,
+with a limited supply of food and water. Yet Jonner had him on the
+defensive.
+
+How had it happened? How could it happen? Kraag lit a cigarette and
+puffed at it slowly, applying his mind coldly to the situation.
+
+He didn't doubt that Jonner would do as he threatened, but he didn't
+think it was the recklessness of desperation. More likely, Jonner
+deliberately, calculatingly, planned to reduce his own chances for
+comfort, in order to bring Kraag down to more even terms with him.
+
+If Jonner broke the hull of the sphere, it could be repaired--by
+someone working outside, free from interruption by an enemy. Until it
+was repaired, it would mean that Kraag, too, would have to live in
+a spacesuit. And Jonner might knock open a hole, or more than one,
+big enough to permit him to enter the sphere and attack Kraag in the
+darkness.
+
+If only he could surround the sphere with light at night, he could keep
+Jonner at a distance. But with the solar mirror gone, the searchlight,
+on top of the sphere's other electrical requirements, would discharge
+the batteries before the night was half gone.
+
+Kraag knew Jonner's stubbornness, his resourcefulness, his raw courage.
+Jonner was the one of them who was really at bay, when you considered
+it. Yet Kraag felt that Jonner was closing in on him, gradually,
+inexorably.
+
+Facing this, Kraag felt the steel enter his own will. He wasn't a
+coward. He had just been expecting this to be too easy. If Jonner would
+force him to fight, he would fight. He still had the advantage.
+
+He must abandon the sphere as an asset. Jonner could take that away
+from him anyhow. On the other hand, if Jonner took over the sphere,
+Kraag could use the same weapon against him. He could break open the
+sphere.
+
+So the sphere was no longer a factor. The food and water were no longer
+a factor, for food and water went with the sphere. He would admit
+Jonner to equality in those supplies--not full equality, for he could
+provision himself now more fully than Jonner had been provisioned two
+Ceres days earlier. He still might pin Jonner down as Jonner tried to
+get to the sphere for more supplies.
+
+Then Kraag's remaining advantage lay in the guns. They should be
+enough. If he could get close enough to use a heat-gun, he could
+blast Jonner. Jonner's own projectile weapon would keep Jonner out of
+rock-throwing range, and sooner or later he would hit Jonner with it.
+He couldn't keep on missing; the law of average would give him a hit
+sooner or later. And all he needed was just one....
+
+Kraag provisioned his spacesuit and hung all three of the heat-guns
+at his belt. In one of the capacious outside pockets he put two spare
+flashlights and half a dozen of the extra fuel packets--What was it
+Jonner had called them? Magazines, that was it--for Jonner's projectile
+pistol. He took that pistol in his right hand and sallied forth to do
+battle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jonner was nowhere in sight. Kraag shut the outer lock to make it
+appear he might be still in the sphere if Jonner happened not to spot
+him. He went over to Stein's new grave.
+
+Jonner had written on the stone: REST IN PEACE. R. STEIN MURDERED BY A.
+KRAAG. DEC. 12, 2057.
+
+Angrily, Kraag burned the lettering off in a 30-second blast with his
+heat-gun that left the face of Stein's gravestone cherry red.
+
+He turned to survey the terrain, and saw Jonner. The captain was
+crouched half a mile away, apparently writing more on a flat rock or on
+the ground itself.
+
+Jonner was facing him, but his head was down and he hadn't seen Kraag.
+If Kraag fired the projectile pistol, he probably would miss and might
+warn Jonner with the shot. He was sure of his accuracy with a heat-gun.
+Kraag took a heat-gun in his left hand and ran toward Jonner.
+
+Possibly the vibration of the ground warned Jonner. He looked up,
+jumped to his feet and fled. As soon as he could stop and get his feet
+planted firmly on the ground, Kraag fired the projectile pistol after
+him. He was still shooting low and to one side.
+
+Kraag picked himself up from the ground, where the backlash of the
+weapon had knocked him, and went up to the spot where Jonner had been
+writing. A mathematical problem had been scratched on the surface with
+a sharp rock. Kraag had interrupted Jonner in the middle of it.
+
+The figures that had been written were:
+
+             11
+          ------
+   1.141 ) 1552.41
+           141
+           ---
+            142
+            141
+            ---
+              1
+
+[Transcriber's note: figures are long division of 1552.41 divided by
+1.141]
+
+Kraag stared at it, carrying out the rest of the simple mathematics in
+his head. The answer was 1101. But what was the problem?
+
+The figure "1.41" was familiar enough. It was the square root of two,
+carried to two decimal places. But what was Jonner dividing by it, and
+why?
+
+He frowned in concentration. There was something familiar about the
+numbers, something that had to do with him and Jonner, and Jonner
+wouldn't be working arithmetic just for amusement.
+
+He saw Jonner moving on the horizon, just his head visible against
+the black sky, his body hidden by the curve of the planet. Jonner was
+circling.
+
+The sudden realization of danger wiped other thoughts from his mind.
+Until he saw the epitaph Jonner had written for Stein, Kraag had
+thought Jonner looked at this as he did: one man against the other, and
+winner take all. But Jonner intended to win even if he lost, because
+Jonner was not fighting just for Jonner's survival but for due process
+of law.
+
+Jonner was trying to make certain that, even if Kraag killed him,
+Martian law would punish Kraag for Stein's death. And if Jonner got
+into the sphere, he could get his message to Marsport or the rescue
+ship simply by turning on the radio.
+
+Kraag turned and raced back to the sphere. He arrived, panting
+heavily. Jonner was nowhere in sight, but he knew Jonner, circling,
+could not have gotten there ahead of him.
+
+He must kill Jonner before nightfall, if he could, but he must not get
+far enough from the sphere to let Jonner slip in behind him. He was not
+ready, yet, to destroy the radio to keep Jonner from it.
+
+He walked around the sphere. There was Jonner on the other side, only
+his head above the horizon, moving clockwise. The sun flashed and
+gleamed from Jonner's helmet.
+
+There was no sense in shooting at so small a target as a head. A mile
+away, Jonner's whole body was a small enough target. A carefully gauged
+leap carried Kraag to the top of the sphere. Here, 40 feet higher, his
+range of view was increased considerably. He could see Jonner well.
+
+Jonner could see him, too. Jonner stopped to hurl a stone. It took a
+while for the missile to cover the distance. It passed below Kraag's
+level, some distance away from him.
+
+"Why don't you give it up, Jonner?" asked Kraag. "You can't hurt me
+with a rock, at this distance."
+
+"Why should I?" retorted Jonner. "All I have to do is wait till night."
+
+"Sure, wait. But I'm not waiting, Jonner. One of us is going to win
+this thing before night, or I'm going to blast the radio so you can't
+reach Marsport. If I have to do that, I'll track you down tomorrow--and
+I think I can stay outside and fight you away from the sphere tonight."
+
+"Getting desperate enough to fight like a man now, aren't you, Kraag?
+If you want a showdown today, I'm willing."
+
+Kraag's mind was clear now. He had the situation under control. He
+glanced around the landscape at the scattered portions of the wrecked
+ship. There was the cargo hull, burst open, where Jonner had gotten his
+sledge hammer and the pick to bury Stein. Over there was a red sphere,
+ripped by the jagged gash of the meteor collision--one of the two
+hydrazine fuel tanks. The yellow sphere 30 degrees away from it was an
+oxygen fuel tank.
+
+Kraag leveled Jonner's gun and fired at the yellow sphere. The kick
+knocked him off the sphere, but as he somersaulted backwards he saw the
+projectile hit the ground. Still low and to one side. But he noticed
+something on the gun, he hadn't seen before.
+
+There were ridges for sighting along the barrel of Jonner's pistol.
+Regaining his position atop the sphere, Kraag pressed his back against
+the observatory dome, to brace himself against the gun's backlash. He
+aimed carefully at the yellow sphere and fired again.
+
+The yellow tank jumped--not from the impact, but from the spout of
+freed, expanding oxygen through the hole the bullet made. It moved
+and wobbled about in the weak gravity, like a dying balloon. When it
+stopped, Kraag knew he had destroyed half of Jonner's oxygen supply.
+
+"Good shot, Kraag," congratulated Jonner, with fatalistic irony in his
+tone. "Of course, I'm not as big a target as the tanks."
+
+"Each target in its own time," replied Kraag triumphantly, and looked
+around for the other yellow sphere.
+
+He had been afraid it might be one of the parts that had fallen over
+the horizon, but it wasn't. It was behind him, a little closer than the
+first. He hit it with one shot.
+
+Now Jonner had only the oxygen in his spacesuit tanks.
+
+Jonner had made no effort to move farther away. He was still visible
+on the horizon, from the knees up, moving in a great circle around the
+personnel sphere.
+
+Kraag aimed carefully and fired. He did not know the projectile's
+speed, but certainly it would be much faster than Jonner's rocks. After
+half a minute had passed, he knew he had missed.
+
+There was only one thing to do. He settled himself and fired again,
+trying to lead Jonner slightly. Again he missed.
+
+Methodically, taking his time, Kraag fired. Jonner walked on
+unconcernedly, circling. Kraag tried to fire so the path of his
+projectile would strike at the top of Jonner's strides, for then Jonner
+rose several feet into the air and his whole body was visible.
+
+Occasionally, Jonner would stop and hurl a stone at Kraag. One man was
+as inaccurate as the other. Jonner's stones went wide at that distance,
+and Kraag obviously had not hit Jonner with a bullet.
+
+At last Jonner stopped. He seemed to be fiddling with something
+that was right on the ground, below Kraag's line of vision. Then a
+tremendous stone, bigger than Kraag's head, came hurtling toward the
+sphere. Kraag ducked instinctively, but the missile passed 10 feet
+above him, still going well.
+
+"What in the devil!" exclaimed Kraag.
+
+"A little innovation of mine, to make things more interesting,"
+said Jonner. "In case you ever want to use the idea, I made me a
+super-slingshot out of two of the jeep inner tubes from the cargo, and
+a couple of crowbars I could drive into crevices. Fixed it up yesterday
+for bombardment purposes."
+
+The duel went on.
+
+There came the time when the hammer of the pistol clicked on an empty
+chamber.
+
+"How do you refuel this thing, Jonner?" asked Kraag pleasantly. The
+sun was still high. He could retreat to the interior of the sphere and
+figure it out if he had to.
+
+"It's pretty hard to do with spacesuit hooks," replied Jonner. "Be glad
+to demonstrate, if you'll toss me the gun."
+
+Kraag laughed, a laugh with more triumph in it than humor, because in
+his fumbling he had just hit the button that ejected the magazine. To
+push in a fresh one was the matter of a moment.
+
+He had hoped Jonner would move in closer when he knew the pistol was
+empty, but no such luck. Jonner stayed put.
+
+Kraag's first effort with the new magazine brought no results, for he
+had neglected to prime the weapon by pushing the outer covering back on
+the barrel. He did this, and resumed his methodical firing.
+
+As the time wore on, Kraag began to appreciate the difficulties
+involved in hitting a moving target, even a slowly moving one, when the
+marksman was as inexperienced as he was. The trouble was that, at that
+distance, he could not see where the bullets were striking and had no
+way of knowing how wide of his mark he was shooting.
+
+He was on the fourth magazine and the sun had passed the meridian
+when he felt the sphere vibrate faintly and momentarily beneath him.
+He twisted around, alarmed. He could see nothing. It wasn't one of
+Jonner's rocks, because a big one had just missed.
+
+His eye detected a shining streak that stretched a few inches along the
+curve of the sphere's meteor shield, at about the level of his feet. He
+bent to examine it. Something had struck it at high speed, a glancing
+blow.
+
+It couldn't be one of Jonner's rocks. Small meteor?
+
+A jagged hole suddenly appeared in the observatory dome near him.
+Kraag moved up and examined it closely. It had been made by some small
+object. Through the glassite he could see a similar hole in the other
+side of the dome.
+
+Did Jonner have some sort of new weapon? He couldn't. Even Jonner
+wasn't resourceful enough to invent a high-powered weapon with the
+innocuous cargo they were carrying for the Titan colony.
+
+Something struck Kraag a powerful blow in the left chest, a blow that
+hurled him sideways, to tumble off the sphere and fall slowly to the
+ground below. There was a great pain in his chest, and he released his
+hand-hooks in agony, so that the pistol fell away from him.
+
+Kraag gasped for breath as he struck the ground and bounced. He coughed
+up blood.
+
+He fell slowly again, and bounced again. The third time he settled
+jarringly, prone on his back.
+
+He couldn't understand what had happened to him. He pulled his right
+arm inside the suit with an effort and probed the painful area on his
+chest. He felt the hot wetness of flowing blood.
+
+He would have to get to the sphere. He tried to move. He couldn't get
+off his back. He lay there and writhed in pain.
+
+Jonner's voice was in his ears, saying something.
+
+"I knew it would get you," Jonner said. "It was my only chance. But it
+got you at last, Kraag."
+
+"Come help me, Jonner," whimpered Kraag weakly. "I've been hit by ... I
+don't know. It must have been a meteor."
+
+"I'm coming as fast as I can, Kraag, but it was no meteor. It was my
+gun."
+
+"Gun?" repeated Kraag wonderingly.
+
+"I warned you about that gun of mine, Kraag. If you'd looked at the
+figures on the barrel, the muzzle velocity of those .45-calibre bullets
+is 1100 feet a second. With Ceres' escape velocity, that's almost
+exactly the circular velocity at the asteroid's surface."
+
+Jonner was standing over him, and then was lifting him gently, to
+carry him to the sphere.
+
+"I deliberately got just out of your range of vision, from the ground,
+so you'd climb to a high spot," said Jonner. "You had to be high, so
+the bullet would clear the irregularities on the planet's surface, and
+I knew that sooner or later you'd shoot a bullet or two high enough not
+to hit the ground.
+
+"When you were firing at me, your bullets weren't describing a
+trajectory and falling to the surface, as they would on Earth or Mars.
+They were taking an orbit that brought them all the way around the
+planet to the same spot, to hit you from the other side two hours
+later."
+
+Kraag tried to look up at him. Something was going wrong with his
+sight, and everything outside his face plate was a blur. Must be the
+oxygen ... maybe his suit didn't seal the bullet hole properly.
+
+"I thought...." Kraag began, and choked. He coughed, slowly and
+painfully, then tried again: "I thought that ... problem on the
+rocks ... looked familiar."
+
+"You've always done it with a slide rule. That's probably why the
+long division didn't register," said Jonner. "The equation is one
+every spaceman knows: the circular velocity equals the escape velocity
+divided by the square root of two."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Escape Velocity, by Charles L. Fontenay
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58748 ***