rything--I didn't feel like being
alone any more than I had to."

"You said Chemisant City was closer to you _then_," I said. "Isn't it
now?"

"Things move around a lot out here, Mister," he said. "Right now,
Chemisant City's almost twice as far from here as Atronics City. In
about three days, it'll start swinging in closer again. Things keep
shifting around out here."

"So I've noticed," I said. "When you took off to go to Chemisant City,
didn't you make a try for your partner's body then?"

He shook his head. "He was long out of sight by then," he said. "That
was ten, eleven hours later, when I took off."

"Why's that? All you had to do was paint the X and take off."

"Mister, I told you. I was drunk. I was falling down drunk, and when I
saw I couldn't get at Jafe, and he was dead anyway, I came back in here
and slept it off. Maybe if I'd been sober I would have taken the scooter
and gone after him, but I was _drunk_."

"I see." And there just weren't any more questions I could think of to
ask, not right now. So I said, "I've just had a shaky four-hour ride
coming out here. Mind if I stick around a while before going back?"

"Help yourself," he said, in a pretty poor attempt at genial
hospitality. "You can sleep over, if you want."

"Fine," I said. "I think I'd like that."

"You wouldn't happen to play cribbage, would you?" he asked, with the
first real sign of animation I'd seen in him yet.

"I learn fast," I told him.

"Okay," he said. "I'll teach you." And he produced a filthy deck of
cards and taught me.

* * * * *

After losing nine straight games of cribbage, I quit, and got to my
feet. I was at my most casual as I stretched and said, "Okay if I wander
around outside for a while? I've never been on an asteroid like this
before. I mean, a little one like this. I've just been to the company
cities up to now."

"Go right ahead," he said. "I've got some polishing and patching to do,
anyway." He made his voice sound easy and innocent, but I noticed his
eyes were alert and wary, watching me as I struggled back into my suit.

I didn't bother to put my shirt back on first, and that was a mistake.
The temperature inside an atmosphere suit is a steady sixty-eight
degrees. That had never seemed particularly chilly before, but after
the heat of that dome, it seemed cold as a blizzard inside the suit.

I went on out through the airlock, and moved as briskly as possible in