Part 2

"Wait!" Miss Kanton was crying, "wait! The ship. We've only got one! We can only take two persons back. And you ... which of you...." She stopped, aghast and panting, looking from Alpha to Beta.

The Tindars stiffened and gasped as the full implication of what she meant hit them.

"Take the ship!" Miss Kanton was sobbing. "Both of you! Go on!"

"Don't be foolish!" Beta snapped. "Get into the ship and get the jets warm. We'll be there in a minute."

"But if you get the wrong one?" Miss Kanton said, trembling.

"The right one will be left back here," Alpha snapped. "Now get into the ship. We've only got a few minutes!"

Miss Kanton turned and ran. She climbed into the two-seater and jetted the rockets. As the tubes roared out a tongue of flame, over the horizon came a Digger, eating the soil, dashing towards the control tower.

"We both might be able to get into the ship...." Beta said.

"No. The seats are tailor-made. We'd never cram into them together," Alpha said. They stood looking at one another, wasting valuable seconds in their consternation. The Digger was looming larger and larger, roaring in a straight line for the control tower.

"Oh, Doyle...." Miss Kanton's dupe said, tears in her eyes.

"Shut up!" Alpha snapped. He whirled towards the thunder of the Digger. It was very near, swerving, slowly turning away from the control with a ponderous gyration.

"It's going to hit!" Alpha cried, leaping back.

The edge of the huge metal mouth struck the corner of the control tower, shaking the entire building and sending an avalanche of concrete down from the facade. Alpha was struck by pieces of the debris as he bounded away from the door of the building. The debris piled into the doorway, jamming it. Beta's head rose over the pile.

"Beat it!" he screamed, "I'll never get past that Digger!"

Alpha ran towards the ship and climbed into it. Crazy thoughts ran through his head as he squeezed himself into the seat. It was a one to one bet. A fifty-fifty chance. Better than some odds he had had. It was a decent gamble, but the stakes....

He sealed the door and Miss Kanton sent the rocket spiraling up into the clear sky. She drew out of the range of the imminent explosion and circled the little asteroid, waiting.

* * * * *

Inside the control tower, Beta brushed the dust of the wreckage from him and hurried down the corridor, pulling the girl-dupe by the arm.

"What are you doing? What if you're the real one? Oh, Doyle...." she moaned irrationally.

Beta went back to the engine room. He waded through the fuel with the girl-dupe behind him.

"We have another bet, just in case," Beta said. "Those hoses...." He pointed at the wall above the humming engines.

The dupe's eyes brightened.

"If only we have time!" she said. "I'll get them. It's dangerous up there. You might be electrocuted. It doesn't matter with myself."

Beta started to protest, then he saw the logic of the girl's suggestion. He nodded curtly, and helped her climb upon the engine. She teetered precariously, slipping on the slime of the fuel which was on her feet.

She reached up and twisted the nozzle of a hose, unscrewing it from the engine. Her face was twisted awry with effort, her slim body bent in straining against the stubborn threads. It loosened and she dropped it down to Beta who was standing in the swirling blue fluid, waiting.

He snatched it up.

"Get the others, quick!" he shouted, watching with horrified fascination as the fuel crept up to meet the network of sparks.

The girl struggled silently. Beta could hear her quick breathing in his head phones. The engines whirred, the sparks flashing down towards the explosive fluid.

She dropped another of the hoses to Beta. The third one was free and in his hands when she began working on the fourth. She slipped; the sparks danced up, touching the legs of her suit. The lower part of her suit burst into flame, soaked as it was with the fuel. She watched the flames, her face blanched white, as they ate into her suit.

"Katherine!" Beta gasped. This was no duplicate, he thought frantically; this was Katherine, blazing, burning. She would die; he knew that. If she fell back into the fuel, both of them died. He started climbing the engine, reaching for the girl as she hung onto the hose, her gloved hands frozen to it in a rigid grip.

"No!" she screamed. There was a plea, in the voice that stopped Beta, brought him back to sanity. He dropped to the floor, watching her....

* * * * *

In the ship that circled the asteroid, there was silence. Alpha sat in the seat by Miss Kanton, a hand gripping his knee, feeling it, waiting for it to disappear beneath his fingers--watching his fingers, lest they disappear if he looked away.

Miss Kanton was frozen in her seat, gripping the guide-triangle until her knuckles were white spots on her hand. She looked straight ahead, afraid to look at Alpha.

They circled the asteroid; again and again they rounded it.

"They must have stalled the blast," Alpha said hoarsely. "They can't stop it. They must have put it off someway."

His words echoed within the ship above the buzzing of the rockets. Miss Kanton said nothing. Her lips moved slightly, but no sound came.

She turned to speak to Alpha, conquering her emotion, bright tears in her eyes.

The seat beside her was empty, except for a crumpled space suit that slithered to the steel deck before her dilating eyes.

Miss Kanton's hand went to her face. She screamed. It was one, brief cry of utter horror.

* * * * *

In the engine room Beta labored. The hoses were sucking at the fluid. The hoses were there actually to suck away the gaseous waste of the engines. Now they were sucking away the fuel with thirsty, slurping sounds, pouring it out onto the soil outside the tower.

The fuel was sinking slowly, drawing away from the sparks in the engines. The girl was nowhere around. Near the fat legs bracing the engines from the floor, the transparent sphere of a space helmet swirled and rocked with the motion of the fuel. It was the only proof that the girl had ever existed; the sole thing about her that had been real.

Beta watched the hoses and studied the transparent sphere that was floating towards him, drawn by the suction of the wide mouths of the hoses.

"You were a great girl, Katherine," he said. He sighed. He felt weariness growing inside of him.

The fuel coming down the steps into the engine room was a mere trickle. The tanks above were drained. The level of the fluid was dropping down towards his ankles.

Beta walked carefully through the fuel to the steps. He looked back, watching the hoses. Confident that they could do the job, he mounted the stairs and reached the long corridor to the rubble-blocked doorway. He left wet, oily prints behind him as he walked. He entered the radio communication room.

The dials of the radio glowed warmly before him. He adjusted the frequency to that of the ship of Miss Kanton.

He helloed for five minutes before Miss Kanton's voice came in answer. He told her that everything was all right. She sobbed for a long time. Then she told him that he was the real one. He felt a faint qualm of belated fear that was over-ridden by his weariness.

"You are a great girl, Katherine," he said. "You hung onto the hose, burning, wrapping yourself around it so that you wouldn't fall into the fuel. It's one of the greatest things I've seen. You smiled when you were disappearing. You knew that everything was all right then."

The girl on the radio was still sobbing. He told her to land. He walked out of the room into the corridor and pushed his way through the hole above the rubble pile. He saw that the Diggers were still racing around on the horizon.

The little ship came spurting into sight under full speed. It swooped recklessly within feet of the ground before the anti-gravity field crackled on and lowered it gently. A slim figure bounded out of the ship and came running towards him. He ran to meet it.

He grabbed it up into his arms and stood on the weird plain holding it to him. Together, they walked to the ship and climbed into it. There was a flash, a roar, and the ship shot up into the clear stars.