"Now, I stopped moving an hour ago. From where I am it's almost thirty hours back to base. Sometime in the next two and a half hours, you've got to get my air and stop me from breathing. Or I've got to do the same for you."
It made sense. Finally, everything made sense. "Alf, are you listening? Listen," said Carter, and he opened his radio panel and, moving by touch, found a wire he'd located long ago. He jerked it loose. His radio crackled deafeningly, then stopped.
"Did you hear that, Alf? I just jerked my come-hither loose. Now you couldn't find me even if you wanted to."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
Then Carter realized what he'd done. There was now no possibility of Alf finding him. After all the miles and hours of the chase, now it was Carter chasing Alf. All Alf had to do was wait.
The dark fell on the west like a heavy curtain.
Carter went south, and he went immediately. It would take him an hour or more to cross the range. He would have to leapfrog to the top with only his headlights to guide him. His motor would not take him uphill over such a slope. He could use the wheels going down. with luck, but he would have to do so in total darkness. Deimos would not have risen; Phobos was not bright enough to help.
It had gone exactly as Alf had planned. Chase Carter to the range. If he attacks there, take his tanks and go home. If he makes it, show him why he has to come back. Time it so he has to come back in darkness. If by some miracle he makes it this time-well, there's always the flare gun.
Carter could give him only one surprise. He would cross six miles south of where he was expected, and approach Alf s buggy from the southeast.
Or was Alf expecting that too?
It didn't matter. Carter was beyond free will.
The first jump was like jumping blindfolded from a ship's airlock. He pointed the headlights straight down, and as he went up he watched the circle of light expand and dim. He angled east. First he wasn't moving at all. Then the slope slid toward him, far too fast. He back-angled. Nothing seemed to happen. The pressure under him died slowly, but it was dying, and the slope was a wavering blur surrounded by dark.
It came up, clarifying fast.
The landing jarred him from coccyx to cranium. He held himself rigid, waiting for the buggy to tumble end-for-end down the hill. But though the buggy was tilted at a horrifying angle, it stayed.
Carter sagged and buried his helmet in his arms. Two enormous hanging tears, swollen to pinballs in the low gravity, dropped onto his faceplate and spread. For the first time he regretted all of it. Killing Lew, when a kick to the kneecap would have put him out of action and taught him a permanent, memorable lesson. Snatching the buggy instead of surrendering himself for trial. Driving through the bubble-and making every man on Mars his mortal enemy. Hanging around to watch what would happen-when, perhaps, he could have run beyond the horizon before Alf came out the vehicular airlock. He clenched his fists and pressed them against his faceplate, remembering his attitude of mild interest as he sat watching Alf s buggy roll into the lock.
Time to go. Carter readied himself for another jump. This one would be horrible. He'd be taking off with the buggy canted thirty degrees backward...
Wait a minute.
There was something wrong with that picture of Alf's buggy as it
rolled toward the lock surrounded by trotting men. Definitely something wrong there. But what?
It would come to him. He gripped the jet throttle and readied his other hand to flip on the gyros the moment he was airborne.
-Alf had planned so carefully. How had he come away with one O-tank too few?
And-- if he really had everything planned, how did Al f expect to
get Carter's tanks if Carter crashed?
Suppose Carter crashed his buggy against a hill, right now, on his second jump. How would Alf know? He wouldn't, not until nine o'clock came and Carter hadn't shown up. Then he'd know Carter had crashed somewhere. But it would be too late!
Unless Alf had lied.
That was it, that was what was wrong with his picture of Alf in the vehicular airlock. Put one O-tank in the air bin and it would stand out like a sore thumb. Fill the air bin and then remove one tank, and the hole in the hexagonal array would show like Sammy Davis III on the Berlin Nazis football team! There had been no such hole.
Let Carter crash now, and Alf would know it with four hours in which to search for his buggy.
Carter swung his headlights up to normal position, then moved the buggy backward in a dead-slow half circle. The buggy swayed but didn't topple. Now he could move down behind his headlights...
Nine o'clock. If Carter was wrong then he was dead now. Even now Alf might be unfastening his helmet, his eyes blank with the ultimate despair, still wondering where Carter had got to. But if he was right...
Then Alf was nodding to himself, not smiling, merely confirming a guess. Now he was deciding whether to wait five minutes on the chance that Carter was late, or to start searching now. Carter sat in his dark cabin at the foot of the black mountains, his left hand clutching a wrench, his eyes riveted on the luminous needle of the direction finder.
The wrench had been the heaviest in his toolbox. He'd found nothing sharper than a screwdriver, and that wouldn't have penetrated suit fabric.
The needle pointed straight toward Alf
And it wasn't moving.
Alf had decided to wait.
How long would he wait?
Carter caught himself whispering, not loudly. Move, idiot. You've
got to search both sides o f the range. Both sides and the top. Move.
Move!
Ye gods! Had he shut off his radio? Yes, the switch was down.
Move.
The needle moved. It jerked once, infinitesimally, and was quiet.
It was quiet a long time-seven or eight minutes. Then it jerked in the opposite direction. Alf was searching the wrong side of the hills!
And then Carter saw the flaw in his own plan. Alf must now assume he was dead. And if he, Carter, was dead, then he wasn't using air. Alf had two hours extra, but he thought he had four!
The needle twitched and moved-a good distance. Carter sighed and closed his eyes. Alf was coming over. He had sensibly decided to search this side first; for if Carter was on this side, dead, then Alf would have to cross the range again to reach home.
Twitch.
Twitch. He must be at the top.
Then the long, slow, steady movement down.
Headlights. Very faint, to the north. Would Alf turn north?
He turned south. Perfect. The headlights grew brighter... and Carter waited, with his buggy buried to the windshield in the sand at the base of the range.
Alf still had the flare gun. Despite all his certainty that Carter was dead, he was probably riding with the gun in his hand. But he was using his headlights, and he was going slowly, perhaps fifteen miles per hour.
He would pass... twenty yards west...
Carter gripped the wrench. Here he comes.