"You know so much! Figure it out for yourself."
"What subwave combination do you use to contact them?"
"Figure that out, too… Don't move any closer."
Lucky said, "Help us out now, Summers, and I'll do my best to get you mild treatment on Earth."
Summers laughed weakly. "The word of a councilman?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't take it. Get back to your ship."
"Why have you turned against your own world, Summers? What have the Sirians offered you? Money?"
"Money!" The other's voice was suddenly furious. "Do you want to know what they offered me? I'll tell you. A chance at a decent life." They could hear the tiny gritting sound Summers made as his teeth ground together. "What did I have on Earth? Misery all my life. A crowded planet with no decent chance at making a name and a position for myself. Everywhere I went I was surrounded by millions of people clawing at each other for existence, and when I tried to claw also, I was put in jail. I made up my mind that if ever I could do anything to get back at Earth, I would."
"What do you expect to get from Sirius in the way of a decent life?"
"They invited me to emigrate to the Sirian planets, if you must know." He paused, and his breathing made small whistling noises. "New worlds out there. Clean worlds. There's room for men there; they need men and talent. I'd have a chance there."
"You'll never get there. When are they coming for you?"
Summers was silent
Lucky said, "Face it, man. They're not coming for you. They have no decent life for you; no life at all for you. Only death for you. You expected them before this, didn't you?"
"I didn't."
"Don't lie. It won't improve the situation for you. We've checked the supplies missing from the Jovian Moon. We know exactly how much oxygen you smuggled off the ship. Oxygen cylinders are clumsy things to carry even under Io's gravity when you have to sneak them off without being caught and in a hurry. Your air supply is almost gone now, isn't it?"
"I have plenty of air," said Summers.
Lucky said, "I say it's almost gone. Don't you see the Sirians aren't coming for you? They can't come for you without Agrav and they haven't got Agrav. Great Galaxy, man, have you let yourself get so hungry for the Sirian worlds that you'll let them kill you in as open and crude a double-cross as I've ever seen? Now, tell me, what have you done for them?"
Summers said, "I did what they asked me to do and that wasn't much. And if I have any regrets," he shouted in sudden, breathless bravado, "if s only that I didn't get the Jovian Moon. How did you get away, anyway? I fixed it. I fixed the rotten, slimy…" he ended, choking.
Lucky motioned to Bigman and broke into the soaring lope characteristic of running on low-gravity worlds. Bigman followed, veering off so as not to offer a single target.
Summers' blaster came up and made a thin popping sound, all that was possible in Io's thin wisps of atmosphere. Sand kicked up and around, and a crater formed yards from Lucky's fleeting figure.
"You won't catch me," Summers yelled with a kind of weak violence. "I'm not coming back to Earth. They'll come for me. The Sirians will come for me."
"Up, Bigman," said Lucky. He had reached the rock formation. Jumping upward, he caught a projection and hurled himself further upward. At sixth-normal gravity, a man, even in a space suit, could outdo a mountain goat in climbing.
Summers screamed thinly. His hands moved up to his helmet and he leaped backward and disappeared.
Lucky and Bigman reached the top. The rock formation was nearly sheer on the other side, with sharp outcroppings breaking the clifflike face. Summers was a spread-eagled figure, dropping slowly downward, striking against the face of the rock, and rebounding.
Bigman said, "Let's get lam, Lucky," and jumped far outward, wide of the cliff. Lucky followed.
It would have been a killing leap on Earth, even on Mars. On Io it was little more than a tooth-jarring drop.
They hit with bent knees and let themselves roll to take up some of the force of impact. Lucky was on his feet first and made for Summers, who lay prone and unmoving.
Bigman came up panting. "Hey, that wasn't the easiest jump I- What's the matter with the cobber?"
Lucky said grimly. "He's dead. I knew his oxygen was low from the way he sounded. He was almost unconscious. It's why I rushed him."
"You could go a long time being unconscious," said Bigman.
Lucky shook his head. "He made sure. He really didn't want to be taken. Just before he jumped, he opened his helmet to id's poison air and he hit the cliff."
He stepped aside and Bigman caught a glimpse of the smashed face.
Lucky said, "Poor fool!"
"Poor traitor!" Bigman raged. "He might have had the answer and he wouldn't tell us. Now he can't tell us."
Lucky said, "He doesn't have to, Bigman. I think I know the answer now."
16. Robot!
''You do?" The little Martian's voice rose to a squeak. "What is it, Lucky?"
But Lucky said, "Not now." He gazed down at Summers, whose dead eyes stared sightlessly toward the alien heavens. He said, "Summers has one distinction. He is the first man ever to die on Io."
He looked up. The sun was edging behind Jupiter. The planet was becoming only a faint silvery circle of twilit atmosphere.
Lucky said, "It will be dark. Let's go back to the ship."
Bigman paced the floor of their cabin. It took only three steps one way, three steps the other, but he paced. He said, "But if you know, Lucky, why don't you…"
Lucky said, "I can't take ordinary action and risk explosion. Let me do it in my own time and my own way, Bigman."
There was a firmness in Ms tone that quite subdued Bigman. He changed the subject and said, "Well, then, why waste any more time on Io because of that cobber out there? He's dead. There's nothing more to do about him."
"One thing," said Lucky. The door signal flashed and he added, "Open it, Bigman. It should be Norrich."
It was. The blind engineer stepped in, his dog, Mutt, going before.
Norrich's blue, unseeing eyes blinked rapidly. He said, "I've heard about Summers, Councilman. It's a terrible thing to think he tried to… to… Terrible that he was a traitor. Yet somehow I'm sorry for him."
Lucky nodded. "I knew you would be. It's why I asked you to come here. It's dark out on lo now. The sun's in eclipse. When the eclipse is over, will you come out with me to bury Summers?"
"Gladly. We should do that much for any man, shouldn't we?" Norrich's hand dropped as if for consolation on Mutt's muzzle, and the dog came close and moved softly against his master as though feeling some dim need to offer sympathy.
Lucky said, "I thought you would want to come along. After all, you were his friend. You might want to pay your last respects."
"Thank you. I would like to." Norrich's blind eyes were moist.
Lucky said to Commander Donahue just before he placed the helmet over his head, "It will be our last trip out. When we return, we will take off for Jupiter Nine."
"Good," the commander said, and there seemed some unspoken understanding as their eyes met.
Lucky put on his helmet and in another corner of the pilot room, Norrich's sensitive fingers moved delicately over Mutt's flexible space suit, making sure all fastenings were secure. Inside the glass-fronted, odd-shaped helmet that fitted over Mutt's head, Mutt's jaws moved in a faintly heard bark. It was obvious the dog knew he was headed for a trip into low gravity and that he enjoyed the prospect
The first grave on Io was done. It had been dug out of hard, rocky soil by the use of force diggers. It was filled in with a mound of gravel and topped by an oval boulder as a marker.
The three men stood round it while Mutt wandered off in the distance, trying vainly, as always, to examine his surroundings, though metal and glass blocked the use of his sense of smell.