The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF by Isaac Asimov Read Free Book Online Page B

you
want
a skeleton! Damned if you’re going to get one! Which one did it?”
    Masters stammered, “I didn’t see it! I . . . I was just—”
    “The hell you say!” Tony whirled on the other two, transfixing them with cold eyes.
    “Cut it out,” he said, lips barely moving. “Either you’re letting your nerves override you, or either one or both of you is blaming the other for a move he made himself. You might as well know the skeleton I saw was intact. What do you think a blow torch would do to a skeleton?” His lips curled.
    Braker slowly picked up his torch with a poisonous glance at Yates. Yates as slowly picked his sledgehammer. He turned on Tony.
    “You said the skeleton was intact?” Eagerness, not evident from his carefully sullen voice, was alive in his eyes.
    Tony’s glance passed over the man’s broken, protruding jaw.
    “The head,” he replied, “was in shadow.”
    He winced. The passing of hope was a hard thing to watch, even in a man like Jawbone Yates.
    He turned, releasing his breath in a long, tired sigh. What a man-sized job this was. Outwitting fate – negating what
had
happened!
     
    Tony worked longer than he expected that day, tracing down the web of asbestos-covered rocket fuel conduits, marking breaks down on the chart. The sun sank slowly. Darkness swept over the plain, along with a rising wind. He turned on the lights, worked steadily on, haggard, nerves worn. Too much work to allow a slowing up. The invading planet rose each night a degree or more larger. Increasing tidal winds and rainstorms attested to a growing gravitational attraction.
    He put an x-mark on the check – and then froze. A scream had gone blasting through the night.
    Tony dropped pencil and chart, went flying up the ramp to the upper corridor. He received the full impact of Masters’ second scream. Masters had left his room, was running up the corridor, clad in pajamas. There was a knife sticking out of his shoulder.
    Tony, gripped with horror, impelled himself after the man, caught up with him as he plunged face downward. He dropped to one knee, staring at a heavy meat knife that had been plunged clear through the neck muscles on Masters’ left shoulder, clearly a bid for a heart stroke.
    Masters turned on his side. He babbled, face alive with horror. Tony rose, went with the full power of his legs toward the lounge.
    A figure showed, running ahead of him. He caught up with it, whipped his arm around the man’s neck.
    “You!”
    Yates squirmed tigerishly. He turned, broke loose, face alive with fury. Tony’s open palm lashed out, caught Yates full on the face. Yates staggered and fell. He raised himself to one elbow.
    “Why’d you do it?” Tony rasped, standing over him.
    Yates’ face was livid. “Because I’d rather live than anything else I can think of!” His booted foot lashed out. Tony leaped back. Yates rose. Tony brought his bunched fist up from his knees with all the ferocity he felt. Yates literally rose an inch off the floor, sagged, and sopped to the floor.
    Tony picked him up in one arm, and flung him bodily into the lounge.
    Braker rose from his sleeping position on a cushioned bench, blinking.
    Tony said cuttingly, “Your pal ran a knife through Masters shoulder.”
    “Huh?” Braker was on his feet. “Kill him?” In the half-light his eyes glowed.
    “You’d be glad if he did!”
    Braker looked at Yates. Then, slowly, “Listen, copper. Don’t make the mistake of putting me in the same class with a rat like Yates. I don’t knife people in the back. But if Masters was dead, I’d be glad of it. It might solve a problem that’s bothering the rest of us. What you going to do with him?”
    “I already did it. But tell Yates he better watch out for Masters, now.”
    Braker grunted scornfully. “Huh. Masters’ll crack up and down his yellow back.”
    Tony left.
    Laurette and Overland were taking care of Masters in his room. The wound was clean, hardly bleeding.
    Overland, somewhat