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Ascension: Cemetery

Bates returned to the blown-out hideout. He’d whined bitterly when Allen told him to work; but now he heaved supplies off the improvised sledge with a will. In their place he put Riley’s body. Either of his dead companions would have served equally well; Riley was just closer. He draped a tarp over it, added a shovel, and drew the sledge through the opening.

Out of the shadows he trudged, approaching the grounded shuttle—not directly, but rather as if he were going somewhere that happened to be nearby. A pair of manlike figures strode toward him across the bleached landscape, their skins reflecting stars.

Bates frowned. Men in shirtsleeves in a confined space were easy to kill. Miles apart from each other, and in armored suits, they were hard work. He hoped that most of the shuttle’s personnel were still aboard.

He came to a good patch of gravel and began to dig. Radio on, he sang, weeping as he dug. Tears came easily; his childhood in the buried ghettos of Ganymede provided real sorrows enough.

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