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then, for they’d had to stop for a couple of hours to ride out a squall, and the time limit had expired long before he made his final descent. He was a little annoyed about that, for he had planned a farewell message. He shouted it just the same, though he knew he was wasting his breath.
    By early afternoon, the Arafura had come in as close as she dared. There were only a few feet of water beneath her, and the tide was falling. The capsule broke surface at the bottom of each wave trough, and was now firmly stranded on a sandbank. There was no hope of moving it any farther; it was stuck, until a high sea would dislodge it.
    Nick regarded the situation with an expert eye.
    ‘There’s a six-foot tide tonight,’ he said. ‘The way she’s lying now, she’ll be in only a couple of feet of water at low. We’ll be able to get at her with the boats.’
    They waited off the sandbank while the sun and the tide went down, and the radio broadcast intermittent reports of a search that was coming closer but was still far away. Late in the afternoon the capsule was almost clear of the water; the crew rowed the small boat toward it with a reluctance which Tibor, to his annoyance, found himself sharing.
    ‘It’s got a door in the side,’ said Nick suddenly. ‘Jeeze—think there’s anyone in it?’
    ‘Could be,’ answered Tibor, his voice not as steady as he thought. Nick glanced at him curiously. His diver had been acting strangely all day, but he knew better than to ask him what was wrong. In this part of the world, you soon learned to mind your own business.
    The boat, rocking slightly in the choppy sea, had now come alongside the capsule. Nick reached out and grabbed one of the twisted antenna stubs; then, with catlike agility he clambered up the curved metal surface. Tibor made no attempt to follow him, but watched silently from the boat as he examined the entrance hatch.
    ‘Unless it’s jammed,’ Nick muttered, ‘there must be some way of opening it from outside. Just our luck if it needs special tools.’
    His fears were groundless. The word ‘Open’ had been stencilled in ten languages around the recessed door catch, and it took only seconds to deduce its mode of operation. As the air hissed out, Nick said ‘Phew!’ and turned suddenly pale. He looked at Tibor as if seeking support, but Tibor avoided his eye. Then, reluctantly, Nick lowered himself into the capsule.
    He was gone for a long time. At first, they could hear muffled bangings and bumpings from the inside, followed by a string of bilingual profanity. And then there was a silence that went on and on and on.
    When at last Nick’s head appeared above the hatchway, his leathery, wind-tanned face was grey and streaked with tears. As Tibor saw this incredible sight, he felt a sudden ghastly, premonition. Something had gone horribly wrong, but his mind was too numb to anticipate the truth. It came soon enough, when Nick handed down his burden, no larger than an oversized doll.
    Blanco took it, as Tibor shrank to the stern of the boat. As he looked at the calm, waxen face, fingers of ice seemed to close not only upon his heart, but around his loins. In the same moment, both hate and desire died forever within him, as he knew the price of his revenge.
    The dead astronaut was perhaps more beautiful in death than she had been in life; tiny though she was, she must have been tough as well as highly trained to qualify for this mission. As she lay at Tibor’s feet, she was neither a Russian nor the first human being to have seen the far side of the moon; she was merely the girl that he had killed.
    Nick was talking, from a long way off.
    ‘She was carrying this,’ he said, in an unsteady voice. ‘Had it tight in her hand—took me a long time to get it out.’
    Tibor scarcely heard him, and never even glanced at the tiny spool of tape lying in Nick’s palm. He could not guess, in this moment beyond all feeling, that the Furies had yet to close in upon his