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until Mars Station blazed as bright as the sun and the black moon had dwindled to a void in the star field. Sparta turned to Blake. “What we talked about before . . . I’ve thought about it some more. I want you to stay on Mars Station until I’ve completed the investigation.”
“Sorry. I won’t do it.”
     
“They know who we are. We don’t know who they are.” “We know how they operate, anyway. I better than you.”
     
“I was trained for this job,” she said, her voice hardening.
     
“I believe my training matches yours,” he said quickly, “even if it has been a bit unorthodox.”
     
“Blake. . . .”
     
“I’ll prove it to you.”
     
“Prove it?”
     
“Right now, in the gym. Hand to hand.”
     
“What would that prove?”
     
“You said it yourself: we don’t know who they are. So you’ll have no more warning than I will. If I can beat you hand to hand, what’s the logic of penning me up?”
     
She hesitated only an instant. “I’ll meet you in the gym.”
    Perhaps Blake had played into her hands. The side of her that loved him had its own motivation, for she wished him to survive even if she did not. The side of her that wanted him out of her life, that wanted all things human out of her life, could dispense with him easily. But as she knotted the black belt around the rough cotton of her gi, she knew that she would have to fight him handicapped.
Was he really playing into her hands then? Or was she playing into his?
    They entered the ship’s tiny circular gym from opposite sides. Sparta was slight, muscular, her sandy blond hair falling straight to her jawbone, where it was chopped off in a practical cut that made no concession to fashion; the bangs above her thick brows were short enough to leave her dark blue eyes unscreened. Blake was a few centimeters taller, with broader shoulders and heavier muscles. His dark auburn hair was as straight and choppy as hers and his green eyes were as steady as hers; his ChineseIrish face could have been unsettlingly pretty, but it was saved from perfection by a too-wide mouth and a sprinkle of freckles across his straight nose.
    They bowed to each other, then straightened. A heart’s beat . . . their knees flexed, their hands came up like blades, they began warily to close. Unlike most human fighters, who tend to circle, they came straight on like animals. In combat, neither favored their right or left; any such asymmetries they had failed to train out of themselves would be betrayed only in the extremity.
    At two meters distance they reached an imaginary boundary, the edge of the lethal zone. Here each could still take in the other at a glance, from head to foot, from eye to hand. Here neither could reach the other without evident preparation.
    But Blake was the one with something to prove; he would have to make the first move. It was quick, a leap and a high wide-legged kick that left him vulnerable. For a flicker of time her inhibition intervened– as he had calculated and hoped.
But his kick missed her jaw.
    She would not be reticent again. So quickly was she on him when he landed that he barely escaped with a sideways roll. He regained his balance and shot a hard jab at her belly, but she pivoted and chopped at his neck, connecting only with air.
The battle was truly joined. The minutes stretched to two, then five, then. . . .
    A shoulder roll across the rough polycanvas floor of the gym brought Sparta bounding to her feet in time to catch Blake’s counterattack; despite a feint to her midriff with his left fist she easily read his intention and brushed aside his right hand as it swung toward her nose, taking his wrist. As she pivoted to take his arm down and past, she indulged in a split-second’s reconsideration and realized that the move had been a setup. Here was the real assault. Just as the fingers of his left hand brushed the lapel of her gi, she let go and somersaulted backward, launching herself with a knee to his hip; his