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

stood there, panting, clasping his helmeted head between his trembling, cold hands.
    “Lieutenant!”
    A voice, whipped into his imagination by the ungodly wind!
    He would not believe it.
    A form, stumbling out of the pale night! Running toward him, its lips moving, saying words that the wind took away. And it was Laurette Overland, forming in his imagination now that he had gone completely mad.
    He waited there, in cold amusement. There was small use in allowing himself to be fooled. And yet – and yet – the ring had to come back; to him. This was Laurette Overland, and she was bringing it – for him to wear. That was selfish of her. If
she
had the ring, if
she
had dug it up, why didn’t
she
wear it?
    Then she would be the skeleton.
    Then there would be two skeletons!
    His mind froze, then surged forward into life and sanity. A cold cry of agony escaped him. He stumbled forward and caught the girl up in his arms. He could feel the supple firmness of her body even through the folds of her undistended pressure suit.
     
    Laurette’s lips, red and full against the ghastly induced paleness of her face, parted and words came out. Yet he could make no sense of it, for the unimaginable wind, and the cold horror lancing through his mind occluded words and sentences.
    “– had to . . . out. A hundred pounds.” He felt her hysterical laugh. So the ship had started to fall. She had bailed out, had swept to solid ground on streams of flame shooting from the rocket jets in the shoulders of her suit. This much he knew. Hours and hours she had fought her way – toward the plain. Because she remembered something. The ship was gone. Safe. She remembered something that was important and it had to do with the skeleton and the ring. She had to get out. It was her part in the ghastly across-the-millions-of-years stage play. She had to dig up the ring.
    He held her out at arm’s length and looked down at her gloved hands. Yes, there was mud on them. So the ring had not been in the cave.
    His eyes shuddered upward to hers.
    “Give me the ring.” His lips formed the words slowly.
    “No, no, lieutenant,” she blurted out. “It’s not going to be
that
way. Don’t you see? It’s Amos! Amos!”
    “You must be crazy to have come back!” he panted. He shook in sudden overwhelming, maddening fury. “You’re crazy anyway!”
    He suddenly wrenched at her hands, forced them open. But there was no ring. He shook her madly.
    “Where’s the ring? Give it to me, you damned little fool! If you’re wearing it – if you think for one moment – you can’t do this—”
    The wind whipped the words away from her, she knew, even as that which she was saying was lost to him.
    He stopped talking, and with a cold ferocity wrapped one arm around her, and with the other started to unbuckle her gloves with his own bare hands. She struggled suddenly, tigerishly. She wrenched herself away from him. She ran backward three steps. She looked up into the sky for one brief second, at the growing monster. He could see the cold, frantic horror settling on her face. Collision! And it was a matter of moments! And he, the true skeleton, did not have the ring!
    He moved toward her, one slow step at a time, his eyes wild, his jaw set with purpose.
    She darted past him. He whirled, panting, went frantically after her. And every step he took grew more leaden, for the moment was here. The collision was about to occur. And the girl was running toward the cave.
     
    Laurette vanished around the shoulder of the mountain. The cave swallowed her. His steps slowed down. He stood there, drew a deep, tremulous breath. Then he entered the cave, and stood facing her, the wind’s howl diminishing.
    She said, coldly, “We haven’t much time to talk or fight, lieutenant. You’re acting like a madman. Here.” She stooped and picked up his gloves. She held them out. “Put these on.”
    He said, “Give me the ring.”
    She stared at him through the gloom, at his