incredibly, steve found himself out on the bleak, desolate surface of ganymede, walking with kevin past the long, silent length of the frank buck. and here, outside the confining walls of their spaceship, the ganymede-fear seemed stronger. steve felt it as something palpable, clutching at his heart and constricting it, bringing sweat to his forehead and clouding the inside of his helmet with moisture.

fear—of what?

not of the frontier world itself, surely. not of some unknown menace lurking out among the craterlets and ringwalls. no, for while ganymede was not yet as familiar as mars or venus, mankind still had explored it extensively. there were the strange anthrovacs, animals which looked like over-sized and less brutish gorillas but which were not protoplasm creatures and which took their energy directly from sunlight and cosmic radiation. but that was all—no other life existed on ganymede, and the anthrovacs on their frigid, airless world were something of an oddity.

then what caused the fear? and was the fear responsible in any way for what had happened to charlie?

"hey, steve—snap out of it!" kevin's voice, floating in thinly on the intercom.

"huh? oh, yeah, kevin. sure. it's that fear, sort of gets you out here. you can't help it."

"i know. a ship seems to cut it off to some extent, boy. but it's around, lurking, waiting to get you."

"what do you mean, waiting to get you?"

"well, not directly. but it makes you make mistakes. men have died that way—paying so much attention to the fear that they didn't pay enough attention to whatever was happening."

"kevin, do you know anything about how charlie died you haven't told me?"

"maybe. maybe not. it's kind of vague, boy. teejay went out alone and when she came back—why, she looked scared. that's common enough on ganymede—everyone looks scared. but teejay looked puzzled and confused also, and that's not like her. she wouldn't talk much for a time, and when she did she just said she'd found charlie stedman, your brother, dead."

"where?"

"what do you mean, where? out here on ganymede, naturally."

"no, i mean exactly where. what was done with the body?"

"that i don't know," said kevin, and steve could picture him frowning inside his helmet.

"well—listen, kevin! do you hear something?"

"hear something? how can you hear anything on ganymede, with no air to carry it? except on the radio, of course. i hear you, but get a grip on yourself, boy."

"no. i hear something. there it is, louder. my god, kevin! my god—" and clumsily in his vac-suit, steve began running away across the pumice.

"hey, come back! back here, you crazy fool—" kevin charged after him, taking long, ungainly strides in the light gravity. but steve was quicker and soon the distance between them increased and kevin realized he wouldn't be able to overtake steve at all.

"come back! what do you hear, boy? at least tell me that."

steve told him, and ran on. amazed, kevin lumbered back toward the gordak.

"but what made him do it?" teejay demanded, later.

"i told you all i know, captain. he said he heard something and started running. i chased after him, couldn't catch him. he told me what he heard."

"what?"

"well, you won't like this, because it doesn't make sense. but he said he heard his brother—calling him. charlie stedman, calling."

"charlie stedman is dead." suddenly, teejay was curt, pre-emptory.

"that's what i thought, too."

"forget it. it's the ganymede-fear, mac. somehow it got to stedman stronger than it got to most people. maybe his brother was hit that way, too. maybe, right now, stedman is off his rocker, running out across the pumice somewhere, shouting his brother's name into the soundless void of space."

"we'll have to find him," said kevin.

"how can we, mac? he's got air for five or six hours, and ganymede is big."

"i'm going to take a set of shoulder-jets and go looking for him, captain. i hope you won't try to stop me. i'm going either way."

shrugging, teejay went to a cabinet, handed kevin a pair of shoulder-jets, which he strapped at once to his vac-suit. the woman took another suit and another pair of jets. "once i heard voices out here on ganymede, too," she said. "so did charlie stedman. they killed charlie and they almost killed me. enough's enough, mac. i'm going with you."