He was not alone.  There was nothing to indicate the fact but the white hand of the tiny  gauge on the board before him. The control room was empty but for  himself; there was no sound other than the murmur of the drives—but the  white hand had moved. It had been on zero when the little ship was  launched from the Stardust ; now, an hour later, it had crept  up. There was something in the supply closet across the room, it was  saying, some kind of a body that radiated heat.  It could be but one kind of a body—a living, human body.  He leaned back in the pilot’s chair and drew a deep, slow breath,  considering what he would have to do. He was an EDS pilot, inured to the  sight of death, long since accustomed to it and to viewing the dying of  another man with an objective lack of emotion, and he had no choice in  what he must do. There could be no alternative—but it required a few  moments of conditioning for even an EDS pilot to prepare himself to walk  across the room and coldly...