Harry Warner

“ Did the ordinary man on the street submit calmly when this happened to his wife or did he have contacts that Greg had never known?
Still, it seemed unlikely that many persons could escape the law. Every nation on Earth cooperated to send cancerous persons to Mars, not only to breed the disease out of Earth, but to relieve the tremendous pressure of a growing population. The effort was succeeding, even though it was taking much of Earth's resources to send the people and supplies to Mars, even though the project had delayed the opening of colonization on a real paradise planet, Venus. ”

“ So we're deporting people who might be harmful to other people by propagating the disease. Then there's metastasis."
"What's that?"
"Metastasis—the migration of cancer cells. They move from one part of the body to the other."
"Like we're moving people to Mars?" Greg laughed tiredly and started to get up.
"Take it easy, bud." A hand was on Greg's shoulder, and the doctor's voice was in his ear. "We've all got troubles. Look up this guy, if you really want to do something about the wife and kids." A hand slipped a card into Greg's pocket. ”

“ She sat erect and pushed the hair away from her eyes, suddenly the stronger of the two. "Of course, I can have the child," she said. "And please don't worry about today. I was silly, and fainted when they brought in the report, and when I came to I tried to pretend that I'd suffered amnesia. It was foolish because they could have identified me from their records, but they told me that lots of women get the same idea, so maybe I'm not so terrible after all." ”

“ I've never heard of anyone smuggling himself to Mars, you understand, but if you tried to—"
"What I want is a freighter that actually will land on Mars."
"You won't find any," the doctor said. "It takes too much fuel to take off again. This way, they can carry twice as much load, by just circling the planet close to the surface." He stopped, looked at Greg quizzically. "Funny thing about cancer—you study it since you learned the bad news? No? Well, the cure is something like the disease these days. Cancer is caused by cells that are harmful to the other cells in the body and grow too fast. ”

“ They've been afraid to tell people on Earth the real situation, because Venus has been held up for so long as the second Eden where we'll all live as soon as the cancer problem is licked. But actually, they've had to ship new arrivals on Mars off to Venus in recent years, because there's no more room on Mars. ”

“ The kids will approve when they grow up."
Now it was Dora who held Greg close. "I don't want to leave you," she said desperately, "but there's nothing else to do. You know the Carstairs, and the Andresens. The same thing happened to both of those girls. They talked it over with their husbands and decided on sterilization, and the Andresens broke up the next year and Mrs. Carstairs is in a mental home...."
Greg was silent for a moment. Then he looked at her.
"When do you leave?"
The children wailed again. "I won't be here next Wednesday," she arose and walked unsteadily toward the nursery. ”

“ Dr. Haskett said, opening a case and withdrawing instruments. "The only risk lies in the danger that it will grow too fast in six months."
"I won't give it a chance. My wife gets sent to Mars next week. I'm going to ask for a special check and get myself sent aboard the same ship with her. I know the right people."
Marta laughed openly. Dr. Haskett shot a glare in her direction, then looked calculatingly at Greg.
"You're talking like a child," he said. "If I implant cancerous tissue in your body, you can't submit to a check for at least six months. ”