Randall Garrett

“ It could have done a hell of a lot of things to make Mars a decent place for human beings.
But no—the government had other ideas. A bunch of bigshot scientific characters had come up with the idea nearly twenty-three years before. Clayton could remember the words on the sheet he had been given when he was sentenced.
“Mankind is inherently an adaptable animal. If we are to colonize the planets of the Solar System, we must meet the conditions on those planets as best we can. ”

“ I better get back to the field! I know! We can go to the men’s room and finish the bottle before the ship takes off! Isn’t that a good idea? It’s warm there.”
They started back down the street toward the spacefield.
“Yep, I’m from Indiana. Southern part, down around Bloomington,” Parks said. “Gimme the jug. Not Bloomington, Illinois—Bloomington, Indiana. We really got green hills down there.” He drank, and handed the bottle back to Clayton. “Pers-nally, I don’t see why anybody’d stay on Mars. Here y’are, practic’ly on the equator in the middle of the summer, and it’s colder than hell. ”

“ He was asleep, dead drunk, behind the crates.”
“He was drunk, all right,” supplied the medic. “I found this in his pocket.” He flipped a booklet to the First Officer.
The First was a young man, not older than twenty-eight with tough-looking gray eyes. He looked over the booklet.
“Where did you get Parkinson’s ID booklet? And his uniform?”
Clayton looked down at his clothes in wonder. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? That’s a hell of an answer.”
“Well, I was drunk,” Clayton said defensively. “A man doesn’t know what he’s doing when he’s drunk.” He frowned in concentration. ”

“ Parkinson must be dead; he knew that. That meant the Chamber. And even if he wasn’t, they’d send Clayton back to Mars. Luckily, there was no way for either planet to communicate with the ship; it was hard enough to keep a beam trained on a planet without trying to hit such a comparatively small thing as a ship. ”

“ Clayton agreed. “It’s always cold.” He watched enviously as the spaceman ordered another whiskey.
Clayton couldn’t afford whiskey. He probably could have by this time, if the mines had made him a foreman, like they should have.
Maybe he could talk the spaceman out of a couple of drinks.
“My name’s Clayton. Ron Clayton.”
The spaceman took the offered hand. “Mine’s Parkinson, but everybody calls me Parks.”
“Sure, Parks. Uh—can I buy you a beer?”
Parks shook his head. “No, thanks. I started on whiskey. Here, let me buy you one.” ”

“ Mars wasn’t built for people to live on, anyhow. I don’t see how you stand it.”
That was when Clayton decided he really hated Parks.
And when Parks said: “Why be dumb, friend? Whyn’t you go home?” Clayton kicked him in the stomach, hard.
“And that, that—” Clayton said as Parks doubled over.
He said it again as he kicked him in the head. And in the ribs. Parks was gasping as he writhed on the ground, but he soon lay still.
Then Clayton saw why. Parks’ nose tube had come off when Clayton’s foot struck his head.
Parks was breathing heavily, but he wasn’t getting any oxygen. ”

“ She moved a hand threateningly toward the manual controls of the stun beam.
Clayton retreated fast. The trackers ignored anyone walking away from the desk; they were set only to spot threatening movements toward it.
Outside the Rehabilitation Service Building, Clayton could feel the tears running down the inside of his face mask. He’d asked again and again—God only knew how many times—in the past fifteen years. Always the same answer. No.
When he’d heard that this new administrator was a woman, he’d hoped she might be easier to convince. She wasn’t. If anything, she was harder than the others. ”

“ He looked at the three sleeping men. What if they woke up before the bombs went off? He didn’t want to kill them though. He wanted them to know what had happened and who had done it.
He grinned. There was a way. He simply had to drag them outside and jam the door lock. He took the key from the Engineer, inserted it, turned it, and snapped off the head, leaving the body of the key still in the lock. Nobody would unjam it in the next four minutes.
Then he began to run up the stairwell toward the good lifeboat. ”

“ It was no longer decelerating, so it would miss Earth and drift on into space. On the other hand, the lifeship would come down very neatly within a few hundred miles of the spaceport in Utah, the destination of the STS-52.
Landing the lifeship would be the only difficult part of the maneuver, but they were designed to be handled by beginners. Full instructions were printed on the simplified control board.
Clayton studied them for a while, then set the alarm to waken him in seven hours and dozed off to sleep. ”