Robert Silverberg

“ Obediently, we started walking. You don't argue with a blaster, even if the man pointing it is in a wheelchair.
"What's going on, Ron?" Val asked in a low voice as we walked. Behind us the wheelchair hissed steadily.
"I don't quite know, Val. I've never seen this guy before, and I thought I knew everyone at the Dome."
"Quiet up there!" our captor called, and we stopped talking. We trudged along together, with him following behind; I could hear the crunch-crunch of the wheelchair as its wheels chewed into the sand. I wondered where we were going, and why. I wondered why we had ever left Earth. ”

“ I told Val. "The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up." I reached over and turned up the pressure on her oxymask to make things a little easier for her. Through the glassite of the mask, I could see her face contorted in an agony of fatigue. ”

“ I could see his whole structure of hate starting to topple, and I decided to give it the final push.
"Haven't you wondered how I managed to break the tangle-cord when I kicked you over?"
"Yes—human legs aren't strong enough to break tangle-cord that way."
"Of course not," I said. I gave Val the blaster and slipped out of my oxysuit. "Look," I said. I pointed to my smooth, gleaming metal legs. The almost soundless purr of their motors was the only noise in the room. "I was in the Sadlerville Blast, too," I said. "But I didn't go crazy with hate when I lost my legs."
Ledman was sobbing. ”

“ She lifted the geiger harnesses, and I put Ledman back in his wheelchair.
Val slipped her oxymask back on and fastened it shut.
"Let's get back to the Dome in a hurry," I said. "We'll turn Ledman over to the authorities. Then we can catch the next ship for Earth."
"Go back? Go back? If you think I'm backing down now and quitting you can find yourself another wife! After we dump this guy I'm sacking in for twenty hours, and then we're going back out there to finish that search-pattern. Earth needs uranium, honey, and I know you'd never be happy quitting in the middle like that." She smiled. ”

“ At last I had enough use of my hand to reach out and grasp the blaster. Then I pulled myself across the floor to Ledman, removed the tanglegun, and melted the remaining tangle-cord off.
My muscles were stiff and bunched, and rising made me wince. I turned and freed Val. Then I turned and faced Ledman.
"I suppose you'll kill me now," he said.
"No. That's the difference between sane people and insane," I told him. "I'm not going to kill you at all. I'm going to see to it that you're sent back to Earth." ”

“ Between the psychs and the prosthetics men, you'll be a new man inside of a year."
"But I'm a murderer!"
"That's right. And you'll be sentenced to psych adjustment. When they're finished, Gregory Ledman the killer will be as dead as if they'd electrocuted you, but there'll be a new—and sane—Gregory Ledman." I turned to Val.
"Got the geigers, honey?"
For the first time since Ledman had caught us, I remembered how tired Val had been out on the desert. I realized now that I had been driving her mercilessly—me, with my chromium legs and atomic-powered muscles. No wonder she was ready to fold! ”

“ Val's usually about the best wife a guy could ask for, but when she wants to be she can be a real flying bother.
It was beyond her to see that some grease monkey back at the Dome was at fault—whoever it was who had failed to fasten down the engine hood. Nothing but what had stopped us could stop a sandcat: sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine.
But no; she blamed it all on me somehow: So we were out walking on the spongy sand of the Martian desert. We'd been walking a good eight hours. ”

“ Ledman scowled, and then his face went belligerent again. "They told me I was paralyzed below the waist. That I'd never walk again, even with prosthetic legs, because I had no muscles to fit them to."
"You left Earth too quickly," Val said.
"It was the only way," he protested. "I had to get off—"
"She's right," I told him. "The atom can take away, but it can give as well. Soon after you left they developed atomic-powered prosthetics—amazing things, virtually robot legs. All the survivors of the Sadlerville Blast were given the necessary replacement limbs free of charge. All except you. ”

“ Earth needed radioactives, and the only way to get them was to get out and look. The great atomic wars of the late 20th Century had used up much of the supply, but the amount used to blow up half the great cities of the world hardly compared with the amount we needed to put them back together again. ”

“ He might have been sitting there for hours, complacently waiting to see how we'd wake up. That was when I realized he must be totally insane. I could feel my stomach-muscles tighten, my throat constrict painfully. ”

“ But though the energy is inexhaustible, the supply of nuclei isn't. After three centuries of heavy consumption, the supply failed. The mighty machine that was Earth's industry had started to slow down. ”