Walter L. Kleine

“ That left just me and Helene, and according to the reasonably well-proven theories of space-crew psychology, she would have to replace my wife and I her husband. It was supposed to be easy, since we wouldn't have been in the same crew if we weren't known to be more compatible than ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the world's married couples. ”

“ Shortly before dusk I tossed the now-useless welder on top of the other junk and climbed onto the 'dozer and pulled out. There weren't any brakes on what was left of the tractor, but that would have to not matter. We were going to have to drive 'round the clock or not get there in time. A bulldozer is not a fast vehicle under any circumstances.
Logically, I couldn't see that we had much chance of covering eleven hundred miles in that rig, without having to make at least one stop quick enough to collapse the towbar and land the tractor on top of the 'dozer. ”

“ I shrugged off the rest of my suit and hung it up carefully, strictly from force of habit, and slid into the bunk below hers.
I couldn't sleep. I could relax a little, but I couldn't sleep.
I've been in space a long time.
Eleven years. And five years in training before that. I flew the third ship around the moon and the second to land on it. I flew one-sixth of the materials that built Ley, the first "stepping stone" satellite, and one-twentieth of those that went into Goddard, the second. I didn't bother keeping track of how much of Luna City got there in my ship. ”

“ Six thousand miles. Seventy days. With just two of us, it'll probably take thirty of them to hack out a strip. It's simple arithmetic."
"I know that, Marsh, but what do we do about it?"
"Get some sleep. Then we'll pick up what pieces we can find and jury rig anything we can't find pieces of. When we find out how much fuel we've got, we can figure out how fast we dare travel. We should be able to find all we can carry; the tanks were self-sealing. When we're sure we've got it all, we take another eight hours sleep and pull out. ”

“ We'll get there all right. We'll get there about the time the people upstairs pile up on the landing strip that isn't there. Then we can use the 'dozer to give them a good, Christian burial.
"Hell, Marsh, there's no sense trying to do it that way. That hole can't be very big. If we take the mercury out of the 'dozer and add what we can find lying around on the sand, and then pour it back in and weld the hole shut, we'll be all right. We'll get there a day or two later, but that won't be nearly as bad as if we try to tow with the 'dozer. Then we can swap mercury again and use the 'dozer. ”

“ I emptied it quickly and gave it back to her. "How about a refill?"
She refilled it and gave it back to me. "If we haven't got a chance," she said slowly, "I've got as much right to know as you do. Marsh, have we got any chance?" ”

“ The hills ended as abruptly as they began, after less than two hours driving on the thirty-fourth day. We still had almost eighteen hundred miles to go.
"Clear ahead," Helene called back. "How fast?"
We both knew we couldn't possibly make it in the forty days we'd hoped, and that if we did it wouldn't do us any good. We'd used up slightly over six days' worth of fuel for the 'dozer cutting slots for the tractor. There would be a balance between time and fuel that would give us the most possible days to use the 'dozer, when and if we got there. ”

“ Space crews are not selected for their talkativeness. In space, there is next to nothing to talk about, and a large part of pre-space training consists of developing the ability to be silent. Another part consists of eliminating as much as possible of the remaining necessity for talking. ”

“ Sixty more people would very probably die if we didn't do the probably impossible. The other ships wouldn't have enough fuel to pull up and get back in orbit if they came down and discovered that the landing strip wasn't there. ”

“ Four men and four women in each ship; forty of the most stable marriages discoverable at the present state of the research which had resulted in using the "stabilizing influence" of marriage to stabilize space crews.
Three of those ships were equipped with the streamlined nose-shells and wings necessary to make actual landings on Mars. Number One, my ship, was supposed to make the first landing, on skis, near the edge of the north polar cap. ”