_The planet itself was tough enough--barren, desolate,
forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and
dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad
genius who had a motto:_
_Death to all Terrans!_
"Let's keep moving," 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.
And she probably thought the failure of the sandcat was all my fault,
too. 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.
"Can't we turn back now, Ron?" Val pleaded. "Maybe there isn't any
uranium in this sector at all. I think we're crazy to keep on searching
out here!"
I started to tell her that the UranCo chief had assured me we'd hit
something out this way, but changed my mind. When Val's tired and
overwrought there's no sense in arguing with her.
I stared ahead at the bleak, desolate wastes of the Martian landscape.
Behind us somewhere was the comfort of the Dome, ahead nothing but the
mazes and gullies of this dead world.
[Illustration: He was a cripple in a wheelchair--helpless as a
rattlesnake.]
"Try to keep going, Val." My gloved hand reached out and clumsily
enfolded hers. "Come on, kid. Remember--we're doing this for Earth.
We're heroes."
She glared at me. "Heroes, hell!" she muttered. "That's the way it
looked back home, but, out there it doesn't seem so glorious. And
UranCo's pay is stinking."
"We didn't come out here for the pay, Val."
"I know, I know, but just the same--"
It must have been hell for her. We had wandered fruitlessly over the red
sands all day, both of us listening for the clicks of the counter. And
the geigers had been obstinately hushed all day, except for their
constant undercurrent of meaningless noises.
Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of Earth's, I was
starting to tire, and I knew it must have been really rough on Val with
her lovely but unrugged legs.
"Heroes," she said bitterly. "We're not heroes--we're suckers! Why did I
ever let you volunteer for the Geig Corps and drag me along?"
Which wasn't anywhere close to the truth. Now I knew she was at the
breaking point, because Val didn't lie unless she was so exhausted she
didn't know what she was doing. She had been just as much inflamed by
the idea of coming to Mars to help in the search for uranium as I was.
We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of obligation,
something we could do as individuals to keep the industries of
radioactives-starved Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot,
both of us.
No, we had decided together to come to Mars--the way we decided together
on everything. Now she was turning against me.
* * * * *
I tried to jolly her. "Buck up, kid," I said. I didn't dare turn up her
oxy pressure any higher, but it was obvious she couldn't keep going. She
was almost sleep-walking now.
We pressed on over the barren terrain. The geiger kept up a fairly
steady click-pattern, but never broke into that sudden explosive tumult
that meant we had found pay-dirt. I started to feel tired myself,
terribly tired. I longed to lie down on the soft, spongy Martian sand
and bury myself.
I looked at Val. She was dragging along with her eyes half-shut. I felt
almost guilty for having dragged her out to Mars, until I recalled that
I hadn't. In fact, she had come up with the idea before I did. I wished
there was some way of turning the weary, bedraggled girl at my side back
into the Val who had so enthusiastically suggested we join the Geigs.
Twelve steps later, I decided this was about as far as we could go.
I stopped, slipped out of the geiger harness, and lowered myself
ponderously to the ground. "What'samatter, Ron?" Val asked sleepily.
"Something wrong?"
"No, baby," I said, putting out a hand and taking hers. "I think we
ought to rest a little before we go any further. It's been a long, hard
day."
It didn't take much to persuade her. She slid down beside me, curled up,
and in a moment she was fast asleep, sprawled out on the sands.
_Poor kid_, I thought. Maybe we shouldn't have come to Mars after all.
But, I reminded myself, _someone_ had to do the job.
A second thought appeared, but I squelched it:
Why the hell me?
I looked down at Valerie's sleeping form, and thought of our warm,
comfortable little home on Earth. It wasn't much, but people in love
don't need very fancy surroundings.
I watched her, sleeping peacefully, a wayward lock of her soft blonde
hair trailing down over one eyebrow, and it seemed hard to believe that
we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed
struggle that was Mars. But I knew I'd do it again, if I had the chance.
It's because we wanted to keep what we had. Heroes? Hell, no. We just
liked our comforts, and wanted to keep them. Which took a little work.
* * * * *
_Time to get moving._ But then Val stirred and rolled over in her sleep,
and I didn't have the heart to wake her. I sat there, holding her,
staring out over the desert, watching the wind whip the sand up into
weird shapes.
The Geig Corps preferred married couples, working in teams. That's what
had finally decided it for us--we were a good team. We had no ties on
Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So we
volunteered.
_And here we are._ Heroes. The wind blasted a mass of sand into my face,
and I felt it tinkle against the oxymask.
I glanced at the suit-chronometer. Getting late. I decided once again to
wake Val. But she was tired. And I was tired too, tired from our
wearying journey across the empty desert.
I started to shake Val. But I never finished. It would be _so_ nice just
to lean back and nuzzle up to her, down in the sand. So nice. I yawned,
and stretched back.
* * * * *
I awoke with a sudden startled shiver, and realized angrily I had let
myself doze off. "Come on, Val," I said savagely, and started to rise to
my feet.