“I don’t like his kind of slime, and I’ll do my best to get rid of them. That’s all, Miss B.; it was nice knowing you.”
He walked out of the room, leaving her to stand there in helpless fury.
His phony necklace had come in handy after all; the police had thought they had the real one, so they had never bothered to check the Galactic Mail Service for a small package mailed to Seladon II. All he’d had to do was drop it into the mail chute from his room and then cool his heels in jail while the Galactic Mails got rid of the loot for him.
The Necklace of Algol would be waiting for him when he got to Seladon II.
THE MAN WHO HATED MARS (1956)
“I want you to put me in prison!” the big, hairy man said in a trembling voice.
He was addressing his request to a thin woman sitting behind a desk that seemed much too big for her. The plaque on the desk said:
LT. PHOEBE HARRIS
TERRAN REHABILITATION SERVICE
Lieutenant Harris glanced at the man before her for only a moment before she returned her eyes to the dossier on the desk; but long enough to verify the impression his voice had given. Ron Clayton was a big, ugly, cowardly, dangerous man.
He said: “Well? Dammit, say something!”
The lieutenant raised her eyes again. “Just be patient until I’ve read this.” Her voice and eyes were expressionless, but her hand moved beneath the desk.
Clayton froze. She’s yellow! he thought. She’s turned on the trackers! He could see the pale greenish glow of their little eyes watching him all around the room. If he made any fast move, they would cut him down with a stun beam before he could get two feet.
She had thought he was going to jump her. Little rat! he thought, somebody ought to slap her down!
He watched her check through the heavy dossier in front of her. Finally, she looked up at him again.
“Clayton, your last conviction was for strong-arm robbery. You were given a choice between prison on Earth and freedom here on Mars. You picked Mars.”
He nodded slowly. He’d been broke and hungry at the time. A sneaky little rat named Johnson had bilked Clayton out of his fair share of the Corey payroll job, and Clayton had been forced to get the money somehow. He hadn’t mussed the guy up much; besides, it was the sucker’s own fault. If he hadn’t tried to yell—
Lieutenant Harris went on: “I’m afraid you can’t back down now.”
“But it isn’t fair! The most I’d have got on that frame-up would’ve been ten years. I’ve been here fifteen already!”
“I’m sorry, Clayton. It can’t be done. You’re here. Period. Forget about trying to get back. Earth doesn’t want you.” Her voice sounded choppy, as though she were trying to keep it calm.
Clayton broke into a whining rage. “You can’t do that! It isn’t fair! I never did anything to you! I’ll go talk to the Governor! He’ll listen to reason! You’ll see! I’ll—”
“Shut up!” the woman snapped harshly. “I’m getting sick of it! I personally think you should have been locked up—permanently. I think this idea of forced colonization is going to breed trouble for Earth someday, but it is about the only way you can get anybody to colonize this frozen hunk of mud.
“Just keep it in mind that I don’t like it any better than you do—and I didn’t strong-arm anybody to deserve the assignment! Now get out of here!”
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.
The heat-sucking frigidity of the thin Martian air whispered around him in a feeble breeze. He shivered a little and began walking toward the recreation center.
There was a high, thin piping in the sky above him which quickly became a scream in the thin air.
He turned for a moment to watch the ship land, squinting his eyes to see the number on the hull.
Fifty-two. Space Transport Ship Fifty-two.
Probably bringing another load of poor suckers to freeze to death on Mars.
That was the thing he hated about Mars—the cold. The everlasting damned cold! And the oxidation pills; take one every three hours or smother in the poor, thin air.
The government could have put up domes; it could have put in building-to-building tunnels, at least. 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.
“Financially, it is impracticable to change an entire planet from its original condition to one which will support human life as it exists on Terra.
“But man, since he is adaptable, can change himself—modify his structure slightly—so that he can live on these planets with only a minimum of change in the environment.”
* * * *
So they made you live outside and like it. So you froze and you choked and you suffered.
Clayton hated Mars. He hated the thin air and the cold. More than anything, he hated the cold.
Ron Clayton wanted to go home.
The Recreation Building was just ahead; at least it would be warm inside. He pushed in through the outer and inner doors, and he heard the burst of music from the jukebox. His stomach tightened up into a hard cramp.
They were playing Heinlein’s Green Hills of Earth.
There was almost no other sound in the room, although it was full of people. There were plenty of colonists who claimed to like Mars, but even they were silent when that song was played.
Clayton wanted to go over and smash the machine—make it stop reminding him. He clenched his teeth and his fists and his eyes and cursed mentally. God, how I hate Mars!
* * * *
When the hauntingly nostalgic last chorus faded away, he walked over to the machine and fed it full of enough coins to keep it going on something else until he left.
At the bar, he ordered a beer and used it to wash down another oxidation tablet. It wasn’t good beer; it didn’t even deserve the name. The atmospheric pressure was so low as to boil all the carbon dioxide out of it, so the brewers never put it back in after fermentation.
He was sorry for what he had done—really and truly sorry. If they’d only give him one more chance, he’d make good. Just one more chance. He’d work things out.
He’d promised himself that both times they’d put him up before, but things had been different then. He hadn’t really been given another chance, what with parole boards and all.
Clayton closed his eyes and finished the beer. He ordered another.
He’d worked in the mines for fifteen years. It wasn’t that he minded work really, but the foreman