The Man Who Hated Mars Read online

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  _To escape from Mars, all Clayton had to do was the impossible. Break out of a crack-proof exile camp--get onto a ship that couldn't be boarded--smash through an impenetrable wall of steel. Perhaps he could do all these things, but he discovered that Mars did evil things to men; that he wasn't even Clayton any more. He was only--_

  THE MAN WHO HATED MARS

  By RANDALL GARRETT

  The frightful carnage would go down in the bloody historyof space.]

  "I want you to put me in prison!" the big, hairy man said in a tremblingvoice.

  He was addressing his request to a thin woman sitting behind a desk thatseemed 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 beforeshe returned her eyes to the dossier on the desk; but long enough toverify 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 readthis." Her voice and eyes were expressionless, but her hand movedbeneath 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 himall around the room. If he made any fast move, they would cut him downwith 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 weregiven a choice between prison on Earth and freedom here on Mars. Youpicked Mars."

  He nodded slowly. He'd been broke and hungry at the time. A sneakylittle rat named Johnson had bilked Clayton out of his fair share of theCorey 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 ownfault. 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'vebeen ten years. I've been here fifteen already!"

  "I'm sorry, Clayton. It can't be done. You're here. Period. Forget abouttrying 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! Inever did anything to you! I'll go talk to the Governor! He'll listen toreason! You'll see! I'll--"

  "_Shut up!_" the woman snapped harshly. "I'm getting sick of it! Ipersonally think you should have been locked up--permanently. I thinkthis idea of forced colonization is going to breed trouble for Earthsomeday, but it is about the only way you can get anybody to colonizethis frozen hunk of mud.

  "Just keep it in mind that I don't like it any better than you do--_andI didn't strong-arm anybody to deserve the assignment!_ Now get out ofhere!"

  She moved a hand threateningly toward the manual controls of the stunbeam.

  Clayton retreated fast. The trackers ignored anyone walking away fromthe desk; they were set only to spot threatening movements toward it.

  Outside the Rehabilitation Service Building, Clayton could feel thetears running down the inside of his face mask. He'd asked again andagain--God only knew how many times--in the past fifteen years. Alwaysthe same answer. No.

  When he'd heard that this new administrator was a woman, he'd hoped shemight be easier to convince. She wasn't. If anything, she was harderthan the others.

  The heat-sucking frigidity of the thin Martian air whispered around himin a feeble breeze. He shivered a little and began walking toward therecreation center.

  There was a high, thin piping in the sky above him which quickly becamea scream in the thin air.

  He turned for a moment to watch the ship land, squinting his eyes to seethe number on the hull.

  Fifty-two. Space Transport Ship Fifty-two.

  Probably bringing another load of poor suckers to freeze to death onMars.

  That was the thing he hated about Mars--the cold. The everlasting damnedcold! And the oxidation pills; take one every three hours or smother inthe poor, thin air.

  The government could have put up domes; it could have put inbuilding-to-building tunnels, at least. It could have done a hell of alot of things to make Mars a decent place for human beings.

  But no--the government had other ideas. A bunch of bigshot scientificcharacters had come up with the idea nearly twenty-three years before.Clayton could remember the words on the sheet he had been given when hewas sentenced.

  "Mankind is inherently an adaptable animal. If we are to colonize theplanets of the Solar System, we must meet the conditions on thoseplanets as best we can.

  "Financially, it is impracticable to change an entire planet from itsoriginal condition to one which will support human life as it exists onTerra.

  "But man, since he is adaptable, can change himself--modify hisstructure slightly--so that he can live on these planets with only aminimum of change in the environment."

  * * * * *

  So they made you live outside and like it. So you froze and you chokedand you suffered.

  Clayton hated Mars. He hated the thin air and the cold. More thananything, he hated the cold.

  Ron Clayton wanted to go home.

  The Recreation Building was just ahead; at least it would be warminside. He pushed in through the outer and inner doors, and he heard theburst of music from the jukebox. His stomach tightened up into a hardcramp.

  They were playing Heinlein's _Green Hills of Earth_.

  There was almost no other sound in the room, although it was full ofpeople. There were plenty of colonists who claimed to like Mars, buteven they were silent when that song was played.

  Clayton wanted to go over and smash the machine--make it stop remindinghim. He clenched his teeth and his fists and his eyes and cursedmentally. _God, how I hate Mars!_

  * * * * *

  When the hauntingly nostalgic last chorus faded away, he walked over tothe machine and fed it full of enough coins to keep it going onsomething else until he left.

  At the bar, he ordered a beer and used it to wash down another oxidationtablet. It wasn't good beer; it didn't even deserve the name. Theatmospheric pressure was so low as to boil all the carbon dioxide outof 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'donly 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, butthings had been different then. He hadn't really been given anotherchance, 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 mindedwork really, but the foreman had it in for him. Always giving him a badtime; always picking out the lousy jobs for him.

  Like the time he'd crawled into a side-boring in Tunnel 12 for a napduring lunch and the foreman had caught him. When he promised never todo it again if the foreman wouldn't put it on report, the guy said,"Yeah. Sure. Hate to hurt a guy's record."

  Then he'd put Clayton on report anyway. Strictly a r
at.

  Not that Clayton ran any chance of being fired; they never firedanybody. But they'd fined him a day's pay. A whole day's pay.

  He tapped his glass on the bar, and the barman came over with anotherbeer. Clayton looked at it, then up at the barman. "Put a head on it."

  The bartender looked at him sourly. "I've got some soapsuds here,Clayton, and one of these days I'm gonna put some in your beer if youkeep pulling that gag."

  That was the trouble with some guys. No sense of humor.

  Somebody came in the door and then somebody else came in behind him, sothat both inner and outer doors were open for an instant. A blast of icybreeze struck Clayton's back, and he shivered. He started to saysomething, then changed his mind; the doors were already closed again,and besides, one of the guys was bigger than he was.

  The iciness didn't seem