FullReads

The Shark still had his light on when they arrived. Clayton whispered to Parks: “I’ll go in. He knows me. He wouldn’t sell it if you were around. You got eight credits?”

“Sure I got eight credits. Just a minute, and I’ll give you eight credits.” He fished around for a minute inside his parka, and pulled out his notecase. His gloved fingers were a little clumsy, but he managed to get out a five and three ones and hand them to Clayton.

“You wait out here,” Clayton said.

He went in through the outer door and knocked on the inner one. He should have asked for ten credits. Sharkie only charged five, and that would leave him three for himself. But he could have got ten–maybe more.

When he came out with the bottle, Parks was sitting on a rock, shivering.

“Jeez-krise!” he said. “It’s cold out here. Let’s get to someplace where it’s warm.”

“Sure. I got the bottle. Want a drink?”

Parks took the bottle, opened it, and took a good belt out of it.

“Hooh!” he breathed. “Pretty smooth.”

As Clayton drank, Parks said: “Hey! I better get back to the field! I know! We can go to the men’s room and finish the bottle before the ship takes off! Isn’t that a good idea? It’s warm there.”

They started back down the street toward the spacefield.

“Yep, I’m from Indiana. Southern part, down around Bloomington,” Parks said. “Gimme the jug. Not Bloomington, Illinois–Bloomington, Indiana. We really got green hills down there.” He drank, and handed the bottle back to Clayton. “Pers-nally, I don’t see why anybody’d stay on Mars. Here y’are, practic’ly on the equator in the middle of the summer, and it’s colder than hell. Brrr!

“Now if you was smart, you’d go home, where it’s warm. Mars wasn’t built for people to live on, anyhow. I don’t see how you stand it.”

That was when Clayton decided he really hated Parks.

And when Parks said: “Why be dumb, friend? Whyn’t you go home?” Clayton kicked him in the stomach, hard.

“And that, that–” Clayton said as Parks doubled over.

He said it again as he kicked him in the head. And in the ribs. Parks was gasping as he writhed on the ground, but he soon lay still.

Then Clayton saw why. Parks’ nose tube had come off when Clayton’s foot struck his head.

Parks was breathing heavily, but he wasn’t getting any oxygen.

That was when the Big Idea hit Ron Clayton. With a nosepiece on like that, you couldn’t tell who a man was. He took another drink from the jug and then began to take Parks’ clothes off.

The uniform fit Clayton fine, and so did the nose mask. He dumped his own clothing on top of Parks’ nearly nude body, adjusted the little oxygen tank so that the gas would flow properly through the mask, took the first deep breath of good air he’d had in fifteen years, and walked toward the spacefield.

* * * * *

He went into the men’s room at the Port Building, took a drink, and felt in the pockets of the uniform for Parks’ identification. He found it and opened the booklet. It read:

PARKINSON, HERBERT J.
Steward 2nd Class, STS

Above it was a photo, and a set of fingerprints.

Clayton grinned. They’d never know it wasn’t Parks getting on the ship.

Parks was a steward, too. A cook’s helper. That was good. If he’d been a jetman or something like that, the crew might wonder why he wasn’t on duty at takeoff. But a steward was different.

Clayton sat for several minutes, looking through the booklet and drinking from the bottle. He emptied it just before the warning sirens keened through the thin air.

Clayton got up and went outside toward the ship.

“Wake up! Hey, you! Wake up!”

Somebody was slapping his cheeks. Clayton opened his eyes and looked at the blurred face over his own.