Part 3 (1/2)
”Good. His pay reverts to the s.h.i.+p's fund. That's all, men.”
Feldman started to protest, but a fist lashed savagely against his mouth.
He made no other protests as they dragged him into the crew shuttle that took off for Southport. He avoided their eyes and sat hunched over. It was Ben who finally broke the silence.
”What happened to Art's money? He had a pile on him.”
”Go to h.e.l.l!”
”Give, I said!” Ben twisted his arm back toward his shoulder, applying increasing pressure.
”A doctor took it for his fee when Billings died of s.p.a.ce-stomach. d.a.m.n you, I couldn't help him!”
Ben looked at the others. ”Med Lobby fee, eh? All the market will take.
Umm. It could be, maybe.” He shrugged. ”Okay, reasonable doubt. We won't kill you, bo. Not quite, we won't.”
The shuttle landed and Ben handed out the little helmets and aspirators that made life possible in Mars' thin air. Outside, the tubemen took turns holding Feldman and beating him while the pa.s.sengers disembarked from their shuttle. As he slumped into unconsciousness, he had a picture of Chris Ryan's frozen face as she moved steadily toward the port station.
IV
Martian
It was night when Feldman came to, and the temperature was dropping rapidly. He struggled to sit up through a fog of pain. Somewhere in his bag, he should have an anodyne tablet that would kill any ache. He finally found the pill and swallowed it, fumbling with the aspirator lip opening.
The aspirator meant life to him now, he suddenly realized. He twisted to stare at the tiny charge-indicator for the battery. It showed half-charge. Then he saw that someone had attached another battery beside it. He puzzled briefly over it, but his immediate concern was for shelter.
Apparently he was still where he had been knocked out. There was a light coming from the little station, and he headed toward that, fumbling for the few quarters that represented his entire fortune.
Maybe it would have been better if the tubemen had killed him. Batteries were an absolute necessity here, food and shelter would be expensive, and he had no skills to earn his way. At most, he had only a day or so left. But meantime, he had to find warmth before the cold killed him.
The tiny restaurant in the station was still open, and the air was warm inside. He pulled off the aspirator, shutting off the battery.
The counterman didn't even glance up as he entered. Feldman gazed at the printed menu and flinched.
”Soup,” he ordered. It was the cheapest item he could find.
The counterman stared at him, obviously spotting his Earth origin. ”You adjusted to synthetics?”
Feldman nodded. Earth operated on a mixed diet, with synthetics for all who couldn't afford the natural foods there. But Mars was all synthetic.
Many of the chemicals in food could exist in either of two forms, or isomers; they were chemically alike, but differently crystallized.
Sometimes either form was digestible, but frequently the body could use only the isomer to which it was adjusted.
Martian plants produced different isomers from those on Earth. Since the synthetic foods turned out to be Mars-normal, that was probably the more natural form. Research designed to let the early colonists live off native food here had turned up an enzyme that enabled the body to handle either isomer. In a few weeks of eating Martian or synthetic food, the body adapted; without more enzyme, it lost its power to handle Earth-normal food.
The cheapness of synthetics and the discovery that many diseases common to Earth would not attack Mars-normal bodies led to the wide use of synthetics on Earth. No pariah could have been expected to afford Earth-normal.
Feldman finished the soup, and found a cigarette that was smokable. ”Any objections if I sit in the waiting room?”