o find that rebels
are human beings, too."

"Merely a matter of a difference in orientation. And a question for you
to consider is, which orientation actually is correct?"

Maya did not like the direction the conversation was taking. She was
relieved by the appearance of the waiter with their meals of thick,
steaming steaks, with all the necessary trimmings.

"It will be a long time before we can be served anything like this by
teleportation," she said, laughing. "But, Mr. Kensington--"

"Dark, if you don't mind."

"Very well. Dark, you say that you drove here from Mars City. How did
you avoid the copter patrols that were out trying to intercept the
escaping rebels?"

"As a matter of fact, I didn't, and that's a very peculiar thing," he
said thoughtfully. "One of them got me just outside Mars City and
blasted the dome of my groundcar."

"I noticed you were wearing a marsuit when you registered here, and Gren
said you were having the dome repaired."

"That's what's peculiar about it. I wasn't wearing the marsuit when the
copter broke my dome. I didn't have any protection at all. The groundcar
went off the road and overturned. I don't know how long I was
unconscious, but it was evidently long enough for the copter to look me
over, decide I was dead, and move on out of sight. What I can't
understand is why I didn't asphyxiate."

"You mean that you were protected by no oxygen equipment at all?"

"None. I returned to consciousness and I was lying there with the dome
broken wide open and my face bare to the Martian air. I got into my
marsuit right away, of course, but that took a few minutes in addition
to the time I was unconscious. And I didn't feel restricted by the lack
of air. I wasn't even breathing. And I felt that I didn't need to!"

"That is peculiar," she said meditatively. "Tell me, do you know a man
named Goat Hennessey?"

"You're the second person who's asked me that recently," said Dark. "I
knew him well, many years ago, but I haven't seen him in years. Why do
you ask?"

"Because the only case I've heard about of any human being able to live
without oxygen in the Martian atmosphere involved some genetic
experiments of Goat Hennessey, before the government made him stop them
and destroy the creatures he'd been experimenting with."

Dark laughed.

"I can assure you I'm not one of Goat's genetic experiments," he said.
"Goat and I were colleagues in this rebel movement twenty-five years
ago, befo