ot quite sober enough
to look natural. But people tell me that all doctors act somewhat alike,
even when they aren't very good doctors." He drained his glass with one
gulp.

"My wife was sent to Mars," Greg blurted the words out. He turned to the
stranger.

"There must be some way I can bring her back!"

"Don't proposition me, fellow," the strange doctor said, blinking but
keeping his eyes boring into Greg's face. "You're talking to the wrong
person, if you want one of those little operations."

Greg shook his head. "I thought of that. I went to one doctor. He told
me the scar wouldn't heal for six months.... She'll be married again by
that time."

The stranger pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment. Then he looked
away from Greg and began to speak lowly, as if he were talking to
himself.

"I've run across other people in your situation. Space freighters go
close to Mars' surface and parachute equipment down. The passenger ships
stay further away and send people down in little auxiliary ships. I've
never heard of anyone smuggling himself to Mars, you understand, but if
you tried to--"

"What I want is a freighter that actually will land on Mars."

"You won't find any," the doctor said. "It takes too much fuel to take
off again. This way, they can carry twice as much load, by just circling
the planet close to the surface." He stopped, looked at Greg
quizzically. "Funny thing about cancer--you study it since you learned
the bad news? No? Well, the cure is something like the disease these
days. Cancer is caused by cells that are harmful to the other cells in
the body and grow too fast. So we're deporting people who might be
harmful to other people by propagating the disease. Then there's
metastasis."

"What's that?"

"Metastasis--the migration of cancer cells. They move from one part of
the body to the other."

"Like we're moving people to Mars?" Greg laughed tiredly and started to
get up.

"Take it easy, bud." A hand was on Greg's shoulder, and the doctor's
voice was in his ear. "We've all got troubles. Look up this guy, if you
really want to do something about the wife and kids." A hand slipped a
card into Greg's pocket.

* * * * *

"What can you do?" The recruiting officer eyed Greg suspiciously.

"Anything." Greg spoke slowly, his eyes on the officer. "A fellow gave
me this card, and told me I could get work on a freighter at this
address."

The man glanced at t