have to take those pills, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"I had to take them once. Got stranded on Luna. The cat I was in broke
down eighty some miles from Aristarchus Base and I had to walk
back--with my oxy low. Well, I figured--"

* * * * *

Clayton listened to Parks' story with a great show of attention, but he
had heard it before. This "lost on the moon" stuff and its variations
had been going the rounds for forty years. Every once in a while, it
actually did happen to someone; just often enough to keep the story
going.

This guy did have a couple of new twists, but not enough to make the
story worthwhile.

"Boy," Clayton said when Parks had finished, "you were lucky to come out
of that alive!"

Parks nodded, well pleased with himself, and bought another round of
drinks.

"Something like that happened to me a couple of years ago," Clayton
began. "I'm supervisor on the third shift in the mines at Xanthe, but at
the time, I was only a foreman. One day, a couple of guys went to a
branch tunnel to--"

It was a very good story. Clayton had made it up himself, so he knew
that Parks had never heard it before. It was gory in just the right
places, with a nice effect at the end.

"--so I had to hold up the rocks with my back while the rescue crew
pulled the others out of the tunnel by crawling between my legs.
Finally, they got some steel beams down there to take the load off, and
I could let go. I was in the hospital for a week," he finished.

Parks was nodding vaguely. Clayton looked up at the clock above the bar
and realized that they had been talking for better than an hour. Parks
was buying another round.

Parks was a hell of a nice fellow.

There was, Clayton found, only one trouble with Parks. He got to talking
so loud that the bartender refused to serve either one of them any more.

* * * * *

The bartender said Clayton was getting loud, too, but it was just
because he had to talk loud to make Parks hear him.

Clayton helped Parks put his mask and parka on and they walked out into
the cold night.

Parks began to sing _Green Hills_. About halfway through, he stopped and
turned to Clayton.

"I'm from Indiana."

Clayton had already spotted him as an American by his accent.

"Indiana? That's nice. Real nice."

"Yeah. You talk about green hills, we got green hills in Indiana. What
time is it?"

Clayton told him.

"Jeez-krise! Ol' spash