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.

From a distance, another voice said: "Who is it?"

The blurred face said: "I don't know. He was asleep behind these cases.
I think he's drunk."

Clayton wasn't drunk--he was sick. His head felt like hell. Where the
devil was he?

"Get up, bud. Come on, get up!"