The Earthman was Myron Digby, member of Earth’s General Assembly. Sankov was Martian Commissioner.
Sankov said, “This all hits us hard, Assemblyman.”
“It’s hit most of us hard, too, Commissioner.”
“Uh-huh. Can’t honestly say then that I can make it out. Of course, you understand, I don’t make out that I can understand Earth ways, for all that I was born there. Mars is a hard place to live, Assemblyman, and you have to understand that. It takes a lot of shipping space just to bring us food, water, and raw materials so we can live. There’s not much room left for books and news films. Even video programs can’t reach Mars, except for about a month when Earth is in conjunction, and even then nobody has much time to listen.
“My office gets a weekly summary film from Planetary Press. Generally, I don’t have time to pay attention to it. Maybe you’d call us provincial, and you’d be right. When something like this happens, all we can do is kind of helplessly look at each other.”
Digby said slowly, “You can’t mean that your people on Mars haven’t heard of Hilder’s anti-Waster campaign.”
“No, can’t exactly say that. There’s a young Scavenger, son of a good friend of mine who died in space”—Sankov scratched the side of his neck doubtfully—“who makes a hobby out of reading up on Earth history and things like that. He catches video broadcasts when he’s out in space and he listened to this man Hilder. Near as 1 can make out, that was the first talk Hilder made about Wasters.
“The young fellow came to me with that. Naturally, I didn’t take him very serious. I kept an eye on the Planetary Press films for a while after that, but there wasn’t much mention of Hilder and what there was made him out to look pretty funny.”
“Yes, Commissioner,” said Digby, “it all seemed quite a joke when it started.”
Sankov stretched out a pair of long legs to one side of his desk and crossed them at the ankles. “Seems to me it’s still pretty much of a joke. What’s his argument? We’re using up water. Has he tried looking at some figures? I got them all here. Had them brought to me when this committee arrived.