HAPPY RAIN NIGHT
By DEAN EVANS
It was the Big Sleep for those at Residential
Number 327 this night ... this very dark Martian
night ... this very good night for the Synthi-Rain.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was the eve of the annual synthi-rain and all Mars was settling down for the big sleep that always went with it. Everything was ready, reso-skins had been peeled off the pumps a week before.
Uh huh, thought the lone attendant at the fuelport outside the city. You could tell everything was ready, even the traffic was thinning. Hadn't been a 'copter or anything in for fuel in the last ten minutes.
He eyed the wall clock inside his cubicle. Almost eleven. Might as well close up and go on home, there wouldn't be any more customers in tonight.
He suddenly decided to modify that thought as an old hull-weary job came banging clumsily down into cradle number one and slumped, little vibration tentacles rippling here and there over its surface. He sighed, went out the lock, went over to the cradle.
There was a woman in the ship. Not much of a woman, but you never knew what the big gambling city of Fraon would draw next in the line of tourists. All kinds.