My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. "What are you trying to say, Mickey?"
"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor of White Sands Port." He raised his hand to stop me. "I know. It's not so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben."
I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my knees with the blast of a jet.
"It doesn't change anything, Ben—right now, I mean. We can still have a good weekend."
Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to reach critical mass. I shook my head dazedly at him as we got to the 'copter.
"Sure," I said to Mickey, "we can still have a good weekend."
I liked your folks, Laura. There was no star-hunger in them, of course. They were simple and solid and settled, like green growing things, deep-rooted, belonging to Earth. They were content with a home that was cool on this warm summer night, with a 'copter and a tri-dimensional video, and a handsome automatic home that needed no servants or housework.
Stardust Charlie was as comfortable as a Martian sand-monkey in a shower, but he tried courageously to be himself.
At the dinner table he stared glassily at nothing and grated, "Only hit Mars once, but I'll never forget the kid who called himself a medic. Skipper started coughing, kept it up for three days. Whoopin' cough, the medic says, not knowin' the air had chemicals that turned to acid in your lungs. I'd never been to Mars before, but I knew better'n that. Hell, I says, that ain't whoopin' cough, that's lung-rot."