"Maybe." Kuna's eyes wandered round to Tex. "But why should I take the chance?"
He was shaken suddenly by a fit of coughing. When he spoke again, his voice had risen and grown tight as a violin string.
"Why should I stay here and cough my guts out for something that will never be anyway?"
"Because," said Breska grimly, "on Mars there are men and women breaking their backs and their hearts, to get enough bread out of the deserts. You're a city man, Kuna. Have you ever seen the famines that sweep the drylands? Have you ever seen men with their ribs cutting through the skin? Women and children with faces like skulls?
"That's why I'm here, coughing my guts out in this stinking fog. Because people need land to grow food on, and water to grow it with."
Kuna's dark eyes rolled, and Tex frowned. He'd seen that same starry look in the eyes of cattle on the verge of a stampede.
"What's the bellyache?" he said sharply. "You volunteered, didn't you?"
"I didn't know what it meant," Kuna whispered, and coughed. "I'll die if I stay here. I don't want to die!"
"What," Breska said gently, "are you going to do about it?"
Kuna smiled. "She was beautiful, wasn't she, Tex?"