Probably bringing another load of poor suckers to freeze to death on Mars.
That was the thing he hated about Mars—the cold. The everlasting damned cold! And the oxidation pills; take one every three hours or smother in the poor, thin air.
The government could have put up domes; it could have put in building-to-building tunnels, at least. It could have done a hell of a lot of things to make Mars a decent place for human beings.
But no—the government had other ideas. A bunch of bigshot scientific characters had come up with the idea nearly twenty-three years before. Clayton could remember the words on the sheet he had been given when he was sentenced.
“Mankind is inherently an adaptable animal. If we are to colonize the planets of the Solar System, we must meet the conditions on those planets as best we can.
“Financially, it is impracticable to change an entire planet from its original condition to one which will support human life as it exists on Terra.
“But man, since he is adaptable, can change himself—modify his structure slightly—so that he can live on these planets with only a minimum of change in the environment.”
So they made you live outside and like it. So you froze and you choked and you suffered.
Clayton hated Mars. He hated the thin air and the cold. More than anything, he hated the cold.