Ron Clayton wanted to go home.
The Recreation Building was just ahead; at least it would be warm inside. He pushed in through the outer and inner doors, and he heard the burst of music from the jukebox. His stomach tightened up into a hard cramp.
They were playing Heinlein’s Green Hills of Earth.
There was almost no other sound in the room, although it was full of people. There were plenty of colonists who claimed to like Mars, but even they were silent when that song was played.
Clayton wanted to go over and smash the machine—make it stop reminding him. He clenched his teeth and his fists and his eyes and cursed mentally. God, how I hate Mars!
When the hauntingly nostalgic last chorus faded away, he walked over to the machine and fed it full of enough coins to keep it going on something else until he left.
At the bar, he ordered a beer and used it to wash down another oxidation tablet. It wasn’t good beer; it didn’t even deserve the name. The atmospheric pressure was so low as to boil all the carbon dioxide out of it, so the brewers never put it back in after fermentation.
He was sorry for what he had done—really and truly sorry. If they’d only give him one more chance, he’d make good. Just one more chance. He’d work things out.
He’d promised himself that both times they’d put him up before, but things had been different then. He hadn’t really been given another chance, what with parole boards and all.