Clayton closed his eyes and finished the beer. He ordered another.
He’d worked in the mines for fifteen years. It wasn’t that he minded work really, but the foreman had it in for him. Always giving him a bad time; always picking out the lousy jobs for him.
Like the time he’d crawled into a side-boring in Tunnel 12 for a nap during lunch and the foreman had caught him. When he promised never to do it again if the foreman wouldn’t put it on report, the guy said, “Yeah. Sure. Hate to hurt a guy’s record.”
Then he’d put Clayton on report anyway. Strictly a rat.
Not that Clayton ran any chance of being fired; they never fired anybody. But they’d fined him a day’s pay. A whole day’s pay.
He tapped his glass on the bar, and the barman came over with another beer. Clayton looked at it, then up at the barman. “Put a head on it.”
The bartender looked at him sourly. “I’ve got some soapsuds here, Clayton, and one of these days I’m gonna put some in your beer if you keep pulling that gag.”
That was the trouble with some guys. No sense of humor.
Somebody came in the door and then somebody else came in behind him, so that both inner and outer doors were open for an instant. A blast of icy breeze struck Clayton’s back, and he shivered. He started to say something, then changed his mind; the doors were already closed again, and besides, one of the guys was bigger than he was.
The iciness didn’t seem to go away immediately. It was like the mine. Little old Mars was cold clear down to her core—or at least down as far as they’d drilled. The walls were frozen and seemed to radiate a chill that pulled the heat right out of your blood.