"Heroes," she said bitterly. "We're not heroes—we're suckers! Why did I ever let you volunteer for the Geig Corps and drag me along?"
Which wasn't anywhere close to the truth. Now I knew she was at the breaking point, because Val didn't lie unless she was so exhausted she didn't know what she was doing. She had been just as much inflamed by the idea of coming to Mars to help in the search for uranium as I was. We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we could do as individuals to keep the industries of radioactives-starved Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us.
No, we had decided together to come to Mars—the way we decided together on everything. Now she was turning against me.
I tried to jolly her. "Buck up, kid," I said. I didn't dare turn up her oxy pressure any higher, but it was obvious she couldn't keep going. She was almost sleep-walking now.
We pressed on over the barren terrain. The geiger kept up a fairly steady click-pattern, but never broke into that sudden explosive tumult that meant we had found pay-dirt. I started to feel tired myself, terribly tired. I longed to lie down on the soft, spongy Martian sand and bury myself.
I looked at Val. She was dragging along with her eyes half-shut. I felt almost guilty for having dragged her out to Mars, until I recalled that I hadn't. In fact, she had come up with the idea before I did. I wished there was some way of turning the weary, bedraggled girl at my side back into the Val who had so enthusiastically suggested we join the Geigs.
Twelve steps later, I decided this was about as far as we could go.
I stopped, slipped out of the geiger harness, and lowered myself ponderously to the ground. "What'samatter, Ron?" Val asked sleepily. "Something wrong?"
"No, baby," I said, putting out a hand and taking hers. "I think we ought to rest a little before we go any further. It's been a long, hard day."