The station announcer came on screen then and told us what we already knew, that contact with Colonel Sanderson's party was delayed because of transmission difficulties. The Sanderson expedition would leave Mars for Earth in two more days, when the current opposition was completed, but in the meantime the program sponsors appreciated the interest shown by their public and would relay the broadcast to us as soon as contact was established.
A film cartoon featuring a lizard named Freddie came on next, and Larry turned down the sound so he could hear orders for refills. The little man drank his bourbon and water and sneered at his reflection in the mirror; none of us paid him any further attention, but talk started up again along the bar.
Somebody at the other end asked how long it took a television signal to travel across all that space, and choked on his drink when Willard Saxton told him.
"My God," he said when he stopped coughing. "You mean Mars is so far away it takes three minutes just to see it?"
All of us laughed at that but Larry and the little man at the end of the bar.
"What I'm wondering," somebody else said, "Is how the colonel and his boys feel after breathing nothing but canned air for a year."
"Maybe the air up there is better than our scientists think," Abe Marker said. He winked at us and looked at the little man on my right. "How about it, friend? Is the air good on Mars?"
"Breathable, but not good," the little guy said. "It smells like dead fish."
Silence fell along the bar while we waited for a straight man to raise his head.
Willard Saxton took the bait. "And why should it smell so, may I ask?"