With a song in their hearts the
celibates of Mars gaily relived—
THE GEISHA MEMORY
By WINSTON MARKS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Peter Duncan lay strapped, drugged and supine on one of the eighty narrow bucket-couches on the passenger deck and was miserably, continuously sick. It was not a nice steady nausea that a man could adjust to. Nor even a rhythmic vertigo like one suffered from an ocean liner wallowing in ground swells. It was a shifting, sliding instability in three dimensions, as the Mars-bound vessel responded to automatic radar controls.
The concept of interplanetary space being empty was long since an exploded myth Duncan was reminded as the space ship veered, accelerated, decelerated and corrected course to avoid collision with meteorites approaching from thousands of miles away.
That seventy-nine other passengers and the whole crew were suffering as much as he, was little comfort. They, at least, had a substantial reason for being here. Aside from the money, in which Duncan, too, shared, these others were vital players in an enormous game, supplying energy-starved earth with fissionable materials from the inexhaustible mines of Mars.