The single ship was the only link between the two planets, and it represented earth's greatest extravagance in history. The passengers, replacements for eighty mine workers who had served their four years and 100 days contract time, provided the essential manpower. For them it was important work and brought them not only the $100,000 contract fee, but also membership in the highly honored and exclusive fellowship of the Mars Society. Back on earth they were assured a life-long position of fame and wealth. To facilitate the recruiting of future crews, public relations man, Peter Duncan, was to see to it that romance and glamour surrounded the Mars Society with honor bright and a yard wide.
And it wasn't easy. The rigors of the round trip, alone, were no secret on earth. After thirty years operation, most visions of romance in space flight had been dissipated by the grim details of the stomach-wrenching journey.
Duncan was new to the job. And too young for the job, he had thought. But now the joker was apparent. Senior publicity men in the employ of General Fission enjoyed the high pay and conventional public relations work with their feet comfortably secure on earth. But G.F. needed a 25-year-old for this assignment that broke all precedents. Experience came only with age. And age was the disqualifier for space ship travel. It was not his Phi Beta Kappa key his employers admired, but his youthful circulatory system, his sturdy, compact skeletal structure and above all his emotional stability quotient.
And the world-shaking assignment for this proud package of manhood was to track down the meaning and implications of a song. A song that had seeped out of the bistros and night clubs of earth, a song that could have no other origin than returned space miners. There were endless verses to it, but the last lines were always similar. Several stanzas ran through Duncan's brain to the tune of the ancient patriotic ballad, America The Beautiful.
Farewell to Mars
And frigid stars
That light the rusty sands!
My one regret:
I'll not forget
Those ever-loving hands.