"There comes a time," the man said carefully, "when the fingers refuse to clench the glass with sufficient resistance. At that point, you begin to pass out." The stranger raised his glass with only slight effort, and watched Greg apply time and thought to the same procedure. "You remind me of the way some doctors talk," Greg said. "I never forget a patient," the stranger said, peering intently at Greg, "and you aren't one of mine, even though you're not quite sober enough to look natural. But people tell me that all doctors act somewhat alike, even when they aren't very good doctors." He drained his glass with one gulp. "My wife was sent to Mars," Greg blurted the words out. He turned to the stranger. "There must be some way I can bring her back!" "Don't proposition me, fellow," the strange doctor said, blinking but keeping his eyes boring into Greg's face. "You're talking to the wrong person, if you want one of those little operations." Greg shook his head. "I thought of that. I went to one doctor. He told me the scar wouldn't heal for six months.... She'll be married again by that time." The stranger pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment. Then he looked away from Greg and began to speak lowly, as if he were talking to himself. "I've run across other people in your situation. Space freighters go close to Mars' surface and parachute equipment down. The passenger ships stay further away and send people down in little auxiliary ships. I've never heard of anyone smuggling himself to Mars, you understand, but if you tried to--" "What I want is a freighter that actually will land on Mars." "You won't find any," the doctor said. "It takes too much fuel to take off again. This way, they can carry twice as much load, by just circling the planet close to the surface." He stopped, looked at Greg quizzically. "Funny thing about cancer--you study it since you learned the bad news? No? Well, the cure is something like the disease these days. Cancer is caused by cells that are harmful to the other cells in the body and grow too fast. So we're deporting people who might be harmful to other people by propagating the disease. Then there's metastasis." "What's that?" "Metastasis--the migration of cancer cells. They move from one part of the body to the other." "Like we're moving people to Mars?" Greg laughed tiredly and started to get up. "Take it easy, bud." A hand was on Greg's shoulder, and the doctor's voice was in his ear. "We've all got troubles. Look up this guy, if you really want to do something about the wife and kids." A hand slipped a card into Greg's pocket. * * * * * "What can you do?" The recruiting officer eyed Greg suspiciously. "Anything." Greg spoke slowly, his eyes on the officer. "A fellow gave me this card, and told me I could get work on a freighter at this address."