EDUCATION OF A MARTIAN By JOSEPH SHALLIT Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] It was for his ideals Joyce loved the alien. But ideals are conditioned reflexes.... Walter Harley glowered across the room at his daughter. He didn't like the willful tone that crept into her voice these days; he didn't like the way her gray eyes spread wide at him, the way her lips tensed, the way she drew herself up, tall and slim, an arch of determination. The darned girl had grown up too fast, that was the trouble. Joyce faced up to his scowl, shaky as she was. She knew what he was thinking, because he had told her enough times--she was a headstrong girl without a brain cell to her name; her college education had been a waste; worse than that, it had pumped her full of crazy ideas, had knocked her sense of values upside down. "How anybody in their right mind...." he growled at her. "Listen, you've already been to Mars. You've seen it. What do you want to go to that miserable, dried-up hole again for?" "Because ... because I was happy there," she said tremulously. "What? With those miserable savages?" He slapped his euphoria pipe down on the table. "Ethel, will you listen to that?" Joyce's mother, plump and round-shouldered and vague-eyed, was deep in her reclining chair, the miniature transviewer on her lap, watching a garden party in Rome. "What is it, dear?" she asked unhappily. "This crazy girl wants to take her vacation on Mars again." "Well ... it _is_ educational," Ethel said. Harley made a wild, exasperated sound. "What do you know about it? You've never been there. It's a dried-up hole, I tell you. It's a slum--it's one great big slum. Just one decent hotel in the whole place, and that's only because some of our boys went out there and put it up for them." "That awful hotel--" Joyce caught herself. Not an argument about this, please! There was trouble enough waiting for her. "I wouldn't stay at the hotel," she said quietly. "What do you mean? Where would you stay?" "With some people I know there." She saw his heavy eyebrows clench, saw his eyes search her suspiciously. She heard her mother's uneasy movements. She sat tautly, her hands in her lap. "Who," Harley said finally, "are these people?" "Just ... some friends," Joyce said. Now it was coming, now, now. "What friends?" Her father's voice was lower, harsher. "Just some people I met when I was there last time." "Just some.... Say! Is this why we've been running up these solarphone bills? What've you been doing--talking to these people every week?" "Only a few times."