Larry muttered and looked mulish, but he rang up the little man's money and gave him a bourbon and water. The little guy drank it and looked at himself in the bar mirror with an expression that was just short of being a sneer. Larry grunted and went back to fiddling with the television set. Abe Marker came over and sat down on the stool to my left. "They're doing this all over town tonight," he said, explaining to the little man across me. "The bars have to observe curfew as usual, but most of them are letting a few regular customers stay late to see the Marscast. Everybody is anxious to know what Colonel Sanderson and his crew found up there, so--" "They're going to be disappointed," the little man said. He sounded sour but positive. "Mars ain't what people think it is, not by a hell of a sight. It stinks." We all looked up at that, and somebody snickered. "Have you been to Mars, sir?" The little man didn't seem to mind when we laughed. "Maybe," he said, and shoved his shot glass forward. "Another bourbon, bartender." * * * * * 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?" "Because Mars is lousy with fish," the little man said. "And because when fish die, they stink."