"You were led to believe that a kiss would cost you only $10,000.00. Well, you were misled. The price is $20,000, and the market is wide open. Any one of us will accommodate you, but you'll have to pay our fine as well as your own." Duncan gasped at her first words, then, as they sank in, he smiled. Morale, good. Morals, even better if this wasn't just an act. Applause was enthusiastic, but there were no whistles. Bowen came up again as the girl sat down. "Remember that, gentlemen. You came up here to earn a tenth of a million dollars. Believe me, you'll earn it. But don't kiss it away. It's only worth five kisses up here, and these girls will put you on report if you lay a finger on them. If they don't, _they_ go on report." * * * * * The first two days were spent unloading supply cargo and stowing it. The out-going passengers took care of loading the stockpile of concentrated minerals, so Duncan had no chance to talk with them. On the third morning the ship was launched. The bustle of activity died, and Duncan moved into the smooth mining routine like the polished cog that he was. Personnel training was done on earth. All were preassigned to their tasks, so the old crews had only to point. The mining operations went on as if no replacements had been made. The men's work was roughly divided into outside and inside work. Duncan's inside specialty was feeding samples to a spectrograph and assisting the nuclear chemist in charge of the lab. On alternate days he took his turn in the field tending excavating equipment. Since the mine was located near the equator, this alternation of the whole crew was necessary to reduce exposure to the miniature sun that provided so little useful heat, yet whose ultra-violet pierced the cloudless, thin atmosphere with vicious intensity. No one went hungry, but as the weeks passed the seeming variety of food rations disappeared. The monotony of dehydrated vegetables and meats palled. But worst was the silence. For ten hours each day almost no communication passed among the workers. All breathable oxygen had to be extracted from the oxides of minerals, and the by-product oxygen from the mining operation was barely enough to supply the total demands of their masks. So even the inside working areas were left to Mars' unbreathable gases, and masks could be removed only in off-duty quarters. Chief occupations in off-hours were games of chess, reading, writing and activities that used a minimum of conversation. No one felt like talking much after a full shift of sucking hard at oxygen to keep up with his body's demand. Although the lessened gravity appeared to make all physical labor easy, Duncan could never remember such complete fatigue at the end of a working day. He ate, worked, played chess and slept 10 hours a day.