"_Forget it!_" I nodded at the bartender and held up two fingers. "You need another drink," I said. "The thing is," I said, "Gilvey used to do that." "What?" "That cough." She looked puzzled. "You mean like this?" "_Goddam it, stop it!_" Even the bartender looked over at me that time. Now she was really mad, but I didn't want her to go away. I said, "Gilvey was a fellow who went to Mars with me. Pat Gilvey." "_Oh._" She sat down again and leaned across the table, low. "_Mars._" * * * * * The bartender brought our drinks and looked at me suspiciously. I said, "Say, Mac, would you turn down the air-conditioning?" "My name isn't Mac. No." "Have a heart. It's too cold in here." "Sorry." He didn't sound sorry. I was cold. I mean that kind of weather, it's always cold in those places. You know around New York in August? It hits eighty, eighty-five, ninety. All the places have air-conditioning and what they really want is for you to wear a shirt and tie. But I like to walk a lot. You would, too, you know. And you can't walk around much in long pants and a suit coat and all that stuff. Not around there. Not in August. And so then, when I went into a bar, it'd have one of those built-in freezers for the used-car salesmen with their dates, or maybe their wives, all dressed up. For what? But I froze. "_Mars_," the girl breathed. "_Mars._" I began to itch again. "Want to dance?" "They don't have a license," she said. "Byron, _I_ didn't know you'd been to _Mars_! Please _tell_ me about it." "It was all right," I said. That was a lie. She was interested. She forgot to smile. It made her look nicer. She said, "I knew a man--my brother-in-law--he was my husband's brother--I mean my ex-husband--" "I get the idea." "He worked for General Atomic. In Rockford, Illinois. You know where that is?" "Sure." I couldn't go there, but I knew where Illinois was. "He worked on the first Mars ship. Oh, fifteen years ago, wasn't it? He always wanted to go himself, but he couldn't pass the tests." She stopped and looked at me. I knew what she was thinking. But I didn't always look this way, you know. Not that there's anything wrong with me now, I mean, but I couldn't pass the tests any more. Nobody can. That's why we're all one-trippers. I said, "The only reason I'm shaking like this is because I'm cold." It wasn't true, of course. It was that cough of Gilvey's. I didn't like to think about Gilvey, or Sam or Chowderhead or Wally or the captain. I didn't like to think about any of them. It made me shake. You see, we couldn't kill each other. They wouldn't let us do that. Before we took off, they did something to our minds to make sure. What they did, it doesn't last forever. It lasts for two years and then it wears off. That's long enough, you see, because that gets you to Mars and back; and it's plenty long enough, in another way, because it's like a strait-jacket.