Mrs. Ericson adjusted her polaroid glasses and waved her rickshaw boy into his harness, where his thighs tensed for the long haul. He was an incredibly huge man, taller even than those specially-bred movie stars, who averaged eight feet tall. Madeleine felt faint and clung to her camel. The Martian camels were coughing and wheezing and the sun glared horribly in the early afternoon. Mr. Ericson looked with guarded apprehension at the six-legged camel. Don pulled him aboard. "What a helluva beast!" laughed Ericson. Earth camels specially bred by the big travel agencies to have a so-called "unearthly" appearance. Sad creatures with two extra, dangling limbs and a single, half-blind, blood-shot eye, watery and humbly resentful. Pathetic mutation, Madeleine thought. Like those horrid rat-fish, like the canals and the games and the ruins and those silly rituals. All ersatz. The caravan moved along the high ridge, a narrow trail that wound back toward Martian Haven along the edge of the eroded cliffs. "Maybe the only thing that would satisfy Madeleine," her father said, "would be a real Martian." "But that's not in the brochure," Don said. "What's Mars without a Martian?" giggled Mrs. Ericson. In her own insular little world, which had been the only one Madeleine had ever been able to tolerate at all, she swayed and bumped to the camel's movements. "One thing sure, Don," she said softly. "There were _real_ Martians once. So why all the phony props? You can't tell me this nonsense is better than the facts about the real Martians." "Ask the boys who built this place. They hired me, they make the rules," Don said. He did not look at her. "How did you ever end up with a job like this, Don?" "The outfit that built the Haven hired all the old Martian colonists and their descendants, any who wanted to work for them. So I took a job. Pay's good. It's seasonal. Anyway, I like Mars." "Sure," she said. "You must love it--to corrupt it like this." "Mars was here, it'll still be here after the last tourist goes." She laughed thinly. Don, with her, was trying to play another role, one he hoped she might find interesting. "You're a symbol of the phoniness, Don. Trained in the special host schools. Selected for your beautiful resemblance to a statue of Adonis. Artificially created to be an ever-smiling host of good-will, just like these pathetic camels have been bred for an exotic touch. No real intelligence, Don, nor originality. And everything you do or say is right out of the text book on how to make friends and influence tourists." Don didn't look at her. His fingers trembled on the camel's reins. "What is this fascinating-sounding 'Ritual of Love' going to be like?" giggled Mrs. Ericson.