Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 212: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

| pulled a wadded-up five-dollar bill out of my pants pocket and tossed it onto the screen. It looked funny ... a five-dollar bill sitting on Mars like that. And in a second it was joined by another fiver and three singles. “Who'll hold the stakes?” Kruger said. “You. You hold 'em—be more fun winning that way. How about a reading, huh? Better get ready to twist this barrel around—” “Such a product of environment you are. Always in a hurry... .” He picked the money up with exaggerated Slowness, pocketed it ceremoniously, and then looked for a second at the screen. Then the ready grin on his squarish, young-old face faded a little, and then it disappeared altogether. “But | suppose you're right. Got a cigarette?” “On the comp-panel.” “Yeah.” | waited for him to light it, lit one myself. “Ready, kid?” He grunted. We twisted her. Tail-first, ion stream cutting the Big Dark like a white-hot rapier, we started—down. There was an up and a down, now, and Mars was at the bottom. We bumped. Then Kruger dumped out our drive potential, and it was all over. For a few seconds, anyway, it was all over. Kruger started in with the Physical Check equipment then and | focused the screen. It was as though the whole business were a routine that we’d done for half our lives. And we had to keep it that way—not for the efficiency side of the book; hell, we had five years if we needed it. It was because Space Medicine said so—the whiz kids _ in Psychiatrics. “Keep it on a ‘pass the salt basis,’ ” were the orders, “and you'll keep all your buttons. Otherwise, pffut!’ CORniclooo SS CO