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Updated: June 6, 2025
She'd wanted it so much that she'd almost come to believe that it was real. He turned the pages of the smooth, glossy brochure. Its cover bore the picture of the great Martian Princess and the blazoned emblem of Connemorra Space Lines.
Surely there was no possibility that the great Connemorra Lines would plan any procedure to the detriment of the more than five thousand passengers aboard the ship. His uneasiness was pretty stupid, he thought. But it wouldn't go away. He returned to the crowd clustered at the viewing screen and took Alice by the arm to draw her away. She looked quizzically at him.
Inside were glistening photos of the plush interior of the great vacation liner, and pictures of the domed cities of Mars where Earthmen played more than they worked. Mars had become the great resort center of Earth. Mel closed the book and glanced again at the Connemorra name. Only one man had ever amassed the resources necessary to operate a private space line.
Jim Connemorra had done it; no one knew quite how. But he operated now out of both hemispheres with a space line that ignored freight and dealt only in passenger business. He made money, on a scale that no government-operated line had yet been able to approach. Mel sank down to the floor, continuing to shift through the other things in the drawer. His hand stopped.
He felt the stickiness, but the red blood was not welling out. Instead, a thick bubble of green ooze moved from the wound and spread over his clothes and his hand. An alien greenness that was like nothing human. He had seen it once before. Alice. He stared up at Connemorra with wide, wondering eyes. "Everything went wrong, my poor android," said Connemorra softly.
The demand is so great and the ship capacity so small that we must limit vacation trips to no more than one in any ten-year period." He turned away and went down the hall and out the doorway of the marble and brass Connemorra Lines Building. He walked through town for six blocks and the thought of old Jake Norton came to his mind. Jake had been an old timer in the city room when Mel was a cub.
An aura that Mel Hastings recognized. "James Connemorra!" Mel exclaimed. The man bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Yes, Mr. Hastings," he said. Mel was dismayed. "How do you know who I am?" he said. James Connemorra looked through the port beside Mel and at the stars beyond. "I have been looking for you long enough I ought to know who you are." Something in the man's voice chilled Mel.
Why was she different after her trip to Mars?" James Connemorra was silent for so long that Mel thought he had not heard him. "Is everyone different when they get back?" Mel demanded. "Does something happen to everybody who takes the Mars trip, the same thing that happened to Alice?" "You learned so much," said Connemorra, speaking as if to himself, "I had to hunt you down and bring you here."
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