Badge of Infamy | Page 9

charge-indicator for the battery. It showed
half-charge. Then he saw that someone had attached another battery
beside it. He puzzled briefly over it, but his immediate concern was for
shelter.
Apparently he was still where he had been knocked out. There was a
light coming from the little station, and he headed toward that,
fumbling for the few quarters that represented his entire fortune.
Maybe it would have been better if the tubemen had killed him.
Batteries were an absolute necessity here, food and shelter would be
expensive, and he had no skills to earn his way. At most, he had only a
day or so left. But meantime, he had to find warmth before the cold
killed him.

The tiny restaurant in the station was still open, and the air was warm
inside. He pulled off the aspirator, shutting off the battery.
The counterman didn't even glance up as he entered. Feldman gazed at
the printed menu and flinched.
"Soup," he ordered. It was the cheapest item he could find.
The counterman stared at him, obviously spotting his Earth origin.
"You adjusted to synthetics?"
Feldman nodded. Earth operated on a mixed diet, with synthetics for all
who couldn't afford the natural foods there. But Mars was all synthetic.
Many of the chemicals in food could exist in either of two forms, or
isomers; they were chemically alike, but differently crystallized.
Sometimes either form was digestible, but frequently the body could
use only the isomer to which it was adjusted.
Martian plants produced different isomers from those on Earth. Since
the synthetic foods turned out to be Mars-normal, that was probably the
more natural form. Research designed to let the early colonists live off
native food here had turned up an enzyme that enabled the body to
handle either isomer. In a few weeks of eating Martian or synthetic
food, the body adapted; without more enzyme, it lost its power to
handle Earth-normal food.
The cheapness of synthetics and the discovery that many diseases
common to Earth would not attack Mars-normal bodies led to the wide
use of synthetics on Earth. No pariah could have been expected to
afford Earth-normal.
Feldman finished the soup, and found a cigarette that was smokable.
"Any objections if I sit in the waiting room?"
He'd expected a rejection, but the counterman only shrugged. The
waiting room was almost dark and the air was chilly, but there was
normal pressure. He found a bench and slumped onto it, lighting his
cigarette. He'd miss the smokes--but probably not for long. He finished

the cigarette reluctantly and sat huddled on the bench, waiting for
morning.
The airlock opened later, and feet sounded on the boards of the
waiting-room floor, but he didn't look up until a thin beam of light hit
him. Then he sighed and nodded. The shoes, made of some odd fiber,
didn't look like those of a cop, but this was Mars. He could see only a
hulking shadow behind the light.
"You the man who was a medical doctor?" The voice was dry and old.
"Yeah," Feldman answered. "Once."
"Good. Thought that space crewman was just lying drunk at first. Come
along, Doc."
"Why?" It didn't matter, but if they wanted him to move on, they'd have
to push a little harder.
The light swung up to show the other. He was the shade of old leather
with a bleached patch of sandy hair and the deepest gray eyes Feldman
had ever seen. It was a face that could have belonged to a country
storekeeper in New England, with the same hint of dry humor. The man
was dressed in padded levis and a leather jacket of unguessable age.
His aspirator seemed worn and patched, and one big hand fumbled with
it.
"Because we're friends, Doc," the voice drawled at him. "Because you
might as well come with us as sit here. Maybe we have a job for you."
Feldman shrugged and stood up. If the man was a Lobby policeman, he
was different from the usual kind. Nothing could be worse than the
present prospects.
They went out through the doors of the waiting room toward a
rattletrap vehicle. It looked something like a cross between a
schoolboy's jalopy and a scaled-down army tank of former times. The
treads were caterpillar style, and the stubby body was completely

enclosed. A tiny airlock stuck out from the rear.
Two men were inside, both bearded. The old man grinned at them.
"Mark, Lou, meet Doc Feldman. Sit, Doc. I'm Jake Mullens, and you
might say we were farmers."
The motor started with a wheeze. The tractor swung about and began
heading away from Southport toward the desert dunes. It shook and
rattled, but it seemed to make good time.
"I don't know anything about farming," Feldman protested.