“You can stretch your legs inside the ship. You know and I know that walking around in a space-suit is no particularly pleasant exercise. And as for being on the surface of another world, you’ve already done that, O’Brien, yesterday, in the ceremony where we laid down the marker.”

O’Brien glanced past him to the engine-room porthole. Through it, he could see the small white pyramid they had planted outside. On each of its three sides was the same message in a different language: English, Russian, Hindustani. First Terrestrial Expedition to Mars. In the Name of Human Life.

Cute touch, that. And typically Indian. But pathetic. Like everything else about this expedition, plain pathetic.

“You’re too valuable to risk, O’Brien,” Ghose was explaining. “We found that out on the way here. No human brain can extemporize suddenly necessary course changes with the speed and accuracy of those computers. And, since you helped design them, no one can handle those computers as well as you. So my order stands.”

“Oh, come now, it’s not that bad: you’d always have Kolevitch.”

“As you remarked just a moment ago, Semyon Kolevitch isn’t enough of an electronic technician. If anything went wrong with the computers, we’d have to call in Smathers and use the two of them in tandem—not the most efficient working arrangement there is. And I suspect that Smathers plus Kolevitch still would not quite equal Preston O’Brien. No, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we can’t take chances: you’re too close to being indispensable.”

“All right,” O’Brien said softly. “The order stands. But allow me a small disagreement, Captain. You know and I know that there’s only one indispensable man aboard this ship. And it isn’t me.”

Ghose grunted and turned away. Guranin and Smathers came in, having shed their space suits in the airlock at the belly of the craft. The captain and the chief engineer had a brief English colloquy, at the end of which, with only the barest resistance, Guranin agreed to lend Smathers to O’Brien.