"Thanks." Bob grinned, embarrassed. He patted the coat. "But look, it's all creased. I thought you were going to have the darn thing cleaned."

"It'll be all right." Joan started up the bed-maker. The bed-maker smoothed out the sheets and blankets, folding them in place. The spread settled carefully around the pillows. "After you've had it on awhile it'll look just lovely. Bob, you're the fussiest man I know."

"Sorry, honey," Bob murmured.

"What's wrong?" Joan came up to him and put her hand on his broad shoulder. "Are you worried about something?"

"No."

"Tell me."

Bob began to unfasten his uniform. "It's nothing important. I didn't want to bother you. Erickson called me at work yesterday to tell me my group is up again. Seems they're calling two groups at once now. I thought I wouldn't get jerked out for another six months."

"Oh, Bob! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Erickson and I talked a long time. 'For God's sake!' I told him. 'I was just up.' 'I know that, Bob,' he said, 'I'm sorry as hell about it but there's nothing I can do. We're all in the same boat. Anyhow, it won't last long. Might as well get it over with. It's the Martian situation. They're all hot and bothered about it.' That's what he said. He was nice about it. Erickson's a pretty good guy for a Sector Organizer."

"When – when do you have to go?"

Bob looked at his watch. "I have to get down to the field by noon. Gives me three hours."

"When will you be back?"

"Oh, I should be back in a couple of days – if everything goes all right. You know how these things are. It varies. Remember last October when I was gone a whole week? But that's unusual. They rotate the groups so fast now you're practically back before you start."

Tommy came strolling in from the kitchen. "What's up, Dad?" He noticed the uniform. "Say, your group up again?"

"That's right."

Tommy grinned from ear to ear, a delighted teenage grin. "You going to get in on the Martian business? I was following it over the vidscreen. Those Martians look like a bunch of dry weeds tied together in a bundle. You guys sure ought to be able to blow them apart."

Bob laughed, whacking his son on the back. "You tell 'em, Tommy."

"I sure wish I was coming."

Bob's expression changed. His eyes became hard like gray flint. "No, you don't, kid. Don't say that."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"I didn't mean anything," Tommy muttered.

Bob laughed easily. "Forget it. Now all of you clear out so I can change."

Joan and Tommy left the room. The door slid shut. Bob dressed swiftly, tossing his robe and pajamas on the bed and pulling his dark green uniform around him. He laced his boots up and then opened the door.

Joan had got his suitcase from the hall closet. "You'll want this, won't you?" she asked.

"Thanks." Bob picked up the suitcase. "Let's go out to the car." Tommy was already absorbed at the vidscreen, beginning his schoolwork for the day. A biology lesson moved slowly across the screen.

Bob and Joan walked down the front steps and along the path to their surface car, parked at the edge of the road. The door opened as they approached. Bob threw his suitcase inside and sat down behind the wheel.

"Why do we have to fight the Martians?" Joan asked suddenly. "Tell me, Bob. Tell me why."

Bob lit a cigarette. He let the gray smoke drift around the cabin of the car. "Why? You know as well as I do." He reached out a big hand and thumped the handsome control board of the car. "Because of this."

"What do you mean?"

"The control mechanism needs rexeroid. And the only rexeroid deposits in the whole system are on Mars. If we lose Mars we lose this." He ran his hand over the gleaming control board. "And if we lose this how are we going to get around? Answer me that."

"Can't we go back to manual steering?"

"We could ten years ago. But ten years ago we were driving less than a hundred miles per hour. No human being could steer at the speeds these days. We couldn't go back to manual steering without slowing down our pace."

"Can't we do that?"

Bob laughed. "Sweetheart, it's ninety miles from here to town. You really think I could keep my job if I had to drive the whole way at thirty-five miles an hour? I'd be on the road all my life."

Joan was silent.

"You see, we must have the darn stuff – the rexeroid. It makes our control equipment possible. We depend on it. We need it. We must keep mining operations going on Mars. We can't afford to let the Martians get the rexeroid deposits away from us. See?"

"I see. And last year it was kryon ore from Venus. We had to have that. So you went and fought on Venus."

"Darling, the walls of our houses wouldn't maintain an even temperature without kyron. Kryon is the only non-living substance in the system that adjusts itself to temperature changes. Why, we'd – we'd all have to go back to floor furnaces again. Like my grandfather had."

"And the year before it was lonolite from Pluto."

"Lonolite is the only substance known that can be used in constructing the memory banks of the calculators. It's the only metal with true retentive ability. Without lonolite we'd lose all our big computing machines. And you know how far we'd get without them."

"All right."

"Sweetheart, you know I don't want to go. But I have to. We all have to." Bob waved toward the house. "Do you want to give that up? You want to go back to the old ways?"

"No." Joan moved away from the car. "All right, Bob. I'll see you in a day or two then?"

"I hope so. This trouble should be over soon. Most of the New York groups are being called. The Berlin and Oslo groups are already there. It shouldn't take long."

"Good luck."

"Thanks." Bob closed the door. The motor started up automatically. "Say goodbye to Tommy for me."

The car drove off, gaining speed, the automatic control board guiding it expertly into the main stream of traffic flowing down the highway. Joan watched until the car blended with the endless tide of flashing metal hulls, racing across the countryside in a bright ribbon toward the distant city. Then she went slowly back inside the house.

Bob never came back from Mars, so in a manner of speaking, Tommy became the man of the house. Joan got a release from school for him and after a while he began work as a lab technician at the Government Research Project a few miles down the road.

Bryan Erickson, the Sector Organizer, stopped one evening to see how they were getting along. "Nice little place you have here," Erickson said, wandering around.

Tommy swelled with pride. "Sure is, isn't it? Sit down and make yourself comfortable."

"Thanks." Erickson peered into the kitchen. The kitchen was in the process of putting out a meal for the evening dinner. "Quite a kitchen."

Tommy came up beside him. "See that unit there on top of the stove?"

"What's it do?"

"It's a selector on the kitchen. It sets up a new combination every day. We don't have to figure out what to eat."

"Amazing." Erickson glanced at Tommy. "You seem to be doing all right."

Joan looked up from the vidscreen. "As well as could be expected." Her voice was toneless, flat.

Erickson grunted. He walked back into the living-room. "Well, I guess I'll be running along."

"What did you come for?" Joan asked.

"Nothing in particular, Mrs Clarke." Erickson hesitated by the door, a big man, red-faced, in his late thirties. "Oh, there was one thing."

"What is it?" Her voice was emotionless.

"Tom, have you made out your Sector Unit card?"

"My Sector Unit card!"

"According to law you're supposed to be registered as part of this sector – my sector." He reached in his pocket. "I have a few blank cards with me."

"Gee!" Tommy said, a little frightened. "So soon? I thought it wasn't until I got to be eighteen."