n't be angry, Maya," he pleaded, half-ruefully, half-humorously.
"It's just that I love you so much. It's just that I'm impatient for you
to be my wife."

Changeability is attributed to the feminine, but Maya was not able to
shift her mood as facilely as her fiance.

"If I'm worth marrying, I'm worth waiting for a little longer," she
said, with an edge to her voice. She was angry at Nuwell for acting so
like a spoiled child. "I'm going to see this job finished. I'm leaving
for Solis Lacus on the jetliner tonight."

"Solis Lacus!" he exclaimed in astonishment. "Why, Maya, that's halfway
around Mars!"

"That's exactly why the rebels might be more likely to go there. In
spite of the patrols, you know they haven't picked up all of the rebels
who escaped Mars City by groundcar. Any of them who headed for Solis
Lacus will be arriving there within the next two or three days. Then
I'll make a swing around and spend as much time as necessary at each of
the dome cities before coming back here."

The angry, stubborn expression swept across Nuwell's face again.

"Maya, I won't--" he began.

But at that moment, their guests began arriving. As the judge of Mars
City's superior court and his wife entered the room, Nuwell cut himself
off sharp and turned to greet them. His face cleared instantly, his lips
curved into a delighted smile and he welcomed them with such natural,
innocent charm that one would have thought he was incapable of frowning.

The presence of the guests seemed to intoxicate him with good-humor, and
when he had to leave in the midst of the party to drive Maya to the
airport he did not resume his argument. He merely kissed her good-bye
tenderly before she boarded the plane and begged her with melting eyes
to hurry back because he would be lonely every moment she was away.

So it was that Maya stretched in a reclining chair on the sundeck of the
Chateau Nectaris the next afternoon and permitted herself to be
disgusted with the entire planet Mars.

Maya's small, perfect body was kept minimally modest by one of those
scanty Martian sunsuits. A huge straw hat, woven of dried canal sage,
hid her beautiful face.

A disappointing resort area for an Earthwoman, this Solis Lacus Lowland.
No swimming, no boating, no skiing. No water and no snow. Just a vast
expanse of salty ground, blanketed with gray-green canal sage and dotted
with the plastic domes of the resort chateaus. Nothing to do but hike
in a marsuit or s