The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Holes Around Mars, by Jerome Bixby

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Title: The Holes Around Mars

Author: Jerome Bixby

Release Date: May 13, 2010 [EBook #32360]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's note:

This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

The holes around Mars

By JEROME BIXBY

_Science said it could not be,
but there it was. And whoosh--look out--here
it is again!_

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

Spaceship crews should be selected on the basis of their non-irritating
qualities as individuals. No chronic complainers, no hypochondriacs, no
bugs on cleanliness--particularly no one-man parties. I speak from
bitter experience.

Because on the first expedition to Mars, Hugh Allenby damned near drove
us nuts with his puns. We finally got so we just ignored them.

But no one can ignore that classic last one--it's written right into the
annals of astronomy, and it's there to stay.

Allenby, in command of the expedition, was first to set foot outside the
ship. As he stepped down from the airlock of the _Mars I_, he placed
that foot on a convenient rock, caught the toe of his weighted boot in a
hole in the rock, wrenched his ankle and smote the ground with his
pants.

Sitting there, eyes pained behind the transparent shield of his
oxygen-mask, he stared at the rock.

* * * * *

It was about five feet high. Ordinary granite--no special shape--and
several inches below its summit, running straight through it in a
northeasterly direction, was a neat round four-inch hole.

"I'm _upset_ by the _hole_ thing," he grunted.

The rest of us scrambled out of the ship and gathered around his plump
form. Only one or two of us winced at his miserable double pun.

"Break anything, Hugh?" asked Burton, our pilot, kneeling beside him.

"Get out of my way, Burton," said Allenby.