him of finding her repulsive. But to certain drunks, the sober man or woman is an offense, and Palmer was much more than a drunk. He was a marak addict, and in the eyes of the marak fiends, all things and all people were wonderful, except those who did not share their taste for the drug. The latter were miserable, depraved creatures, practically subhuman.

Of course that was not the way most of them put it. Certainly it was not the way Palmer did. He regarded his wife, he told himself, as an unfortunate individual whom he loved very much, one whom it was his duty to make happy. That her new-found happiness would also hasten her death was merely an unfortunate coincidence. She was sure to die anyway, before long, so why not have her live out her last days in the peace and contentment that only marak could bring?

Louise herself would have had an answer to that, if he had ever put the question to her. He was careful never to do so.

She laid the book aside and looked up at him again. She said, "Jim, darling, do you think you could get the television set working again?"

"Not without a mesotron rectifier."

"Even the radio would be a comfort."

"It wouldn't do any good, any way. Too much static from both Mars and Earth this time of year."

That was the beauty of the marak, he thought. It changed his mood, and left him calm and in full command of his faculties, able to handle any problem that came up. He himself, of course, missed neither the radio nor the television, and he never touched the fine library of micro-books. He didn't need them.

A shadow flitted by outside the thick window, blotting out for a moment the blaze of stars. It was the shadow of death, as he knew, and he was able to smile even at that. Even death was wonderful. When it finally came, it would find him happy. He would not shudder away from it, as he saw Louise doing now at the sight of the ominous shadow.

He smiled at his wife again, remembering the six years they had lived together. It had been a short married life, but—again the word suggested itself to him—a wonderful one. There had been only one quarrel of importance, in the second year, and after that they had got along perfectly. And then, two years ago, he had begun to take marak, and after that he couldn't have quarreled with anyone. It was a paragon among drugs, and it was one of the mysteries of his existence that anybody should object to his using 

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