BOSTON

DARRYL C. TRUMBALL HAD BEEN MUCH TOO BUSY TO PLUG into the latest virtual reality transmission from Mars. He had watched the first two of them, which his son had conducted on the first two days of their arrival on the planet. That was enough.

He kept tabs on the income from the VR transmissions, of course. The first two broadcasts had an audience of slightly more than twenty million. Twenty million paying viewers, at ten dollars each, had watched the explorers on the day they landed on Mars and the next day, when Dex took them on a tour through the dome in which they were going to live for the next year and a half.

And then the audience had quickly dwindled to about three million. If you’ve seen Mars rocks once, who wants to see them again, except school kids and space nuts? But three million was respectable: it meant thirty million dollars for the expedition with every transmission.

Of course, not everybody paid their ten bucks, Trumball knew. It was ten dollars per receiver, not ten bucks per head. A school class of thirty kids paid only ten dollars. A family could pay their ten dollars and plug in all their relatives. Bars full of drunks paid their ten bucks and that was that. Trumball fumed at the thought, but there was no practical way to stop the freeloaders.

Now the VR equipment had broken down. That damned Indian broke something while he was out frolicking over some damned rocks.

They’d better get it repaired P.D.Q., Trumball groused. We’re losing thirty million dollars a shot.