 Why is the Geig Corps important?
THE HUNTED HEROES By ROBERT SILVERBERG The planet itself was tough enough—barren, desolate, forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and dedicated. I reached over and turned up the pressure on her oxymask to make things a little easier for her. Nothing but what had stopped us could stop a sandcat: sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine. "Maybe there isn't any uranium in this sector at all. When Val's tired and overwrought there's no sense in arguing with her. Behind us somewhere was the comfort of the Dome, ahead nothing but the mazes and gullies of this dead world. He was a cripple in a wheelchair—helpless as a rattlesnake. Remember—we're doing this for Earth. "Heroes, hell!" We had wandered fruitlessly over the red sands all day, both of us listening for the clicks of the counter. And the geigers had been obstinately hushed all day, except for their constant undercurrent of meaningless noises. Even though the Martian gravity was only a fraction of Earth's, I was starting to tire, and I knew it must have been really rough on Val with her lovely but unrugged legs. We knew the pay was poor, but we had felt it a sort of obligation, something we could do as individuals to keep the industries of radioactives-starved Earth going. And we'd always had a roving foot, both of us. I didn't dare turn up her oxy pressure any higher, but it was obvious she couldn't keep going. The geiger kept up a fairly steady click-pattern, but never broke into that sudden explosive tumult that meant we had found pay-dirt. I wished there was some way of turning the weary, bedraggled girl at my side back into the Val who had so enthusiastically suggested we join the Geigs. I stopped, slipped out of the geiger harness, and lowered myself ponderously to the ground. I watched her, sleeping peacefully, a wayward lock of her soft blonde hair trailing down over one eyebrow, and it seemed hard to believe that we'd exchanged Earth and all it held for us for the raw, untamed struggle that was Mars. It's because we wanted to keep what we had. We just liked our comforts, and wanted to keep them. The Geig Corps preferred married couples, working in teams. We had no ties on Earth that couldn't be broken without much difficulty. So we volunteered. Heroes. The wind blasted a mass of sand into my face, and I felt it tinkle against the oxymask.
 It is UranCo's method of acquiring manpower for the resource search
 Val and Ron worked for them before signing up with UranCo  It is UranCo's method of acquiring manpower for the resource search  It is how Ledman got involved in the uranium project in the first place  They funded the dome that Ledman lives in