 According to Ron, what motivated him and Val to join the Geigs?
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. Val's usually about the best wife a guy could ask for, but when she wants to be she can be a real flying bother. Nothing but what had stopped us could stop a sandcat: sand in the delicate mechanism of the atomic engine. When Val's tired and overwrought there's no sense in arguing with her. We had wandered fruitlessly over the red sands all day, both of us listening for the clicks of the counter. She had been just as much inflamed by the idea of coming to Mars to help in the search for uranium as I was. 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. 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. It's because we wanted to keep what we had. The Geig Corps preferred married couples, working in teams. It had been spun on us only a short time ago, I realized.
 desire to maintain their present way of life
 desire to maintain their present way of life  monetary compensation  opportunity for a new life on Mars  heroic reputational status upon returning to Earth