Chapter III: Part 3

I folded my hands behind my head and sank back onto the hard cot, puzzling over everything that had happened to me.

The Brain selects me as the key figure in the finding of the missing Space Scouts. Fine, so far. Just what my duties are, it doesn't say, but I'm the man for the job, whatever it is. Okay.

So Baxter hands over the Amnesty, I get a preliminary lead from Anders, the pilot of the Scouts. I take off for Mars to find the kids, who seem to have left of their own volition. Swell. Only, a cute blonde by the unlikely name of Snow White filches the Amnesty, and nearly has me tossed in prison. Except that Baxter, still on my side, gets me loose. I take off looking for Snow, and get mickeyed in a Martian bar. Then--

Then things start getting confusing.

I get loose and come upon a sort of council of Earthmen, dickering with a sugarfoot, a supposedly dumb animal, for me and my collapser.

I get spotted, the men try to snatch me, and they all get vaporized by the sugarfoot, who runs off. I follow, and next thing, another mob is on my heels. Same bit with the sugarfoot. Zzzzzzurp! No more men! Only this time it doesn't run off. It dallies a bit, and tries to get me to go somewhere with it. Why it has suddenly decided to take me along, I don't know, because it had the opportunity much earlier, when it made its first massacre.

However, I decline the invitation, and, like a good boy, report all events to Security. Upshot: I am stashed in a solid rock cell, possibly never to emerge alive.

I lay there pondering these facts. One thing seemed clear: I didn't know the angles. What was Snow's angle? Or Baxter's? Or the sugarfoot's? Or the mob's?

Hell, what was mine?

I snorted and sat up, rubbing my neck. I had a headache coming on, and it felt like the start of a migraine, an occupational hazard with ad men. I tried rotating my head on my neck, a good relaxer for those tensed neck muscles. And then I noticed that I was perspiring like mad, and that my throat felt hot inside.

With a sick apprehension, I sprang up and thrust my nose near the grill on the wall. Nothing. I tried poking a finger between the latticework. It was stopped by a metal plate.

The air-supply grill was sealed off. In that tiny cell, I had maybe two hours more of breathing time. After that--Well, I wouldn't be feeling my oxygen-starvation headache any more.

I sat down on the cot once more and scowled at the floor. I was tired of puzzles, but even this didn't make sense! Why take the time and trouble to smother me?

A collapser could wipe me off the slate in seconds. No annoying corpus delicti cluttering up the premises. Not even a bit of fingernail left, nothing to incriminate the murderers. So they smother me.

But why kill me, for heaven's sake? It couldn't be to keep me from telling what I knew! I didn't know a damned thing. Except that Baxter, motive unknown, must have left Earth immediately after I spoke to him on that interplanetary hook-up. Or was it interplanetary? Come to think of it, he could've been in the next room when I talked to him. Damn. It was baffling.

Why he hadn't simply told me that it was no use, and sent me back to Earth, I couldn't figure out. He could have made all sorts of reasonable excuses for my not continuing in my search for the missing boys, and I'd have swallowed any one of them. Instead, he locks me up, throws away the key, and turns off the air supply.

What did I know that I could communicate to people back on Earth? What knowledge did I have that was a menace of some sort to Security? Or, to be more near the truth, to Baxter?

The only interesting fact I'd stumbled on was--

But maybe that was it: the fact that the sugarfeet were something other than what Earth had claimed. That one I'd met was certainly no dumb animal. He had a language; I'd heard that bartender talking to him. That put him a few steps ahead of cats and dogs. Maybe a lot further.

But what difference did it make if the sugarfeet were or weren't dumb animals? I didn't care one way or the other. And I was pretty representative of an Earthman, wasn't I? Who'd care, anyhow, if it turned out the sugarfeet were nearer human than had been supposed?

Well, I knew the who, if not the why.

Baxter obviously cared tremendously. Which deduction left me approximately nowhere.

The air seemed to be getting staler by the minute. I found I could breathe better lying flat on my back, not even using enough energy to remain in a sitting position.

My skin was clammy with sweat from head to foot, my windpipe felt like someone had just given it a brisk toweling with a hot doormat.

I thought desperately of pounding on that impervious stone door, in the chance that my suffocation was an over-sight on their part. But I knew in my heart it wasn't.

I held myself on the cot, fighting that deadly tug of irrational emotion. If I was going to suffocate, I wanted to do it with as little pain as possible.

My lungs, though were telling me a different story. They had that "time to go up for air" feeling, the hideous pre-strangulation hot wave that floods through the ribs, begging, and then ordering, the swimmer to head to the surface before his lungs rip apart.

I fought the feeling, breathing faster to keep that dull nudging from becoming a full-scale command. But it was harder and harder not to fling myself at that bare store and try, in the last few minutes of life, to dig my way free with my fingertips.

And then, with my eyes burning in my own perspiration, and tongue half-protruding between gaping lips, I felt that stinging, prickling sensation along my limbs.

Then a blinding blaze of blue-white sparks showered me, and I jumped to my feet in fright.

The wall opposite the cell door was raggedly missing, its three-foot slabs of granite jutting wildly into the area where their companions had just been. And there was air; cold, chilling air, terribly thin to breathe. But it was air, and I leaped through that gap like a madman, flooding my hot lungs with the elusive draughts of black Martian night.

I staggered, dizzy at the sparseness of the atmosphere, and then a tight clamp closed upon my arm and kept me from falling. A three-fingered clamp.

I looked into the glittering face of the sugarfoot. It had the collapser in its free hand, and its eyes were locked on mine. It was waiting for me to say something.

"Brother," I said, managing a grin, "I would love coming with you, no matter where!"

Surprisingly, it shook its dragon head, and made gestures toward my blouse, then an upward movement of its arms.

"You want me to take it off?" I said, in bewilderment. "But I'm half frozen already."

The sugarfoot was adamant. Again it pointed to the blouse, and did that slip-it-over-your-head motion.

I gave up fighting it. The creature was obviously not inimical to me. Even if it were, I thought, I owed it something for pulling me out of that stone coffin.

Hoping pneumonia was less painful than outright suffocation, I obediently tugged it, loose from within my belt, and slid the thing over my head and off.

The sugarfoot took it from me, turned it inside-out, and held it out close to my face for inspection, in the dim criss-cross lighting of tiny Phobos and barely larger Deimos, as they scurried across the cold black sky.

I stared stupidly at the inside surface of the blouse, the black one which Baxter had insisted I wear, and then I caught the glint of reflected moonlight where there should have been plain shirt material. Tiny metallic filaments had been woven into the garment, too light and flexible for the wearer to feel them, but strong enough not to break with constant flexing.

I nodded, and handed the blouse back to the sugarfoot. "I see them. Wires," I said. "But what does it mean?"

The sugarfoot pointed toward the Security prison, which at this point of the topography was on the outside of the hills which surrounded Marsport. Security had burrowed into those hills to make themselves an escape-proof dungeon. Even though I was out of it, I hadn't yet, in the real sense of the word, escaped. It was easily twenty below zero, and the air was thin as the inside of a vacuum tube.

I was dizzy, and sick, and barely able to keep from falling, but I made myself ask, "What's the blouse got to do with the prison?"

The sugarfoot pointed to the prison, the blouse, and made a circular gesture with his finger.

"The prison...." I said slowly. "It--It tracks the shirt around!"

A nod. Then the sugarfoot turned its head and, extending that hollow tongue, produced a shrill piercing whistle through the vibrating tip. I heard a scrunching sound on the rocky hillside where we stood, and then the damnedest little beast hove into view. It was about the size of a burro. But it had six legs, no visible head or neck, and was covered with spiky hairs that seemed more like lengths of straw than anything else I could think of. This ambulant bale of hay approached us, and halted before the sugarfoot. The sugarfoot whistled again, and from somewhere in the front--I assume it was the front--of this creature, a claw-tipped tentacle wormed out through the hay, and took the blouse from the sugarfoot's hand. A third and final whistle, and the thing, clutching the blouse, went off down the hillside with remarkable speed, heading toward the open desert that lay sullenly gray beneath the moonlight. It had that busy-busy-busy ant-motion to it, the front and rear legs on one side moving forward simultaneously with the middle leg on the opposite side, then a swift, jerky reverse and the other trio of legs moved forward, giving it a strangely graceful--awkward wriggling gait. But it was fast, damned fast. Within a minute, it was out of sight.

I swayed woozily, and hung onto the sugarfoot's shoulder for support. "Blazing a false trail, huh?"

It didn't answer, but reached out for me, and swung me up into its powerful arms, as a man carries a child. It clacked something which I took to be a term of reassurance, and then, holding me tightly so I wouldn't get jounced to death, it took off in a leaping bound in a direction at right angles to that taken by the hay-bale creature. It jolted me a little, but the cold and lack of enough oxygen had taken its toll of my stamina. I passed out before the third bound.

And when I awoke, there was warmth and air, and a comfortable bed beneath me. And I was looking into the face of Snow White.

12

I forgot I was supposed to be mad at her. Instead of chewing her out for her sneak-thievery, I grasped her soft little hands, and murmured, "Are you okay?"

"Miraculously," she said. "I hadn't got twenty yards into town before my face and name were being blazoned on every stereo in Marsport. Things were a bit rough for a while."

I propped myself up on my elbows, the better to see that lovely face, framed in a halo of silky pale yellow hair, and said, "What happened? How'd you escape? What's with these mobs and sugarfeet, and--And where are we, for pete's sake?"

"Whoa, boy!" she laughed, pressing me back onto the bed, her hands lingering on my chest for a delicious moment before she sat back again. "You've been very sick, whether you know it or not. Here, take a look."

She picked up her handbag from the floor, took out a small mirror, and held it in front of my face. I took one look, then shut my eyes. My face was the cheery color of porcelain, with purplish eyelids and gray lips.

"What hit me?" I sighed, opening my eyes again.

"Oxygen-starvation, exposure, and near pneumonia. I thought you were dead when Clatclit carried you in here. You've been sleeping for nearly thirty-six hours."

"Clatclit?" I said. "Is that the ambient hunk of dextrose who blasted me out of stir?"

"Let's not be colorful," said Snow, deprecatingly. "You owe your life to him, you know."

"I know," I said. "That was the ad man in me coming through. But look, my mind's a whirlpool of confusion. Could you please tell me what's been going on here, anyhow?"

"Lie back and rest," said Snow, "and I will."

I burrowed deeper into the warm coverlet, sighed, and kept my eyes on her lovely face. In the midst of her discourse, I even sneaked a hand out and laid it gently over her own. It was smartly slapped, without rancor, and I withdrew it from active duty for a while.

"Well, first thing, I'd like to apologize for that dirty trick I pulled back on the _Valkyrie_," Snow said. My heart turned over, and I felt an idiot grin of forgiveness spreading across my ghastly features. I found it quite impossible to stay angry with the girl. As I've said, something happens to my brain when around women.

"Accepted," I croaked.

"I knew that you'd have no trouble getting away from those Security men I sent," she said smilingly.

"Then why did you send them?" I asked.

"To keep them from asking me any questions," she said, with a small shrug. "For all I knew, they were expecting a man with the Amnesty. However, knowing that just having it carried a lot of weight, I gave them the order to pick you up as soon as they approached me at the customs booth."

"And if they hadn't believed me?" I complained.

"Well," she said carefully, "I suppose I'd have sent them a note, or something, telling them to release you."

"Thanks for the kind thought," I muttered.

Snow ignored my minor irritation, and went blithely on.

"My next move was to go to the Port Authority, and find out just where the _Phobos II_ was berthed before takeoff. I thought that Ted might have left me a clue of some sort."

"You sound as if he were expecting you to traipse up here after him," I said, dubiously.

"He wouldn't count on my coming, if that's what you mean. But Ted's a good kid. I've practically had to raise him myself. He knew I'd worry if I didn't hear from him. He couldn't know, of course, that IS would send forged letters to the relatives of the missing boys. So I assumed that, if he had the chance, he'd leave a clue of some kind for me, in case I did come."

"An assurance of sorts, you mean?"

"Something like that. Like 'I'm okay, Snow, so don't worry,' or some such message. So that's what I looked for at the rocket berth."

"Just a minute," I interrupted. "I used to be a boy, once, myself, and while I didn't have any sisters of my own, I knew a lot of buddies who did. The last thing in the world they'd expect would be for their sister to follow them into danger! Hell, they'd feel like sissies if they had to count on a sister for aid."

"I--" Snow hesitated. "I'm not what you'd call the typical sister, Jery."

"Oh?"

She blushed prettily. "When you have to raise a brother, you have to learn a lot of things, if you're going to bring him up fairly normally. I had to teach him to play ball, to box, to ski, to--Well, I was more like a father to him than anything. So Ted, knowing my more belligerent side, would just about figure I'd come storming up here to find him."

"I don't know," I pondered aloud. "If you and Ted have this friendly relationship, why the hell would he put you to all this trouble? It seems like a lousy thing on his part to go wandering off without a word."

"It would be," Snow agreed, "unless there was a mighty important reason for his going. And it wasn't without a word."

"Then you did find a message?" I exclaimed.

She nodded. "After a few minutes' inspection of the berth, I found it scratched onto one of the supporting beams."

"Funny IS didn't spot it," I remarked.

"It's in our special _code_, silly!" Snow said. "To anyone else, it'd look like hen scratches."

"Just what is this code of yours?" I asked, curious.

Snow looked at me a moment, frowning.

"I'll carry the secret to my grave." I said generously.

She laughed, then, and said, "All right, Jery. Just a second."

From her handbag, she took out a small address book and a pencil, found a blank sheet at the back, and drew the following diagrams:

A | D | G
---------
B | E | H
---------
C | F | I

. | . | .
J | M | P
---------
.K | N.| Q.
---------
L | O | R
. . .

\ S /
V \ /T
/ \
/ U \

.
\ W /
. Z\ /X .
/ \
/ Y \
.

"See?" she said. "It's very simple, really. You just remember the position of each letter in its portion of the diagram, and draw the corresponding shape instead of the letter; a square for E, square-plus-dot for N, an L-shape for G, same with a dot for P, an inverted V-shape for U--"

"I get it," I said. "Gad, it looks positively runic when you write that way."

Snow put the address book back into her bag. "So that's what I found scratched onto that supporting beam. The message said, simply: SNOW I AM ALL RIGHT FIND CLATCLIT THE SUGARFOOT AND HE WILL EXPLAIN."

I stared at her. "Not a very easy task he set, was it?"

"Nothing easier, as it turned out," she said airily. "Of course," she admitted, when I gave her a cold stare, "I didn't know it was easy, at the time. I was actually pretty much bewildered. I mean, I thought, like everybody else, that sugarfeet were like cats or dogs."

"So how'd you accomplish locating him?" I said.

She grinned. "I went into Marsport, went up to the first one I saw--they're as common as pigeons around the town--and said, feeling like a damned fool, 'Clatclit?' Instead of the blank-eyed stare of uncomprehending nonintelligence which I expected for my efforts, the thing looked to left and right, I guess to insure that no Earthmen were watching, then beckoned to me and started waddling off. Still feeling like an idiot, I followed it. It led me back toward the airstrip. For a while, I had the stupid impression that it was going to point me out the spot from which the boys had vanished, and that I'd be right back where I started."

"So what happened?" I demanded impatiently.

"Back of the berth where the _Phobos II_ had been, there was a slope, the beginning of the hills that surround Marsport. I followed the sugarfoot partway up the slope to a sort of cave mouth, and it gestured that I should go inside."

"Okay, okay," I prodded. "You went inside, and--"

Snow shook her head. "No, I didn't. If _you_ were on a strange planet, would you go into a cave after a red-scaled creature that looked like a pint-sized dragon?" She added, matter-of-factly, "Besides, there was a sign in front of the cave mouth, telling Earth people that it was forbidden to enter any of the many Martian caves that lay on the hillsides. It seems they're old volcanic tunnels, and wind like labyrinths into the planet. Some of the earlier colonists vanished there, you know."

"Ye gods!" I growled. "What did you do, then? Leave the sugarfoot standing at the cave mouth like an untipped bellboy?"

"More or less," she admitted. "It seemed to want to take me with it, but I begged off as politely as possible, and went back into town. Only, when I got there, the first thing I saw was my own picture on the stereo screen outside the public auditorium."

"With shoot-to-kill commands ringing into the street," I nodded. "I suppose you swooned away on the pavement?"

Snow gave me a black look. "Mister Delvin, I do not swoon!"

I shrugged. "Just as well. Marsport has no pavement, anyhow."

"Ho ho," she said. "Do you want to hear the rest of this, or not?"

"Sorry," I said. "Go on."

"Well, there didn't seem to be anything else to do then, but to get out of town, fast. I hadn't been spotted, yet. I guess my picture had only just gotten onto the screen. So I hurried back to where that cave mouth was, and the sugarfoot was still there, waiting for me."

"He does sound like an untipped bellboy at that," I remarked.

Snow ignored this, and continued. "Well, I went into the cave with him. After all, getting eaten by a dragon has no worse end result than getting hit with a collapser-bolt."

"The process is a bit more painful, though," I said.

"I took that chance," Snow said. "I had to. So I followed it for what seemed miles of slippery tubular tunnels--knowing, and it scared me stiff, that I'd never find my way out without a map--and it led me here, where I met Clatclit."

"And where, by the way," I said, "are we?"

"Darned if I know," said Snow. "We're at present in a room off one of those tunnels I mentioned. The sugarfeet have been wonderful, helping you. Especially in bringing water for you; they're deathly scared of the stuff."

"I would be, too, in their case," I said. "It'd be like toting around a carboy of sulphuric acid."

"Well, anyhow, you're alive," she said, "and that's something. But as for Ted--" her voice faltered.

I looked up, startled. "He's not dead?"

"D--? Oh, no. At least I hope not!" she said. "I only meant that, while I've located Clatclit, I can't figure out either his gestures or his--pardon the expression--words."

"He understands English, even if his vocal apparatus can't form it," I said. "Why don't you just ask him yes-and-no questions? He nods easily enough."

"I did that," she sighed. "I asked if Ted were alive, and he nodded. Then I asked to be brought to him, and he spread his hands. I said, 'Does that mean you don't know where Ted is?' He seemed stymied; he nodded, then shook his head immediately. You figure that one out!"

I tried hard. Nothing happened inside my head. It was filled with the picture of Snow, her lips slightly parted, her violet eyes anxious, her hair like a misty golden corolla.

"I can't. Not with you around. Remember?" I said, helplessly.

She stood up from my bedside. "Then close your eyes, or something, Jery! I'll stand here, quiet as a mouse."

"Well," I said, doubtfully, "I'll try."

I shut my eyes and tried to convince myself that Snow wasn't anywhere about. I couldn't do it.

"No use," I sighed, opening my eyes again. "I can feel you here."

"I guess the only thing to do is send Clatclit in to see you, and stay outside myself," she said.

"Good idea," I said. "Send him around with a lunch, though, will you? I've gone all hollow inside."

Snow smiled, and left through a rocky archway.

I lay there looking about me. With Snow in the room, I hadn't paid attention to my less stimulating environment. Now I found myself gazing over dark crimson walls, smooth and glossy looking. The room was just a bubble in the rock, about ten feet in diameter, with an artificially leveled floor.

Light came from a narrow ridge that ran around the walls near the top, a sort of ledge covered with fuzzy stuff that glowed pallidly white.

I threw back the coverlet and eased myself to my feet, and was grateful to find my trousers folded neatly upon a small hump of rock that probably served a sugarfoot as a stool. I slipped them on hurriedly, then investigated the stuff on that ledge.

It seemed to be a kind of crumbly dry fungus, not unlike the stuff found in dead logs on Earth, the phosphorescent foxfire. But it was a lot brighter, and also gave off a detectable amount of heat, too, which explained why I wasn't still turning blue.

I left off looking at the heaps of fungi, and went to the archway for a look. Beyond the room, the cave dissolved into a riot of diverging tunnels. I decided to stay put, rather than risk getting myself entombed in some pahoehoeal cavity, and succumbing to the fate Baxter had planned for me.

And besides, those tunnels were black as oil, further off from the chamber I was in. My feet might find me a quick shortcut to the center of the planet, in that treacherous gloom.

Sugarfeet, I decided, could either see in the dark, or else they carried a handful of that white-glowing fungus with them when they went for a stroll.

I went back to the cot, and sat down to wait for Clatclit's appearance, passing the time by struggling back into my durex boots. I felt a bit more competent, once trousered and shod, than I had felt while lying beneath that coverlet in my shorts. A man without his pants is only half a man, somehow.

From the corridor, there came a series of sharp, regular clicks, and then Clatclit waddled in. When not going full speed, in that gravity-defying bound of theirs, the sugarfeet moved rather clumsily, like an old sailor rocking down the street on legs trained to fight a rolling deck. I think it was the tail's weight that accounted for that lumbering gait. It was fully as long as the legs, and nearly as thick, except where it dwindled at the end to a solitary prismatic red spike. I rather judged that that four-inch crystalline dagger came in handy during a fight.

Clatclit made a gesture with both hands, and clacked something at me. His attitude and inflection were unmistakeable.

I gave him the Earth equivalent of the gesture, raising my right hand in a sort of lazy wave. "Hello, yourself," I said. "Snow seems to be having trouble communicating with you."

Clatclit nodded, and seated himself on that stool.

"What's this about her brother Ted?" I went on. "She asked if you knew where he was, and got a yes-no answer."

The nod again.

"Do you know where he's at?" I persisted.

Clatclit made the same yes-no motion with his nubbly head that Snow had described. I thought it over.

"You know, _in a way_, where he is, but not _specifically_?"

Violent nods, three of them.

"Ah, so that's it!" I said. "Let's see. Can you take us to him?"

The yes-no business again.

"You can take us to a point, but no further, maybe?"

The violent triple nod.

"Is there danger?"

Three nods.

"To you?"

Headshake.

"To me and Snow, then?"

Headshake.

"Ah! To _Ted_."

Nods.

"How about his companions? Are they in danger too?"

Yes.

"From whom?" I said, forgetting our limitations.

Disgusted stare.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. Uh ... from Baxter?"

A rocking of the head from side to side. This was a new one. I wrinkled up my forehead, puzzling it out.

"Baxter's a danger in general, you mean, but that's not the danger you meant, right?"

Nods again.

"Okay, then, let's see who's left.... Danger from Earthmen, like those mobs who came after me?"

Negative.

"Surely not danger from me or Snow?"

Negative.

"From--from you Martians?" I choked, bewildered.

The head rocked from side to side.

"Danger.... Danger from sugarfeet?"

A very violent negative.

"But from _Martians_?" I queried, blinking.

A slow, positive nod.

"But there are no Martians but you sugarfeet. Unless--" An icy cold hand grabbed my adrenal glands and squeezed, hard. "The Ancients!" I gasped, in horror.

A triple yes.

"Then they're not extinct!"

A disgusted stare.

I realized he couldn't answer till I rephrased that one, or I'd be stuck with wondering if he meant yes, they are, or yes, they aren't. "Are they extinct?" I said.

Headshake.

"And they've got the boys!"

Nod.

"And they're inimical to man, in some way!"

Violent negative.

I stared, confused, into Clatclit's lizardy eyes.

"They--they aren't dangerous to man?"

The sideways rocking motion.

"They're a danger to some men--Baxter's men!"

A nod, but with a kind of hesitation about it.

"But also to the boys?" I marvelled.

The yes-no motion.

"Under certain conditions, they're a danger to the boys!"

Yes.

"These conditions; do they have anything to do with Baxter?"

Yes.

"Hmmm...." I leaned back on my hands on the cot, and studied Clatclit's face, thinking hard. "Could it be that these Ancients want something with regard to Baxter, but that the boys' safety is the price of it?"

A jump up from the stool, a laughably Earthlike clap of the hands, and a triple series of very positive nods. Clatclit sat down again, a much happier sugarfoot than when he'd entered.

"But," I protested, "Baxter, from my last contact with him, isn't the sort who'd care about the boys, right?"

Nods.

"Well, then, for pete's sake," I protested loudly, "over whose heads are the Ancients holding the safety of the boys?"

Clatclit extended a ruddy talon directly at me, and then aimed it toward the corridor outside.

"Me and Snow?" I cried, standing up. "They're trying to force me and Snow to do something for them, and making the boys' safety the price of it. Why, that's--that's criminal!"

In my rage, I'd taken a step toward Clatclit, not even thinking of the fact that his crystalline constitution would be an easy match for my fists. Genially, though, Clatclit leaned back on the stool, widened his already wide eyes, and, pointing two index fingers at his chest, shook his head from side to side.

"What?" I said, not getting it. Then, "Oh, I see. It's not your fault what the Ancients have done. Yeah, you're right. Sorry, Clatclit."

He shrugged off the apology, and waited for more of my investigative monologue.

I dropped back to sit on the edge of the cot, and let him wait a while, while I tried to figure the whole mess out. Then I remembered something, and looked up at him.

"Clatclit, back in Marsport, when I first met you, I asked why I had been chosen, and you indicated that you'd tell me later. Why was I chosen?"

Clatclit just stared, uncertainly.

"You know what I mean. Why was I the one you didn't blast with that collapser? And why'd you go off without me the first time, but want to take me along the second?"

A very disgusted stare.

I slowed down and fed him questions one at a time.

"Back at that bar, you blasted the other men, then left without me. Why?"

Clatclit pointed to himself, then to his cranium, then to me, then made a palms-down hand-spreading gesture.

"You ... thought ... I ... negation--You thought I'd been blasted, too! Except that I'd flattened out behind that wall, and you couldn't see me behind the remaining bottom section. You originally meant to get me out of there alive?"

Nods, vigorous.

"And you thought you'd goofed with the collapser, and gotten me, too!"

Nods.

"So what happened in the street? How'd you happen to stick around?"

The talon went to his earhole, then he spread his hands wide, in a gesture of "many-ness," and waited hopefully.

"You heard a lot of--what? Oh! You heard those men coming up the street, and stuck around to see what was up. But I didn't hear them, and I was closer. In fact, they were sneaking after me."

Clatclit pointed to his ears and nodded, then indicated mine and shook his head.

I got it then. Supersensitivity. It made sense. Just as man's ears, accustomed to use in air, are even more receptive to sounds in a denser medium, as, for instance, underwater, where sound waves are more powerful; so the sugarfeet's ears, built for use in the rarefied Martian atmosphere, could hear all the better in the heavier air of Marsport.

"Okay, so you heard them, saw me, and came to the rescue. Fine. Now, the big question: Why? What is so special about me, Clatclit?"

He stood up and made the same strange gesture he'd made the night on Von Braun Street. Alternate pointing to his head, then to me.

The "me" part was easy enough, but the other.... I tried a series of likely meanings.

"That motion to your head, Clatclit. You mean I'm the head of something, the investigation, for instance?"

Negative.

"I'm intelligent?"

A pause, then the yes-no motion.

"You mean I am, but that's the wrong answer. Hmmm. Very tactful of you, Clatclit. You could have given me a no on that one."

Clatclit showed a friendly array of deadly-looking teeth. I interpreted this as an evidence of camaraderie, so I just grinned back.

"Okay, Clatclit. Let's see. It has nothing to do with my brain power?"

A wild light came into his eyes, and he seemed ready to crack out of his glittering pelt, so agitated did he become. Apparently, I'd hit on something, but he didn't know what sort of signal to make.

"I'm getting warm?" I said.

Clatclit stared, and I realized that, even knowing and understanding colloquial English, he might still have missed a few of the slangier expressions.

"That is," I said, "I'm close to the answer?"

Nod.

"Something to do with brain power?"

Vigorous nod.

"Mine?"

Negative.

"Baxter's?"

Negative.

"Anyone's?"

I got the yes-no and a climactic shrug. Clatclit was apparently stuck for a response.

I tried to figure it out. Brain power, but not mine, not really anyone's, and yet, in a way, someone's. Then I jumped up and faced him, elated.

"The Brain! The composite brain of International Cybernetics!"

Clatclit emitted something that sounded very much like a sigh of relief, and nodded.

I thought back to his head-then-me gesture. "Then you mean I was rescued because I was the man chosen by the Brain?"

Three brisk nods.

Now I was really confused. I shook my head at Clatclit, and said, "I give up, friend. I'm out of questions you can answer."

He gave me a curious look, an expectant look.

"The only question I can think of is 'Why should Mars be interested in me just because I was selected by the Brain back on Earth?' And that's a tough one to do in pantomime."

Clatclit rose up proudly on tiptoe, as if stubbornly denying the slur I'd cast on his miming abilities. He looked hurt, and I felt like a crumb.

"Okay, friend. Try. But I don't guarantee I'll get it."

Clatclit stood a moment in thought, then pointed upward.

"Up? Out? Above?" I said. All received negatives. "It's no use, Clatclit, I can't--Oh, all right, once more. Uh ... away up?"

Nod.

"Earth?" I said, excitedly.

Nod.

"Well, what about it?" I said.

Clatclit pointed up to Earth, then to me, and shook his head. Then he pointed down, to Mars, I guessed by association, and to me again. This time he nodded.

"Earth-me-no. Mars-me-yes," I said mechanically. "Earth-no-_what_?"

Talon to head.

"Earth-me-no brain?" I choked out. "The Brain did not select me?"

Side-to-side motion.

"Not exactly? Well, then--No, that's crazy!"

Clatclit looked a question.

I laughed wearily and sank back onto the cot. "All I get, chum, is the ridiculous impression that Mars was behind the Brain's selecting me back on Earth--"

I sat bolt upright, slightly stunned.

Clatclit was nodding.

13

An hour later, when Clatclit had gone off to do whatever it is that sugarfeet do when they're not playing charades with Earthmen, I joined Snow in a so-so luncheon she'd been able to put together with the help of a few of our dragonish friends. It seemed to be mostly a species of watery tumble-weed, plus a smattering of rubbery white cubes that tried hard to taste like mushrooms, but failed. I was trying to be light and casual.

"We may be poisoned, you know," I remarked, chewing valiantly on a mouthful of the stuff.

"It's quicker than starving," she observed, continuing to eat. "If we don't eat, we're sure to die, but--"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. If we do, we've got a fifty-fifty chance of survival. Too bad you don't carry sandwiches in that all-purpose handbag of yours."

"I do," she said, calmly. "But they're all enjoyably gone, thank you. I couldn't wait forever for you to come out of your coma."

"Thanks loads," I muttered, chomping doggedly on a stubborn white cube, and wishing I didn't have to tell her what I knew.

"So tell me more about what Clatclit said," she urged, washing down her alien meal with a cupped rock filled with clear but alkaline water.

I shrugged, and let the rest of the vegetation sit where it was. Until I grew a lot hungrier, it was safe from my alimentary system for a spell.

"As I see it, Baxter is a menace to the Ancients. They, as a self-protective gesture, decided to get an Earthman up here who could find the fact of their existence, and make it known to Earth. Then a meeting between Earth and Mars can be arranged, and we can come to some sort of peaceful co-existence. Right now, Baxter's in the dastardly position of being able to destroy the Ancients with no one back home even knowing there was anyone to destroy, see?"

"All but how they got hold of you."

"They exerted some kind of influence--heaven only knows what kind of technology they possess--and it triggered the Brain, back on Earth, into selecting me. Then the sugarfeet, who are, by the way, not servants of the ancients, but another distinct race, were used as go-betweens. First one to spot me got the hand-painted ashtray, or something. Who knows? But anyhow, they selected me, and--"

"Jery," said Snow, crinkling up her brow, "how did they know that you even existed?"

"I guess I could have put that more clearly; they didn't know there was a _me_, a Jery Delvin. But they knew what qualifications such a man must have, and so they influenced the Brain to choose such a man when Security tried to find a solution to the mystery of the missing Scouts."

"Who are missing only in order to create a mystery so that the IS people would use the Brain to select the man whom the Martians had gimmicked the Brain to fake." Snow shook her head, and shut her eyes. "It's got my head going in circles, Jery!"

I grinned at her. "Okay. We'll take it from the top. Baxter, for reasons yet unknown, is a menace to the ancients. In a manner yet unknown, also. Their plight must come to the attention of the peoples of Earth. With me so far?"

She nodded impatiently.

"Okay, then. So what would make the people back home sit up and take notice of little old Mars? Well, how about swiping the Space Scouts? It's a great plan, really. Not only are Earthmen suckers for a child in trouble, but these particular children are representatives of every civilized nation on our planet. So they are swiped."

"Jery...." Snow tried to interrupt.

"I know. The kids left of their own free will. I'll get to that in a minute."

She bit her lip and kept still, and I went on.

"Baxter, sensing the hand of the Ancients in this, makes a good countermove. He keeps the Earth people under the impression that all is well with the kids. This, of course, cannot go on for too damned long; he's got to find those kids and fast. So, unwittingly following the plan set up by the ancients, he feeds the known data into the Brain. However, they've geared the Brain to react to that particular data by selecting a man who will not conform to Baxter's standards--that is, a man who would have assisted Baxter's race-destruction plan--but one who will be able to size up the situation and act on it in a manner beneficial to the Martians."

"How can you be so sure of this?" Snow demanded.

"I'm not, for pete's sake!" I snapped. "Remember, I had to dredge all this information out of Clatclit by tortuous questioning. A lot of it I had to conjecture, to fill the gaps. But hell, it fits, doesn't it?"

"I'm sorry," Snow said, contritely.

"Okay, okay," I said, relenting. "Pardon me for biting your head off. Where was I?"

"Acting beneficial to the ancient Martians."

"Ummm. Yeah, okay. So I'm picked. Baxter is a little surprised when I show up, since I just don't look the race-annihilating type, I guess, but he has to follow what the Brain selected, since he has no other way of getting to those missing kids. Still with me? Okay. However, unknown to even Baxter, there is a third contingent at work: Neo-Martians."

"Those men who tried to kill you," said Snow.

"Right. These are the characters who want to team with the Martians against Earth, and make this planet the ruling one in the solar system."

"I don't understand their motivation at all."

"It's--Well, it's a little like the feelings of the early colonists in New England toward King George. They're off here on a new planet, but they're still paying taxes to Earth, and--At any rate, they want to be a separate country. Not all the Neo-Martians feel this way, just a disgruntled few. But it's always those few groaners who seem to run things, because the other people, in their neutral way, don't take any action against them.... Hell, I don't want this turning into a lecture on political science. Let me go on.

"When the news hits the stereos that a girl with a forged Amnesty is on the loose in Marsport, these people show a lot of sense. Since the customs office wouldn't let you off Earth with such a thing, and the customs people here wouldn't have let you bring one onto Mars, they know it must be the real McCoy. But if real, why this to-do about shooting to kill? Obviously, you've taken the Amnesty from the real person who should have it. Now, they don't know me from Adam, but they put the word out all over town to keep watch for anyone who might be the actual Amnesty-bearer. I qualify."

"How?" Snow asked, narrowing her eyes with interest.

"First, I'm a stranger. Secondly, though not in a Security uniform, I'm toting a collapser, which means--unless I have the approval of IS--the death penalty. I've carried it openly, so they know I haven't stolen it anyplace. Okay, I'm a stranger who has an in with Security, a collapser on my belt, and the word is out that an Amnesty-bearer minus the Amnesty is in town. What would you do if you were a Neo-Martian and I walked into your bar?"

"I'd slip you a mickey," Snow said sweetly.

"Uh.... Yeah, okay." I muttered, declining an urge to snarl something back at her. Besides, she had a cruel blow coming.

"But why did they want you?" Snow demanded.

"Honey--" I said, before I could catch myself. But she hadn't flinched, so I decided to let the appelation stand."--they don't know the Scouts are missing! As far as Marsport is concerned, those kids took off in the _Phobos II_, see? So what do you suppose they decide the Amnesty-bearer is after?"

Snow's eyes widened into violet pools, and she exclaimed, finally getting the point, "Them!"

"At last a light dawns in that lovely skull," I sighed. "They figured I was here to round up the rebels among the Neo-Martians and stash them in that lousy prison I was blasted free of. So they lock me in that cellar, and have a meeting to decide what's to be done. Only, Clatclit, knowing I'm the guy the ancients have been waiting for, can't let these men keep me. So he goes to the meeting, too."

"But wouldn't the rebels be surprised at a sugarfoot--"

"Dearest girl, the rebels are well aware of the fact that sugarfeet are more than just dumb animals. Clatclit tells me that they're counting on the sugarfeet for support, if it even comes to open battle. Why do you suppose that bartender went to the trouble of learning that gosh-awful clacketty language of theirs?"

"But why would the sugarfeet join with them?" Snow asked. "Aren't they friendly, on the neutral side?"

"Unh-uh," I said. "Not in the way you mean. The sugarfeet, from planetary sympathies, are on the side of the Ancients. The Neo-Martians were anti-Earth, hence, anti-Baxter. So Plan A of the Ancients was a joining of forces between sugarfeet and rebel Neo-Martians. It was a slim chance, but they needed allies. Clatclit tells me that this thing's been growing for nearly a year, now. But a few weeks ago, what happens? Up to Mars come these kids, who are not only good emotional contacts with Earth, but with all the powerful nations. The ancients immediately scrap the first scheme, and switch to Plan B, the one we're currently enmeshed in."

"So that's why Clatclit was dickering for the collapser at that meeting you eavesdropped on!" Snow exclaimed.

"Sure," I said. "The rebels wanted that collapser for purposes of duplication. Its mechanism is one of Security's best-kept secrets. Only now, the Ancients don't want to help the rebel cause, so Clatclit was instructed to get that thing from them at all costs. He did. You know the cost."

Snow shuddered. "All those men--poof! Just like that!"

"Honey, this is war," I sighed sadly. "And you and I are the key figures in it, whether we like it or not."

"I think I'm all clear except on the one point: Why did the boys leave the _Phobos II_ willingly?"

"Male children, especially that brother of yours, love intrigue and adventure and secret codes. Clatclit and his ruby-red friends, knowing they'd pique the kids' curiosity, let them know that they were more than dumb animals. This, being in direct conflict with all they'd been taught back on Earth, put them in the enviable position of being 'in the know.' And kids are quick to pick up new tongues, too. I have no doubts that within three hours those kids knew more of the sugarfoot language than I'll learn in a lifetime. Here, they were told, was their chance to be heroes. Plan B was told to them, and the part they must play in it. What kid wouldn't go along with a chance to take part in a real-life adventure? And so, after leaving the evidence that they'd apparently vanished in space--Clatclit tells me this was one of the boys' idea; nice kids we grow on Earth!--leaving this baffling trail, they tramped off after the sugarfeet into the cave, like the happy youngsters following the Pied Piper."

I slowed down. This was the part I didn't want to say.

"And?" Snow said, sensing my distress, and going tense.

"And they wound up neatly jailed by the Ancients," I said. "The Ancients had made sure to select a man--me--that could be coerced by threats to those poor kids."

"You mean if you don't do what they want...?" Snow said, but couldn't complete the sentence.

"The kids pay," I finished for her. "So, tell me, lady, what's my move?"

"I don't know," she said, kind of startled, as if just beginning to realize the desperation of our situation. "I'm not sure who's right or wrong in this, Jery."

"Neither am I!" I said bitterly. "Baxter's a stinker, but he does represent Earth, of which I'm currently in favor. The rebels may be violent, but they have a few points in their favor, too. And the Ancients--"

Snow looked at me, expectantly. "The Ancients?"

"Them I hate," I said suddenly. "I don't like their slip-and-slide loyalties, Snow. They were the friends of the rebels, sure--until they thought of a better plan. Then the rebels were calmly forgotten. Or vaporized, when necessary. Right now, they're on my side, what with ordering my escape, and protecting me from Baxter. But it's only for so long as I serve their ends. Then it's good-by, Jery Delvin!"

"Then--" Snow arose, a slim hand going to her throat "--we don't know for sure if the boys are alive!"

I shook my head, solemnly. "We don't know it at all."

14

Clatclit came lumbering into the chamber, and paused to survey the remnants of our meal. He pointed to me, then to Snow, then made the palms-down outward gesture and looked questioningly.

"Yeah," I said. "We're finished, Clatclit. Thanks."

He nodded, then beckoned to me, and pointed toward the tunneled gloom beyond the archway.

"Come with you?" I said. "Come where?"

He pointed down.

"Downstairs?" I asked.

Furious glare.

It was nearly impossible to think, with Snow sitting right there across from me, but luckily my memory came through with what that gesture had meant the last time he'd used it.

"Mars?" I said softly.

Side-to-side motion of the head.

"Something like Mars. The Ancients!"

Brisk nods.

Snow got to her feet, apprehensive.

"It's all right," I said. "Remember. So far, they want me alive. I don't have to worry unless they think up a scheme that doesn't need me."

"No, Jery, I'm coming with you!" she said, clutching my arm. Those smooth little fingers bit in like dull teeth. She must have been better at sports than her pupil, Ted.

"Snow, the way I see it, this is going to be dangerous."

Her fists went to her hips. "And by what omniscience are you certain that I'll be safe back here?" she queried.

She had me there. The sugarfeet were being buddies at the moment. However, a quick change of plan, and Snow might end up vaporized, gnawed, or just left to starve in this devious labyrinth.

"Okay, come along," I sighed. "But hold my hand."

"I won't get lost," she protested.

"That wasn't the reason, honey," I grinned at her.

Her eyes flashed a moment, and her nostrils made a perfunctory flare. Then she smiled, surprisingly shy, and slipped her hand into mine. "For moral support," she said.

"Nice rationalizing," I said, but she didn't pull away. Together, we followed Clatclit out of the chamber.

And that's when I learned the primary function of that red spike at the tip of the tail. No sooner were we away from the fungus-lighted chamber, than that tiny trylon began to glow, first pale pink, then a brighter scarlet, and finally a brilliant yellow-orange. We followed that bobbing tailtip like the _ignis fatuus_ through the bowels of Hell. Snow's grip on my hand grew a little tighter as we progressed along the slippery red rock of the nearly circular passage.

"A regular candy-coated firefly," I joked, to lighten her mood. "What'll they think of next!"

She didn't answer.

"Bad joke?" I asked.

"No ... it's--Did you notice, Jery? We're going _down_."

We did seem to be descending, at that. I could imagine Snow's mind conjuring up tons of planet pressing down on us without warning.

"Not down," I said to her. "Downer. If it sets your mind at rest, we just took off from a place way below ground. If the roof didn't fall in there, it probably won't up ahead."

"How do you know that?" she asked, her curiosity taking the place of her trepidation, which was what I'd hoped for.

"The air," I said. "We were breathing in that chamber, remember? For the air to be that plentiful, we just had to be far under the ground, already. The atmosphere grows denser as one descends, you know; like on the canal bottoms."

"I've never been on a canal bottom," she said.

"Come to think of it, neither have I! I must have read that someplace."

We followed Clatclit and his magic taillight a few more yards, then Snow said, "You don't have to kid around to buck me up, Jery."

"Oh, yes I do," I disagreed sincerely. "For some reason or other, my main worry at the moment is for you. So if I can keep you happy, I'm happy. See?"

"Uh-huh," she said softly. Her hand pressed mine more tightly for a brief moment. "Thanks."

"If you think you can repay my efforts with a mere word of gratitude," I said in a villainous whisper, "you have lots to learn about men, poor child."

"Jery, don't joke any more. I'm frightened, really frightened," she said, her voice trembling.

"Okay," I said, and left off. I didn't tell her, but my own pulsebeat wouldn't have qualified me for a hero medal, either. Then, up ahead in the blackness beyond Clatclit's glowing tail spike, I heard a dull roaring.

A few hundred yards further on, the roar was louder, and I could feel it through the soles of my boots.

"What is it, Jery?" Snow whispered.