The Secret Martians by Jack Sharkey (best historical fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

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