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

And the men were gone, too. Gone with most of the wall, half the bar, and a large quantity of chairs and tables.

A collapser is nothing to fool with.

The sugarfoot must have flicked it on and sent the blue-white beam in a sweeping curve that turned everything it touched into hot protons and electrical energy. He'd turned it off, however, as soon as the last man vanished from his ken.

I realized with a sick feeling of shock that a second's more energy would have dissolved the back wall, and I would have been buried beneath a flood of molten iron.

When I got outside, there was no sign of the sugarfoot along the street. In fact, there was no sign of anyone. Marsport, despite the caloric values of the heating troughs is still pretty chilly at night. I gathered no one went out much, or that this was a slack night for the local merchants, because even the stores were closed, and the public stereovision auditorium was shut down, too.

It was eerie, walking down that rocky street, with no sound but that of my durex heels smacking the ground. To left and right, dark shuttered windows moved by as I advanced. My nose still felt irritated by the good whiff of ozone it had inhaled when the sugarfoot cut loose with the collapser, and I was rubbing the tip of it with the back of my wrist when I saw a figure down the street, facing toward me.

It seemed to be a man, but his figure was lost in the deep shadows thrown by the eye-searing glow of the distant converter. I kept moving toward him, but slowed my pace. There was something in his attitude that I didn't like. He was waiting there for me, I realized with a small shock. And I sensed his intentions weren't the best possible.

While moving toward him, I started darting my eyes about me, to see if there were some way of getting off the street. But the buildings were all side-to-side with one another, and shut tight. I could, of course, hurl myself through the glass front of one. But assuming I didn't brain myself on the blinds in the process, what then? All these places were backed by that infernal molten river. There'd be no escape. And then my eyes saw something that sent brazen alarm bells clanging through my nervous system. In the entrance of one store, the glass curved at a forty-five degree angle to my line of movement, and, reflected in its depths, I could see the broad avenue behind me.

It was filled with creeping figures.

I spun about with an involuntary cry, and looked at them, head on. It was a group of men, armed with rude weapons, mostly clubs, but a few glittering knives. And they were obviously after me.

As soon as they knew I'd spotted them, they left all pretense of stealth, and came at me in a run, brandishing their weapons.

I staggered back one frightened step, then turned and ran down the street like a madman. Not one of them, however, was making a sound. Only their heavy footfalls told me they were still in earnest pursuit as I stumbled up the street toward that solitary waiting figure in the shadows. It was like a nightmare; the relentless pursuers chasing one down an endless avenue with no turnoff.

My ribs ached with panicky breathing, and my vision was swimming giddily as I came to where the solitary figure stood. "Here we go," I said to myself. "Now he steps out and stops me. And I'm too winded to put up a fight."

As I came nearly abreast of the figure, it stepped out into the blue-white glow that glared from the converter. Brilliant light coruscated over glassy scales as it moved out into the avenue in a queer scuttling motion.

The sugarfoot! I knew it was the same one. My collapser was still clutched in its three-fingered hand. Blindly, I shot my arms in front of me to wrest the thing from its grasp, but it simply tossed the gun into its other hand, and with the free hand caught me by the collar and held on.

Then a humming blaze filled the avenue for a split second, and I got my second whiff of ozone that night. The sugarfoot released me, and I fell to the street panting. I managed to lift my head, and look back toward where my pursuers had been. They were gone.

I raised myself on my hands, and looked up into the scaly face of my rescuer, wary and alert. But the sugarfoot had lowered the collapser, and wasn't menacing me with it.

"Why did you kill those men?" I asked, bewildered.

It flickered out a horrible-looking tongue that resembled a segment of hollow rubber tubing, and made some clacking noises. I shook my head. The thing ceased making noises, and tried sign language instead. It pointed toward where the men had been, then pointed at me.

"You mean," I said slowly, "you annihilated those men simply because they were after me?"

The thing didn't change expression—I didn't really see how it could, what with its rigid crystalline structure—but it gave a slow nod. It seemed to have difficulty doing it, as though it weren't used to that particular form of expression.

"But why?" I said, getting to my feet and staring at the creature. "Why go to these lengths to protect me? Is there something special about me?"

Again the ponderous nod. Then the sugarfoot pointed at me, and pointed at its head. I simply shook my head. It did the action again, patiently.

"Because I'm smart?" I choked, not really thinking this was the case.

The lumpy red head moved from right to left and back to center again.

"Then what?" I demanded.

It looked about, suddenly, then pointed to the ground and shook its head again.

"Not here, you mean?"

The sugarfoot nodded, then raised a hand and beckoned.

"You want me to come with you; is that it?" I said.

It nodded, with less patience, and moved off a few paces. When I didn't go with it, it turned to face me again, and gave its head a questioning tilt.

"Because," I answered its unspoken question, "I don't know if I can trust you, that's why."

It stared at me with its wide-set eyes for a second, then pointed to the empty space in the street, then to the collapser, and nodded.

"I—I should trust you because you didn't use the collapser on me? Because if your motives were bad, you would already have destroyed me?"

The sugarfoot nodded violently.

"Unh-uh!" I said, backing off. "Not a chance. You tell me why, and maybe I'll come along. But not before." Even as I said it, I felt regret for my own irrationality. Were its intentions even the best, it could certainly not prove them to me, or even demonstrate its reasons with the language barrier between us.

It stood there, looking at me, apparently thinking hard. We seemed to be at an impasse. I didn't want to go with it. On the other hand, I didn't want it to go off and leave me with the most baffling mystery of my life unsolved. I had to know why it had spared me, and what it wanted.

But an alien, on a strange planet, with that dragonish form, and the shark-mouth full of teeth, not to mention a thick three-foot tail ... I couldn't bring myself to trust it.

At that moment, there was a shout down the street, and a flashing light. Someone was coming. Probably, I realized an instant later, the Security men from the rocket field. They had a gadget there that could not only spot, but track down, any use of atomic energy in the region. And there had been, within ten minutes of each other, two such uses of that all-annihilating collapser.

The sugarfoot took a step backward.

"Hold on," I said. "These guys are okay. Maybe, after I get a tranquillizer, I'll be more in the mood for coming with you. If you'll just wait a moment."

But the sugarfoot was having none of it. It gave me an angry glance, then, before I could dodge, it grabbed my arm. I went to pull away, then saw that it was trying to tell me something. The fingers not holding my arm were indicating my wrist. It took me a second to catch on.

"Wrist—wristwatch?" A swift nod. "Time of some sort?" Another. "You—You'll come for me at a later time?" A very brief nod, then a surprisingly friendly clasp of those clawlike fingers on my shoulder.

Then, with a bound that took my breath away, the sugarfoot sprang upward from the street and landed on the rooftop of one of the nearby stores. It landed running, and as I watched, it reached the rear of the store and took a soaring leap out over the molten river between it and the next rooftop. Then it vanished into the blackness beyond the trough alley. I turned to await the arrival of the Security men.

Charlie and the other Security Agent, whose name turned out to be Foster, sat stolidly listening as I recounted events since I'd last seen them.

"You say," Charlie interrupted with a frown, "this here sugarfoot told you why he didn't shoot you down?"

"Not quite," I said. "He didn't seem to have the time. But he said he'd see me l—"

"Look, Delvin, that's not what I mean. Everybody from Mars to Venus knows that the sugarfoots are dumb animals. So I'd like to know what you're trying to hand us."

There was something funny in his tone. As though he were saying, not "It can't be true," but, "It's not supposed to be true, and that's the way things stay!"

I paused, considering. I'd had a hard time for a while, when I was first picked up. But I'd been able to get myself brought, by the men who found me, to Charlie and Foster, after giving Charlie's name and describing the two. They'd identified me, and gotten me off the hook for the damage to that bar. It was damage possible only by a collapser. And I, of course, had been picked up wearing a collapser holster.

But from the time I'd been left with them, there was a bothersome something about their attitude; an impatience, as though they had something to say to me, or even do to me, but had to hold off until I was through.

"He told me by sign language," I said. "He made a gesture, and I interpreted it. Nothing baffling in that, is there?"

Foster gave me a half-lidded stare, as though suppressing anger. Then he said, "Tell me, Mister Delvin. Just what is the sign for 'I must go now, but I'll see you at a later time'?"

I took a deep breath and controlled myself. "Look, I was picked for this job because I have a gift for interpretation, or deduction, or whatever you want to call it."

"If you're such a hotshot figure-outer," Charlie snapped, "how come you didn't get suspicious when that bartender was forcing free drinks on you? Any sap would've expected a mickey with the guy acting like that!"

"The reason," I said, stiffly, hating to admit my mental weakness, "is that at that particular moment, the picture of Miss Snow White was on the stereo. That's why! I—I don't function properly when there are women about."

Charlie and Foster exchanged a look, and both shrugged: I felt a hot blush of embarrassment and anger burning upon my face. "And that's the story!" I finished stubbornly.

Charlie heaved himself lazily to his feet. "What do you think, Foster?"

Foster, emulating the same lazy motion, looked thoughtful for a second, then nodded. "I think that's all we're going to get. Come on, let's stash him away."

"Stash me away?" I cried indignantly. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're going into a nice cell, buddy," said Charlie, an ugly smile on his face. "And you'll be let out when the time comes. So quit your bellyaching and come on. It'll be easier if you don't try to get rough."

"You can't arrest me," I said. "I'm—or, I should be—the Amnesty-bearer!"

It was as if they hadn't heard me.

"Come on, come on," said Foster, crooking a finger at me.

"You guys can't pull this kind of trick!" I said. "When Chief Baxter hears about this—"

Charlie and Foster threw back their heads and laughed.

"W-what's so funny?" I asked, a dreadful inkling growing inside my mind.

The door opened and a third security man walked in. It was Chief Philip Baxter. He gave me a tolerant smile.

"They're laughing, Delvin," he said smoothly, "because I gave the order for your arrest."

The cell was of cold Martian stone, and had no window. I sat, miserable, on the thin cot provided for me, and pondered all that had happened to