Part 7

"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.

"It sounds like water!" I said. "Like more water than I thought there was on this whole spaceborne Death Valley!"

"Jery!" Snow's fingers dug into my palm. "If this is the way to the Ancients, then this must be what Clatclit meant when he told you he could only take you so far and no further!"

"Sure it is!" I exclaimed excitedly. "A child could have figured it out. What else but water could impede these rock-hard things!"

Clatclit was slowing his pace and moving more carefully. Then, not ten feet in front of him, the fiery glow of his tail tip was reflected from a million foaming, shifting wet surfaces. He took another few courageous steps, then halted, pressed back against the curve of the tunnel wall.

He'd averted his gaze from the raging torrent beyond him, but his outstretched hand still pointed in that direction. I felt a cold wet spray on my face, and saw, with a little shock, that some of the glittering facets of Clatclit's scaly hide were already becoming pocked and eroded.

"We'll have to go fast," I said, releasing Snow's hand only to clutch her arm tightly against my side. "If we take too long, our luciferous friend here will be a sticky red puddle. And I don't intend crossing that in the dark!"

"_That_" was a jagged ridge of rock that continued forward from where our segment of tunnel ended, scant feet beyond Clatclit's cowering form. It was glistening with pools of black water and wet froth, flung up there by the raging river that passed less than a foot beneath its slightly arched surface. The torrent rushed angrily from somewhere in the hollow blackness to our right, leaped and sprayed past the natural bridge of rock, barely two feet wide, that lay before our feet, and then--

My stomach grew sick at the sight just to the left of the bridge.

The vaulted tunnel which contained this black Martian river dipped and dropped. The river, just beyond our frail bridge, was a black cataract falling into the heart of the planet.

"Jery," Snow said, shivering. "Hold me. Hold me tight, or I'll never get across that!"

"It's all right," I said, with a calm tone that surprised the hell out of me. "Here." I got directly behind her and ran my hands along the undersides of her forearms, gripping them tightly midway to her wrists. "Now, just walk as I direct you, Snow. Close your eyes if you want. I won't guide you wrong."

"I trust you, Jery," she said softly.

"Okay then, honey." I kept my voice gentle, soothing. "Left foot forward. No, a bit more. There! Okay, now the right foot." She swayed a little in my grasp, on the first slippery section of that dangerous arch of rock. "Easy! That's it, honey, you're doing fine. Now your left. Ah! Okay. And then the right. Swell."

Step by nightmare step, we crossed the arch, Snow moving her feet blindly forward in exploratory shuffles, and I, forgetting my own danger in my concern for her, moving steadily with her, eyeing each spot on that rock ahead of her feet for safety. The light grew dimmer by the minute as we crept further and further from Clatclit.

I wondered how long I could have stood in a spray of liquid caustic or acid, holding a light for some friends.

Then the last step was made, and without my knowing how it happened, Snow was tightly in my arms, facing me now, her silky hair against my cheek, her arms locked about my waist.

"Easy, baby, easy." I mumbled into her ear. "We've arrived, we're okay. Just relax."

She turned her face up to mine, and I forgot to speak. Suddenly my mouth was down on hers, hard, my arms crushing her against me. We clung like that for a dizzy moment, then broke apart.

"Snow," I gripped her wrists and held her there, staring at me. "Snow, darling, if we ever get out of this alive--"

"I know," she breathed. "I know, Jery. I love you!"

I kissed her again, gently, this time. Then we started off down the tunnel, away from Clatclit's light. I hoped he wasn't melted beyond repair. I knew, though, after that shattering exchange of affection with Snow, that I sure was!

Behind us the light vanished. I looked back, but could discern neither Clatclit, nor the rock bridge, nor the torrent.

"I guess we feel our way from here on in," I remarked.

"No," said Snow, halting close beside me. "There, up ahead, Jery! A light."

Together we moved down the tunnel. The light grew in intensity. Then we'd reached the lighted area. We were face to face with a peculiar red-bronze stone wall. No other tunnels led off from where we stood. There was no direction we could go from there except back toward that perilous underground cataract.

"Could we have come the wrong way?" Snow asked. "Maybe we missed a turnoff back there in the tunnel where it was darker."

"No," I said. "I had my hands feeling the walls all the way from the bridge onward, until we could see our way. This must be the right place."

Then on a sudden instinctive hunch I turned to Snow. "Got a lipstick in that handbag of yours?"

She looked at me blankly, but nodded, and produced the slim metal tube for my inspection.

I took it from her fingers, slipped off the cap, and twirled up a half-inch of the glossy red wax. "Now let's see if I'm right about this wall," I said, and made a streaking motion across the rough surface with the lipstick.

The end of the wax cylinder came away a bit disturbed by its apparent contact with the surface before us, but the wall held no trace, no mark, not even a smudge. I saw the little curls of sheared-off wax falling down the face of the wall to the floor of the tunnel.

I handed the lipstick back to a bewildered Snow.

"Just as I thought," I said. "That, honey, is the rock known as parabolite. The toughest, most impervious substance in the solar system. Nothing marks it, scratches it, or even budges it. We couldn't get past here with an intercontinental size collapser!"

"But Jery, look!" Snow cried, pointing at the wall. I looked. The flat wall of parabolite, the impervious mineral, was going slowly concave in the center. I took hold of Snow by the shoulders, and pulled her back from that rapidly deepening hemisphere, expecting--I don't know _what_ I was expecting. But I was scared speechless.

The thing bulged back away from us until its diameter was equal to that of the tunnel itself, and then, before my hypnotized gaze, the deepest section of the ruddy mineral gaped, like a hole suddenly pricked in the side of a bubble. The remainder of the parabolite wrenched violently away from the opening, leaving us a clear gateway into--

Into a vast chamber of eye-disturbing metal, that shifted and shimmered in some mind-chilling fashion that made me want to turn and run with Snow back down that black tunnel behind us.

"Come in, Jery Delvin," said the voice of an _ancient Martian_.

15

Snow and I stepped into the great gleaming chamber. I was very much disconcerted when the wall behind us contracted suddenly back into place. Wherever we were, we were there until the Ancients decided to let us out.

"Who is the person with you?" said a voice. It had a frowning note to it, but I could not discern the source of the words anywhere in that silver-white blur of metal universe that spread away from us in all directions.

"She--" I said as boldly as possible, feeling like an escapee from Fenimore Cooper "--she is my woman!"

Silence. Then, "She will be allowed."

"Allowed to what?" I demanded.

"Allowed to be," said the voice, without emotion.

Snow's fingers nearly went through my hand.

"Well, thanks," I said, figuring politeness wouldn't hurt. I held tight to Snow, supplementing our hand grip with an arm-in-arm lock. We took another step forward. "Where are you?" I asked.

"You must come forward," said the voice.

I took another step, then another, then came to a startled halt.

As if materializing out of the air, the Martian was before me. I stared at him, stupified.

"What's the matter, Jery? What is it?" Snow said. Then she looked where I was looking, giving a little scream.

"It's all right, honey," I said, with hollow courage. "He's a little impressionistic, but--"

"He?" she cried, clinging to me. "That--that thing?"

I looked at her, mystified, then back at the sort-of man I was standing before. He made my head spin a bit, what with apparently seeing him from front view and both profiles simultaneously, but he was mannish looking.

"This guy, the Martian, honey," I said. "Maybe you didn't take enough steps forward."

"She cannot see me as you see me, Jery Delvin," said the Martian. "Her eyes only convey to her a fantastic whirl of hideous light and dark shapes. She, along with most others of your race, cannot apprehend my form as you can. This is why you were chosen, Jery Delvin."

"That's crazy," I protested. "You're there, aren't you? You reflect light into the eyes, right? Why can't she see you?"

"The human eye is not the animal eye," said the Martian. "An animal eye sees only meaningless shapes; animals use all their senses to identify objects. But the human eye sees concepts, Jery Delvin. Where an animal merely discerns eyes, feeding apparatus and breathing vents, the human eye sees a face. Actually, there is no such thing as a face."

It was true enough, in a way, that the human eye tended to group otherwise unrelated objects into concepts of non-actual reality.

"So how come I can see you, and she can't?" I reiterated.

"You are gifted to see true," said the Martian. "Your mind apprehends concepts where it has previously expected to find none. You relate what you see, and correctly. As in the case of your deriving so much information from your conversation with Clatclit. Another man would not have succeeded in that."

I shook my head, confused. "But I--I see you!"

"No, Jery Delvin. Your mind sees me. Your eyes alone could not possibly view me since I am never entirely here to be viewed. Your eyes see one part of me, then another, then another and another. But your mind rejects the idea that I am four separate entities, and sees me as I am, a unit."

"You're here, you say, but you're not here, too?" I choked, feeling positively giddy.

"I am not a three-dimensional creature," said the Martian. "We whom you call the Ancients are existing in four dimensions."

"I thought Einsteinian physics says that _time_ is the fourth dimension," I said slowly.

"It is not _time_," said the Martian. "It is _place_ that is the fourth dimension. What is _here_, Jery Delvin? Or _there_? Remember, there is no _here_ or _there_ except in relationship to something else. If only one small globe of rock comprised existing matter, Jery Delvin, where would it be?"

"It--That's silly. _One_ thing can't be anywhere!" I said. "It'd just be floating in a void." Trying to picture such a void made my brain whirl. I gave it up.

"I'm glad you understand," said the Martian. "Very well, then. We, your Ancients, are existing in a perfect _here-ness_, of which you can have no concept at all. We are living in not _a_ location, but in _location_ itself."

"It's no use," I said. "I can't even picture it."

"You're not supposed to," said the Martian, with a mechanical smile of contempt. "Even your mind, Jery Delvin, cannot fathom the magnitude of our being."

"Hold on a minute!" I said, changing the subject. "Clatclit told me that you expected to compel my cooperation by keeping the Space Scouts your prisoners unless I obeyed you."

"That is correct, Jery Delvin. And so, our desire is that you--"

"Damn it!" I exploded. "Stop taking so much for granted! Before I even scratch where it itches to please you guys, I want to see those kids! And in damned good shape, too!"

Snow held onto my arm and trembled. This was it. Now we'd know for sure if the boys were all right.

The Martian looked exasperated, but then he reached an arm out from himself--I couldn't tell exactly, without getting a blinding headache, just which way his arm went, left, right, up or down. But he reached away from himself in some direction or other, and the next moment, the shimmering blur of metallic flooring between him and us gave way to a red-bronze platform of parabolite which rose like a sluggish elevator on close-intervalled narrow rods of the same mineral. Then, as the apparatus halted, I realized that these rods were more than just supports for that slab of rock. They were bars.

And huddled together in this escape-free cage, I saw the fifteen missing Space Scouts.

"Snow!"

One of the boys, his hair as raven as Snow's was blonde, tore away from the group and rushed over to the bars, jamming his arms between them to reach out for her.

"Ted!" Snow cried, and rushed over to him. It was kind of awkward, embracing with the bars in the way, but they did it anyhow.

"Ted, dear Ted! Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said, with a note of uncertainty. "Yeah, I guess we are. Only, I was almost giving up on you."

"Have you," the Martian's icy voice cut into the reunion, "seen quite enough?"

"Hold your horses!" I hollered at him through the cage. "She hasn't checked him for broken bones, yet!"

The Martian, whether out of patience or alien incomprehension of my sarcasm, left the cage where it was, and stood waiting.

"I knew you'd get my message, Snow!" said Ted eagerly, quite forgetting his doubts of a few seconds before. "I just knew it. When do we get out of here, hey? We want to go home!"

Apparently adventure lost its tang when the cage had first been lowered into the--the whatever it was that served us as a floor. The other boys had come up to the bars, now, all of them looking at Snow with longing, as the next best thing to a human-type mother.

"Oh, you poor kids," Snow sobbed suddenly. "Have they been feeding you? When did you last wash your face, Ted?"

"They don't feed us at all!" Ted said sorrowfully. "It's been weeks now since we ran out of candy, and--"

"Jery Delvin!" the Martian's voice interrupted imperiously. "Before that look on your woman's face erupts into some more of her tiresome vituperation, will you explain to her what a metabolic stasis is?"

"Sure," I said, folding my arms. "As soon as you explain it to me!"

The Martian seemed to be gathering himself for a cry of utter exasperation. Then he caught hold of himself and said with rigid calm, "We merely have held the children within a field of radiation that obviates the necessity of their taking alimental nourishment."

Snow looked over her shoulder at me, wonderingly.

"He means, honey, that they fixed it somehow so the kids didn't need to eat. I guess it was simpler than running a catering service."

"Didn't need to eat!" she exploded. "Doesn't that blob of black sparklers know that growing boys need food to grow!"

"There's no need to be redundant!" said the Martian.

"To what?" she cried, standing back from the cage to glare at him the better, with arms akimbo. The Martian took this golden opportunity to let the cage drop suddenly back out of our ken. The shimmering blur of metallic luster was once more at our feet.

"Oh!" she cried, stepping forward and staring down. "Ted! Teddy!"

"Jery, Jery, Jery," Snow murmured tearfully, turning about and burrowing her nose into my chest, while I held her helplessly. "He looked s-so hungry!"

I decided to let her sob. Neither I nor the Martian, no matter what our brain power, could drive this fixed notion out of her pretty little head.

"Now that you have seen them," said the Martian, "perhaps we can get to the business at hand?"

I seemed to be out of dilatory alibis.

"Okay," I said. "What do you want from me?"

"We want you to destroy Philip Baxter," said the Martian.

16

"Destroy Baxter?" I echoed stupidly. "I was dragged all the way from Earth to do that?"

"Since we are here, and you were there," said the Martian, condescendingly, "what other choice did we have?"

"You could have sent a letter," I muttered.

"Hardly," the Martian said, unperturbed. "Since physical contact between our two dimensions is impossible."

"It is?" I said, surprised.