"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?"