"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.