"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.
"Of course!" the Martian snapped. "If it were not, we'd have destroyed
Baxter ourselves."
"Why didn't you use the sugarfeet?" I asked, bewildered. "Clatclit
seems to have shown no ineptness in disintegrating other Earthmen."
"For the simple reason," said the Martian, with cold anger, "that on
your wretchedly humid planet, a sugarfoot would be corroded to death
before it could locate him. If, of course, it had already overcome the
other obvious difficulties such as getting there, since Earth does not
permit immigration of alien species."
Like a hot spark flaring where only ice had been before, a tiny
light of hope began to burn in my heart. The Martians, for all their
four-dimensional superiority, didn't know that Baxter was on Mars!
Hell, why should they? I knew Baxter personally, and I didn't know he
was on Mars until he was good and ready to let me know it.
"Jery--" said Snow, about to spill the beans.
"Ixnay, lover!" I growled. "Unless you want these guys tossing in the
hand, and switching to Plan C! Remember?"
I hoped she'd recall what had happened to those would-be rebels once
the Ancients no longer had a use for them. I could tell, a second
later, by her involuntary gasp, that she did.
"What was the import of that exchange?" the Martian asked, fairly
smoldering with suspicion. "Your idioms were elusive."
"My woman was about to beg me not to do your will," I lied carefully.
"I merely pointed out to her that if I refused, you would simply
obliterate us and utilize some other scheme."
"Intelligent thinking, Jery Delvin," said the Martian. For a horrible
moment, I thought he meant he'd caught onto my misinterpretation of my
words. Then I knew all was well, relatively, as he went on. "As to the
method of destruction, we leave it to you to choose. However, haste is
of paramount importance to us."
"Excuse me," I interrupted, "but would you answer me one probably
idiotic question?"
"If it is within my range of information," said the Martian.
"Well, just why are you so set on getting rid of Baxter? Mind you, I
have no overwhelming affection for him myself. But I can't figure your
angle."
"The motivation is the usual, basic one. Even you humans follow it:
Survival."
"Survival?" I repeated, blinking.
"Philip Baxter possesses the knowledge of the method of our
destruction," said the Martian. "That in itself is a bad thing, but
he has two more things besides this knowledge that make his removal
imperative. He also possesses the means and the intention of using this
means."
"What?" said Snow, losing the pedantic thread.
"He means, honey, that Baxter's not only got the knowhow to bump off
this bunch, but the wherewithal and the urge."
"You Earthmen have a rather colorful succinctness of speech," the
Martian observed.