by Jack Sharkey
Into the nearest supporting girder of the massive converter.
As in a slow-motion nightmare, the structure began to tilt with the uneven distribution of weight, toward the spot where a supporting leg should have been, and then the brightly burning rays of the ore-converting head came arcing down in a deadly sweep that passed over Baxter, Clatclit, and the ship, narrowly missing the spot where the rest of us lay. Then the power cables tore away, and the beam went out.
It was all over. The ship, of aluminum-magnesium alloys, was in perfectly fine shape. Clatclit, of pure sugar construction, was, if a bit water-sick, alive and healthy.
But Baxter—
The converter had been designed with one function: to turn ferrous oxide, plain old rusted iron, into its components. In the force of its ray, the oxide became free oxygen and molten iron. And the blood of a human being is made up of, amongst other things, tiny cells which have the presence of oxidized iron to thank for their bright red color.
When we got to Baxter, he was long past screaming. You can’t make much noise when you’re a solid blister, ten feet in diameter.
“Hey, Jery,” said Ted, on the rocket back to Earth. “How come you and Snow fell in love so quick, hey?”
I looked from Snow, seated beside me on the lounge, my arm across her shoulders, to the viewport, through which I could see the dwindling red globe that was Mars.
“Well,” I said, trying to think of an answer.
Across from us, squatting happily on a specially provided stool, was Clatclit. As ambassador-elect of the Sugarfoot Nation to Earth, and the first extraterrestrial permitted to land on our home planet, he was mighty proud of his upcoming honor. Clatclit the sugarfoot clacked something.
I looked at him.
He pointed to his wrist and shook his head.
I grinned. “There’s your answer, Ted. There wasn’t time to fall in love slowly.”
Ted stared at the carpet and sulked. I had already, in a post-trauma state of nerves, shattered his composure not a little by angrily telling him that his “world-saving” code was really a cipher.
He’d been unwontedly morose ever since. I felt kind of bad about it, but couldn’t find an opportunity as yet of getting his ego back on its feet.
Then Clatclit, resplendent in his new-grown ruby scales, made another noise. I looked at him again.
He made a back-over-the-shoulder gesture, then tapped his wrist.
“A while ago…” I interpreted aloud for Snow’s benefit. And Ted’s, if he wasn’t too sunken in gloom to listen.
He put one hand to his throat, and pointed an index finger at his eyes.
“…When Baxter was holding you as hostage?”
He pointed to me, then made a bang-bang gesture with the finger, followed by a point back over and above his shoulder, toward where that converter had been in relation to himself.
“Why did I blast the converter?”
Nod.
I stared. “What else was there to do? It was a little rough on Baxter, but I had to save you, didn’t I?”
Side-to-side headshake.
“I didn’t have to save you that way?” I remarked.
Ted was watching Clatclit with interest, I noticed, his eyes dancing with fascination at this better-than-code means of communication.
Clatclit shook his head.
"Okay, I’ll bite,” I said, puzzled. "What would you have done in my spot?”
Bang-bang gesture. Then serpentine motion with his hand.
“Shot the…the lava tunnels?”
Disgusted stare.
“Threw a snake at him?” I hazarded, bewildered.
Abruptly, Ted laughed. I looked at him, chagrined. After all, he couldn’t expect me to be at my brightest in the mind-dampening presence of his sister, though he was a little young to understand such things.
"I suppose you know what he means!" I said.
Ted continued to laugh, a high boy-soprano giggle which seemed in itself to afford him additional amusement.
“Okay, okay,” I said to him. “Give. What did Clatclit say I could have done that would have spared Baxter and saved him from dissolving anyhow?”
Ted managed to squeak out, between gusts of delight, “Clatclit says that if he had been doing the shooting, he would just have disintegrated…” He rolled onto his face on the lounge sofa, and couldn’t go on.
“Disintegrated what?” I demanded, baffled.
Ted snorted, lifting his face to look for the reaction on mine. “The water hose!”
I stared stupidly, then broke into a grin.
I decided not to mention to him that a foot-thick metal girder is a hell of an easier target than a one-inch diameter of flexible tubing. What the hell. I had Snow; Clatclit had a whole skin; and—Well, growing boys need their ego.