"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. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Martians, by Jack Sharkey