I was neither aiming at Baxter, nor his ship. The blazing bolt of energy from the collapser, an instant before I joined Snow, the corporal and the Space Scouts on the ground, went where I'd intended it to.
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.