"See?" she said. "It's very simple, really. You just remember the position of each letter in its portion of the diagram, and draw the corresponding shape instead of the letter; a square for E, square-plus-dot for N, an L-shape for G, same with a dot for P, an inverted V-shape for U—"
"I get it," I said. "Gad, it looks positively runic when you write that way."
Snow put the address book back into her bag. "So that's what I found scratched onto that supporting beam. The message said, simply: Snow I am all right find Clatclit the sugarfoot and he will explain."
I stared at her. "Not a very easy task he set, was it?"
"Nothing easier, as it turned out," she said airily. "Of course," she admitted, when I gave her a cold stare, "I didn't know it was easy, at the time. I was actually pretty much bewildered. I mean, I thought, like everybody else, that sugarfeet were like cats or dogs."
"So how'd you accomplish locating him?" I said.
She grinned. "I went into Marsport, went up to the first one I saw—they're as common as pigeons around the town—and said, feeling like a damned fool, 'Clatclit?' Instead of the blank-eyed stare of uncomprehending nonintelligence which I expected for my efforts, the thing looked to left and right, I guess to insure that no Earthmen were watching, then beckoned to me and started waddling off. Still feeling like an idiot, I followed it. It led me back toward the airstrip. For a while, I had the stupid impression that it was going to point me out the spot from which the boys had vanished, and that I'd be right back where I started."
"So what happened?" I demanded impatiently.
"Back of the berth where the Phobos II had been, there was a slope, the beginning of the hills that surround Marsport. I followed the sugarfoot partway up the slope to a sort of cave mouth, and it gestured that I should go inside."