I dropped back to sit on the edge of the cot, and let him wait a while, while I tried to figure the whole mess out. Then I remembered something, and looked up at him.
"Clatclit, back in Marsport, when I first met you, I asked why I had been chosen, and you indicated that you'd tell me later. Why was I chosen?"
Clatclit just stared, uncertainly.
"You know what I mean. Why was I the one you didn't blast with that collapser? And why'd you go off without me the first time, but want to take me along the second?"
A very disgusted stare.
I slowed down and fed him questions one at a time.
"Back at that bar, you blasted the other men, then left without me. Why?"
Clatclit pointed to himself, then to his cranium, then to me, then made a palms-down hand-spreading gesture.
"You ... thought ... I ... negation—You thought I'd been blasted, too! Except that I'd flattened out behind that wall, and you couldn't see me behind the remaining bottom section. You originally meant to get me out of there alive?"
Nods, vigorous.