"A very wise statement," said a brittle, harsh voice from above me. I looked up and saw a helmeted figure above us. He wasn't wearing the customary skin-tight pliable oxysuits we had. He wore an outmoded, bulky spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet, all but the face area opaque. The oxygen cannisters weren't attached to his back as expected, though. They were strapped to the back of the wheelchair in which he sat.
Through the fishbowl I could see hard little eyes, a yellowed, parchment-like face, a grim-set jaw. I didn't recognize him, and this struck me odd. I thought I knew everyone on sparsely-settled Mars. Somehow I'd missed him.
What shocked me most was that he had no legs. The spacesuit ended neatly at the thighs.
He was holding in his left hand the tanglegun with which he had entrapped us, and a very efficient-looking blaster was in his right.
"I didn't want to disturb your sleep," he said coldly. "So I've been waiting here for you to wake up."
I could just see it. He might have been sitting there for hours, complacently waiting to see how we'd wake up. That was when I realized he must be totally insane. I could feel my stomach-muscles tighten, my throat constrict painfully.
Then anger ripped through me, washing away the terror. "What's going on?" I demanded, staring at the half of a man who confronted us from the wheelchair. "Who are you?"
"You'll find out soon enough," he said. "Suppose now you come with me." He reached for the tanglegun, flipped the little switch on its side to MELT, and shot a stream of watery fluid over our legs, keeping the blaster trained on us all the while. Our legs were free.
"You may get up now," he said. "Slowly, without trying to make trouble." Val and I helped each other to our feet as best we could, considering our arms were still tightly bound against the sides of our oxysuits.
"Walk," the stranger said, waving the tanglegun to indicate the direction. "I'll be right behind you." He holstered the tanglegun.