[PW] SS-Martian Protoplasm

[Shari Haber]

Dear Womb at ts:

My client, and a couple of other people that I've stumbled across on the
Internet, are looking for a SF short story that originally appeared in
one of the SF magazines during the 1940s or 1950s, give or take a few
years. It concerns two adventurers/explorers/Terrans that are looking
for a lost Martian civilization. They stumble into a
cave/cavern/crevasse where they find "the ultimate weapon." (It might be
behind a force field of some kind, or maybe it's the "creature" (read
on) who is behind the force field.)

One explorer kills the other over the weapon. A creature (maybe a
humongous mouth) say it likes to eat cold protoplasm, and then eats the
dead explorer. Afterwards, the creature says "I like warm protoplasm
too."

Somebody on a SF listserv who saw one of the posts that I alluded to at
the top of this missive said that the author was Keith Laumer. He said
he'd check for the name of the story, but I don't think he ever got back
to the listserv with his answer.

Any and all ideas will be entertained, and greatly appreciated. TIA.

Shari Haber
MCLS Reference Center
shaber at mcls.org