The Great Hydration

The audience was at an end. All humanoids, even the Gamintes, were by now breathing with difficulty in the vapour-laden air, enclosed as it was by trickling walls and a moistly shining floor. Yet as they left the pavilion the Analane could only feel despair, despite the physical relief.

“They are against us!” Kurwer wailed. “What can we do?”

Hrityu shook his head sadly. “I do not think they believe the Crome’s word more than ours. They are driven by expediency. They may already have given the Crome permission to exterminate us, and wish to retain their support.”

The potential value of the radiator, he reflected, did not seem to have occurred to them. Or—a startling thought—did Rherrsherrsh think the Crome had stolen it, and would give it to them?

Nussmussa and the Crome departed in opposite directions. A Gaminte approached, questioning them on the appearance of the radiator. The jet-black creature spoke in a polite voice and ventured no opinion of his own. His face was blank with concentration as Hrityu described the apparatus.

“Something that size wouldn’t be easy to hide, unless it’s been smashed to pieces,” he said finally. “I suggest you search the market yourselves, since our own efforts will be scant. Remember, though—no fighting.”

He turned and strode away. Hrityu and Kurwer stood together on the sand, wondering how they could ever face their co-tribesmen now.

CHAPTER FIVE

Roncie Reaul Northrop was not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed when his cell door opened and he saw standing there, not a sexually receptive Joanita Serstos, but Johnny Castaneda.

“Hello, Roncie. You’re back on the team.”

Castaneda stepped into the cell. He looked tired and depressed. Northrop put down the book he had been reading. “What gives, Johnny?”

Finding a chair, the geological team leader sat down wearily. “Didn’t Joanita keep you informed? Oh, we have a job to do. Pretty routine technically, but K & B will sure get it in the neck if they’re ever found out. How are you for radioactivity by the way? I’ve had such a lot of cancer …”

“Who hasn’t?” Northrop said with a shrug. “I’ve had it three times myself.” It was something everybody got now and then, if they spent much time in space.

“I’m practically a garden for carcinomata. The doc’s told me to avoid getting them in future, if I can.” Castaneda sighed. “Well, come on, Roncie, I’ll give you the details.”

Northrop glanced round the cell, his home of the past few weeks, before they left. Briefly he wondered if Joanita would be as accommodating towards him now he was out.

They made their way to Castaneda’s office. On the wall was pinned a lithographic map, presumably of the planet the Enterprise was orbiting. The word TENACITY had been inked at the top of the sheet. Castaneda began to fill him in on the planet’s remarkable recent history, and what their employers were planning.

“Our part’s fairly simple,” he finished. “We’re to go down and do some test drilling and some seismic stuff, and then drill the shafts. Meanwhile the shock bombs will be put together up here in the Enterprise. K & B will make contact with the lobsters in person and open negotiations. When we get the word we lower the tubes and get the hell out while they go off.”

“K & B are going to leave the ship to their bondpeople?”

“O’Rourke will be in charge. He’s absolutely dependable. And they’ll put a lock on the stardrive, of course.”

“Of course.”

Mildly appalled by what he had just heard, Northrop began totting up a mental list of the crimes Krabbe & Bouche were about to commit.

“I suppose he’s got Shelley working on all this,” he said.

“Sure.” Shelley was the firm’s bonded lawyer, and a joke to the rest of the staff. ‘Now then, Shelley, what’s the law on so-and-so?’ ‘Whatever you say it is, Partner Krabbe, Partner Bouche, sirs!’

Castaneda went on: “Take the law against using nuclear technology on a planet that hasn’t already developed it. On Tenacity they use naturally occurring radium to power small engines. Shelley argues that makes the natives nuclear engineers! In fact they might just as well be using coal. And so on all down the line. According to Shelley we won’t be undertaking planetary alteration at all. We’re simply rectifying an inconvenient climatic deviation.”

“In which some dozens of intelligent species will be wiped out.”

The door banged open. Krabbe and Bouche burst in. They seemed to be in high spirits. For a moment Northrop thought they were drunk.

Their faces were bronze with radpaint, the standard precaution when going into a high radiation area. More extraordinary was their apparel. They had bedecked themselves in burnouses, the loose, flowing hooded cloaks once worn in hot deserts on Earth.

Bouche caught sight of Northrop. “Ah, there you are. Learned your lesson, I hope?”

Northrop drew himself up. “Sir, I wish to protest. I was on the point of renouncing my bond in Duravia, as is my right. I should not be here.”

Krabbe stared at him as though he were mad. Bouche answered.