The Great Hydration

“But you didn’t renounce your bond, Northrop. You jumped ship instead. We can hardly have that. If you had followed legal procedures, of course, then everything would be different.”

Northrop listened incredulously to this last statement.

“In the event, you are here, so let’s see you work with a will,” Bouche finished.

“And suppose I refuse to work?”

Again Krabbe stared. “You want to renounce your bond now? You want off?” He laughed, and his eyes went to the map of Tenacity. “You might not find the local taverns to your liking.”

Northrop swallowed. At least he had made his point, he thought.

Krabbe swung to him, adopting the paternalistic tone he had used earlier on Spencer. “You should be thanking heaven to be on this jaunt, Northrop. This planet is a one-off. Everybody will get a share of the profit. The firm of Krabbe and Bouche knows how to take care of its bond people.”

An embarrassed Castaneda put in a word. “Northrop is just a little confused from his time in the brig, sir. He’ll be all right. I was just explaining the job to him.”

“Well, I hope you’ll be able to put in a good report on his conduct, Castaneda. Partner Bouche and I are descending to the surface now. Spencer says Tenacity has a world language, imposed by the lobsters as the dehydrate species evolved. We’ll spend a few days in the market learning it, then we’ll make contact. Is your team ready to move?”

“The equipment is being checked now, sir.”

“Don’t be too long about it. We want that work done on time.”

They lurched out of the door, as if on their way to a fancy dress party.

“Better get your radpaint on, Roncie,” Castaneda said.

His voice was laden with gloom.

Half an hour later, painted up, Northrop was surreptitiously sidling from the communications room. He stopped, blinking in embarrassment, on seeing Joanita Serstos turn the corner into the corridor.

“Well, hello, Joanita.”

She halted, confronting him.

He forced a smile. She offered none in return. Instead, her expression was severe.

“What were you doing in the communications room?”

He banged the door shut behind him. “Looking for Spencer. Somebody told me I’d find him here.”

“Neither Spencer nor you are allowed in there. It’s out of bounds to everyone except the partners and O’Rourke. In fact, how did you get in?”

She stepped forward and tugged on the door handle. The door held.

“It was open when I got here,” Roncie said casually. He reached up and touched her hair. “Anyway, I’m glad to run into you. I have to be down on the surface in an hour. How about twenty minutes on my bunk?”

She twisted away from his searching hands. “No way. In any case I’m on duty.”

Joanita’s voice was icy. He fell back. “I get it. And your duties have been changed, eh? I suppose I had Bouche to thank for everything after all.”

“What makes you think I want to make love to someone wearing radpaint?”

Her excuse was unconvincing. The change in her manner was too obvious.

While he was in the brig the thought that she was being sent to him along with the food hadn’t bothered him. Now, for some reason, it did.

“Okay, Joanita. See you when I get back.”

Disgruntled, he made his way towards the bay where the ferry was being loaded up for departure.

CHAPTER SIX

There was something about the view that Karl Krabbe saw through the slatted window of his and Boris Bouche’s lodging that was nudging at his memory. Along the main market concourse traders of a dozen races and colours, lizard and humanoid, passed to and fro between airy pavilions constructed of metal and coloured glass. It was kaleidoscopic, but also barbarically warlike. There was no one who did not seem to carry a weapon of some sort, and mostly the various tribesmen were naked except for bracelets, bangles, straps and belts.

The lighter had put Krabbe and Bouche down a few miles out in the desert. They had ridden in on a balloon-tyred vehicle that did not look at all out of place in the market’s parking lot, and had sought out a room in one of the accommodation blocks, transferring their supplies from the dune buggy mostly at night.

No one had taken the least bit of notice of them. In appearance the aliens from another world were apparently not particularly unusual.

Suddenly the comparison that had been niggling at the back of his mind popped into his consciousness. He turned to his partner, a broad grin on his face.

“Eh, Boris! Barsoom!”

Bouche had just finished his daily contact with O’Rourke and was folding up the communicator’s dish aerial. “What?”

“We should have called this world Barsoom! That’s what it’s like.”

Bouche stared blankly.

“You know!” Krabbe urged. “Edgar Rice Burroughs! His name for Mars.”

Krabbe’s preoccupation with the 20th century writer was known to Bouche, but he had never read any of his work himself.

“Is that so? Well, I just told O’Rourke the language is now about adequate. Maybe we should make a move tomorrow.”