The Great Hydration

“This is my plan,” Karvass said briskly. “Firstly, I will take you to our secret camp. There a force will be assembled to aid in your fight against the Crome, and one of you can return home with it. The other will remain to teach us the secrets of your device.”

The Artaxa’s bright silver eyes stared at them. “What is your answer? I have thrown myself on your mercy. You are two against one. There is nothing to prevent you from killing me here and now and taking back your property. But I do not believe you will be so foolish. Instead, let us be comrades-in-arms!”

Karvass stepped forward, metal accoutrements clinking. He clasped Hrityu by the wrist in the worldwide gesture of trust and agreement.

And Hrityu clasped the green-skinned humanoid by his other wrist, completing the sign.

“Very well, then! Full speed to the camp of the Artaxa!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The hydrorium towards which the desert caravan hummed was, according to the Gaminte guards, the largest on the planet. It hove into view like a dome-shaped mountain, the metal exterior scored to dullness by centuries of wind-blown sand.

Boris Bouche judged the curve of the dome to be a cycloid, a shape much used by human engineers. It impressed him that the Tlixix could construct a cycloid on this scale. He scanned the terrain where the dome stood. It had been built on the edge of an escarpment, beneath which a level plain stretched to the horizon. Clearly this had been a shoreline, in the days before all ocean water disappeared into Tenacity’s interior.

They were in the foremost of four large desert drays. The journey from the World Market had taken a tiresome two Earth days. A suggestion that transport be left to one of the Enterprise’s lighters had met with a curt refusal on the part of the Tlixix, who continued to treat the Earthmen as prisoners, albeit honoured ones. They still retained all of Krabbe and Bouche’s equipment, except for the translator sets.

They didn’t know, of course, that the Enterprise was watching the progress of the caravan through the interferometric telescope.

The partners lounged on the foredeck, protected by a glass canopy, in company with three Gamintes. Market Master Rherrsherrsh was semi-submerged in a spray-bath in the rear, separated from them by a partition. His colleague at the World Market had gone ahead in a fast vehicle to brief the Tlixix ruling council. Behind them, in the second dray, was Krabbe and Bouche’s supply of food and water.

The powerful radium motor hummed as the Gaminte driver headed the dray towards the dome’s tunnel entrance. Bouche scowled, rubbing his jaw. Krabbe, by contrast, smiled happily. He had noticed how his partner got tense at these moments. He, however, was convinced that everything was going well. Sure, the lobsters were going to have an incredulity problem. The tale they were being told was scarcely believable, from their point of view.

But Krabbe had dealt with a range of alien races, and he had come up with a common denominator. It didn’t matter what an intelligent species looked like, or what strange habits and outlooks it had. There was a common touchstone for the whole galaxy, probably for the whole universe, which made it possible to do business.

Greed and self-interest.

The Gamintes were hurriedly donning skintight suits complete with facemasks. They were preparing themselves for the conditions inside the dome. If naked they could not tolerate a water-rich environment for very long. The tunnel turned out to be a multi-stage vapour lock. One by one doors opened in sequence. Then the sixth door opened, they trundled into the hydrorium.

The scene was stunning.

They saw what appeared to be a rocky shoreline, full of creeks and beaches, fringing a calm ocean. There was little sense of being in an enclosed space, and even less of being on the planet as they had experienced it so far. The dome’s roof was coloured blue—a softer blue than the sharp azure which bedecked present-day Tenacity—and gave the impression of a sky extending to a distant horizon. Lounging and splashing in the water were hundreds of Tlixix.

The lobster creatures had managed to preserve a fragment of their former world. Several fragments, rather. This was one of several such refuges.

Krabbe was awe-struck. “What a place!”

Bouche nodded. As the Gamintes slid back the desert rover’s transparent canopy a refreshing sea-smell wafted in, carried by a distinct breeze. That would be part of the artificial environment’s circulation system, Bouche thought to himself.

“This is probably only part of it,” he said to Krabbe. “See those openings in the rocks? My guess is they lead to excavations underground.”

“Yes. What we’re looking at is a pleasure area.”

“Well, a little more then that. It’s also a psychological necessity. The lobsters need to have something of the environment they evolved in.”