The Great Hydration

Reaching out, he turned on the light, and only then discovered that the figure at the tent flap was a greenskinned humanoid. It had silvery slanting eyes, and a large headcrest. As was typical of its kind, the humanoid was naked except for bangles on the arms and a metal circlet at the neck. Roncie would have raised the alarm by yelling at the top of his voice, but for the fact that the dehydrate was pointing a weapon at him. It had a dull grey stock—or so it appeared in the lamplight—and a spring-loaded mechanism for shooting the helical blade which featured so prominently at the front end. Having seen the way such a blade could scythe the flesh from a man’s bones, Roncie froze.

Damn. He didn’t even have his DE beamer. He had given it to the other dehydrate, the one called Hrityu.

The desert dehydrate had not yet discharged the blade, which gave Roncie heart. He reasoned that verbal communication might well be an advantage. Slowly, with infinite caution, he allowed his fingers to search the bedside table until they touched the translator necklace.

Still moving slowly, with an attempt at apparent casualness, he draped it on him in time to hear the dehydrate speak.

“Greetings, Roncie of the Earthmen.”

Now he remembered encountering this form of humanoid before. He strove to recall the name.

“You are … Karvass? Of the Artaxa?”

The membranes on the other’s face underwent a peculiar writhing motion, possibly the equivalent of a nod. The tent flap admitted two more Artaxa who ranged themselves on either side of the first. They, too, carried flingers.

“You must come with us,” Karvass said. “Our tribal elders have much to ask you.”

Roncie sprang from his bed, standing in the insulated utility suit he used as sleeping wear because of the cold. “We are under the protection of the Tlixix—”

These words seemed to provoke the Artaxa, who took a step forward and used his free hand to seize Roncie by the arm. The Earthman was surprised at the wiry strength of his slim, smooth muscles. Karvass dragged him to the tent flap. At the same time another Artaxa was searching the tent. He opened the lid of the water cask and recoiled as the smell of water hit him. Hastily he closed the flask and threw it to the third Artaxa who caught it deftly.

Also on the bedside chest was Roncie’s uneaten supper and his breakfast for next morning, in the form of trays of sandwiches in transparent wrappers. The Artaxa poked the preparation with a forefinger.

“It is the tribesman’s food.”

He tucked the trays under his arm and turned to go.

With the guide rail of a flinger digging into his ribs, Roncie could not resist being ushered outside. The camp was in darkness. The desert, sulfur-coloured by day, became a powdery alum under the massed stars. It came to Roncie that the visitors from those stars had taken local politics too much for granted. Assured of the power of the Tlixix—as well as of their own superior armament—they had posted neither guards nor warning devices.

It was time to regain his nerve. Roncie cried out at the top of his voice.

“Swanson! Pettiford! Help me! I’m being kidnapped!”

Too bad, he was still wearing the translator. His voice rang out in both languages across the camp. The Artaxa quickened their pace, bundling him along. They turned as lights came on and heads poked out of tents further off. There were shouts of alarm.

Flingers clanged, flenching blades whirred. One tore through a tent covering, but the Artaxa were not aiming properly. Roncie was hustled into the desert and flung to the floor of a sandboat face down. In seconds the vehicle was in motion. With a slithering sound it mounted the nearby dune, putting the camp out of sight, then went coursing away.

Roncie groaned. There was no vehicle in the camp in which to make pursuit.

He could only hope that O’Rourke would take the matter seriously enough to track him down and mount a rescue, or at the very least persuade the Tlixix to do so.

But there was no guarantee of that.

Hrityu had left his wheeled vehicle in the underground camp. He travelled now in a much larger Artaxa sandboat, holding thirty warriors.

Forty similar vehicles were ranged on either side in a wide echelon, sandscrews propelling them at top speed. Raising his head above the side of the boat, Hrityu was filled with excitement at the sight of the task force.

True, it bothered him a little that his new allies, the Artaxa, were green like the Crome, and not blue like the Analane. Colour was a special bonding in battle. When the fighting got furious would the Artaxa remember who were their friends and who their foe?

He hoped so. They were, after all, a light green, not the deep green of the Crome.