The Great Hydration

The great rolling dunes were left behind. They came among isolated hills between which blew a wind that rippled the yellow sand in complicated patterns. Here, too, were the first of the standing stones that marked the margins of Analane tribal territory. It alarmed Hrityu to see one of these tumbled on its side.

Before long the echelon of sandboats swept past a food mountain, on whose rocky side grew the blue-green mould necessary to Analane existence. Again he was alarmed. No Analane were to be seen. The mould crop was being left ungathered.

Worse, in the distance he saw lifeless bodies, relics of a recent fight.

The sandboats slowed to avoid the boulders which strewed the terrain hereabouts. Topping a rise, the riders beheld a great saucer-shaped depression.

It was the main camp of the Analane, and at present it was the scene of what could well have been their last battle.

There had clearly been a great slaughter, and the Analane were never numerous. The females and young were gathered at the centre of the amphitheatre. The surviving male warriors were arranged around them in a star formation. A horde of green Crome, a few black Gamintes among them, surrounded the star and mounted charge after charge, shrieking war-cries. Flenching blades flashed. Gobbets of flesh, sliced from the bone, flew in all directions as warriors fell and died on both sides.

Steadily the numbers of the Analane were diminishing.

Hrityu hugged to his chest the weapon given him by the ‘Earthman’. The sight of his tribe being exterminated filled him with a greater rage than any he had known before.

He set the weapon’s ring to full intensity. Better to leave one Crome dead than injure ten who might rise again!

The sandboats came to a halt poised over the lip of the depression. Twelve hundred warriors climbed out. The spectacle of the battle had aroused them. The Artaxa marshal raised his flinger and uttered a loud ululating cry, to be answered by a throbbing, “Hoohoohoohoo …”

The task force rushed shrieking down the slope.

Karl Krabbe took the news of Roncie Northrop’s abduction with mild annoyance.

The report had come from O’Rourke. “A dehydrate raiding party, it seems.”

Krabbe and Bouche were still in the great hydrorium, in an apartment given them by the Tlixix. ‘Apartment’ was perhaps the wrong word. The walls were made of a light metal glistening with condensation. Furnishings consisted of boulders from the artificial seashore to use as chairs. They smelled of seaweed.

The partners agreed it would be good to get back to the Enterprise.

“Have you been able to keep track of him?”

Testily, O’Rourke replied, “May I remind you, sir, that Northrop is of doubtful loyalty? That he has already tried to abscond once? Maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about him.”

“Please be in less of a hurry to divest us of useful personnel, O’Rourke,” Krabbe drawled. “They’re hard to come by out here. See if you can find him.”

“Yes, sir.” O’Rourke’s voice was grumpy. “Though the trail will be cold by now. He was taken an hour ago. And the interferometric telescope isn’t tuned to infrared, so we won’t be able to start looking till the region rotates into daylight. Even then we would have to move the ship to do a proper job.”

He ended the last on an interrogative note, as if encouraging Krabbe to tell him not to bother. After a pause, he added, “I take it this effort should not be allowed to delay the main activity in any way?”

“Well, of course, the project is the main thing.” Krabbe yawned, resignedly aware that he had given O’Rourke the excuse he sought to do little or nothing to help Northrop. He was feeling tired. “You’d better tell Castaneda what’s happened.”

After O’Rourke had signed off he turned to Bouche, who was toying with his supper. “Why do you think those pesky desert-dwelling Barsoomians made off with our bondman? I thought the Tlixix had them well under control.”

Bouche shrugged. “Maybe they want to see if he’s any good to eat.”

He conveyed a morsel of reddish crustacean flesh to his mouth. He did not appear to relish it.

For some perverse reason, he had got the Enterprise to send down a whole crateful of lobster thermidor.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

By the time he reached the camp of the Artaxa Roncie Northrop was very hungry, very thirsty, and near the end of his tether. He had tried to eke out the water, but it became so hot during the day! The canteen had less than a pint left in it now.

As for the food, he had starved himself at first, but as the water steadily disappeared down his throat he began to wonder what the point of that might be. Thirst would kill him before starvation did. So he had allowed himself half a sandwich a day.

Except that yesterday he had eaten only one quarter of a sandwich. So he had a quarter left.