Barrington Bayley - The Great Hydration

Suddenly Kurwer sprang to his feet, head-crest rigid with anger.

“Come, Hrityu! Let us not die like lizards in a hole!”

He ran from cover, directly at the Crome. “Crome filth! You have eaten your last prickle stalk!”

A blade hurled itself from the shaft of his flinger. The group of Crome threw themselves to the ground, so that it whirred harmlessly above them and fell into the sand.

Before he could reload, one of the Crome had raised himself, taken aim and released his own blade.

And the aim was true.

On seeing the landcraft coming towards him, Northrop ducked back into the tent to get the two essentials when meeting aliens for the first time: a means of communication, and a weapon. He thrust a DE beamer in his belt, then spent a few seconds dumping the language conversion into an interpreter set, fastening it round his neck and putting the plugs in his ears.

Outside, the drama was developing. The hovercraft had surrounded their prey and come to a stop on the edge of the camp, appearing to ignore its existence. Two types of dehydrate were clambering from them, waving weapons and shouting insults.

One type was coal black and bore wiry silver hair. The other was quite different: a vivid green, with exaggeratedly wide shoulders, and several crests sweeping over their skulls.

Nervously the bondmen at the drilling rig were watching events, staying close to its bulk. Northrop turned his attention to the other two vehicles, those which were boxed in. The occupant of the boat-like craft was also green, but a much lighter hue. Once again a different species, he thought. From the wheeled vehicle two slight humanoids descended and crouched beside it for cover. They were an almost glowing blue. A memory stirred in Northrop’s mind. He had watched observations made through the interferometric telescope, and on them he had seen an identical wheeled vehicle with two blue dehydrates. It had been in the parking lot of the world market run by the lobster creatures. The vehicle was quite striking: it had inner wheels which continued to turn even when the craft was stationary. This could, supposed, be the same vehicle and the same two humanoids.

That most fleeting, most distant of acquaintanceships was perhaps what irrationally influenced Northrop’s next act. The impending fight was hopelessly one-sided. The three defenders stood little chance. All the warriors carried some or other version of the standard weapon on Tenacity—a sort of spring-loaded gun which shot rotating blades. He saw two or three of these go shimmering towards the wheeled vehicle, clanging against its side.

A group of greenskins charged.

Suddenly one of the blueskins leaped from the cover of the vehicle with a shout of defiance. He projected a blade, but this flew over the heads of the attackers as they threw themselves to the ground.

A greenskin then raised himself and let fly with a return shot. The shining golden metal of the blade flashed in the sunlight as it hurled itself towards its mark.

So it was that Northrop was able to see the effect of a flenching blade. Its cunning law in its curvature, which caused it to twist and turn within its target, and also to slide against bone, slicing the flesh from it. Gelatinous gobbets, a sickly green in colour, flew in all directions as it tore into the body of the blue dehydrate, seeming to strip him to the skeleton.

What remained toppled to the sand. The second blue dehydrate leaped to his feet with a cry of grief.

It was then that Northrop, without really thinking about it, drew the DE beamer from his belt and began firing. He took out the greenskin whose whirling blade had done such terrible work. Then he put the beamer on continuous and sent a swathe of death among the black and green warriors who had piled out of the hovercraft.

He stepped behind the tent as flenching blades whirred towards him. He heard them skirling against its metal skin. He circled the tent and began firing from the other side, targeting each hovercraft in turn.

Abruptly he held his fire. Sand was blowing up around the skirts of the vehicles. The hovercraft swayed, rotated and surged away, black and green warriors running after them to clamber aboard as best they could.

They were quickly out of sight. Northrop emerged from behind the tent and walked towards where the surviving blue dehydrate was standing over the butchered body of his companion.

“Kurwer! My friend! My friend!”

The slim humanoid turned as Roncie approached.

Hrityu, of the Analane, and Roncie Reaul Northrop, bondman of the firm of Krabbe & Bouche, stared at one another.

“Why did you help us, stranger?”

Northrop smiled lopsidedly. “I guess I have a natural sympathy with the losing side.”

Hrityu stared unmoving. Northrop realized he had probably said something incomprehensible in Tenacity culture.

Now that the fight was over he was shaken by the carnage he had caused. A dozen bodies which had fallen to his DE beamer were tumbled on the sand. The weapon killed by administering an all-body shock lethal to almost any type of organism. For that reason it was the standard weapon used on aliens whose physical properties were unknown.

It could also be set on a wider angle, though in that case its dreadful efficacy was reduced. Northrop wondered what a narrowbeam or bullet would do to a dehydrate. Probably pass right through with little damage, unless it chanced to break a bone. In that sense, he admitted, the DE beamer was similar in principle to the whirling blades thrown by the native flingers.

Except that it wasn’t nearly as messy.

Overcoming his puzzlement, Hrityu stepped to Northrop and offered his wrist. “I owe you my life. I am Hrityu, of the Analane.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save your friend.”

Hrityu continued to stand with his wrist proffered. “I am Hrityu of the Analane,” he repeated.

Northrop realized he had encountered a social ritual. He extended his own hand and felt dry, blue skin grasp his wrist. He grasped the others wrist in return.

“I am Roncie, er, of the Earthmen.”

The Analane released his wrist and stepped back in surprise. “Earthmen? Your tribe lives underground, like the Sawune?”

“Er, number. Well, sometimes.”

The green dehydrate in the boat-like vehicle came walking towards them. Northrop noted his large head-crest and the fan-like growth running down his back.

He cast quick glances over him, the Analane, and the dead bodies strewn on the sand. Four distinct species were represented, but there were definite similarities among them. All were naked except for metal ornaments in the form of bangles and medallions. When a Tenacity dehydrate walked abroad it seemed he needed nothing but metal adornments and his weapons.

While in the brig Northrop had dipped extensively into Karl Krabbe’s private library. It turned out that Krabbe was an aficionado of prespaceflight writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, who had written colourful adventure stories set on the planet Mars. Burroughs’ Mars—or Barsoom, as its fictional inhabitants called it—had also been the stage for a warrior culture where men of different races carried nothing but weapons and ornaments. The comparison struck Northrop forcibly.

Karvass slowed his approach, distrustful of this strange being. In place of a head crest his pate was covered with a moss-like growth. He did not know what to make of it. Hrityu strove to reassure him, beckoning him closer and prevailing on him to extend his wrist.

“I am Karvass of the Artaxa.”

“Er, I am Roncie of the Earthmen.”

Karvass’s facial membranes wrinkled in puzzlement at this, but Hrityu said nothing. Roncie spoke again.

“Do you wish to bury your friend’s body?” he asked politely.