The Great Hydration

CHAPTER TWO

The entrance to the Pavilion of Warfare was in appearance a long grill, the gaps between whose teeth were automatic doors which shot up when touched, sliding smoothly back down again a few moments later. Having watched this mechanism operated by a lizard Grokog who disappeared inside the building, Hrityu tried it for himself. The two Analane slipped nimbly through and were faced with a vast interior.

A cantilevered roof admitted light through transparent sections. Beneath it, the cavernous space was marked out into various stands accessed by aisles. A whispering, booming noise filled the air. It was a concert of talk, of devices being demonstrated, of objects being dragged across the floor. What struck the Analane most forcibly, however, was a peculiar quality and smell to the atmosphere, making them curl up their facial membranes, giving them a feeling of discomfort.

It was moisture. There was moisture in the air.

Not much, it was true. The humidity was evaporation from a podium some distance from the entrance. There, reposing in a bath-like couch, tented in transparent curtains, lay one of the Market Masters: a Tlixix, stalks and feelers waving and twitching, the telescoping segments of his shell gleaming with a bluish sheen.

The Analane stared in awe as they timidly approached the podium. The Tlixix bore no resemblance either to lizard or humanoid: they had ruled the world long, long ago, before the Great Dehydration, when none of the desert species had existed.

In those days, it was said, water had been everywhere, floating in the sky, falling from the air, lying on the ground in vast sheets as far as the eye could see. Such a hellish world was hard to envisage, but if it could be imagined, then the Tlixix was a fitting creature to live in it. Angled over the bath-couch were pipes ending in nozzles from which atomised sprays of water hissed over it. Fortunately little of the spray drifted through the folds of the curtains. Hrityu knew that such as did was mostly recovered at night, when it condensed against the cooling walls of the building. The Market Masters were careful hoarders of the corrosive, alien substance on which their lives, and theirs alone, depended.

The bewhiskered, chitinous visage, whose eyes were no more than whitish scales, had a bleary look. Water sploshed in the bath-couch as the Tlixix leaned towards the arrivals, speaking in a voice that was hoarse and distant-sounding.

“You come to buy and sell?”

Momentarily Hrityu found that his voice had deserted him. He drew himself erect.

“We Analane are engaged in a war with the Crome, who lately have begun destroying the beds of ground-fungus which is our food. We are here to barter for weapons with which to defend ourselves against a stronger enemy.”

“Is the conflict permitted?”

Hrityu hesitated. “The Market Masters were notified. No edict of denial has been issued.”

“I shall check the truth of that. Meanwhile, go your way. When you have made a transaction, there is a fee to be paid. Should you wish to rent space in the pavilion to display wares of your own, the terms will be explained upon request. Do you understand all this?”

“Yes.”

The Tlixix twitched a feeler and turned away. He appeared to be luxuriating in the water in which he lolled and with which he was being sprayed, even though the weird environment was all he had known since being hatched.

The Analane set off cautiously between the rows of stands, carefully inspecting everything around them. At nearly every stand a hawker boasted of the death-dealing devices that were on show there, irrespective of whether anyone was nearby to listen. On offer were flingers of various types and sizes, their innovation lying in the ingenuity of the flenchers they projected, or else in their range or speed. There was little of interest there, and Hrityu and Kurwer passed them by. They passed by, too, rolling war wagons to be hurled at an enemy spitting darts in all directions, multiple flingers trailing nets which would then contract, choking the life out of an enemy, and engines for raising such a wind that an enemy was faced with a lethal sandblast.

They were in search of something invincible. The Crome had to be defeated without question. And with them they had brought the means to pay for it: one of the greatest inventions ever—as great a step forward, possibly, as the radium motor itself.

Deeper into the pavilion stands were stocked with sample mercenary warriors, both humanoid and lizard. The Analane took no notice of these. Mercenaries could not be trusted, being liable to turn on their paymasters if they found themselves on the losing side.

New methods of war lay at the far end of the pavilion, and this was what the Analane were pinning their hopes on. They gazed bewildered at a jumble of battle machines of all shapes and sizes, until a blue-skinned lizard a head taller than Hrityu accosted them.

“You are here to buy?”

Hrityu nodded. The lizard’s reply was a hiss. “Then witness our ferocious invention in action.”

At his gesture his helpers set to pushing a large, heavy block of a dark material in place. Then there was aimed at it a weapon resembling some sort of giant flinger, but instead of a shaft there was what looked like a barrel or cylinder.

Two lizards withdrew to safety. A third squatted behind the weapon, and pulled a lever.

A radium motor had all the while been humming in the depths of the contraption. Now, with a rapid ratcheting noise, the barrel of the weapon rotated, hurling an incredible stream of flenchers.

The onslaught seemed endless. Before their eyes the target block was chewed to bits.

“This machine is the product of much mechanical skill,” the lizard hissed smoothly. “It will annihilate a whole company of warriors. Consequently its price is high.”

Stunned by the demonstration, Kurwer became excited. Hrityu, however, cautioned him to silence.

They passed on, and were accosted by a sand-coloured Grishi who spoke to them gruffly. “Curiosity-seekers are not welcome among those who innovate and invent. Is what you can offer of comparable value to what you find here?”

“What we have,” Kurwer snapped, “is so extraordinary that only dire necessity persuades us to part with it!”

The Grishi inspected him, and then nodded slowly. “Perhaps you would care to see our own devastating contribution to the art of total warfare. It works by denying the enemy breathable air.”

He turned and picked up a glass globe from a nearby table. It contained a mass of green crystals. “Sprayed onto a force of enemy warriors, this preparation instantly absorbs the life-giving element in the atmosphere, causing them to fall insensible. I am ready to prove its efficacy against a few prisoners we keep in the testing ground outside—if, that is, your own goods can be deemed of equal desirability.”

From the adjoining stand a Grishi of a different tribe, his skin a somewhat darker orange, laughed. “My rival’s chemicals are interesting, but unreliable. They do not necessarily kill the enemy, who is apt to recover later. Here, now, I have a device of a definitely lethal description: a machine which casts a tough flexible canopy over the enemy. The canopy contracts, stifling its victims. As many as a hundred may be asphyxiated together.”

He indicated a balled-up rubbery object in the midst of an arrangement of rods and loaded springs. “I, too, can apply it to some prisoners I keep ready, provided there is sufficient inducement.”

Kurwer drew Hrityu aside to confer. “Each of these weapons seems impressive in its own way,” he said doubtfully. “What do you think? Perhaps we could obtain them all.”

Sadly Hrityu shook his head. “It is the custom for the buyer of an invention to demand sole possession of it. We can offer our radiator to one party only, and I do not think any of these weapons are its equal in value.”

“What could be more valuable than the survival of the Analane?”

“But nothing we have seen so far guarantees victory. The machines are large and clumsy. They could be overrun or stolen, leaving us worse off than before. It is too early to reach a decision.”

They moved off, and as they did so a small slim humanoid, standing no taller than Hrityu’s shoulder, sidled up. Hrityu stopped. He had not seen the stranger’s like before. His skin was as black as a Gaminte’s, but was covered in fine corrugations that might have been tribal markings. Most striking was the absence of any head-crest: his bald pate aroused a measure of revulsion in the two Analane. Striking too were his eyes: milky pale, and wide as if in wonderment.

“Analane,” he said in a low, purring tone, “a Crome has boasted of your tribe’s impending destruction. One may deduce that in military terms your position is untenable.”

Hrityu replied stiffly. “That is supposition only.”

The other raised a placating hand. “No doubt the Crome are much given to bluster. I am of the Toureen. We live a long way from here, within the barriers of a fifty-lang-wide crater, and so are little known. But we are not without inventiveness. For two years I have waited in this pavilion to see if anything can match what we have to offer. You have something to barter?”

“Indeed.”

“May one enquire…?”

“We shall reveal our device when we see something we want in exchange.”

The Toureen paused before replying. “Strangely, that is also my policy.”

He gestured around him. “Nothing you may see here is comparable with what I can give you. Any who possess it will win supremacy in the field of battle… we appear to be at an impasse, unless we can at least describe our respective goods.”

“Even for that, mutual trust is necessary.”

“I am ready to risk mine.”

Hrityu looked down at the bald black pate of the Toureen. In his own tribe it signified emasculation, and he wondered how it could be possible to trust such a creature.

“Then you must speak first,” he said.

Beckoning, the Toureen drew him down the aisle and apart from any of the stands. He looked this way and that to ensure he was not overheard, and spoke quietly.

“Our weapon achieves total disintegration of whatever it is hurled against. It can burst huge rocks asunder. It could demolish this entire pavilion in the space of a single breath.”

“You make an extravagant claim,” Hrityu responded, trying to picture what the Toureen was saying.

“But a true one. The world has never before seen such sudden and violent force in the service of war. It can be compared to the eruption of a volcano.” He paused. “Now: tell me of your device.”

“Very well, but it is not a weapon,” Hrityu told him. “Our mechanics have discovered a means of long-range communication. We call it a radiator. It is able to transmit the spoken voice over great distances—we have tested it up to a hundred langs.”

Seeing the look of puzzlement on the Toureen’s face, he continued: “Its greatest value lies in its secrecy. Invisible radiations that can neither be seen nor heard carry the voice. It is made audible only by means of a receiving apparatus carried by the listener. Imagine, if you can, the uses this invention can be put to. Messages can be sent without a messenger, and what is more, received the instant they re dispatched.”

The Toureen was evidently having trouble understanding him. And indeed the radiator was so strange, so inexplicable, that Hrityu himself sometimes had difficulty believing it. “To send a voice a hundred langs with no one in between hearing it?” the black humanoid said in mystification. “That would be most remarkable…”

“We do not lie. Only dire necessity persuades us to divulge this secret, as you have deduced. If you are interested in obtaining it, then I wish to see this weapon of yours.”

The Toureen made up his mind. “Come with me.”

He took them out of the Pavilion of Warfare and past the adjacent compound where dejected prisoners waited as targets on which to demonstrate this weapon or that to prospective customers. At the rear of the compound, ochre Yongs fought with buff lizards, Yong blades clashing with lizard prongs. Hrityu guessed them to be rival groups of mercenaries competing for a commission.

Soon they were in the humming vehicle park. Their guide showed them to a low-slung, six-wheeled carriage, and invited them to board it. They reclined uneasily on cushions piled in the box-like passenger compartment, while the Toureen seized a steering lever and yanked on a hand-grip.

The vehicle rolled forward. Careless of who stood in his path, the Toureen negotiated the concourse with skill and soon they had left the World Market behind and were heading into the plain towards the hills.

For some time the vehicle rushed over the sand, their driver offering no hint as to their destination. Suddenly he made for a clump of rocks. Behind it was a depression that, until one came suddenly upon it, remained unseen. At its bottom a small camp had been set up with two more ebon Toureen squatting beneath an awning.

The vehicle crept into the hollow and stopped. The driver got out and spoke to his tribesmen. They glanced at the Analane, then reached into the back of the awning and dragged forward an evidently heavy chest, whose lid they threw open.

“Here, if you please.”

Hesitantly, Hrityu and Kurwer stepped down and approached.

The chest was filled with brown globes, nearly the size of a Toureen’s head. Hrityu was reminded of the flasks of air-absorbing crystals he had seen earlier, until one was taken from the chest and he saw that a short cord dangled from it.

Their guide picked up two shields from a pile that lay nearby and handed one to each of the Analane. “These will protect you from the fragments. Now: we had best get out of the hollow.”

No explanations were offered as the party scrambled up the incline, each carrying a shield and the three Toureen cradling a number of the brown spheres in their arms. At the top, some distance from the rocks, the leader called a halt.

“We shall hurl the balls at those rocks. Hide behind your shields.”

The spheres were placed on the ground. Squatting behind their shields, Hrityu and Kurwer watched as the two Toureen from the camp took up a globe each and applied fire to the cords from tinder-boxes that dangled from their necks. The cords sizzled. The Toureen ran for the rocks. Peeping over his shield, Hrityu saw them hurl the globes and then come scampering back to throw themselves behind their own shields.

Instinctively he ducked. From the direction of the rock clump came a massive noise, a double blast, one a split second after the other. Hrityu had never heard anything so loud; it actually hurt his ears. Missiles were battering away at his shield, as if shot from flingers. Then something seemed to be trying to tear the shield from his grasp, and following that, fragments of rock came rattling down from the air.

When the pandemonium was over, pungent-smelling smoke came drifting in their direction. Hrityu dared a look. He stared stupefied.

Part of the rock clump had vanished.

“Again!” the Toureen leader ordered.

The ritual was repeated. Again came the titanic blasts, the fusillade of rock fragments, the buffeting wind.

Even more of the rock clump had been demolished. Chunks of it lay about the desert floor.

The Toureen waited until everyone had climbed to his feet before speaking. “We call the substance eruptionite,” he explained. “The recipe is fairly simple, merely a matter of mixing certain purified chemicals in the right proportions. When ignited, the mixture erupts as you have seen. The force of the eruption is greatly increased if the mixture is confined in a strong, solid shell, and this, of course, is also a convenient way of delivering it. The shells can be made to any size—small enough to be hand-flung, or so big that only specially made flingers could hurl them. As you have just witnessed, eruptionite will even tear apart stone fortifications. The Crome will be blown to bits.”

Hrityu pondered. “Do you undertake to provide us with the mixture itself, or merely the formula?”

“We can supply a sufficient amount of eruptionite to give you a breathing space, thereafter you must manufacture it for yourselves. By the usual protocol, we also promise not to sell it to any other tribe.”

Again Hrityu pondered. Kurwer spoke up.

“Since this weapon is so potent, why do you not wish to preserve it for your own use?”

“We Toureen are not accustomed to engaging in war. Our crater walls have so far been sufficient discouragement to invaders, and they are so massive that not even eruptionite could breach them. My race delights in new knowledge, and therefore we are willing to impart this secret if in so doing we gain another that is equally remarkable.”

“You shall have your wish,” Hrityu said confidently, “for this is indeed the weapon we seek. The time has come to exchange names. I am Hrityu, of the Analane. My companion is named Kurwer.”

The other drew his small slim bulk erect. “I am Nussmussa, of the Toureen. Now as to this radiator… you mentioned a range of one hundred langs. How may this be put to the test?”

“One hundred langs is perhaps rather too much to demonstrate easily,” Hrityu admitted doubtfully. “What do you suggest?”

“You have the apparatus at the market?”

“Yes.”

“Then we shall put the transmitting device in your vehicle, and the receiving device in our vehicle. One of my party will accompany you while we drive for one half of a day in opposite directions, and will attempt to speak to me at intervals. When the sun reaches its zenith, we shall return.”

Hrityu nodded. “That is acceptable. Let us return to the market, and we will show you the radiator.”

The warm breeze blew in the Analane’s faces as they rode in the Toureen vehicle. Hrityu tried to calm his elation, reminding himself that there was still much to be done. Transport would have to be arranged for the initial supply of eruptionite before the Crome staged their main attack. Also, how difficult might it be to find and purify the chemicals needed for its manufacture? This would have to be talked out with Nussmussa.

Then again, there were the Tlixix to deal with, and their fee to be arranged.

Hrityu reflected that it might be worth applying to the Pavilion of Audience to try to forestall the Crome’s petition.

At his direction Nussmussa sped into the market, wheeled into the vehicle park and flashed past the lines of carriages to halt beside the Analane rover. Hrityu and Kurwer stepped down and went to the rear of their vehide, opening the hidden compartment where they had secreted their precious apparatus.

He blinked as he pulled up the metal panel. He was not sure that he could believe his eyes. Then a horrified sound escaped from his throat. His eyes had not deceived him.

Their invaluable cargo, the radiator and its accompanying receiver upon which the survival of the Analane depended, was gone!