The Great Hydration

CHAPTER FIVE

Roncie Reaul Northrop was not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed when his cell door opened and he saw standing there, not a sexually receptive Joanita Serstos, but Johnny Castaneda.

“Hello, Roncie. You’re back on the team.”

Castaneda stepped into the cell. He looked tired and depressed. Northrop put down the book he had been reading. “What gives, Johnny?”

Finding a chair, the geological team leader sat down wearily. “Didn’t Joanita keep you informed? Oh, we have a job to do. Pretty routine technically, but K & B will sure get it in the neck if they’re ever found out. How are you for radioactivity by the way? I’ve had such a lot of cancer…”

“Who hasn’t?” Northrop said with a shrug. “I’ve had it three times myself.” It was something everybody got now and then, if they spent much time in space.

“I’m practically a garden for carcinomata. The doc’s told me to avoid getting them in future, if I can.” Castaneda sighed. “Well, come on, Roncie, I’ll give you the details.”

Northrop glanced round the cell, his home of the past few weeks, before they left. Briefly he wondered if Joanita would be as accommodating towards him now he was out.

They made their way to Castaneda’s office. On the wall was pinned a lithographic map, presumably of the planet the Enterprise was orbiting. The word TENACITY had been inked at the top of the sheet. Castaneda began to fill him in on the planet’s remarkable recent history, and what their employers were planning.

“Our part’s fairly simple,” he finished. “We’re to go down and do some test drilling and some seismic stuff, and then drill the shafts. Meanwhile the shock bombs will be put together up here in the Enterprise. K & B will make contact with the lobsters in person and open negotiations. When we get the word we lower the tubes and get the hell out while they go off.”

“K & B are going to leave the ship to their bondpeople?”

“O’Rourke will be in charge. He’s absolutely dependable. And they’ll put a lock on the stardrive, of course.”

“Of course.”

Mildly appalled by what he had just heard, Northrop began totting up a mental list of the crimes Krabbe & Bouche were about to commit.

“I suppose he’s got Shelley working on all this,” he said.

“Sure.” Shelley was the firm’s bonded lawyer, and a joke to the rest of the staff. ‘Now then, Shelley, what’s the law on so-and-so?’ ‘Whatever you say it is, Partner Krabbe, Partner Bouche, sirs!’

Castaneda went on: “Take the law against using nuclear technology on a planet that hasn’t already developed it. On Tenacity they use naturally occurring radium to power small engines. Shelley argues that makes the natives nuclear engineers! In fact they might just as well be using coal. And so on all down the line. According to Shelley we won’t be undertaking planetary alteration at all. We’re simply rectifying an inconvenient climatic deviation.”

“In which some dozens of intelligent species will be wiped out.”

The door banged open. Krabbe and Bouche burst in. They seemed to be in high spirits. For a moment Northrop thought they were drunk.

Their faces were bronze with radpaint, the standard precaution when going into a high radiation area. More extraordinary was their apparel. They had bedecked themselves in burnouses, the loose, flowing hooded cloaks once worn in hot deserts on Earth.

Bouche caught sight of Northrop. “Ah, there you are. Learned your lesson, I hope?”

Northrop drew himself up. “Sir, I wish to protest. I was on the point of renouncing my bond in Duravia, as is my right. I should not be here.”

Krabbe stared at him as though he were mad. Bouche answered.

“But you didn’t renounce your bond, Northrop. You jumped ship instead. We can hardly have that. If you had followed legal procedures, of course, then everything would be different.”

Northrop listened incredulously to this last statement.

“In the event, you are here, so let’s see you work with a will,” Bouche finished.

“And suppose I refuse to work?”

Again Krabbe stared. “You want to renounce your bond now? You want off?” He laughed, and his eyes went to the map of Tenacity. “You might not find the local taverns to your liking.”

Northrop swallowed. At least he had made his point, he thought.

Krabbe swung to him, adopting the paternalistic tone he had used earlier on Spencer. “You should be thanking heaven to be on this jaunt, Northrop. This planet is a one-off. Everybody will get a share of the profit. The firm of Krabbe and Bouche knows how to take care of its bond people.”

An embarrassed Castaneda put in a word. “Northrop is just a little confused from his time in the brig, sir. He’ll be all right. I was just explaining the job to him.”

“Well, I hope you’ll be able to put in a good report on his conduct, Castaneda. Partner Bouche and I are descending to the surface now. Spencer says Tenacity has a world language, imposed by the lobsters as the dehydrate species evolved. We’ll spend a few days in the market learning it, then we’ll make contact. Is your team ready to move?”

“The equipment is being checked now, sir.”

“Don’t be too long about it. We want that work done on time.”

They lurched out of the door, as if on their way to a fancy dress party.

“Better get your radpaint on, Roncie,” Castaneda said.

His voice was laden with gloom.

Half an hour later, painted up, Northrop was surreptitiously sidling from the communications room. He stopped, blinking in embarrassment, on seeing Joanita Serstos turn the corner into the corridor.

“Well, hello, Joanita.”

She halted, confronting him.

He forced a smile. She offered none in return. Instead, her expression was severe.

“What were you doing in the communications room?”

He banged the door shut behind him. “Looking for Spencer. Somebody told me I’d find him here.”

“Neither Spencer nor you are allowed in there. It’s out of bounds to everyone except the partners and O’Rourke. In fact, how did you get in?”

She stepped forward and tugged on the door handle. The door held.

“It was open when I got here,” Roncie said casually. He reached up and touched her hair. “Anyway, I’m glad to run into you. I have to be down on the surface in an hour. How about twenty minutes on my bunk?”

She twisted away from his searching hands. “No way. In any case I’m on duty.”

Joanita’s voice was icy. He fell back. “I get it. And your duties have been changed, eh? I suppose I had Bouche to thank for everything after all.”

“What makes you think I want to make love to someone wearing radpaint?”

Her excuse was unconvincing. The change in her manner was too obvious.

While he was in the brig the thought that she was being sent to him along with the food hadn’t bothered him. Now, for some reason, it did.

“Okay, Joanita. See you when I get back.”

Disgruntled, he made his way towards the bay where the ferry was being loaded up for departure.