The Artaxa meanwhile diverted from the main column a detachment to the only one of those sites known to them, and from which Northrop had been taken. They were disappointed to find it abandoned, the tents gone, only the litter of past human occupation remaining. They were not to know that a shock tube had already been put in place and the shaft over it filled in, or that the stiff wire jutting out of the yellow sand was the antenna for the detonation signal.
A hastily set up network of radiators enabled the Artaxa to launch their attacks simultaneously. Carrying flingers specially adapted for throwing spherical shells of eruptionite, the humming columns approached their targets.
When Karl Krabbe felt the first explosion rock the dome of the hydrorium he wondered if Castaneda had jumped the schedule, or worse, something had gone amiss. He got through to O’Rourke on the gogetter ship.
“O’Rourke, what the hell’s going on?”
The answering tone was puzzled. “Going on, sir?”
Krabbe formed a suspicion, making him momentarily furious.
“Say, you didn’t use any of that prehistoric junk, did you?”
During the early planning Engineering had proposed using an archaic technology—hydrogen fusion—for the shock tubes on grounds of economy. Both Castaneda and Northrop had vetoed that. Hydrogen fusion couldn’t be tuned fine enough for a controlled shifting of the tectonic plates without serious risk of widespread vulcanism. The tubes were to use helium fusion, a standard if old-fashioned technique.
“No sir, of course not.”
“Well, where’s Castaneda?”
“He’s here with me now, sir.”
Krabbe’s fury returned. “Castaneda, what the hell are you doing up there so soon? Why aren’t you down on site?”
“I’ve got lung cancer, sir,” Castaneda answered dolefully. “It’s all the radon gas I’ve been breathing, a breakdown product of radium. The atmosphere’s full of it. Radpaint can’t protect you against that.”
“For heaven’s sake don’t be such a sissy, Carlos,” Krabbe said irritably. “Medbay has a spare lung or two, I expect.”
While they spoke a barrage of explosions rattled the dome. They were coming nearer. Boris Bouche dashed into the apartment, his face feral with excitement and alarm.
“We’re under attack! A revolt against the lobsters! They’re using explosives!”
Through the open door Krabbe saw a scene of frenzy. Tlixix scuttled along the passage as fast as their short stick-like legs could take them, roaring ferociously. Black Gamintes also ran, metal accoutrements clinking and clashing.
Krabbe turned back to the communicator. “O’Rourke, we’ve got a situation down here. What’s the status of the project?”
“The last tube has just been put in place,” O’Rourke said. “Provisional detonation schedule is, er, right now plus one-seventeen minutes.”
“Okay, this is what I want you to do. Pull the team up and detonate immediately. Have you got that?”
“Pull up and detonate. Yes, sir. What about yourselves? Shall we come and get you?”
Krabbe hesitated, glancing at his partner. “No, we are still ‘honoured guests’, so to speak. We’re all right for the moment. Keep me informed.”
He signed off. “Do you think this attack is serious, Boris? Does it happen often?”
Bouche scowled. “We’d understood the lobsters have everything sewn up tight. And explosives are supposed to be unknown here.”
“This is the main hydrorium, for God’s sake!” Krabbe found time to smile. “Well, if this is a large-scale uprising the lobsters will have double reason to be grateful to us. Detonation is coming. That should put the dehydrates in their place!”
A loud crack and a roar drowned out his last words. There was no doubt that this time it came from inside the dome.
A Gaminte appeared in the doorway.
“Invaders have breached the sacred refuge. You are in danger. Follow me.”
Hastily gathering up their effects, the partners hurried after him, away from the fighting.
Castaneda himself transmitted the signal that detonated all eight helium fusion devices at the same time. The small planet rang like a bell. The shock was felt everywhere on its surface. A juddering, then another juddering, and another, as seismic waves travelled through the lithosphere and rebounded on themselves, criss-crossing. The first earthquakes for thousands of years shook the desert, knocking down dunes and hills. The underground caves and tunnels of the lizard species crumbled and collapsed, as did most of the caverns of the camp of the Artaxa.
Tlixix engineering proved itself. The ancient cycloidal domes of the hydroriums, large as they were, mostly withstood the shock. Two, however, were weakened and breached by eruptionite. These cracked open like eggshells.
One of them was the largest hydrorium of all.
Such events were incidental and of little importance to those watching and recording aboard the Enterprise. They watched with satisfaction as sensors buried in the crust sent back data on tectonic plate movement.
Expectantly, they waited for signs of water.
It was not long in coming. Within the hour damp patches appeared on the surface of the sand. Spectrography detected water vapour in the atmosphere.
Then there came muddy stirrings, followed by gushers, scalding waterspouts leaping high in the air. And then blowers—blasts of steam hissing out of the sand, accompanied by sudden uprisings of the desert floor as vast mounds of hot water forced their way through. An ocean was being squirted up from the planetary aquifer, bringing steamy heat with it. Fog and cloud formed. Soon, it would start to rain.
Already the climate was reverting.
And already the dehydrate tribes were in panic, fleeing the deadly liquid in frantic columns, racing for the high ground beyond the ancient ocean bed. Hrityu, rejoicing in victory over the Crome, watched in disbelief as a surging sand slurry came ripping and flapping at running pace towards the ruins of the Analane camp, before those who could do so piled aboard all available vehicles and departed.
The aftershocks continued for several hours. Castaneda gave the partners reports every fifteen minutes. Underneath what Krabbe regarded as his cowardly hypochondria, he sounded quietly pleased. The planet was responding as calculated, the rehydration of Tenacity proceeding according to plan.
Occasionally O’Rourke broke in, asking if the partners needed extracting from the ruined dome. Krabbe declined. He and Bouche wanted to see the ocean coming back first hand, and the Gamintes were now holding their own.
They had been moved to what soon would be the landward side of the dome. But then something even more dramatic happened. Undermined by the rising water table, an entire slab of land collapsed to re-create the wide bay that had existed in former times. It immediately began to fill with boiling, hissing liquid. The broken dome, its foundations undermined, tilted and slid with a grinding sound until partly submerged in the foaming tumult.
In the part that remained above water, fighting continued. With no participation by the Tlixix, however. They abandoned the dome altogether, leaving it to the dehydrates. A frenzy had ripped them. The sight of an emerging sea seized them with an uncontrollable instinct to respond to their evolved nature. Dragging out metal boats stored for millennia somewhere in the dome, they launched themselves on to the heaving, steaming, bubbling water.
The lurch as the dome tilted sent Karl Krabbe and Boris Bouche tumbling against the wall of the cell they now occupied. Luckily, it was in the half of the dome that stayed above water.
Bouche squealed in alarm and pointed upward. The ceiling was bending and collapsing. The cell was being crushed as the dome deformed. The two scrambled on hands and knees from the contracting space and into the corridor. Here, the ceiling was holding. Their Gaminte guard, having regained his feet on the now-sloping floor, was chopping to pieces two green Artaxa, wielding the great curved axe which the Gamintes used for close fighting.