What Aron now needed for success was three things. Sulphuric acid and salt water in large quantities and the right wind.
The first two had been thoughtfully provided by the People's Republic. The third was a matter of waiting. The land on Kligor was dry. What little water supplies were available weren't enough to maintain a base the size the garrison had built. Since the ocean was only fifteen miles from the valley where the base was located, it was a simple matter to pipe in water.
One of the mammoth cargo ships had been loaded with six inch flexible hose, tougher than steel, wound on drums. It was a matter of a day's work to fly the ship slowly from the ocean to the base, laying out fifteen miles of this flexible pipe on the ground.
It was salt water, then, that was received at the base. Most of it was filtered through a chemical plant in the valley to make fresh water, but it was salt water that was available to the fire hoses for the needed quantity and pressure.
The emergency power supply and the fire hoses were only normal safety precautions, but now, in the hands of the Traitor, they became deadly weapons.
By pushing the lever that removed the lids from the storage batteries automatically for inspection he had sulphuric acid—for the law of conservation of energy said that man had achieved the highest efficiency of electro-chemical conversion, in practical form, in the lead acid storage battery.
After finding the light switch and flipping it on, Aron found this lever and released it. Now all he needed was wind, and he had that, blowing a cool ten miles an hour down the canyon and over the valley. He had to consult the weather maps at his station for weeks to determine the probability of this wind occurring and the weather conditions that produced it. One small breeze to chart, when his recording instruments gave hourly descriptions of the whole planet's climate. It wasn't too hard a job.
Yet that breeze had to be at the right time, at night and on the night he wanted. Close enough to the attack date to be effective yet not too soon. Last night his instruments recorded the data that would produce this wind, so he was making his strike tonight.
He could not stand and gloat exultantly over his success. There were dead sentries and sprung airlocks that might be discovered.
With a twist of a nozzle, the fire hose came to life, throwing a pulsing stream of water on the batteries.