Part 3

The men were already on the raft, a big platform of light, tough _lata_-logs bound together by vines. Garth took his place near the pile of equipment in the center. "Keep to midstream," he cautioned. "Watch for bubbles breaking ahead. Swing wide of those. Waterspouts."

The raft slid out from the bank, long poles guiding it. Water washed aboard and slipped away as the platform found its balance. Presently they were drifting downstream in the dimly-lighted fog, the black river murmuring quietly beneath them.

Garth kept his gaze ahead. It was hard to see in the faint, filtered light of the moons, but a ray-lamp would have been betraying to any planes that might be searching above.

"Swing left. Hard," he called.

The men obeyed. Oily bubbles were breaking the surface. As the raft moved toward the bank, a sudden geyser burst up from the river, a spouting torrent that tipped the platform dangerously and showered its occupants with icy spray.

Garth met Brown's eyes. "See what I mean?" he remarked.

"Yeah. Still, if that's all--"

The river flowed fast. Once or twice the plated back of a giant saurian was visible, but the water-reptiles did not attack, made wary, perhaps, by the bulk of the raft. There were other waterspouts, but the men soon became adept at avoiding them.

Sometimes they drifted through fog, sometimes the mists were dissipated by winds, though not often. During one of the latter periods a faint droning drifted down from above. It was the worst possible timing, for the two larger moons were directly overhead, blazing down on the river. The stub-winged shape of a plane loomed against the starry sky.

Brown said sharply, "Drop flat. Don't move." He forced Garth and Paula down. "No, don't look up. They'd see our faces."

"They can't miss us," Sampson muttered.

"There's fog ahead."

The sound of the plane's motors grew louder. Abruptly there was a splash. Another. Something shattered on the raft.

"Hold your breath!" Brown snapped.

Garth tried to obey. A stinging ache had crept into his nostrils. His lungs began to hurt. The plane had spotted them--that was obvious. Sleep-gas works fast.

Another soft crash. Garth scarcely heard it. He saw a stubby, cruciform shadow sweep over the raft, as the plane swooped, and then the wall of silvery fog was looming up ahead. Paula gave a little gasp. Her body collapsed against him.

The fire in Garth's chest was blazing agony. Despite himself, he let breath rush into his lungs.

After that, complete blackness and oblivion.

IV

Garth woke in reddish, dim twilight. Instantly he knew where he was, even before he sat up and saw the black boles of immense trees rising like pillars around him. The Forest!

"About time," Captain Brown's toneless voice said. "That sleep-gas put you under for hours."

Garth rose, glancing around. They were camped in a little clearing among the gigantic trees, and some of the men were heating their rations over radiolite stove-kits. From above, the crimson light filtered vaguely from a leafy roof incredibly far. The trees of the Black Forest were taller than California sequoias, and Jupiter-light reached the ground faintly, through the ceiling of red leaves that roofed the jungle. Paula, Garth saw, was lying with her eyes closed not far away.

"She all right?"

"Sure," Brown said. "Resting is all. We got away from Benson's plane--hit that fog-bank just in time. You'd passed out, so I took a chance and kept going. After we reached the Forest, I landed the raft and headed inland a bit. So here we are."

Garth nodded. "That was wise. The river goes underground a half mile further. Any--accidents?"

Brown looked at him oddly. "This might be Yosemite, for all the danger I've seen so far. It's a picnic."

"That," Garth said, "is just why it's so bad. You don't see the trouble till after it's happened." He didn't explain. "Where's my kit?"

"Here. Why?"

"Before we go any further, we'll need shots. Antitoxin against the Noctoli pollen. The flowers don't grow on the edges of the Forest, but the wind carries their poison quite a ways sometimes." Garth rummaged in his kit, found sealed vials and a hypo, and carefully sterilized everything over a radiolite stove he commandeered from one of the men. After that, he administered the antivirus, first to Paula and last of all to Brown. He took none himself; he had acquired a natural immunity to the pollen.

There was barely enough to go around. Brown's shot was slightly less than the regular dosage, which vaguely worried Garth. But the Captain, annoyed by the delay, was anxious to talk about immediate plans.

"Benson might land at the edge of the Forest and come after us a mile or so. Not further. But we'd better start moving." He led Garth over to where Paula sat. "It's time for you to see the map."

The girl nodded in agreement. She took out a folded flex-paper and extended it. Garth squinted down in the red twilight.

"Map?"

"More like a treasure hunt," Paula explained. "There's a series of guide-points, you see. So far we're okay--_narva_ means west, in the Ancient Tongue, doesn't it?"

"_Narva._" Garth gave the word a slightly different pronunciation. "Yeah. Well--three _sallags_ northwest to the Mouths of the Waters Below--"

"Mouths of the Singing Below, I made it."

Garth shook his head. "I can't read the stuff. I just know the spoken language. Read the whole thing out loud, so I can get it."

Paula obeyed. Her pronunciation made some words unfamiliar to Garth, but by experiment he found what was meant.

"Uh-huh. A _sallag_ is less than three miles, as far as I can judge. I think I know the place. It's a hill honeycombed with little caves. You can hear water running underneath it."

"That fits," the girl agreed. "This won't be so hard, after all."

Garth grunted. He turned to Brown.

"I want a gun. And a knife. I'll need both."

"Sampson!"

The red-haired man approached, squinting. "Yeah?"

"Rustle up a knife and gun for Garth."

"Check."

Paula was staring at Garth. "You expect trouble, don't you?"

"I do."

She made a gesture. "This all seems so peaceful--"

* * * * *

"Listen," Garth said, "the Black Forest is the worst death-trap in the System. Here's why. The struggle for existence is plenty tough here. Brute strength isn't enough, nor agility. A tiger or a deer wouldn't last long here. In the Forest, the survival of the fittest means the plant or animal that can get the most food. That sort of thing has been going on here for a million years. The beasts developed super-quick reactions. They could smell danger a mile away. So they had to have strength, agility, and something else--to get close to their prey."

Brown stared. "What?"

"Invisibility. Or its equivalent. Ever heard of protective coloration? Camouflage? Well, the creatures of the Forest are the most perfect camouflage experts that exist. They don't simply trick your eyes, either. They trick the other senses. If you smell perfume, take it easy, or you'll find yourself asleep, while your head's being chewed off by a lizard that looks as nasty as it smells good. If you see a path and it feels solid, don't walk too far on it. Things have made that path. A carnivorous moss that feels exactly like smooth dirt underfoot--till their digestive juices start working. If you hear me yelling your name, take it easy. There are birds like harpies here that imitate sounds the way parrots do."

Garth's grin was tight. "You'll find out. It's camouflage carried to the last degree, for offense and defense. I know the Forest pretty well; you don't. You haven't developed a sort of sixth sense--an instinct--that tells you when something smells bad, even though it looks like a six-course dinner."

"All right," the Captain said. "This is your territory, not mine. It's up to you."

It was, Garth decided later as he led the way through the black columns of the trees, very much up to him. Brown and the others were tough, hard fighters, but they didn't know the subtleties of this hell-hole, where death lurked everywhere disguised. He had got a drink from Sampson and his nerves were less jagged, but physical exhaustion still gripped him. He'd been on the skids for a long time, and was in rotten bad shape. But if the girl could stand it, he could.

It was warmer in the Forest; the trees seemed to exhale heat and moisture, and there was no snow on the ground. Great ebony pillars of giant trees, rising hundreds of feet into the air, made the place a labyrinth. And the deceptive reddish twilight made walking difficult, even to Garth's trained senses.

There was trouble, though. When a gorgeously-colored butterfly, flame-red and green, fluttered down toward Paula, Garth hastily slapped at the insect with a thick leaf he was carrying. "Watch out for those," he told the girl, nodding toward the crushed body. "They're poisonous. Bad medicine."

And once, as Brown was about to seat himself on a rounded grayish boulder, Garth whirled the man away just in time. A hole in the rock gaped open, and a pair of fanged mandibles snapped out, clicking together viciously. Garth put a bullet in the thing. It heaved itself up on spidery legs, revealing that the "rock" was a carapace covering an insect-like body. And it took a long time to die.

There were other, similar incidents. They had a bad effect on the men, even Sampson. The crew Brown had picked was tough, but the Black Forest was like distilled poison. It was easier to face a charging rhino than to travel through this ebony jungle where silent, secret death lurked concealed, in a diabolic masquerade.

That was the first day. The second was worse. The trees were thicker, and sometimes it was necessary to use _machete_-blades to hew through the tangled undergrowth.

* * * * *

Another day--and another--and another, following the clues on Paula's cipher map. They found the first guidepost, the hill honeycombed with caves, and from there went on to the east, camping at the edge of a ravine that dropped away into unplumbed darkness.

Camouflage-moss grew here, looking deceptively like solid ground. One of the men ventured too close to the edge of the cleft, and the moss crumbled beneath him, dropping him into a nest of the roots--twining, writhing cannibalistic serpents with sucker-disks that drank blood thirstily.

They got him out in time, luckily. But the men's nerves were jolted.

After that, day after day, constant alertness was vital. The party walked with guns and knives in their hands. Their footsteps rang hollow in the dead, empty silence of the Forest....

It was only Garth's knowledge of the dark wilderness that got them through to the interior. After a week, he was further in than he had ever penetrated before, except when he had crashed the air-car with Doc Willard five years ago.

But they were getting closer--nearer! More and more often Garth remembered the black notebook that might hold the cure for the Silver Plague. For some indefinable reason he had come to feel that Paula's goal was also his.

It was logical enough. They were searching for a lost treasure-house of the Ancient Race, guarded, perhaps, by the Zarno. And Garth was certain that, during that period of partial amnesia, he and Willard had been captives of the Zarno. He had been drugged with the Noctoli poison by day, but at night he had wakened in a bare cell with his friend--a cell with walls of metal, he recalled. It had been windowless. Lighted by a faint glow from one corner.

It checked. A ruin, once built by the Ancients, now inhabited by the Zarno.

If he could find that notebook--

He always stopped there. He knew what he might also discover--the skeleton of Willard, stretched on an altar. That picture always made his stomach go cold and tight.

That night Brown complained of a splitting headache. They camped near a stream, and Garth accompanied the Captain down to the bank, with canvas pails. Jupiter was invisible--they had not seen the sky for a week--but the red light was fading.

"Not too close," Garth cautioned. "Let me test it first."

Brown stared at him. "What now? I'm getting to expect anything here." The man's expressionless face showed signs of strain and exhaustion. He had no nerves, apparently, but the gruelling journey had told on him nevertheless.

Garth used his knife to cut down a sapling. He impaled a leaf on its point and extended it gingerly over the dark water. After a moment he felt a shock like a striking fish, and the pole was nearly wrenched from his hands. And he wrestled with it, Brown's hands gripped the sapling.

"What the devil! Garth--"

"Let it go. I was only testing, anyway." The pole was dragged into the water, where it thrashed about violently for a few moments.

"What is it?"

* * * * *

Garth was searching through the underbrush for something. "Water-snakes. Big ones--perfectly transparent. They wait for some animal to come along and take a drink. Then--bang!" He nodded. "Here we are. We'll find a lot of the Noctoli flowers from now on."

He brought out a bloom nearly a foot in diameter, with leaves of pulpy, glossy black, a thick powdering of silver in its cup. "This is Noctoli, Captain. Looks harmless, doesn't it?"

"Yeah." Brown rubbed his forehead. "The pollen gives you amnesia?"

"In the daytime, when it's active. It's phototropic--needs light. Jupiter can't have set yet, so this ought to work." Garth found another pole, speared the flower on its tip, and extended the blossom over the water. He shook the silver dust into the stream.

"It works fast. The snakes will be paralyzed in a few seconds. The current carries off the pollen, we dip up the water we need--and that's that."

Paula appeared through the bushes, glancing around warily. In the last week everyone had learned to be alert always. Lines of fatigue showed on her pale face. Red-gold hair was plastered damply on her forehead.

"Carver--"

"What's up?"

She glanced at Garth, "The men. Sampson's talking to them."

Brown's rat-trap mouth clamped tight. "That so? Sampson shoots off his mouth too much. What's the angle?"

"I think they want to go back."

Garth, dipping up water in the canvas buckets, said, "We've only three more days to go, unless we run into bad country."

"I know. But--they're armed."

"I'll talk to 'em," Brown said quietly. He lifted two of the pails and started up the path, Paula and Brown trailing him. Presently they reached the clearing where camp had been made.

The men weren't cooking. Instead, they were gathered in a knot around Sampson, whose blazing red hair stood up like a beacon. Brown put down his burden and walked toward them.

They broke up at sight of him, but didn't scatter. Sampson's hand crept imperceptibly toward his holster.

"Trouble?" Brown asked.

Sampson squinted at him. "No trouble. Except we didn't know the Forest would be as bad as it is."

"So you want to go back?"

"You can't blame us for that," Sampson said, hunching his heavy shoulders. "It's only dumb luck that's kept us alive so far. We didn't bargain for this, Captain."

"I told you what to expect."

"All you said was that it'd be dangerous. None of us knew the Forest. Those damn bloodsucker plants are the worst. They reach out at a guy everywhere he turns. And the other things--we can't get through, Captain! You ought to be able to see that yourself!"

"Nobody's been killed so far."

"Blind luck. And Garth, too. He knows this country. If we didn't have him, we wouldn't have lasted a day."

"We've got him," Brown said crisply. "So we're going on. Only three more days, anyhow. That's enough. Start cooking your rations." He turned his back on Sampson and walked away. The red-haired giant hesitated, scowling. Finally he shrugged and glanced around at the others.

That broke the tension. One by one the men scattered to prepare food.

Only Garth was gnawed by a persistent, deep-rooted fear. He didn't admit it, even to himself. But he watched Brown closely that night, and finally unpacked his medical kit and carefully searched it for something he knew wasn't there.

He was dreading the next morning.

V

Slow reddish dawn brightened over the Forest. Garth felt someone shaking him. He grunted, stirred, and opened his eyes to see Paula's white face, and, behind her, Sampson.

"Yeah. What's wrong?" He scrambled out of his blankets, blinking. The girl, pale to the lips, pointed toward a recumbent figure.

"Carver. Captain Brown. He's--I don't know!"

Sampson said gruffly, "Looks like he's dead. The men on guard duty said he didn't move once all night."

Icy bands constricted suddenly around Garth's heart. Without answering he got his kit and went over to examine Brown. The man lay motionless, his breathing normal, but a deep flush on his brown cheeks.

"It isn't the Plague, is it?" Sampson asked, his voice not quite under control.

Garth shook his head. "Hell, no! It's--" He hesitated.

Paula caught his arm. "What? Some insect poisoned him--one of those butterfly-things?"

Garth carefully repacked his kit. He didn't look up.

"He's got a dose of the Noctoli pollen. That's all. It's not fatal. He'll come out of it after he leaves the Forest, or after he builds up immunity."

"How long would that take?"

"A month or more."

Garth bent over the apparently sleeping man. "Get up, Brown," he said insistently. "Hear me? Get up?"

The Captain stirred. His eyes opened, blank and unseeing. He drew himself from his blankets and rose, looking straight ahead. Paula shrank back with a little gasp. There was a flurry of movement among the men in the background.

"He'll be all right tonight. The poison only works in the daytime--I've told you that."

"We can't march at night," Paula said. "Not--here!"

"I know. It's impossible. Our lights would attract the butterflies--and plenty of other things."

Sampson whirled on the others. "Pack your equipment! We're getting out of here, fast!"

They hurried to obey. Paula got in front of Sampson as he turned, and the giant stopped, blinking at her.

"You can't leave the Captain here, Sampson."

"We'll carry him, then. But we're getting out."

Garth moved to Paula's side. "You won't need a litter. He can walk. Noctoli poison works like hypnotism. You're semi-conscious, but your will's in abeyance. If anyone tells Brown to follow us, he'll do it."

Paula was biting her lip. "We can't go back now. We've only three days to go."

"Look," Sampson said grimly, "why in hell should we commit suicide? Suppose we head on for three days. We reach this lost city of yours, or whatever it is. What then? We're in the middle of the Black Forest. Another thirteen days to get out! It's too much of a gamble. We're leaving now, and you can come along or stay here--suit yourself!" He turned away.

* * * * *

Left alone, Paula looked helplessly from the motionless, staring figure of Brown to Garth.

"Carver!"

He didn't move. Garth grinned wryly.

"He'll obey commands, that's all. He won't wake up till tonight."

Paula clenched her hands. "We've got to go on! We've got to! If we go back now--"

"Commander Benson will clap us in the brig, eh?"

She looked at him angrily. "It isn't only that. We'd lose our chance. You were right, Garth--we're after the power-source of the Ancients. The secret's hidden here, in the Black Forest. That cipher from Chahnn proved that--to me, anyway. Earth needs power, more than you can imagine. Without it, civilization will collapse--soon, too."

"Suppose we go on," Garth said slowly. "I didn't tell you this, but the reason the poison hit Brown was because my antitoxin was too old. He had a short dose, too. The other men--well, they'll go under themselves in a day or so. You, too."

Blue smudges showed under the girl's eyes. "Oh," she said after a moment. "So it's like that."

"Just like that."

Paula's stubborn chin tilted up. "I don't care--there's still a way. We'll be all right at night, you said. Well, we'll do our traveling and fighting by night."

"Fighting?"

"The Zarno. Garth, we've got to do it, somehow. Once we find that power-source, we can use it! There'll be weapons the Ancients left, I'm sure of it. The murals at Chahnn showed they had weapons, strong enough to conquer the Zarno. If we can get those--"

"You're crazy," Garth said. "Plain crazy. What the hell do you expect me to do about it? Sampson would knock my block off if I tried to stop him now."

But he was thinking: we're losing more than a chance to find the Ancient's power-source. I'm losing my chance to find the cure for the Silver Plague.

"No," he said stubbornly.

Paula's lip curled. "I should have known better than to ask you for help. I'll handle this myself." She unholstered her gun.

Garth looked at her. She'd fail. She couldn't handle these ten hard-shelled fighters, headed by Sampson. She'd fail. And, in the end, she'd go back to Earth, in the brig, back to the certain death of the Silver Plague. Oh, it might miss her, of course. But it might not.

Paula would die as Moira had done, years ago.

Garth shrugged and slapped the girl's weapon down. "Stay out of this," he commanded, and turned away, walking across the clearing to where Sampson and the others were shouldering their kits.

The red-haired giant looked up at Garth's approach. "Step it up," he said. "We're in a hurry."

"I'm not going."

Sampson's furry brows drew together. "The hell you're not. We need you!"

There was a band of ice around Garth's middle. "I know that. You can't get through without me. You'll never get out of the Forest alive. That's tough. Paula and I are going ahead, with Captain Brown. We're finishing what we started."

"You lousy so-and-so!" Sampson roared. His big hand reached out, clutching. Garth stepped back, drawing his pistol.

"Take it easy," he said under his breath. But there was a gun in Sampson's hand now. Behind the giant, the other men stirred angrily.

"You're coming with us!"

"Not alive. I won't be much good to you dead, will I?"

After a moment Sampson re-holstered his gun. He looked around at the others.

Someone said, "We can get along without that son."

Sampson growled at him. "Shut up. We can't. You'd have been sucked dry by that spider-thing yesterday if Garth hadn't seen it in time. He knows where to walk in this hell-hole."

Garth didn't say anything. He waited, holding his gun with casual lightness.

Sampson glared. "What do you want, then?"

"I want you to keep going--finish what you started."

"Then what?"

"We may find weapons--and other things."

"Suppose we don't?"

"Then we'll come back. I got you in here, and I'm the only man on Ganymede who can get you out."

Sampson's eyes narrowed. "Suppose we say yes. You can't keep a gun on us all the time. We might jump you. There are ways of making a man do things he doesn't want to do."

"Sure," Garth admitted, "you could torture me. Only that wouldn't help."

Sampson's gaze flicked past to the girl. Garth said quickly, "That wouldn't help either. Here's why. The antitoxin I gave you was too old. It isn't working the way it ought. Captain Brown was the first man to go under. But within three days, at the latest, every damn one of you will have Noctoli poison!"

Garth thought Sampson was going to shoot him then and there. A yell went up from the men.

Sampson's lifted hand quieted them. The giant was pale under his spaceburn.

"Is that straight?"