“Judging from your beat-up condition,” Lake said, “you must have been the decoy every time.”
“Well—” Schroeder shrugged his shoulders. “It was my idea.”
“I’ve been wondering about another way to get in shots at close range,” Lake said. “Take the skin of a woods goat, give it the original shape as near as possible, and a bowman inside it might be able to fake a grazing woods goat until he got the shot he wanted.
“The unicorns might never suspect where the arrows came from,” he concluded. “And then, of course, they might.”
“I’ll try it before the day is over, on those two unicorns over there,” Schroeder said. “At this elevation and in this gravity my own method is just a little bit rough on a man.”
*
*
*
Lake found Craig and his men several miles to the west, all of them gaunt and bearded as Schroeder had been.
“We’ve had hell,” Craig said. “It seems that every time we spot a few woods goats there will be a dozen unicorns in between. If only we had rifles for the unicorns … ”
Lake told him of the plan to hide under woods goats’ skins and of the decoy system used by Schroeder.
“Maybe we won’t have to use Schroeder’s method,” he said. “We’ll see if the other works—I’ll give it the first try.”
This he was not to do. Less than an hour later one of the men who helped dry the meat and carry it to the caves returned to report the camp stricken by a strange, sudden malady that was killing a hundred a day. Dr. Chiara, who had collapsed while driving himself on to care for the sick, was sure it was a deficiency disease. Anders was down with it, helpless, and Bemmon had assumed command; setting up daily work quotas for those still on their feet and refusing to heed Chiara’s requests concerning treatment of the disease.
Lake made the trip back to the caves in a fraction of the length of time it had taken him to reach the plateau, walking until he was ready to drop and then pausing only for an hour or two of rest. He spotted Barber’s camp when coming down off the plateau and he swung to one side, to tell Barber to have a supply of the herbs sent to the caves at once. He reached the caves, to find half the camp in bed and the other half dragging about listlessly at the tasks given them by Bemmon. Anders was in grave condition, too weak to rise, and Dr. Chiara was dying.
He squatted down beside Chiara’s pallet and knew there could be no hope for him. On Chiara’s pale face and in his eyes was the shadow of his own foreknowledge.
“I finally saw what it was”—Chiara’s words were very low, hard to hear—“and I told Bemmon what to do. It’s a deficiency disease, complicated by the gravity into some form not known on Earth.”
He stopped to rest and Lake waited.
“Beri-beri—pellagra—we had deficiency diseases on Earth. But none so fatal—so quickly. I told Bemmon— ration out fruits and vegetables to everybody. Hurry—or it will be too late.”
Again he stopped to rest, the last vestige of color gone from his face.
“And you?” Lake asked, already knowing the answer.
“For me—too late. I kept thinking of viruses—should have seen the obvious sooner. Just like—”
His lips turned up a little at the corners and the Chiara of the dead past smiled for the last time at Lake.
“Just like a damned fool intern … ”
That was all, then, and the chamber was suddenly very quiet. Lake stood up to leave, and to speak the words that Chiara could never hear:
“We’re going to need you and miss you—Doctor.”
*
