Garth grunted. “So what?”
“Well—I’m Paula Trent, archaeologist. Not that it matters. For months Carver and I have been waiting our chance to fit out an expedition and come on here. We didn’t have the money, at first, and when we did get it, the government refused us permission. We had no proof, they said, and the Black Forest is impenetrable. So we waited. A month ago we got wind of a research ship, the Hunter, coming on here to investigate Chahnn. The same old stuff—digging around in the ruins, trying to find out what made the machines and robots tick, trying to make sense out of the inscriptions. Trying to find a cure for the Silver Plague.”
Garth said, “No cure’s been found yet, then.”
Paula shook her head. “No. Since it started on Earth ten years ago, it’s wiped out one-twentieth of the population, and unless it’s stopped, it’ll destroy all life on our world. But that’s old stuff. Except the government’s sending out their best men to Ganymede, because it’s known the Silver Plague existed here once and was conquered. The inscriptions in Chahnn show that. But they don’t say what the treatment was, or give any hints. However—” She brushed red-gold hair from her forehead. “Carver and I have planted men in the Hunter crew. Tough, good men who’ll strike out with us into the Black Forest. With equipment.”
“Desertion, eh?”
“Technically, sure. But the only way. Nobody will listen to us. We know—we know—the Ancients hid their most valuable treasure in the Black Forest. What it is we don’t know. We’re hoping it’ll solve a lot of problems—the mystery of what powered their machines, what happened to the Ancients—all that.”
“No planes can be used,” Garth said. “There’s no place to land in the Forest.”
“That’s why we want you. You know the Forest, and you know the Ancient Tongue. Guide the Hunter crew to Chahnn. Then, when we give the word—head for the Black Forest with us.”
Garth said, “On one condition. You can’t go.”
Paula’s eyes narrowed. “You’re in no position to—”
“Men might get through. A woman couldn’t. Take it or leave it,” Garth repeated stubbornly.
Captain Brown nodded to the girl. “All right, it’s a deal. Sorry, Paula, but he’s on the beam. Here’s ten bucks, Garth. Balance when we get to Chahnn. We leave tomorrow at Jupiter-rise.”
Garth didn’t answer. After a moment Paula and Brown rose and went out through the mildewed tapestry curtain. Garth didn’t blame them. The Moonflower-Ritz smelled.
Presently he found Tolomo and gave him the money. The Ganymedean hissed worriedly.
“Only ten?”
“You’ll get the rest later. Gimme a bottle.”
“I don’t think—”
Garth reached across the bar and seized a quart. “Hereafter I do my drinking out-of-doors,” he remarked. “I’ll feel cleaner.”
“Sfant!” Tolomo flung after him as he headed for the door. Garth’s cheeks burned red at the word, which is Ganymedean and untranslatable; but he didn’t turn. He stepped out into the muddy street, a cold wind, sulphurous and strong, stinging his nostrils.
He looked around at the collection of plastic native huts. Till the Hunter had arrived, he’d been the only Earthman in Oretown. Now—
He didn’t feel like talking to natives. The Tor towered against the purple sky, where three of Jupiter’s moons were glowing lanterns. At the base of the Tor was Garth’s shack.
Swaying a little, clutching the bottle, he headed in that direction. He had waited five years for this moment. Now, when at last he might find the answer to the problem that had turned him into a derelict, he was afraid.
He went into his hut, switched on the radiolite, and stood staring at a door he had not opened for a long time. With a little sigh he pushed at the latch. The smell of musty rot drifted out.
A lamp revealed a complete medical laboratory, one that had not, apparently, been used for months at least. Garth almost dropped a bottle as he fumbled it from the shelf. Cursing, he opened the rotgut Ganymedean whiskey and poured it down his throat.
That helped. Steadied somewhat, he went to work. The Noctoli pollen antitoxin was still here, but it might have lost its efficacy.
He tested it.
Good. It seemed strong, the antibodies having a long life-cycle. It would work.
Garth packed a compact medical kit. After that he stood for quite a while staring at two blank spaces on the wall, where pictures had once hung.
Moira and Doc Willard.
Damn! Garth snatched up the liquor and fled the house. He fought his way along the steep path that led to the Tor’s summit. The physical exertion was a relief.
At the top, he sat down, his back against a rock. Beneath him lay Oretown, yellow-blue lights winking dimly. In a cleared field some distance away was the ovoid shape of the spaceship that had brought Paula and Brown—the Hunter.
To the west, across sandy desert, lay Chahnn, dead city that had once housed an incredibly-advanced science—lost now, its people dust. Northwest, beyond distant ridges, was the Black Forest, unexplored, secret, menacing.
Six years ago Dr. Jem Willard had come to Ganymede with his intern, Ed Garth. Willard was trying to discover the cure for the Silver Plague that was wrecking Earth. He would have found it—he had got on the track. But—
An emergency call had come in one night. A native needed an appendectomy. Willard couldn’t fly a plane. He had called on Garth, and Garth had been drunk.
But he had piloted the plane anyhow. The crack-up happened over the Black Forest.
That was the last thing Garth remembered, or almost the last. It would have been more merciful if the oblivion had been complete. Months later he staggered out of the Forest into Oretown, alone. The Noctoli poison had almost erased his experiences from his mind. He could remember a bare cell where he and Willard had been prisoned—that, and one other thing.
A picture of Doc
