“—atomic power. It must have been that; there’s no other answer. All we need to know is the nature of the booster charge.”
“I don’t get it,” Paula said. “Booster charge?”
“As far as our physicists know, atomic power’s possible if there’s a known way to start it and control it. Earth’s reserves are nearly exhausted. Oil, coal—used up almost completely. And Earth needs power plenty bad, to maintain civilization.”
“The other planets have fuel.”
“Spaceshipping’s too expensive. It’s prohibitive, Paula. Unless a new power source is found very soon, Earthmen may have to migrate to another world—and our civilization’s so complex that that’s nearly impossible. Maybe we can find the answer in Chahnn this time. It was one of the biggest cities of the Ancients.”
“I’ve never seen it,” Captain Brown said.
Benson grunted. “I did, once. Years ago. Tremendous! The scientific achievements they must have had! And nobody knows what happened to the Ancients. They just vanished, and their machines kept running till they’d used up their power—and stopped. So there’s no trace left. We’ve located the fuel chambers, but in every case they’ve been empty. Experiments have been made—unsuccessfully.”
“You still think my translation of the Harro Panel was wrong, eh?” Paula put in.
“I do,” Commander Benson said. “It was a variable cipher. No one else agrees with you that it was a code map.”
“Ever heard of a double code?”
“I’m sorry,” Benson said shortly. “We’ve settled all this. The Black Forest is impassable. We can’t risk our chance of success on a wild goose chase.”
Beside the pilot, Garth’s mouth twisted sardonically. He had an idea, now, what Carver Brown and Paula were after. The secret of the Ancients’ power-source. Well, it might be found in the Black Forest. Anything might. Including the lost race of the Zarno, and. … His eyes went hard. Not yet would he let himself believe Doc Willard was still alive. The most he could hope for was an answer to that question—the tormenting problem of whether or not he had killed Willard.
Lost in his absorption, he snapped out of it scarcely in time as the truck-cat skidded on slick ice.
“Hard left! Sand the treads!” Instinctively his hand flashed to the right lever, releasing a sprinkling of sand that provided traction. He held it down while the pilot fought the wheel. They lurched, swung half around, and found level surface again. Through the window Garth could see a twenty-foot-wide funnel, sloping down to a black hole at the center.
“What was it?” the pilot asked.
“Creethas, the natives call ’em, but that doesn’t mean much. Six-foot insects. Poisonous. They dig traps like antlions on Earth, pits with sloping sides. Once you skid on the ice, you slip on down to the hole at the bottom.”
“Dangerous?”
“Not to us, in here. But we might have damaged the engine.”
“Keep your eyes open after this, Garth,” Commander Benson said sharply.
“Okay.” Garth was silent. The truck-cat drove on, leading the procession.
The vehicles were fast. On level ground they raced, hitting eighty m.p.h. sometimes. By Jupiter-set they had reached Chahnn. Paula, for one, was disappointed.
“I expected a city,” she told Garth as they stared around at the mile-square block of black stone, raised a few feet above ground level, its surface broken by a few structures oddly reminiscent of the subway kiosks of two centuries ago.
“It’s all underground,” Garth said. He was feeling shaky, needing a shot or two of liquor. But there was none. In lieu of it, he borrowed a cigarette from the girl and idled about, watching the men make camp.
The roomy truck-cats provided accommodations for sixty men without crowding. It wasn’t necessary to set up tents. Indeed, in that icy air, only “warmer” tents, heated by induced current in their metallic fabric, would have been feasible. The trucks, however, could be heated easily and were air-conditioned. Garth walked over to a kiosk and peered into the black depths. Chahnn lay below, the gigantic, complicated city of the Ancients.
Through Chahnn was the road to the Black Forest—the only road they could use, under the circumstances.
Garth shivered and went in search of Brown. He was feeling shakier than ever. Vividly in his mind was a picture he did not want to remember—a man stretched on an altar, a knife at his breast. …
He found Brown beside one of the trucks, looking into the darkness.
“Captain—”
“Huh? Oh, Garth. Say, Paula—Miss Trent took a flashlamp and went down into Chahnn to do a bit of exploring. I was thinking of going after her. Any danger down there?”
Garth shook his head. “It’s a dead city. She’ll be okay.”
“Unless she gets lost.”
“She won’t. There are markers pointing to the outlets. How about a drink? I could use one.”
Scowling, Brown nodded and pushed Garth into the truck. “I bunk in here, with the Commander. You’ll have to find a place with the men, somewhere. Oh, by the way—” He pushed folded slips into Garth’s hand. “Here’s the rest of that forty. And here’s a drink.”
Garth gulped brandy better than any he had tasted in years. He didn’t bother with a glass. Brown watched him with an almost imperceptible curl of the lip.
“Thanks. … When do I get that ten thousand?”
“When we’re back here. I don’t trust you quite enough to let you have it now.”
Garth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, considered, and drank again. “I won’t run out on you. You’re after that Ancients’ power-source, aren’t you?”
Brown’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Any of your business?”
“Not in the way you mean. But I know the Black Forest. I might be able to give you some ideas, if I’m not left too much in the dark. Still, I can guess a little. I know you expect to run into the Zarno.”
“Yeah?”
Garth made an impatient gesture. “Hell, why did you want me as a guide? It wasn’t only because I knew the Forest. I can speak the Ancient Tongue—the same language the
