“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 semiconscious, 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 hellhole.”
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?”
Garth nodded. “It’s on the beam. Yeah. It’ll take you a week to get out of the Forest, and you won’t last that long, even if you force me to guide you. I don’t think you can do that, anyway. But even if you did—within three days you’ll be like the Captain. Walking dead men! You’ll be okay at night, but you can’t travel at night. By day you’ll be living statues, sitting in the Forest waiting for the bloodsucker plants to come along and drain your blood, waiting for the poisonous butterflies to paralyze you and lay their eggs under your skin, waiting—you’ve seen what sort of things live in the Forest. Every day you’ll
