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!"