The pilot came in. "Sit up here, next to me, buddy," he ordered. "I'll need your help wrestling this tank through the arroyos."
Benson himself was the last man to enter. He slid the door shut and nodded.
Beside the driver, Garth could not see the others, nor could he hear their conversation as the motors coughed and snarled into life. The truck-cat lurched forward on her caterpillar treads. The pilot looked inquiringly at Garth.
"Where'll I head? West? What about these quicksands I've been hearing about?"
"Steer for that mountain peak 'way over there," Garth told him. "It's easy to see the sink-holes. They're big grey patches on the sand, with no snow on 'em."
The roar of the engine died into a monotonous murmur. It was possible to hear the conversation in the rear of the compartment. Commander Benson was talking.
"--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."
"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."
"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."