DENY THE SLAKE By RICHARD WILSON Illustrated by GAUGHAN Those couplets held (unless they lied) The reason why a world had died! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity, April 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The skipper looked at what Ernest Hotaling had scribbled on the slip of paper. _The color of my true love's cheek Will turn to gray within a week._ The skipper read it and exploded. "What kind of nonsense is this?" "Of course it wouldn't rhyme in a literal translation," Ernest said mildly. "But that's the sense of it." "Doggerel!" the skipper exclaimed. "Is this the message of the ages? Is this the secret of the lost civilization?" "There are others, too," Ernest said. He was the psychologist-linguist of the crew. "You've got to expect them to be obscure at first. They didn't purposely leave any message for us." Ernest sorted through his scraps of paper and picked one out: _They warn me once, they warn me twice. Alas! my heedn't turns me spice._ "There seems to be something there," Ernest said. The skipper snorted. "No, really," Ernest insisted. "An air of pessimism--even doom--runs all through this stuff. Take this one, for instance: "_Music sings within my brain: I think I may go mad again._" "Now that begins to make some sense," said Rosco, the communications chief. "It ties in with what Doc Braddon found." The skipper looked searchingly at his technicians, as if he suspected a joke. But they were serious. "All right," the skipper said. "It baffles me, but I'm just a simple spacefaring man. _You're_ the experts. I'm going to my cabin and communicate with the liquor chest. When you think you've got something I can understand, let me know. 'I think I may go mad again.' Huh! I think I may get drunk, myself." * * * * * What the technicians of the research ship _Pringle_ were trying to learn was why the people of Planetoid S743 had turned to dust. They had thought at first they were coming to a living, if tiny, world. There had been lights on the nightside and movement along what seemed to be roads. But when they landed and explored, they found only powder in the places where there should have been people. There were heaps of fine-grained gray powder in the streets, in the driving compartments of the small cars--themselves perfectly preserved--and scattered all through the larger vehicles that looked like buses.