"Not yet. But we have a lead. During the last epidemic, a Terran scientist discovered a blood fraction containing antibodies against the fever--in the trailmen. Isolated to a serum, it might reduce the virulent 48-year epidemic form to the mild form again. Unfortunately, he died himself in the epidemic, without finishing his work, and his notebooks were overlooked until this year. We have 18,000 men, and their families, on Darkover now, Jay. Frankly, if we lose too many of them, we're going to have to pull out of Darkover--the big brass on Terra will write off the loss of a garrison of professional traders, but not of a whole Trade City colony. That's not even mentioning the prestige we'll lose if our much-vaunted Terran medical sciences can't save Darkover from an epidemic. We've got exactly five months. We can't synthesize a serum in that time. We've got to appeal to the trailmen. And that's why I called you up here. You know more about the trailmen than any living Terran. You ought to. You spent eight years in a Nest." * * * * * (In Forth's darkened office I sat up straighter, with a flash of returning memory. Jay Allison, I judged, was several years older than I, but we had one thing in common; this cold fish of a man shared with myself that experience of marvelous years spent in an alien world!) Jay Allison scowled, displeased. "That was years ago. I was hardly more than a baby. My father crashed on a Mapping expedition over the Hellers--God only knows what possessed him to try and take a light plane over those crosswinds. I survived the crash by the merest chance, and lived with the trailmen--so I'm told--until I was thirteen or fourteen. I don't remember much about it. Children aren't particularly observant." Forth leaned over the desk, staring. "You speak their language, don't you?" "I used to. I might remember it under hypnosis, I suppose. Why? Do you want me to translate something?" "Not exactly. We were thinking of sending you on an expedition to the trailmen themselves." (In the darkened office, watching Jay's startled face, I thought; God, what an adventure! I wonder--I wonder if they want me to go with him?) Forth was explaining: "It would be a difficult trek. You know what the Hellers are like. Still, you used to climb mountains, as a hobby, before you went into Medical--" "I outgrew the childishness of hobbies many years ago, sir," Jay said stiffly. "We'd get you the best guides we could, Terran and Darkovan. But they couldn't do the one thing you can do. You _know_ the trailmen, Jay. You might be able to persuade them to do the one thing they've never done before." "What's that?" Jay Allison sounded suspicious.