"Hold your breath!" Brown snapped.
Garth tried to obey. A stinging ache had crept into his nostrils. His lungs began to hurt. The plane had spotted them—that was obvious. Sleep-gas works fast.
Another soft crash. Garth scarcely heard it. He saw a stubby, cruciform shadow sweep over the raft, as the plane swooped, and then the wall of silvery fog was looming up ahead. Paula gave a little gasp. Her body collapsed against him.
The fire in Garth's chest was blazing agony. Despite himself, he let breath rush into his lungs.
After that, complete blackness and oblivion.
IV
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.