"Invisibility. Or its equivalent. Ever heard of protective coloration? Camouflage? Well, the creatures of the Forest are the most perfect camouflage experts that exist. They don't simply trick your eyes, either. They trick the other senses. If you smell perfume, take it easy, or you'll find yourself asleep, while your head's being chewed off by a lizard that looks as nasty as it smells good. If you see a path and it feels solid, don't walk too far on it. Things have made that path. A carnivorous moss that feels exactly like smooth dirt underfoot—till their digestive juices start working. If you hear me yelling your name, take it easy. There are birds like harpies here that imitate sounds the way parrots do."
Garth's grin was tight. "You'll find out. It's camouflage carried to the last degree, for offense and defense. I know the Forest pretty well; you don't. You haven't developed a sort of sixth sense—an instinct—that tells you when something smells bad, even though it looks like a six-course dinner."
"All right," the Captain said. "This is your territory, not mine. It's up to you."
It was, Garth decided later as he led the way through the black columns of the trees, very much up to him. Brown and the others were tough, hard fighters, but they didn't know the subtleties of this hell-hole, where death lurked everywhere disguised. He had got a drink from Sampson and his nerves were less jagged, but physical exhaustion still gripped him. He'd been on the skids for a long time, and was in rotten bad shape. But if the girl could stand it, he could.
It was warmer in the Forest; the trees seemed to exhale heat and moisture, and there was no snow on the ground. Great ebony pillars of giant trees, rising hundreds of feet into the air, made the place a labyrinth. And the deceptive reddish twilight made walking difficult, even to Garth's trained senses.
There was trouble, though. When a gorgeously-colored butterfly, flame-red and green, fluttered down toward Paula, Garth hastily slapped at the insect with a thick leaf he was carrying. "Watch out for those," he told the girl, nodding toward the crushed body. "They're poisonous. Bad medicine."
And once, as Brown was about to seat himself on a rounded grayish boulder, Garth whirled the man away just in time. A hole in the rock gaped open, and a pair of fanged mandibles snapped out, clicking together viciously. Garth put a bullet in the thing. It heaved itself up on spidery legs, revealing that the "rock" was a carapace covering an insect-like body. And it took a long time to die.
There were other, similar incidents. They had a bad effect on the men, even Sampson. The crew Brown had picked was tough, but the Black Forest was like distilled poison. It was easier to face a charging rhino than to travel through this ebony jungle where silent, secret death lurked concealed, in a diabolic masquerade.
That was the first day. The second was worse. The trees were thicker, and sometimes it was necessary to use machete-blades to hew through the tangled undergrowth.