Darkover was experiencing a flare-up of trailmen's fever, a disease that would decimate the entire human population of Darkover, from the Comyn to the Terrans. The Medical Branch at Terran HQ had the start of a cure, but in order to finish it, they needed trailmen to come out of their mountain heights and donate blood. Only one man on Darkover stood any chance of persuading the trailmen to help, but he occupied the same body as the doctor capable of doing the medical side of the work, and he was the personality the doctor ...
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Darkover was experiencing a flare-up of trailmen's fever, a disease that would decimate the entire human population of Darkover, from the Comyn to the Terrans. The Medical Branch at Terran HQ had the start of a cure, but in order to finish it, they needed trailmen to come out of their mountain heights and donate blood. Only one man on Darkover stood any chance of persuading the trailmen to help, but he occupied the same body as the doctor capable of doing the medical side of the work, and he was the personality the doctor had utterly suppressed. Even with hypnosis, only one of them could be active at a time, and the solution needed both of them. This story first appeared in Amazing Stories , November, 1958.
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Even though this was not the novel I thought it would be, it was still pretty good, and a super-fast read. Personally, I was looking forward to reading more of their encounter with the trailmen and less of their torturous expedition across the Hellers. I was happy to find that Lerrys Ridenow, (from ?The Bloody Sun?), was in their crew. In my opinion, ?The Bloody Sun? delivered more on the alien life of the trailmen than this novel, (which had the potential to overcome).
The forty-eight?year fever is a disease pandemic that is recurring and has a high mortality rate among humans. However, the trailmen have developed immunity to this childhood disease. The Terrans orchestrate an expedition to the Hellers, to ask the trailmen to volunteer their blood so that it may be used to make a vaccine. Dr. Jay Allison is manipulated and created by the Terrans to lead this expedition, and ask the Old-One for their help. With the help of Regis Hastur, Dr. Allison will face the dark and terrible memories hiding inside and forgotten to him. Also, those who know him and those who have met him for the first time will be shocked and scared when they are forced to come to terms with who Dr. Allison truly is.
wightd
Jun 4, 2009
Not very sophisticated
I found this to be the least sophisticated of all her books. It was also the least logical as it postulated a desease that recurred once every 20 or 30 years that decimated the human population and was caused by a totally different species.
