Next morning Are you sure you’ve got this right?” They were standing in a shallow valley at the end of a dirt road. It was a pleasant spot: poplars and cypress trees shaded the stream that bubbled down the valley, while in front of them stood a neat, four-square, neoclassical building. It felt vaguely Swiss to Grant: its red-tiled roof and vigorous white walls; the fresh paint on the doors and the starched curtains in the windows. Everything seemed healthy and efficient. Everything except the smell, which festered in the valley: the eggy, noxious stink of sulfur. “Perhaps not,” said Reed. He sounded unaccountably cheerful. “But this is where the hot springs are. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. They’ve been in use since at least Roman times.” “I hate to be the one to tell you, but a hot spring isn’t the same as a volcano. Even the ancients probably knew the difference.” Reed shrugged. “All the legends about the foul-smelling Lemnians will have been rooted in some sort of collective memory.
