"Leaving Hastings?"
"We--I'll look for him myself. There's life here, malignant life.
Plenty dangerous."
"Not evil. No. Beyond evil, beyond good. I'm not going, Steve."
"You're going if I have to hog-tie you."
O'Brien's gloved hand tightened on the milky crystal. "Deirdre!" he
said.
And, in the emptiness above them, a glow brightened.
There was no other warning. Arnsen tilted back his head to see--the
incredible.
_Deirdre_, he thought. Then, unbidden, another name leaped into his
mind.
_Circe!_
Circe of Colchis, goddess of Aea--Circe, Daughter of the Day, who
changed men to swine! Circe--more than human!
For this was no human figure that hovered above them. It seemed to be
a girl, unclad, reclining in nothingness, her floating hair tinted
like the rays of a dying sun. Her body swept in lines of pure beauty,
long-limbed and gracious. Her eyes were veiled; long lashes hid them.
There was tenderness in her face, and aloofness, and alienage. There
was beauty there--not entirely human beauty.
Rainbow crystals garmented her.
Some large, some small, multi-faceted gems danced and shimmered
against the blackness of the sky and the whiteness of Circe's body.
Moon-yellow, amber-gold, blue as the sea off Capri, green as the
pine-clad hills of Earth--angry scarlet and lambent dragon-green!
With some distantly sane corner of his mind, Arnsen realized that it
was impossible for any living being to exist without protection on the
frigid, airless surface of the asteroid. Then he knew that both air and
warmth surrounded the girl.
The crystals protected her. He knew that, somehow.
O'Brien twisted in his arms. He saw the girl, tried to spring free.
Arnsen gripped him.
The boy swung a jolting blow that jarred the giant's helmet. His mailed
glove smashed against the metal plate. Dazed and giddy, Arnsen fell
back, clawing at O'Brien. His fingers slipped along the other's arm; he
felt something drop into his hand, and clutched it.
Then O'Brien was free. He wrenched an oxygen-tank from Arnsen's
shoulders, whirled, and took a step toward the girl. She was further
away now....
Arnsen staggered up. His head was throbbing furiously. Too late he
realized that, in the scuffle, his air-valve had fouled. He fumbled at
it with clumsy fingers--and fell.
His helmet thudded solidly against hard slag. Blackness took him....