She was hysterical. He made up his mind. The life of Firebird was no
more than a candle flame in a hurricane now. The least he could do was
grant her final wishes. If she wanted him to end her life by thrusting
her out into the cold of interplanetary space and bury her in the
"pool" it would be only merciful.
He donned a space suit quickly and went back to Firebird. She had
collapsed into unconsciousness and lay in a pitiful huddle in the
middle of the floor. Perhaps she was already dead, he thought.
Carrying her, he entered the airlock and paused the moment it required
for evacuation. It seemed to take an unusually short time to equalize
the pressure, then he stepped out. He had expected the body of Firebird
to become distorted and instantly frozen by the cold, but she changed
not at all as he stepped to the surface of the asteroid, held down by
the traction shoes of the suit.
He checked the thermometer on his sleeve. Only thirty degrees below
zero, and not falling.
He approached the pool that glistened like a shining disc of metal in
the brilliant sunlight. He kicked a stone onto it, and ripples arose.
It was liquid, and very dense--like a pool of mercury.
He came to the edge and looked one last time at the face of Firebird,
the once beautiful Firebird. Then slowly, she dropped from his arms
into the pool.
He stepped back and watched. For an instant it seemed as if she lay in
the surface, half-submerged and unmoving. Then slow fingers of waves
rose about her and dragged her beneath.
Abruptly she was gone. It was as if she had disappeared into the
surface of a mirror. The depths of the liquid were invisible. The
unmoving surface reflected only the white-hot light of the pool into
Nathan's eyes.
Firebird was gone. And with her disappearance there came to Nathan
the conviction that there had been nothing evil in her. She had moved
because she was driven by some wild and secret purpose that would not
give her rest. A purpose bound up in the Seven Jewels of Chamar. And
Nathan knew that somehow he would find the secret of the Jewels that
had driven his own father to death.
* * * * *
He suddenly turned and ran back towards the ship. He wanted to get away
as quickly as possible from this unreal world of Luline. It was a place
that breathed the presence of strange and alien ghosts. He would come
back, though--he would return to solve the mystery of Firebird after he
had been to Mars and obtained the remainder of the Jewels.
The _Corsair_ rose slowly from Luline. He let the great ship circle
once about the mass of rock, then turned into space towards Mars. He
focused his viewing screen and glanced back at the tiny rock. The pool
reflected the sun's rays like a great heliograph. Even at this distance
it was too bright to gaze at for long.
His only goal now was possession of all of the Seven Jewels. Firebird
had not shown him her two, but he knew they were somewhere within
the ship. The vision of the glorious depths of the two in his own
possession constantly floated before him as he let his thoughts drift
back to them. He understood now the spell to which his father had
succumbed.
He reached to turn the viewing screen off, but glanced for one last
time at the asteroid. Suddenly the light reflected from the pool
flickered and wavered. It was as if some hand were holding a giant
mirror and shifting it back and forth--flashing some mysterious message
across the depths of space, he thought. No doubt it was due to some
peculiarity of refraction caused by the remnant of air that seemed to
lie with the cup of the depression.
He turned to the charts and concentrated on the course. He checked the
position of Mars now and what it would be at his estimated time of
arrival. He put the figures into the computer.
The answer came out fantastically wrong. He tried again and failed.
* * * * *
It was impossible to concentrate. And he knew why. That shifting
reflection from the pool of Luline. That unintelligible message flashed
across space.
It could have been caused by the breaking of the surface of the pool.
It had to be caused by that.
And it would haunt him forever unless he turned back. He swung the
_Corsair_ into a turn that blacked out his vision, but when he could
see again he was headed for the asteroid once more.
He came in too fast. He had to circle twice to brake his speed. Then
the _Corsair_ sped down into the depression and over the pool.
Piloting required too much attention to keep a close watch on the shiny
surface, but one brief glance brought a gasp from his throat. There was
something lying at the edge of the pool that had not been there before.
His landing this time was made with a terrific jolt that rocked the
ship. Then he entered the lock without waiting to don a spacesuit. He
knew that Firebird had been right when she said it was unnecessary.
He kept the inner door of the lock closed to conserve the heat in the
ship, but he swung the outer door open and plunged out.
He staggered in sudden pain as the shock of meeting that alien
atmosphere swept over him. It was not atmosphere by any human standard.
It was rarefied beyond capacity to support normal human life. He gasped
in desperate breaths and the ice needles he breathed upon the air were
sucked back in to spear his own lungs.
Black checkerboard screens flashed across his vision, but he could see
now the object at the edge of the pool.
There was no questioning the instinct that had driven him to turn back
the _Corsair_. Firebird lay huddled on the rocks by the pool.
She lay as if she had been running and had fallen forward on her face.
Nathan reached her and turned her over. He stared in unbelief.
The swaths and bandages had vanished in the pool and her body lay white
and cold under the strong light of the sun. There was not a mark on
her. The mystic properties that lay in the strange pool had performed a
miraculous resurrection and healed all traces of the ghastly burns.
Nathan did not know whether she was yet alive or dead. She was icy to
his touch and unconscious, but he picked her up and started back to the
ship.
The exertion in that atmosphere caused swirls of dizziness in his
brain, and he did not even ponder the question of how gravity could be
great enough to make walking possible. He expended every fraction of
his draining energy to fight back to the ship.
At last he laid Firebird inside the lock of the _Corsair_ and closed
the outer door with the last dregs of his strength. Automatically, the
lock began to fill with warm air until the inner door swung open.
Nathan's strength revived shortly. He turned to Firebird. Her black
hair that spilled over the floor of the lock looked as if it had never
been touched by the destroying fire. Her face was molded in the same
lines of perfection as before. And her flesh was beginning to glow with
the pink of life. The final miracle showed itself in her breathing. She
was alive.
He carried her into the stateroom and wrapped her in blankets. Her body
was still icy from her long exposure. He started to move away to get a
hot drink when she should revive. Then her eyes opened.
She looked wildly about, then stared at him. "I thought you had
abandoned me. Did your conscience get the better of you?"
The hardness of her voice shocked him. He looked at her in pained
surprise. "I thought you were dead. I saw the flickering of the light
from the pool when you came out of it. I came back then only because I
couldn't believe you had really died."
"Of course. You couldn't really know, could you?" Abruptly she was
crying. He sat down and took her hand.
"There is no one else in the System who would not have been glad to
leave Firebird there forever," she said.
Nathan made no reply. He could not comprehend her strangeness. But for
the moment she was no longer the fearless Firebird. She was a little
girl, lonely and lost.