Chapter V

Slowly, in the depths of black space there swelled the blob of rock that was the half mile diameter of Luline.

As the ship approached, Nathan examined the surface through the screens for a clue to Firebird's reason for wanting to go there. But it looked the same as any other of the thousands of rocks floating through the spacelanes. The only unusual feature was a small bright spot that appeared to be about ten feet in diameter. It was centered in the bottom of a large depression on one side of the rock.

Firebird seemed to sense the presence of the asteroid as they neared. Her body twitched nervously. Or perhaps it was only her increasing battle with the powers of death.

When Nathan told her they had arrived she struggled to rise. She fell back helplessly. "The pool," she mumbled through lips that barely moved. "Bury me in the pool of Luline."

Though he had guessed it, Nathan was moved to pity because Firebird had known for so many hours that she was going to her own grave.

But he wondered what she meant by the pool of Luline. Was it that bright spot he had noticed? There could be no liquid out here in the depths of space.

It was difficult to land a familiar ship on an asteroid, and since Nathan had never landed the _Corsair_ anywhere it was next to impossible to make an accurate landing. But the urgency of Firebird's desire told him it was worth the risk of taking the ship down upon the jagged surface of the strange little rock.

He swept around it in an ever narrowing spiral until he finally came low over the wide depression that held the shining "pool". He dropped the ship rapidly, braking the _Corsair_ and letting it arc upwards to a stall.

Swiftly, Nathan cut the propulsion tubes. The forward brakes dropped the ship to the surface. The _Corsair_ settled with a hard jolt. A poor landing but good under the circumstances.

Nathan hurried back to the stateroom of the Firebird. There he halted in the doorway at the sight that met his eyes. The Firebird had risen from the bunk and was standing in the middle of the room swaying like some disjointed robot, gibbering wildly through her nerveless lips. She was facing the port and shaking the stump of her hand at the shining pool visible outside.

Nathan caught her frantic words. "Air there--no suit--"

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.