“I want to see it before we leave. I should take something away from here, don’t you think?”
He watched her for a long moment, saddened by her tone. Would it be safe? Goner artifacts sometimes were dangerous, but only in an indifferent, entirely accidental way. And she did deserve to take something away. “Yes, of course you can see it.”
*** *** ***
The crawler thumped over the rim of the cirque and he killed the engine.
“Are you impressed?” he asked, before he turned to her.
When they stood on the glistening terrace, he set down the robocam he had brought. Barram led her toward the first arches, and the robocam followed, tracks clattering.
“Don’t look at the arches,” he warned, so of course she did. When she looked away her face was pale.
To distract her, he pointed at the pool. “What is it, the fluid?”
She pulled a sample tube from her equipment belt. “Careful,” he called, just as the coping tilted behind her and slid her onto the glittering surface.
As Barram rushed forward, the coping dropped back into place and a rainbow field splashed up from the pool’s edges, curving under the arches. Barram smashed into the field. He rebounded, staggered.
The field flashed across the top of the pool, and passed under Sinda. Sinda floated slowly toward the far end of the pool, eyes closed, face tranquil.
Barram stumbled after, pressing against the field, watching Sinda spin, her arms and legs outstretched, a graceful eddy.
The bones, he thought. “Swim! Get back! Please, please.”
He ran around the last arch, but the field rejected him there as well. He slowly collapsed, sliding down against the field as Sinda neared the edge.
A moment before she touched the coping, he shut his eyes tight. The field cut off, and Barram pitched forward.
His eyes jarred open.
He expected some unbearable sight. Instead, Sinda floated at the edge, unharmed, a small delighted smile curving her mouth.
Barram reached out, caught her arm, pulled her through a notch in the coping.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt?” He shook her, almost roughly.
She sat up, and put her hand gently to his face. “I’m fine.”
He pulled her to him, squeezing her until she made a small sound of distress.
“You’re really not hurt?”
“Better.” She touched her chest, over her heart.
Barram felt a chill. “Wait,” he said. “Look at this.”
Cautiously, he approached the edge of the pool then beckoned Sinda closer. The bones glimmered in the blue of the pool.
Sinda looked where he pointed. Her face remained serene. “There’s a certain symmetry. Don’t you think?” Her voice was calm, measured.
Looking down, he could see what she meant. The bones lay in a radial heap, like a skeletal anemone. The reflection in the polished black side completed the flower in dim reprise.
Barram shook his head. He could see what had formed the pattern; the people must have been trying to get out through the notch at the moment of death.
“Come,” he said. “It’s time to get back.”
*** *** ***
In his anxiety to be away he forgot to bring the robocam.
That evening, Sinda was herself, sweet and clever. They sat together in the upper observation blister and watched the huge orange sun set over the badlands.
She exclaimed in pleasure over a cluster of tiny moons, like crescent jewels in the bloody light of the sunset.
“What happened in the pool, Sinda? Can you tell me now?”
A tiny quirk of pain passed over her face. “It made me happy. There’s something wrong, isn’t there, Jolo? I’ve stopped grieving, and I thought I never would.”
*** *** ***
In the morning, Barram woke alone.
The first thing he noticed when he stepped from the ladder was the missing crawler.
Barram cursed. The ship carried only one vehicle. On foot, it would take days to reach the shrine. He had two choices; he could wait and hope she would return, or he could raise the ship and try to jockey it over to the shrine. The latter choice was dangerous, the former hopeless.
Presently he began to secure the ship for lift. Then he buried Talm in the dusty graveyard, but there was no time for an epitaph.
*** *** ***
Barram set down near the crumbling rim of the cirque — not the safest groundpoint, but the nearest. He was not sure how long the soft concretion would bear the great weight of the ship, but he did not plan to be long. He scrambled from the ship and bounded down the slope of the cirque, slipping in the loose scree.
She lay there on the shining black, face down. He turned her over.
He saw nothing fearful; she had suffered no monstrous sea-change. Her skin had a slightly coarser texture. Tiny lines webbed her eyes, and the flesh had fallen away from its former taut beauty.
He gathered her up, and took her away from the pool. The loose stone of the slope made her hard to carry, but he persevered. Back in the ship, he laid her on their bunk. Her eyes fluttered, but she slept on, breathing evenly.
He sat beside her, wondering. Then he remembered the little robocam he’d left on the site.
He found it still crawling doggedly over the shrine. He pulled the matrix.
When he returned to the ship, the lock was shut, though Barram was positive he’d left it open. When he put his palm against the lockplate, nothing happened. He became frightened, and pounded his fist on the unyielding monomol of the hull. “Sinda!” His voice cracked. “Sinda! Let me in.”
For a long moment he wondered just what sort of creature he had brought up from the shrine. But then her image formed on the intervid. It was Sinda, though her eyes were too bright, her mouth marred by a fawning smile. “Jolo, I can’t let you in.”
He heard a disturbing slyness in her voice. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. You’d keep me from the pool.” Her eyes softened. “Jolo, I can’t tell you how it is, really. The pool washes away grief, washes away every trace. I don’t just mean Talm; I mean everything. Everything that ever hurt you, gone. Every regret, every sadness. Gone.”
She bit her lip. “That’s why you can’t keep me from the pool. Once you’ve been there, you can’t bear the return of even the smallest hurt.”
He feared her conviction. “Sinda,” he said, as calmly as he could, “I’d never stop you from doing what you must. You can trust me.”
For a long moment she stared at him, flat-eyed; then he saw that her need to get outside would force her to believe him. “I trust you, Jolo.”
The lock released with a shuddering pneumatic sigh.
She was waiting for him in their cabin. She was calm, until she saw the expression on his face. “Oh, no. You promised.”
“I won’t break it,” he lied. “But at least wait and see if there’s anything we can do about ... about the side effects.”
“Of course, that’s sensible.” Her eyes darkened. “It... the peace... it doesn’t seem to last very long.” “Come,” he said, and led her down, to the medmech, which confirmed the evidence of his eyes.
He wondered how many times Sinda had floated the pool, how many years each trip had cost her.
He pondered the medmech’s results at such length that she became restive in the narrow coffin. She began to thump her fists against the plug, and he hurried to release her before she injured herself.
She was pale, shaking. “I must go,” she said, trying to push past him.
When she realized he didn’t plan to let her pass, she fought him. But old as he was, he was still the stronger. She begged, she cursed, she wept, but he took her to their sleepcabin, and instructed the ship to keep her there.
For a while, he watched her on the sensor pit’s intervid. He waited until she fell into a sort of watchful trance, then he shut off the screens.
He rubbed at his weary eyes, he lay back on the con couch, and slipped into dreamless sleep.