She turned away from him, finding the amusement shallow. The mellow bassoon theme surrounded her again, and she fought it off again. She could even make out the rosewood length of the instrument, the distinctive circle of ivory around the top opening. Despite the bizarre circumstance she was moved by the poignant beauty of Ivo’s music. He had taken this alien contraption and produced — a symphony, each theme, each instrument of which was discrete and perfect. He was a skilled bassoonist, as well as a remarkable flutist. If only she had known about his musical gifts earlier!
Beatryx looked unhappy. “Here?” she inquired.
Afra wondered what it was that so disturbed the woman; then, observing her actions, began to understand. Inadequate sanitary facilities, in that particular vision. She went to help Beatryx, so as to spare her embarrassment when she came out of it. It turned out to be the motions only, and a little later the older woman slept.
Time passed.
Harold talked again, of ships and tactics and negotiations. Never, oddly, of astrology. She would have been happier if he had.
Afra practiced swimming in the air, and made her way away from the others. She searched for the boundaries of the chamber, but the mist became dense — “lovely, dark and deep,” she thought — and in this free-fall state she had no internal sense of direction. She realized that she could lose herself here, from even that pseudo-companionship the others provided, and did not relish the prospect.
She returned to the group, fixed her eyes on Ivo and his mythical band, and allowed herself to drift toward sleep. When this was over, there would be — oh, important matters — to discuss with him. His — well, his talents, and… his…
Nothing had changed when she woke.
“I really don’t know anything about campsites,” Beatryx was saying.
Several hours had passed, certainly — yet she was not hungry or otherwise in distress, physically. It was as though bodily processes had ceased for the duration, except as suggested (but not consummated) in the visions for verisimilitude. Somehow consciousness, direct or indirect, persisted in each person in spite of this stasis. Another marvel of galactic science? Why not.
Ivo still played. She wondered how his steadily agile hands were enduring. No fatigue either, here? At any rate, the visions were likely to end when the music finished. Then what?
Their mission — her mission — had brought them to this dread place, yet the climax was oddly insubstantial. Where was the enemy? Where the denouement? She had not really expected to struggle bloodily against a horde of ravening monsters; but this?
More hours passed. Harold slept. Beatryx went through a mysterious episode of terror, crying “Kill it!” and after subsiding from that, “That’s a man!” Then she was very quiet.
Harold talked to someone or something evidently inhuman, unhuman. Portions of his dialogue were revealing. “You are the one-in-a-thousand! The species that is immune to the destroyer… You — you built the destroyer!… Why are you doing this? Why are you reserving true space travel for yourselves?” Then: “And I am supposed to — to participate in the other side too? When I’m not even certain I agree with this side?”
Waking or dreaming, at least Harold seemed to know which side he was on. He was putting up, in his fashion, a good fight. Afra, in his (assumed) position, would have deleted the polite qualifications and told somebody to go to hell sideways.
“The destroyer — only destroys evil minds?”
Afra was forming more of the picture. Evil minds — like that of Bradley Carpenter? Surely Harold would not succumb to casuistry of that ilk.
But certain other bits he uttered stirred the beginnings of a profound doubt in her. Had they misjudged the destroyer, after all this? Impossible — yet…
Beatryx began to speak again. She was talking with someone about fire, and water, and humanity. Before that she had spent considerable time calling “Black — black — where are you?” Afra had had to tune out the plaintive repetition. Now they were talking together, and Harold was finally on the subject of astrology. It was difficult to follow both conversations simultaneously, and she had to settle for snatches from one or the other.
Then: “You were not wrong, Dolora.”
Beatryx went through an inexplicable series of contortions, then was walking or swimming strenuously, while Harold continued blithely discoursing on astrological technology. Then a sudden outburst: “But you don’t understand! You have to listen—”
Her voice was cut off by an inarticulate noise, and Beatryx doubled over, her face twisted in agony.
Afra paddled over as rapidly as she could, aware that a new and ugly element had been added. A crisis of some sort was at hand.
Ivo went on playing.
Beatryx was lying quietly by the time she got there. Afra tried to lift the older woman, but in the null-G only wrestled herself around. It was pointless, anyway — position made no difference, when there was no weight to support. She was acting without thinking, and to no avail.
Suddenly she realized that Beatryx was not breathing.
Afra clasped the woman’s head, poked a finger in her mouth to clear it of any possible obstruction, and applied the kiss of life: mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
There was no immediate response, but she kept on, exhaling into Beatryx’s lungs, breaking to inhale herself while hugging the inert chest to force out the air. Again, she could not depend on gravity to assist.
As she labored in such measured desperation, hearing Ivo’s bassoon and Harold’s intermittent remarks in the background, scenes of their association illuminated her vision.
Beatryx, at the torus-station, carrying a platter of food in to their first meal as a foursome: She and Harold, Afra and Ivo… and Brad too, then. Beatryx, beside her as Joseph blasted into space with the macroscope. Beatryx, trying to comprehend a difficult concept during an early discussion. Beatryx, declaring “Meeting come to order!” Beatryx in spacesuit, tentatively exploring the Schön-moonlet of Triton.
Beatryx, always ameliorative. Unimportant flashes — yet so poignant now, as Afra realized how important the quiet presence and support of the older woman had been to her.
Older? Beatryx had never looked so young as she did at this moment…
Still she did not breathe — and there was no heartbeat.
Beatryx, tending her garden on Triton. Beatryx, waxing hysterical in Afra’s defense, during that mock, not-so-mock trial.
“Tryx, Tryx!” she cried. “You were the only one who understood—”
It was no use. Beatryx was dead.
Afra wrenched away and launched herself at Harold. She took hold of his shoulders and shook, rocking herself more violently than him. “Wake up! Wake up!”
Harold did not respond.
“Harold — your wife is dead!” she cried in his ear, slapping him.
Now he began to react. “But—”
“She just died and I can’t — I can’t — you’ve got to do something! Wake up!”
He looked stunned. “How — when — ?”
Hastily Afra explained, continuing to shake him so that he could not relapse.
His eyes widened. “I must go back to her!”
Then, gradually, he went limp, and nothing she could do revived him. The dream had reclaimed him.
Afra looked around in a fever of desperation — and saw Ivo, still playing. It was time for the music to end.
She went to Ivo and yanked the instrument from his grasp.
The orchestra stopped, the sound dying away from all the misty reaches of the hall.
The floor reappeared beneath them, and walls around them, much closer than she had supposed, and doors in front and back. Weight returned.
She watched Ivo, waiting for his awareness. He sat for a moment, eyes unfocused. Then he raised his head with a sharpness of decision that was not typical and looked directly at her.