It was dark when he woke. Oxygen was once more pouring into his suit; he had managed to open the valve before falling. Far above, the distant, corona-crowned sun flamed against the starry backdrop. The ship lay beneath its crag.
But of O'Brien there was no trace whatever.
After that, something akin to madness came to Arnsen. Again the utter loneliness of space crushed down on him, with suffocating terror. Doug was gone, like Hastings. Where?
He searched, then, and in the days thereafter. He grew haggard and gaunt, drugging himself with stimulants so he could drive himself beyond his limit. Hour after hour he searched the tiny world, squinting against sun-glare, peering into black shadow, shouting O'Brien's name, cursing bitter, searing oaths that sounded futile to his ears. Time dragged on into an eternity. He had been here forever. He could not remember a time when he had not been plodding across the asteroid, watching for a glimpse of a space-suited figure, of dancing jewels of fire, of a slim white body....
Who was she? What was she? Not human—no. And the crystals, what were they?
He returned to the ship one day, shoulders slumping, and passed the spot where he had seen the girl. Something on the ground caught his eye. A pearly, shining gem.
He remembered his scuffle with O'Brien, and the thing that had dropped into his glove.
The jewel, of course. It had lain here, unnoticed, for many revolutions of the asteroid.
He picked it up, staring into the milky depths. A pulse tingled up his arm, fingering into his mind. A pulse of longing—
The girl had appeared when O'Brien summoned her.