When he found her, he knew before he landed. She was sprawled at the bottom of a high cliff.
She was not pretty any more. She wasn't even a live animal, just dead flesh lying there, smeared with blood and covered with tattered clothes.
Aron remained in a stage of pre-shock, a state of cold clear rationality, until he had taken her back to the station, dug a grave and buried her. He wasn't sad, it was just a job to be done. This wasn't his wife he was burying.
It wasn't until that evening that the fact of her death penetrated and was accepted by his mind.
The next few days were spent in routine actions. Aron relied on his usual anodyne—work. The pathway and the meadow were filled with cement by the end of the fifth day.
He let his stunned mind become wrapped in the problem of completing this job—the weight of the shovel in his hand, the heat of the sun on his back—these were what he thought about. It was not a solution or even escape, just a stall.
The sixth day brought a visitor.
The shock of someone knocking at the door, walking in, introducing himself and sitting down to talk yanked Aron's mind into awareness.
The only way to achieve a landing would be for a friendly ship to signal him and have him de-activate the defenses—which definitely had not happened!