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.