The impact has made the ice unsafe to go out on by foot.
Crichton is catatonic with grief.
Therefore, with an inevitability that borders on the ironic, it is him they seek out. The request is not one he wishes to have heard, but they have asked and he cannot refuse.
He has already failed her. He cannot add abandonment to that crime.
As Talyn hovers over the lake, Crais stares sightlessly out of the viewscreen. There is nothing out there; the world white and peaceful - absolutely and terribly beautiful. It holds him, as frozen as the surface beneath his ship.
Talyn does not understand. Death is too complete and final a thing for his child-like mind to grasp. Explaining it a third time was what broke Crais and what made him realise the awful truth of it; she was gone.
The sensors pick up no life-sign but is not what they are seeking the watery depths for. Instead the sensors are calibrated to search for metal objects. They find it almost immediately.
Talyn hovers over the lake and in the distance Crais sees the crew of Moya stood, watching as the grappler recover what was lost. He listens to the motors shut off. She is back aboard but he would have this any other way. Any other way.
He reaches for Talyn, needing that contact.
They are waiting for him to bring her back. He cannot. Not right now. He walks slowly to the where she is.
The room is dark, as if Talyn wishes not to waken her. Crais stands at the doorway, staring at the chair, at the limp form it supports. There is water everywhere he notices, his brain limited to processing only the things he wants to understand.
He walks over, reaches out and parts the wet hair. Her face is pale and her eyes closed. He can almost believe she is only sleeping. Almost, but her lips are blue and she does not respond to the gentle caress of his fingers against her cheek.
This is wrong. She is too quiet. Too still.
Too cold.
Anger surges. His knife is in his hands and he takes out all his fury on the webbing that trapped her, held her in the chair and turned it into a death-trap. It finally gives, releases her all too late and she falls into his arms.
He holds her, brushing the hair from her face, knowing that he would have been seven kinds of dead if she'd ever suspected this scene would happen in her future.
An eternity passes. Or a microt. He doesn't know but Talyn signals that they have returned to the shore. To those that are waiting for them.
It is too soon and he isn't ready to let her go just yet. He glances down at her silent face.
"I am so sorry," he says quietly. "So very sorry Aeryn."
She does not respond. Cannot respond. She is beyond him now. Beyond pain and injury and fear. Peacekeepers do not believe in a life after death, but he knew Aeryn Sun and he cannot see how she can fail to live on somewhere else. Then he realises that she does – she lives on in his memory, in Talyn's and that of those that loved her.
And he knows he has to return her to their arms.
Later he returns to Talyn. He cannot remember much of the funeral, other that Zhaan had dried Aeryn and changed her clothing. That when he looked down at her again she really did seem as if she were sleeping.
Now he sits, staring at the data chip that contains the film of her mother. All that he hoped for is lost.
Talyn finally understands. He does not think it fair, regrets what they did not get the chance to show her, and Crais recalls his child-like excitement at the secret.
Now he sighs.
"Yes, Talyn," he says softly. The anger has fled, leaving just a hollow sensation within him. "I, too, would have liked to have shown Aeryn what we learned from this chip." Family has always been important to Crais. He dearly wishes he could have given her something of hers back. "I think... I think it would have made her the happiest soul among us."
Maybe, if there is something beyond this life, she knows.
Maybe she is happy.
But Bialar Crais lives in the now and neither thought brings him any comfort.
On the planet the others are trying to save what is left of Crichton's brain. Crais knows he cannot help, that there is nothing left here for him and Talyn, so they turn away and leave silently.
He briefly regrets not leaving the data chip in the coffin. But then his hand tightens on it possessively; the one thing he has of her.
Of what he has lost.