«Me first!» Humphries took a step forward.
Dorn stopped him with an upraised hand. The prosthetic hand. «I feel it my duty to caution you—»
Humphries tried to push the hand away; he could not budge it.
«When I first crossed this line, I was a soldier. After I saw the artifact I gave up my life.»
«And became a self-styled priest. So what?»
«The artifact can change you. I thought it best that there be no witnesses to your first viewing of it, except for this gifted woman whom you have brought with you. When you first see it, it can be … traumatic.»
Humphries’s face twisted with a mixture of anger and disgust. «I’m not a mercenary killer. I don’t have anything to be afraid of.»
Dorn let his hand drop to his side with a faint whine of miniaturized servomotors.
«Perhaps not,» he murmured, so low that Elverda barely heard it.
Humphries shouldered his way past the cyborg. «Stay here,» he told Elverda. «You can see it when I come back.»
He hurried down the tunnel, footsteps staccato.
Then silence.
Elverda looked at Dorn. The human side of his face seemed utterly weary.
«You have seen the artifact more than once, haven’t you?»
«Fourteen times,» he answered.
«It has not harmed you in any way, has it?»
He hesitated, then replied, «It has changed me. Each time I see it, it changes me more.»
«You … you really are Dorik Harbin?»
«I was.»
«Those people of the Chrysalis …?»
«Dorik Harbin killed them all. Yes. There is no excuse for it, no pardon. It was the act of a monster.»
«But why?»
«Monsters do monstrous things. Dorik Harbin ingested psychotropic drugs to increase his battle prowess. Afterward, when the battle drugs cleared from his bloodstream and he understood what he had done, Dorik Harbin held a grenade against his chest and set it off.»
«Oh my god,» Elverda whimpered.
«He was not allowed to die, however. The medical specialists rebuilt his body and he was given a false identity. For many years he lived a sham of life, hiding from the authorities, hiding from his own guilt. He no longer had the courage to kill himself; the pain of his first attempt was far stronger than his own self-loathing. Then he was hired to come to this place. Dorik Harbin looked upon the artifact for the first time, and his true identity emerged at last.»
Elverda heard a scuffling sound, like feet dragging, staggering. Martin Humphries came into view, tottering, leaning heavily against the wall of the tunnel, slumping as if his legs could no longer hold him.
«No man … no one …» He pushed himself forward and collapsed into Dorn’s arms.
«Destroy it!» he whispered harshly, spittle dribbling down his chin. «Destroy this whole damned piece of rock! Wipe it out of existence!»
«What is it?» Elverda asked. «What did you see?»
Dorn lowered him to the ground gently. Humphries’s feet scrabbled against the rock as if he were trying to run away. Sweat covered his face, soaked his shirt.
«It’s … beyond …» he babbled. «More … than anyone can … nobody could stand it …»
Elverda sank to her knees beside him. «What has happened to him?» She looked up at Dorn, who knelt on Humphries’s other side.
«The artifact.»
Humphries suddenly ranted, «They’ll find out about me! Everyone will know! It’s got to be destroyed! Nuke it! Blast it to bits!» His fists windmilled in the air, his eyes were wild.
«I tried to warn him,» Dorn said as he held Humphries’s shoulders down, the man’s head in his lap. «I tried to prepare him for it.»
«What did he see?» Elverda’s heart was pounding; she could hear it thundering in her ears. «What is it? What did you see?»
Dorn shook his head slowly. «I cannot describe it. I doubt that anyone could describe it—except, perhaps, an artist: A person who has trained herself to see the truth.»
«The prospectors—they saw it. Even their children saw it.»
«Yes. When I arrived here they had spent eighteen days in the chamber. They left it only when the chamber closed itself. They ate and slept and returned here, as if hypnotized.»
«It did not hurt them, did it?»
«They were emaciated, dehydrated. It took a dozen of my strongest men to remove them to my ship. Even the children fought us.»
«But—how could …» Elverda’s voice faded into silence. She looked at the brightly lit tunnel. Her breath caught in her throat.
«Destroy it,» Humphries mumbled. «Destroy it before it destroys us! Don’t let them find out. They’ll know, they’ll know, they’ll all know.» He began to sob uncontrollably.
«You do not have to see it,» Dorn said to Elverda. «You can return to your ship and leave this place.»
Leave, urged a voice inside her head. Run away. Live out what’s left of your life and let it go.
Then she heard her own voice say, as if from a far distance, «I’ve come such a long way.»
«It will change you,» he warned.
«Will it release me from life?»
Dorn glanced down at Humphries, still muttering darkly, then returned his gaze to Elverda.
«It will change you,» he repeated.
Elverda forced herself to her feet. Leaning one hand against the warm rock wall to steady herself, she said, «I will see it. I must.»
«Yes,» said Dorn. «I understand.»
She looked down at him, still kneeling with Humphries’s head resting in his lap. Dorn’s electronic eye glowed red in the shadows. His human eye was hidden in darkness.
He said, «I believe your people say, Vaya con Dios.»
Elverda smiled at him. She had not heard that phrase in forty years. «Yes. You, too. Vaya con Dios.» She turned and stepped across the faint groove where the metal door had met the floor.
The tunnel sloped downward only slightly. It turned sharply to the right, Elverda saw, just as Dorn had told them. The light seemed brighter beyond the turn, pulsating almost, like a living heart.
She hesitated a moment before making that final turn. What lay beyond? What difference, she answered herself. You have lived so long that you have emptied life of all its purpose. But she knew she was lying to herself. Her life was devoid of purpose because she herself had made it that way. She had spurned love; she had even rejected friendship when it had been offered. Still, she realized that she wanted to live. Desperately, she wanted to continue living no matter what.
Yet she could not resist the lure. Straightening her spine, she stepped boldly around the bend in the tunnel.
The light was so bright it hurt her eyes. She raised a hand to her brow to shield them and the intensity seemed to decrease slightly, enough to make out the faint outline of a form, a shape, a person …
Elverda gasped with recognition. A few meters before her, close enough to reach and touch, her mother sat on the sweet grass beneath the warm summer sun, gently rocking her baby and crooning softly to it.
Mamma! she cried silently. Mamma. The baby—Elverda herself—looked up into her mother’s face and smiled.
And the mother was Elverda, a young and radiant Elverda, smiling down at the baby she had never had, tender and loving as she had never been.
Something gave way inside her. There was no pain; rather, it was as if a pain that had throbbed sullenly within her for too many years to count suddenly faded away. As if a wall of implacable ice finally melted and let the warm waters of life flow through her.
Elverda sank to the floor, crying, gushing tears of understanding and relief and gratitude. Her mother smiled at her.