“He hid them from himself. The artifact showed him his own true nature.”
“No wonder he wants it destroyed.”
“He cannot destroy the artifact, but he will certainly want to destroy us. Once he recovers his composure he will want to wipe out the witnesses who saw his reaction to it.”
Elverda knew that Dorn was right. She watched his face as they passed beneath the lights, watched the glint of the etched metal, the warmth of the human flesh.
“You knew that he would react this way, didn’t you?” she asked.
“No one could be as rich as he is without having demons driving him. He looked into his own soul and recognized himself for the first time in his life.”
“You planned it this way!”
“Perhaps I did,” he said. “Perhaps the artifact did it for me.”
“How could—”
“It is a powerful experience. After I had seen it a few times I felt it was offering me . . .” he hesitated, then spoke the word, “salvation.”
Elverda saw something in his face that Dorn had not let show before. She stopped in the shadows between overhead lights. Dorn turned to face her, half machine, standing in the rough tunnel of bare rock.
“You have had your own encounter with it,” he said. “You understand now how it can transform you.”
“Yes,” said Elverda. “I understand.”
“After a few times, I came to the realization that there must be thousands of my fellow mercenaries, killed in engagements all through the Asteroid Belt, still lying where they fell. Or worse yet, floating forever in space, alone, unattended, ungrieved for.”
“Thousands of mercenaries?”
“The corporations do not always settle their differences in Earthly courts of law,” said Dorn. “There have been many battles out here. Wars that we paid for with our blood.”
“Thousands?” Elverda repeated. “I knew that there had been occasional fights out here—but wars? I don’t think anyone on Earth knows it’s been so brutal.”
“Men like Humphries know. They start the wars, and people like me fight them. Exiles, never allowed to return to Earth again once we take the mercenary’s pay.”
“All those men—killed.”
Dorn nodded. “And women. And children, too. The artifact made me see that it was my duty to find each of those forgotten bodies and give each one a decent final rite. The artifact seemed to be telling me that this was the path of my atonement.”
“Your salvation,” she murmured.
“I see now, however, that I underestimated the situation.”
“How?”
“Humphries. While I am out there searching for the bodies of the slain, he will have me killed.”
“No! That’s wrong!”
Dorn’s deep voice was empty of regret. “It will be simple for him to send a team after me. In the depths of dark space, they will murder me. What I failed to do for myself, Humphries will do for me. He will be my final atonement.”
“Never!” Elverda blazed with anger. “I will not permit it to happen.”
“Your own life is in danger from him,” Dorn said.
“What of it? I am an old woman, ready for death.”
“Are you?”
“I was . . . until I saw the artifact.”
“Now life is more precious to you, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want you to die,” Elverda said. “You have atoned for your sins. You have borne enough pain.”
He looked away, then started up the tunnel again.
“You are forgetting one important factor,” Elverda called after him.
Dorn stopped, his back to her. She realized now that the clothes he wore had been his military uniform. He had torn all the insignias and pockets from it.
“The artifact. Who created it? And why?”
Turning back toward her, Dorn answered, “Alien visitors to our solar system created it, unknown ages ago. As to why—you tell me: Why does someone create a work of art?”
“Why would aliens create a work of art that affects human minds?”
Dorn’s human eye blinked. He rocked a step backward.
