For an art object was what the artifact seemed to be. The family of prospectors continued to send back vague, almost irrational reports of what the artifact looked like. The reports were worthless. No two descriptions matched. If the man and woman were to be believed, the artifact did nothing but sit in the middle of a rough-hewn cavern. But they described it differently with every report they sent. It glowed with light. It was darker than deep space. It was a statue of some sort. It was formless. It overwhelmed the senses. It was small enough almost to pick up in one hand. It made the children laugh happily. It frightened their parents. When they tried to photograph it, their transmissions showed nothing but blank screens. Totally blank.
As Humphries listened to their maddening reports and waited impatiently for the IAA to organize its handpicked team of scientists, he ordered his security manager to get a squad of hired personnel to the asteroid as quickly as possible. From corporate facilities at the Jupiter station and the moons of Mars, from three separate outposts among the Asteroid Belt itself, Humphries Space Systems efficiently brought together a brigade of experienced mercenary security troops. They reached the asteroid long before anyone else could, and were under orders to make certain that no one was allowed onto the asteroid before Martin Humphries himself reached it.
“The time has come.”
Elverda woke slowly, painfully, like a swimmer struggling for the air and light of the surface. She had been dreaming of her childhood, of the village where she had grown up, the distant snowcapped Andes, the warm night breezes that spoke of love.
“The time has come.”
It was Dorn’s deep voice, whisper-soft. Startled, she flashed her eyes open. She was alone in the room, but Dorn’s image filled the phone screen by her bed. The numbers glowing beneath the screen showed that it was indeed time.
“I am awake now,” she said to the screen.
“I will be at your door in fifteen minutes,” Dorn said. “Will that be enough time for you to prepare yourself?”
“Yes, plenty.” The days when she needed time for selecting her clothing and arranging her appearance were long gone.
“In fifteen minutes, then.”
“Wait,” she blurted. “Can you see me?”
“No. Visual transmission must be keyed manually.”
“I see.”
“I do not”
A joke? Elverda sat up on the bed as Dorn’s image winked out. Is he capable of humor?
She shrugged out of the shapeless coveralls she had worn to bed, took a quick shower, and pulled her best caftan from the travel bag. It was a deep midnight blue, scattered with glittering silver stars. Elverda had made the floor-length gown herself, from fabric woven by her mother long ago. She had painted the stars from her memory of what they had looked like from her native village.
As she slid back her front door she saw Dorn marching down the corridor with Humphries beside him. Despite his slightly longer legs, Humphries seemed to be scampering like a child to keep up with Dorn’s steady, stolid steps.
“I demand that you reinstate communications with my ship,” Humphries was saying, his voice echoing off the corridor walls. “I’ll dock your pay for every minute this insubordination continues!”
“It is a security measure,” Dorn said calmly, without turning to look at the man. “It is for your own good.”
“My own good? Who in hell are you to determine what my own good might be?”
Dorn stopped three paces short of Elverda, made a stiff little bow to her, and only then turned to face his employer.
“Sir: I have seen the artifact. You have not.”
“And that makes you better than me?” Humphries almost snarled the words. “Holier, maybe?”
“No,” said Dorn. “Not holier. Wiser.”
Humphries started to reply, then thought better of it.
“Which way do we go?” Elverda asked in the sudden silence.
Dorn pointed with his prosthetic hand. “Down,” he replied. “This way.”
The corridor abruptly became a rugged tunnel again, with lights fastened at precisely spaced intervals along the low ceiling. Elverda watched Dorn’s half-human face as the pools of shadow chased the highlights glinting off the etched metal, like the Moon racing through its phases every half-minute, over and again.