The Aftermath

“In fact,” Elverda went on, “I would imagine that the chances are very good that once you do kill us, Humphries will have you murdered as well.”

Yuan’s jaw dropped open.

ATTACK SHIP VIKING: COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

Tamara Vishinsky decided that the soundproofed comm center was the best place to interrogate Dorik Harbin. The booth was small, but it was adjacent to the bridge, and once its door was shut no one could see or hear what was going on inside it. So she had Koop and the burliest of the crewmen strap Harbin firmly into the chair while she searched through the ship’s medical stores for the necessary drugs.

Now Harbin sat in the narrow booth facing her, his arms pinned tightly, his booted feet clamped to the deck. He had not struggled against being bound; he had not resisted in any way.

Standing in front of him, with a shelf full of hypodermic spray-guns at her side, Tamara eyed the cyborg. Harbin seemed impassive, the human half of his face as expressionless as the etched metal half.

“Now then,” she began coolly, “do you expect me to believe that you have been wandering through the Belt looking for the bodies of mercenaries killed in the wars?”

“That’s the truth,” said Harbin. His voice was a deep, flat and calm baritone.

“You call yourself Dorn. Why?”

“I am a different person from Dorik Harbin. Suicide and death are life-changing experiences.” His lips did not curve in the slightest; he gave no indication that he appreciated the irony in his statement.

“You tried to kill yourself.”

“And failed.”

“When did you decide to search for the dead?”

For the first time, he hesitated. “After another life-altering experience.”

“What was that?”

Harbin stared at her steadily. Tamara felt uneasy under the gaze of those eyes, one human, one artificial, both burning intently.

“It would be better if I didn’t tell you.”

“That’s what you said to Captain Yuan.”

“Yes, it is.”

She picked up one of the hyposprays. “I’m not satisfied with that answer.”

His shoulders surged slightly against the restraining straps. Tamara reflexively flinched back, banged her hip against the booth’s bulkhead. He can’t break those straps, she told herself. Besides, there’s an armed crewman outside and all three of the bridge officers on duty.

But Harbin seemed to relax. “I’m thinking of your welfare, not my own. What you want to know could put you in danger.”

“Danger? How?”

“Martin Humphries.”

“I work for Martin Humphries,” Tamara said. “I report to him personally.”

“I’ve met him. I’ve seen into his soul.”

Tamara slapped the flesh side of his face. “This mystic mumbo jumbo is getting us nowhere. What was the life-altering experience you mentioned? What do you know about Martin Humphries?”

“I know that he’s capable of murdering you and the entire crew of this ship if it suits his purposes.”

“Why would he do that?”

Harbin shook his head slightly, the barest movement from side to side.

“Very well,” Tamara said, holding the spraygun before his eyes. “If you won’t tell me voluntarily…”

“Psychotropic drugs may have unforeseen reactions with my body chemistry,” Harbin said calmly.

“You mean pain?”

“I mean… unforeseen. I warn you—”

“You warn me?” She began to push up the sleeve on his human arm.

Harbin grimaced as she held the spraygun against his bare biceps and pressed its activator button. There was a slight hiss.

“Now then,” she said, removing the emptied cylinder from the syringe, “we’ll wait a few moments for it to take effect. And if that dosage doesn’t work, we’ll go higher. Or try something stronger.”

Harbin’s metal chin sank to his chest. He muttered something almost too low for Tamara to understand: “Stay dead.”

He could close his human eye but with his arms bound behind him he couldn’t reach the prosthetic eye to dial it shut. Still, the scene before him began to swirl and shift. He saw the artifact again, glowing too brightly to look at directly. An alien construct, blazing brighter than a star, burning straight into his soul.

Tamara thought he’d passed out. She lifted his chin. The metal felt cold in her fingers. Harbin opened his eye and stared at her ferociously.

“Still defiant?” She turned for the shelf of medications.

“Don’t,” he warned.

She took his word as a plea for mercy.

“What was your second life-altering experience?” she demanded, picking up another hypospray.

If I tell her and Humphries learns of it…

“What made you come out here to search for dead bodies?” she demanded.

Dorn heard her voice, but it was distorted, echoing weirdly in his mind. He tried to say, “I don’t want to hurt you,” but his tongue was too swollen and dry to get the words out.

Tamara jammed the spraygun against his bare flesh and pressed it home. Harbin’s head snapped back; his whole body seemed to spasm, arching against the straps that held him pinned to the chair.

“Harbin,” she said sharply. “What happened that made you decide to search through the Belt? What are you really doing out here? You can’t expect me to believe—”

He saw the artifact, looked into its molten glowing heart and saw the faces of the dead. A woman screaming as she clutched her baby to her. A harmless old man, his face distorted with the sudden realization that he was about to die. Children. Men. Women. All the people of Chrysalis, staring at him in terror. Some of them pointed at him. Some of them pleaded with him. All of them died.

I killed them, Harbin knew. And before them, years and years before. The people of the village where he’d grown up. Burn their homes. Shoot them as they come running out, in flames. Kill them all. All.

Tamara saw that he was drifting into unconsciousness. She slapped him again, harder.

“What made you change your name?”

“The artifact.” His voice seemed to come from a million kilometers away.

“Artifact? What artifact?”

“Alien. Humphries saw it. Went insane.”

“Martin Humphries? Alien artifact?” She was suddenly breathless. “Where? When?”

He smiled: a strange, twisted, brutal smile. “Now I’ve killed you, too.”

“Talk sense, damn you!”

I am Dorik Harbin, he said to himself. I have killed thousands. I am death.

He growled like a feral beast, looking up at her, both eyes glaring. His mechanical arm yanked free of the restraints, popping the straps like ribbons of straw. Tamara backed away, hit the bulkhead, turned in blind panic and fumbled with the locked door.

Harbin rose to his feet, pulled his boots from the floor clamps and grabbed her by the hair with his human hand. She screamed uselessly in the soundproof chamber.

His face mere centimeters from hers, its human half twisted into a mask of fury, he snarled, “You’ve unleashed the monster.”