Blindfold

“No, we can’t,” Tharion said. “But if Cialben truly was smuggling Veritas, taking it away from the Guild and giving it to … to outsiders who aren’t prepared to handle it, and if I declared him guilty—as he assuredly was—it would have been my option to sentence him to death.”

“But you wouldn’t have.”

Tharion sighed. “No, I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“You’re just doing what Dokken wants,” Qrista said.

Tharion shrugged. “I do what he wants only if it’s the same thing that I want. We can think alike, you know.”

“That’s a scary thought,” she said in a noncommittal tone and fell to eating again.

Tharion felt the need to keep explaining, though his wife already knew every one of his reasons. “Franz has assisted me through my entire career. I’m Guild Master, in part, because of his support. None of the other landholders has been as objective or as helpful. They come here only when they want something. None of the others offered to become my mentor as I was going through difficult times. Now everyone wants my favors, of course—but Franz was there at the very beginning. He’s given me no reason not to trust him.”

“Have you used Veritas to read him?” Qrista asked, “to see if he’s really telling you the truth?”

Tharion was shocked. “Qrista! We took an oath. I would never read a man without just cause and without his consent. Franz has done nothing to warrant such treatment. Why have you always disliked him?”

She met his gaze evenly. “Because you believe everything he says.”

Tharion ate in silence, concentrating on the taste of the rice and the spiced vegetables. His hangover headache had faded with the afternoon, but now it threatened to return as a dull throb at the back of his skull. Finally, Qrista finished and nudged her plate off to the side of the serving tray.

“Look, I’ve had a rough day,” she said in an apologetic tone, “and I’m taking it out on you since I couldn’t very well slam the Council members’ heads together. My mediation didn’t work well, even when I could read what each party wanted. I’m upset with all the landholders—and Dokken’s one of them.”

She stood up and her robe fell completely open to reveal her rounded breasts. “Let’s go to bed. Give me a back rub?”

Tharion smiled. “With pleasure.”

She smiled back. “That’s the point.”

On their wide sleeping pallet, with the yellow-orange lights still turned low, Tharion carefully slid the cotton robe off her shoulders and dropped it to the deck. He ran his fingertips along the pale skin of her shoulders, tickling her shoulder blades.

Qrista purred, arching herself up as she rested her head on the pillow, eyes closed. He pressed into her flesh, rubbing the tense muscles. Her skin was so pale it seemed transparent. She’d let down her braid and combed out her long whitish blond hair.

A lifetime of exposure to Veritas had made them sterile in addition to pale. Most Guild members never married, finding it intimidating to be in the presence of a mate who knew every innermost thought—but Tharion and Qrista had no secrets. The two of them had the same expectations, had gone through the same sacrifices.

He gave her a long and luxurious back rub, and then found they were both too tired to make love. They shared quiet soothing thoughts as they pressed together with the lights turned off.

They drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms, nestled in each other’s dreams.

CHAPTER (#ulink_61753498-9a1a-51bd-8acc-fccc3d6ae24c)

8 (#ulink_61753498-9a1a-51bd-8acc-fccc3d6ae24c)

i

The Truthsayers Guild had added rugs to the deck plates and tapestries to the walls, replacing sections of the armored hull with reinforced windows and stained glass mosaics—but they had done little to modify the brig.

Troy Boren sat in one of the dim detention cells, fingers threaded through his hair, staring down at his knees. The lower decks of the SkySword’s belly lay buried in the dust, blocking all daylight from the smothered viewports.

At least his trial would come within three days, they said. It wasn’t soon enough for him, but the Guild was required to send out notice of the public Truthsaying. Despite his protestations, they seemed convinced of his guilt—and why shouldn’t they be? Eli Strone had also claimed to be innocent.

Troy had been caught kneeling over a dead body in the middle of the night. Cren had verified that computer manifests from the last elevator shipment had been altered. Records proved that Troy had used his pass card to enter the inventory warehouse long after normal operating hours. Tests showed that the murdered man had recently taken Veritas—illegal Veritas—and two more of the capsules were found on his person.

Troy had tried to explain why he had really gone out late at night. He had done something wrong, to be sure—but certainly not murder. Troy laced his fingers together and swallowed. His throat was very dry, but the sol-pols had given him only warm, alkaline-tasting water.

Though a brown-sashed representative from the Truthsayers Guild had come to make certain that Troy did indeed want to be tried in front of the gathered crowd, it was obvious the worker didn’t believe him, thinking that Troy was wasting everyone’s time.

But it didn’t matter what the nontelepathic administrator thought. Troy was entitled to have his name cleared, and only the Truthsayer’s actual verdict counted.

The Atlas system of justice was based on incontrovertible truth, thoughts of guilt or innocence taken directly from the mind of the accused rather than relying on such circumstantial evidence as had piled up against Troy. He felt relieved that a Truthsayer would find out the real story, no matter how unlikely it seemed. Just wait, he thought. Just wait, and everyone will see.

ii

During the following day, another member of the Truthsayers Guild came, strongly advising Troy to confess and save the Truthsayer the trouble, save himself the public humiliation. The administrator assured him his sentence would be lighter if he admitted his own sins rather than forcing the telepath to tear them out and expose them in public.

Troy continued to shake his head and insist that he wanted the clear Truthsayer verdict. He wanted to be pronounced innocent so that everyone could see.

Finally, toward evening that day—though deep underground in the cell, Troy had no idea what the actual time might be—he received a visit he had dreaded, one he had hoped he wouldn’t have to face until after the Truthsayer pronounced him clean.

He heard footsteps, the rustle of stiff uniforms, the clicking weapons of the heavily armored elite guard marching in an oddly echoing lockstep as they escorted several people. Troy hoped it wasn’t more Guild representatives come to dissuade him again—instead he saw the swarthy face of his father with his mother and two sisters in tow.

“You didn’t have to come,” Troy blurted, unable to think of anything else in the moment of his shock.

His older sister Leisa smiled wryly. “Good to see you, too, Troy.”

“I mean,” Troy said, “I’ll be cleared in a couple of days.”

“We all had to come,” sour-faced little Rissbeth said. “Do you know how much a mag-lev ticket for the whole family cost?”

“Your father got a bonus yesterday,” Dama said. “He found a rich molybdenum deposit on his shift, and we had to come and show you our support. You depend on us, don’t you?”

Rambra scowled, avoiding the transparent security field by a wide margin. “If you did this thing, Troy,” he said, “I can’t describe how disgusted I’ll be with you.” Troy saw, though, a secret glint of confused pride behind his father’s eyes. He wondered if Rambra might not be at least partially pleased that his weakling son was capable of fighting a man.

Troy flushed, feeling guilty at what he had put them through, but then annoyance at his little sister rose up. “I didn’t ask you to be here,” he said.

His mother rolled her eyes. “We’ve got so much invested in you, Troy—and now look at what’s happened. How could you do this to us? And after only three weeks! You should have been so careful, on your best behavior.”

Troy’s stomach churned. “How can you even think I’m guilty?” he said.

“No matter how this turns out,” his mother said, “they’ll look down on you forever. I understand you’ve confessed to manipulating the records in the computers. What were you thinking? Now you’ll never get a promotion. You’ll never earn any extra credits. It’s all for nothing.”

Rissbeth made a sound as if she had swallowed a live squirming worm. “Yeah, thanks a lot, Troy.”

Leisa shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re capable of murder, Troy. Or that you would be mixed up in a drug-smuggling ring. In fact, when I think about it I have to laugh.”

Troy forced a smile, warmed by the comforting tone of his sister’s words. “At least somebody believes I’ve been falsely accused.”

“Falsely accused!” Leisa pantomimed a wail. “A gross flaw in the system. This could lead to the shake-up of our very society.”