Кевин Андерсон – Blindfold (страница 2)
Truth
Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience.
WALTER LIPPMANN
The way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight-rope. When the Verities become acrobats we can judge them.
OSCAR WILDE
i
Outside the Truthsayers Guild, the crowd had already started to gather. Kalliana could hear the murmur of voices, feel the press of their excited thoughts even through the shielded walls of Guild Headquarters.
They were waiting.
She looked through the stained glass windows of her quarters on the third deck. She brushed pale fingers across the smooth, cool glass panes—brilliant shards of crimson, green, and blue epoxied into dull alloy tracks—as if to rub away the shadows of milling people anticipating the trial. But they would not leave, not until Kalliana had made her judgment.
The people of First Landing waited in the plaza for the Truthsayer to come out, to face the accused murderer, to read the guilt or innocence directly from his thoughts.
Perhaps it was the spectacle the colonists wanted, a bright entertainment, or just relief from their strenuous jobs for an hour or so. Kalliana knew they all had hard lives out there; she wouldn’t have traded with them for anything.
Officially, the Truthsayers Guild believed the citizens longed for a reaffirming lesson in morality, a demonstration of what would happen if they slipped from the narrow but clearly defined path of the law …. Then again, after spending so much time descending into the minds of criminals, Kalliana wondered if maybe the spectators were just thirsty for blood.
The accused—a man named Eli Strone—had supposedly spilled enough blood.
Raw sunlight filtered through her window to spill rainbows across the rugs that covered the cold deck plates. Her quarters, once the cabin of a high-ranking officer on the scuttled spaceship that had been converted into the Guild building, seemed safe and warm to her, a shelter from the evil thoughts of the populace at large. Every day she and the eleven other telepathic Truthsayers had to face the sins of the people, but today would be worse. Today, if the accused was indeed guilty, she would be forced to confront his memory of slaughtering twenty-three people.
Kalliana wrapped herself in her white robe, clean and pure, made of bleached cotton grown here on the planet Atlas, then tied it with the emerald sash of a Truthsayer. Her petite body, fine blond hair, and translucent skin made her look like a pale angel. The cloth rustled like hushed whispers as she moved. She completed her ceremonial costume with a wide, ornate gold collar that added extra weight to her shoulders, as if her burden wasn’t already heavy enough. But the formal spectacle required all the trappings of a mystical ritual.
The crowd was growing restless in the plaza. Her reluctance had already made her late. She would have to face the people soon, face Eli Strone.
ii
She had read the proclamation a dozen times over, but Kalliana picked up the discolored sheets and stared at the words again. Documents printed on genuine paper made from kenaf fibers, because a physical document implied a permanence that electronic records could not convey.
The Strone Case. The brutal murders had occurred in the isolated wastelands between the landholdings of Carsus and Bondalar, out in the construction camps for the new mag-lev rail that would link the two holdings. An efficient mag-lev network already connected each of the nineteen scattered landholdings with the hub city of First Landing, but in an unprecedented alliance, Carsus and Bondalar had decided to join their holdings directly, without passing through the central point.
The construction work had proceeded for three years, plagued by disasters, sabotage, defective materials. And now this: Three separate labor gangs, twenty-three people, had been murdered. The bodies hadn’t been discovered for days, since the crews reported to their overseers only once a week. The killings had gotten progressively more monstrous down the line.
A man named Eli Strone had shown up on the roster of each slaughtered crew. Up until two years ago, Strone had been a member of the elite guard working in the Guild Headquarters, steadfast and ready to defend the Truthsayers against any sort of disturbance—but he had abandoned his post suddenly, without explanation, after years of service. Strone had then bounced between minor jobs in First Landing’s hydroponic greenhouses or loading docks, eventually heading out to the wilderness and a more rugged life.
Three months ago Strone had volunteered for the backbreaking work of laying inductance coils and alloy rails for the transportation link between Bondalar and Carsus holdings. Such work had generally been assigned as slave labor to criminals convicted of minor offenses, or even the religious fanatics, the Pilgrims, but crew bosses would not turn down a willing worker.
Then the murders had occurred.
Eli Strone had survived; no one else had. He had applied for labor on a fourth crew shortly after the massacres were discovered, and the soldier-police had apprehended him.
Strone insisted he was innocent. But then, most guilty people did. Only a Truthsayer could tell ….
Finally ready to face the accused, Kalliana stepped toward her cabin door. Her stomach knotted, and she felt the frosty electricity of nervous sweat, but she did not hesitate. She had been raised in the Guild since the embryo stage, developed for this duty. It was the way she paid for the comfortable life she lived.
As she stepped into the corridor, she saw Guild Master Tharion striding toward her: a tall man with sunlight-yellow hair and eyebrows, granite-gray eyes, and a long white robe cinched with a royal blue sash. He was thirty-four, thirteen years her senior; only two years ago he had found himself suddenly saddled with leadership of the Truthsayers Guild.
“I’m ready, Guild Master,” Kalliana said, averting her eyes, certain Tharion had come in impatience.
“A moment, Kalliana,” he said, gesturing back into her quarters. “The people can wait. They enjoy the anticipation.”
Kalliana retreated into her quarters, glad for the delay but worried about what Tharion would ask. She detected no anger in his expression, no stiffness in his movements. He had a pleasant face, calm but firm, just beginning to show the lines of responsibility that came with middle age.
With her own residual telepathic enhancement, Kalliana was tempted to reach out and pluck the concerns directly from Tharion’s mind, to prepare herself—but after her years of rigorous ethical training, she would never do such a thing.
Guild Master Tharion lowered his voice, commanding her attention. “There may be more to this case than the murders, Kalliana,” he said. “It troubles me deeply. You know that Strone used to be one of our elite guards, but he left us just after I became Guild Master. Very mysterious. He always seemed a bit of an odd sort, but reliable. He escorted me many times when I was younger. I got the impression he revered the Truthsayers, looked up to us as great dispensers of truth, wielding the sword of justice.” He laughed, then frowned, letting his thoughts come through.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking … and I cannot help but wonder if he may be a pawn in a larger, older plot against … us? Against some of the landholders? I don’t know.”
Kalliana frowned, not sure what he wanted from her. “What makes you say that? Murders were committed, and this man was implicated. It’s up to me to declare whether he is guilty or innocent.”
“There may be more,” Tharion said. “Given the constant delays and frequent setbacks on the rail-construction project, Hektor Carsus has informally petitioned me for some answers. If any information comes to light during your reading of Strone …”
“What kind of information?” Kalliana asked, suddenly wary. She knew clearly, from her years of ethical training, exactly how far she was expected to go inside the criminal mind. “I am not required to read any deeper than necessary to determine his guilt or innocence.”
“Just be watchful. Perhaps his motivations will be plain enough,” Tharion said, a pair of small creases forming between his pale brows. “We all know Hektor Carsus is a suspicious hothead, but he does have certain valid points. From the day he and Janine Bondalar announced their plans to form a marriage alliance, the mag-lev project connecting their holdings has been beset with unreasonable problems. Cursed, some people might say.”