Blindfold. Kevin J. Anderson

and Cialben patted its neck to hush it. The calf nuzzled his hand, running a long, wet tongue along his palm.

      Maximillian slipped a long wide-bladed knife from a sheath at his hip, and in a single lightning movement drove the blade hard against the calf’s side. A quick thrust between the ribs, then a second full-muscled shove to drive the point all the way into the calf’s heart.

      The animal bleated in shock, but was dead before it could move. Its eyes rolled up, glassy. Its body shuddered and spilled blood all over the concrete floor as it fell.

      Cialben stepped back to keep from being sprayed.

      With the carcass still twitching, Maximillian knelt and, tugging on a pair of rubber gloves, withdrew the knife and gutted the calf. He worked without speaking, breathing hard from the strenuous activity.

      Cialben watched the slaughter with eager horror, his throat dry, his lips peeled back in a combined grin and wince. Maximillian’s arms were slick with red up to his elbows, far higher than the gloves reached. Using both arms Maximillian heaved out the calf’s entrails, then sliced open the largest stomach to pull out a plastic-wrapped package.

      Dokken’s manservant held the bloody packet in his gloved hands and gestured for the sol-pols. The second guard rushed forward from his post at the door. The first man bent over the carcass, choosing the best handhold. The two strong men lifted up the dead water buffalo, and together they lugged it, still dripping blood, out of the warehouse. They disappeared into the night. The fresh veal—a delicacy read about in the archives but never tasted by any living person on the planet—would bring a high price indeed.

      Maximillian used his slippery fingers to unwrap the folded plastic of the hidden package. He unrolled the outer wrapping and exposed a treasure.

      Cialben gasped. He had never before seen so much in a single shipment. Hundreds and hundreds of sky-blue capsules of the Veritas drug.

      More truth than all of Atlas could comprehend.

      ii

      With a stretching sound and then a snap, Maximillian removed the rubber glove from his left hand, carefully tucking it into the pocket of his gray cotton jalaba, where it left a bloody smear.

      Cialben kept his eyes fixed hungrily on the hoard of Veritas, dreaming of the huge number of credits it would bring and also eager to experience the psychic rush again. Because of Dokken’s adamant refusal to allow any use of Veritas by his own workers, Cialben had restrained himself, his fear of Dokken’s wrath greater than his desire for fleeting entertainment.

      With a clean hand Maximillian delicately, reverently, picked up one of the sky-blue capsules with his thick fingers. He held it in the palm of his hand, rolling it around in the creases of his skin, studying it under the uncertain light. Cialben’s eyes followed it.

      “Do you deserve this?” Maximillian said, surprising Cialben.

      “Come on—after all I’ve done for Dokken?” he answered. “What does he think?”

      Maximillian held Cialben’s gaze for a long moment. Around them the stillness and darkness of the warehouse seemed to smother all sound. The remaining two water buffalo snorted in their cages, smelling the blood.

      The manservant flicked his wrist, tossing the sky-blue capsule toward Cialben. Grinning, he reached out to snatch it from the air.

      Maximillian continued in a voice free of emotion. “One and one only,” he said. “And you have to do it here.”

      Cialben held the capsule like a gem, slightly soft and filled with secrets. He looked around him in the empty warehouse. “Here?”

      “And now. You know Dokken won’t allow it on his own landholding.”

      Cialben didn’t know what the psychic rush would do for him in such an empty scenario. But the sleeping city lay out there, the identical dwellings, the brick homes, the steel apartment buildings. He considered the thousands of thoughts, the personal mysteries, the muddled dreams the colonists would be broadcasting into the air. The telepathic boost would last only a few seconds, but it would burn very brightly indeed, at peace, surrounded by the city.

      And there was Maximillian. Did he really want to read the manservant’s thoughts? Yes, he realized, he did. He was astonished that Dokken would allow such a thing, because Maximillian had been the landholder’s right-hand man for decades.

      Cialben popped the capsule into his mouth, bit down with his back teeth, felt the acrid gush down his throat. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, then a second. His scalp began to tingle in anticipation.

      He opened his eyes, and opened his mind, and everything came flooding in.

      He looked with anticipation at Maximillian. And froze.

      At the front of the manservant’s mind Cialben read Franz Dokken’s final instructions like a sharp-bladed ax coming down. Maximillian must have been thinking the conversation over and over again, keeping his memory fresh, so that the thoughts remained clear in his mind.

      He watched as Cialben read them.

      “Let him take one capsule and wait until he reads your mind. I want him to know your orders. I want him to know his fate—then kill him.”

      Cialben caught the rest of the entire appalling setup, the details of what Maximillian would do to his body—planting evidence, distorting clues.

      He was already backing away in horror, windmilling his arms. He slipped in the wet blood on the concrete floor from the slain water buffalo.

      Maximillian reached out with a fist that moved like a cobra, grabbing Cialben’s collar, holding him upright.

      Cialben regained his balance and began to struggle. Maximillian drove the long blade hard against his side. A quick thrust between the ribs, then a second full-muscled shove to drive the point all the way into Cialben’s heart. He twisted the blade.

      Cialben fell, his body losing control, the nerve signals melting into black static. He slumped into darkness, his last thoughts cursing Franz Dokken.

CHAPTER

       4

      i

      That evening in the damp darkness of Dokken Holding, Guild Master Tharion sat uneasily on a placid gray mare, dutifully following Franz Dokken’s chestnut stallion. The ageless landholder rode intently, his body barely visible in dark leather breeches and tunic. His wild blond hair flowed behind him like a comet’s tail.

      “Thank you for coming with me,” Dokken said in his rich, cultivated voice. “This won t take long, but it’s important for you to be there. For moral support, you know.”

      Gusting breezes picked their way around the bluffs like probing fingers. A wide gravel trail wound from the stables down to the foot of the bluffs, and both horses knew their way. Fields of cotton covered the flatlands surrounding the village, extending south to the rolling hills, a mixture of dark and light that gave the landscape a knobbly texture.

      Franz Dokken urged his impatient stallion into a trot. Tharion gripped the reins between his fingers, but still felt completely out of control. “Slow down, Franz—please,” Tharion said. He would have preferred to take a methane car, but Dokken loved any chance to show off his horses. Luckily, the gray mare maintained a gentle, slow pace—it kept him from looking like a fool in front of the public.

      Dokken laughed. “That mare’s foal is due in a few weeks—she couldn’t manage more than a trot if she tried. Just sit still, pretend you know what you’re doing. She’ll be careful, for her own sake if not for yours.”

      Tharion held the reins doubtfully.