Blindfold. Kevin J. Anderson

make an inane reply, but found she didn’t have the energy to deceive him. Ysan was a refreshing breeze, a healing kindness that allowed her to see the good side of human nature while recovering from the bad.

      Ysan raised his eyebrows. “Let me come in. Tell me how bad it was—that might help you. Besides, I have to get prepared for it myself.”

      She thought how the razor edge felt as it sliced through skin, an ever-so-faint rasping, a rubbery tug. The blood was thick and wet, smearing like oil, darkening as it mixed with dust…. Through Strone’s perceptions she had enjoyed the sensation—

      “I can’t talk about it, Ysan,” she said in a husky whisper. “There’s no way I can describe it. No way I want to. I just need … time. I’ll work through it.”

      Whenever she tried to focus her thoughts and fortify her psyche, though, Kalliana felt the battering ram of violence come back at her. The secondhand screams were growing quieter day by day as she tried to erase them—but it was a long, slow process. Recovering from the furnace of Strone’s deluded sense of justice was more difficult than anything she had ever endured in her pampered life.

      Ysan frowned, leaning on the doorframe. “You’ve helped me enough times, Kalliana. There must be something I can do.” His eyes lit up above his soft cheekbones. His fair skin prickled pink. “Why don’t you show me what you saw? I can take some of the burden from you.”

      “No!” she cried, then looked sternly at him. Also born in the Guild and raised with increasing dosages of Veritas, Ysan had practiced mind-reading abilities from the time he was a child—but the young trainee hadn’t yet walked through the shadowed valleys of guilt and remorse. Mental abilities still seemed like fun to him.

      “Ysan, this isn’t a game. Enjoy your innocence as long as you can,” she said, trying to soothe the dejected look that showed on his face. “You’ll be tested soon enough.”

      “I’ll be tested in a few weeks. I’ll be a full Truthsayer. Can’t you—”

      “No.” She clutched her warm wool wrap closer around her. “I just need a little more rest. I’m going to sleep now—that’s all I need. Really.” She softened, allowing a smile. “But thanks for your concern.”

      “Sure,” the young man said, fidgeting uncertainly, and then he stepped back into the corridor. “Well, pleasant dreams, then.”

      ii

      Kalliana sat up gasping, hearing the echoes of a shrieking victim in her ears, one of the last batch that Eli Strone had skinned alive, a rugged man with a work-seamed face, whiskered chin, and the misery of barely hidden guilt in his eyes. Filtered through Strone’s own memories, the disgust she felt for the victims’ imagined sins overpowered her own horror at the crime. They deserved to die. They deserved it! The rugged victim screamed again—

      But then Kalliana realized the noise was not imaginary. She heard a persistent, whining buzz, a summons from Guild Master Tharion. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows.

      “Yes,” she said, taking a deep breath and forcing her voice louder, stronger, as she activated the viewplate.

      “Please come and see me on the bridge deck,” Guild Master Tharion said, “in my ready room.”

      Kalliana acknowledged, then dressed herself in a clean white robe. She ran her fingers along the emerald Truthsayer sash; now its bright, honest green seemed tarnished to her. She cinched it tight around her slender waist and walked briskly toward the antiquated turbolift that took her up to the Guild’s command center.

      The central administrative offices had taken over what had been the bridge of the SkySword. The smooth mechanical finery of the decommissioned military equipment gave the Guild Master’s seat and the surrounding offices a sterile cleanness and austere technological precision that could not be conveyed by the soft adobe or baked bricks of the other structures in First Landing.

      Kalliana stepped down the textured metal stairs onto the bridge deck, and the turbolift doors creaked shut behind her. Other Guild members moved about their duties; many were brown-sashed workers who had none of the rigorous ethical training that a Truthsayer endured or the political education and techniques of rhetoric a Mediator used so well. Thus the Guild workers had no access to the Veritas drug.

      Guild Master Tharion sat in the middle of the room in a large chair. Kalliana could imagine a military captain directing space battles from the same point. Tharion scanned a small lapscreen, intent on notes and files, probably from recent Landholders Council meetings. He seemed disgusted and distracted. Kalliana had never paid much attention to the activities of the Council, since that was beyond her expertise; she had heard that at such meetings the appointed representatives from the landholdings spent their allotted time arguing and raising grievances and countergrievances.

      The Guild Master blinked at her, preoccupied for a moment, then suddenly seemed to remember who she was. “Ah, Kalliana,” he said, “thank you for coming.” He set his lapscreen on the side of his command chair, stood, and stepped away. She followed him into his private ready room, dreading his reasons for summoning her. He sealed the door and turned to her with a casual expression. “How are you recovering from the Strone case? You’ve been keeping a low profile for several days.”

      She glanced away to avoid his scrutiny. “Reading the prisoner was a very … unsettling experience. The pain is still there, but it’s lessening.”

      “I’m glad to hear that,” the Guild Master said. “You are very valuable to us, Kalliana. Every Truthsayer is. But if you feel that your abilities have been worn thin by this ordeal, I’ll do my best to see that you’re reassigned in some appropriate manner. Toth Holding has requested a new Magistrate, and I don’t have anyone qualified to send them.”

      “No!” she said a little too quickly. “I mean, that won’t be necessary.” It frightened her to think she might lose her status as a Truthsayer and be weaned from the Veritas drug. That would be the end of everything she knew, everything she had been born to. Her embryo had been grown here in the Guild, and she had been raised for no other purpose, given no other training. That was how it had to be. “No, I’m fine.”

      “Good,” Tharion said. Behind him, the stained glass window filled his ready room with rainbows. “We’ve taken care of sentencing Strone—he’ll spend the rest of his life up on OrbLab 2.”

      Kalliana could not hide her surprise, considering the overwhelming violence of the murders. “I would have thought he might be executed.”

      Tharion looked away, then sighed, staring at his twined fingers. “Yes. I gave it thorough consideration—but there are extenuating circumstances. Eli Strone served the Guild well for many years. His record is one of the most exemplary of all the elite guards we’ve ever had. Until he left us.”

      Kalliana nodded, unconvinced, but she could not argue with the Guild Master’s decision.

      He sat down behind his desk. “I wanted to ask you again about my request to check for possible sabotage or a larger plot among the landholders. Did you see any deeper motivation behind the killings?”

      “There is nothing,” she said, shaking her head vigorously.

      “You’re sure Strone was acting alone?” Tharion pressed. “You detected no possible connection inside his mind?”

      Kalliana shivered. “No. If you don’t believe me, feel free to look in his mind yourself. If you can get around the nightmares.”

      “That won’t be necessary,” Tharion said. “I’ve looked in his mind before, when I was younger. Even before he committed his crimes, it was … unsettling. So rigid and sharply defined.” He looked at her with concern narrowing his eyes. “Are you positive you’ve fully recovered? You seem … shaken.”

      Kalliana drew herself up, pretending that nothing was wrong. “I’m