Chapter Ten
i
The SkySword’s library contained a repository of knowledge from old Earth. Many of the old ship files were locked with long-forgotten military passwords and thus unavailable to members of the Guild. However, once the Truthsayers had learned to use the computer databases and gain access to files, they had begun keeping track of their own work, maintaining files of the cases they had determined.
Kalliana sat alone inside the metal-walled library room. The consoles were discolored and scuffed, the swivel chairs worn by time. She gazed at the phosphor-filled screens as if they were deep wells into a universe of information. The reflection of her pinched face stared back at her, distracting her. She blinked to restore her concentration and tapped again on the keyboard, summoning the next list.
The names were just a blur, one after another, accompanied by capsule summaries of their trials, the crimes of which they had been accused: thievery, vandalism, rape, murder, conspiracy, arson. The far column listed the most important data of all.
Innocent.
Innocent.
Guilty.
Innocent.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Over two centuries, the colonists had come to Atlas in waves, ships full of wide-eyed colonists, exiled criminals, military forces, religious fanatics.…
According to transmissions, a new ship called the EarthDawn was on its way. Atlas had heard nothing from Earth in decades, not since the Pilgrim exiles had come forty-two years earlier, spouting tales of social upheaval and Armageddon. However, the Pilgrims were Millennial religious fanatics and saw the end of the world in everything—so the veracity of their news was in question. But without a doubt, something terrible had happened on distant Earth.
Kalliana viewed another screen of data, working her way down through the years. She wasn’t searching for anything in particular, just a confirmation of the work the Guild had done, a salve for her doubts and the pain that so many guilty readings had brought her.
After his trial Troy Boren had been sentenced to permanent exile up on OrbLab 2, the separate orbital processing facility where he would work in the dangerous Veritas-processing chambers. There had been an increasing number of disastrous accidents in the past few years, so the free-floating lab always needed new workers. Troy Boren would be shipped up on the space elevator and transported from the Platform to the orbital laboratory as soon as the proper contingent of guards could be arranged.
More names flashed across the screen, but the words were blurred through her dry burning stare.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Innocent
Guilty.
So many names … for every bad one the Guild removed from society, Atlas seemed to breed another, and another.…
ii
Kalliana went to one of the military briefing rooms that had been converted into a classroom, where Ysan was teaching (and playing with) seven young children. All were dressed in little white gowns and had the pale hair and complexions of those exposed to Veritas since they were embryos.
Though visits to help train the children were part of Kalliana’s regular duties, she also wanted to divert herself, watching the innocence and exuberance of the young ones.
“Ah, Kalliana!” Ysan said, climbing to his feet as the white-robed children scattered, giggling and laughing. He surrendered his maroon chair at the head of the meeting table. “Look who’s come to play with us, kids. Sit down, Kalliana. We were just doing the mind practice game.”
“I don’t want to disturb you,” she said.
“No, you’ll help us,” Ysan answered with a grin.
“All right.” She flashed a small smile of her own, then sank into the padded fabric chair, running her hands over the polished black armrests.
The children gathered around her. Ysan knelt next to them, much taller than the six- to eight-year-olds. He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “She’s a real Truthsayer, you know, so we’ll have to work hard now. No more playing.”
The children snickered.
“You know how the game is played,” Kalliana said to them. “I think of something, then you try to read it from me. The first person to get it right wins, then we’ll try another.”
The children sat around, watching her obediently with their bright eyes. Observing them, Kalliana felt a healing force, the goodness of children raised within the protective arms of the Guild.
“All right,” she said, “I’m picturing something.” She closed her eyes, summoning an image in her mind. “Try to read it from me.”
The children concentrated, looking comical with their focused expressions, their furrowed foreheads. Ysan picked up the image immediately and nodded at Kalliana, but she continued to project, not letting herself get distracted. That might throw the children off.
“It’s a white ball,” one little boy said.
“No, it’s glowing,” a girl interrupted. “It’s a glowbulb!”
“No, the sun,” a third child said. “The sun—the sun up in the sky!”
“Yes,” Kalliana said and smiled. “It’s the sun.”
Next, she thought of one of the tall palm trees that grew out in the plaza.
“It’s a stick!” one of the girls said.
“No, a broom,” another girl challenged, “thin and dry.”
The boy grew suddenly incensed and pointed at the little girl beside him. “She’s thinking bad things about me!”
“I am not!” the girl answered. “You were doing it first. You thought I look like one of the rock lizards.”
“I didn’t think that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, I couldn’t help it. That’s what you look like.”
Losing her temper, Kalliana stood from the maroon chair. “Enough! You shouldn’t be reading each other’s minds unless you have explicit permission to do so. That is not something a Truthsayer would ever do.
“Thoughts are private, unless we have cause to go inside another person’s mind. I’ve given you permission to read me while we play this game, but you must never, ever read another person just for fun.”
Kalliana sat down again, alarmed at her own temper. The children stared at her uncertainly, and she wondered if they had caught a backwash of her inner turmoil. “All right,” she said, getting down to business. “Let’s do the game again and try to focus once more on the picture in my mind.”
Trying to calm herself, she realized that with the mental wounds still stinging, she had once again been considering her onerous obligations to the Guild, whether it was worth everything her life had granted her. After the unpleasant lives she had witnessed in the minds of criminals, she was afraid to lose it all, no matter how difficult her Truthsayer duties were.
But she couldn’t stop thinking of the recent violent trials … the bright images of bloody corpses lying in shadows, the wide-eyed stares of victims, the brooding anger and disregard for life, how good it had felt to kill.
Suddenly three of the children screamed and began to cry. Several of them backed away from her, horrified and sickened. Kalliana slammed down on her thoughts, knowing what images she must inadvertently have broadcast to them.
Ysan shooed the startled children out of the room. “That’s it. No more game for today. Go and play in the upper corridors.”
“I’m sorry,” Kalliana said quietly to Ysan as the children scattered.
He glanced at her strangely, with a glimmer of uncertain fear behind his eyes. Yes, he had read it too—and unlike the little children, he understood what he was seeing. “I’m worried about you.”
Masking her thoughts and her expressions, Kalliana straightened her white robe. “I’ll be all right.” She left the teaching room.