Chapter Four
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. “If you say so …”
Dokken shook his head and flashed a thin smile. “I value your friendship even more than increasing the size of my herd. I’d hate to think of reporting to yet another Guild Master just because you fell off and broke your neck. Two in two years’ time is enough.”
Tharion responded with an uneasy smile. Franz Dokken had worked miracles for Tharion’s career, a subtle guardian angel throughout his life at the Truthsayers Guild, a friend as well as one of the most powerful landholders on Atlas. Dokken’s outspoken support at the Landholders Council had been one of the reasons Tharion had been chosen for his post.
Two years earlier, the aged previous Guild Master had died in his sleep, leaving Tharion one of the most qualified candidates, but the final vote had favored another Truthsayer, Klaryus. But after a month in his duties, the new Guild Master Klaryus had taken his weekly booster dose of Veritas—only to fall dead from the terrible Mindfire toxin produced by a virulent mutation of the Veritas bacterium. Somehow, his capsule had become contaminated in its processing up on the isolated orbital lab … and so Tharion had found himself wearing the royal blue sash of the Guild Master.
The deadly contamination had raised a great many questions, and Tharion himself had submitted to a truthsaying to prove that he had nothing to do with the death of his predecessor. Ultimately, everyone agreed that Klaryus had suffered from a bizarre accident.
Since the elite guard Eli Strone had vanished from the Guild shortly thereafter, Tharion had wondered if Strone might have had something to do with Klaryus’s death—but now, after Strone had brutally slaughtered twenty-three people, Tharion knew that subtle poison just wasn’t Strone’s style.
While many of the other landholders had flocked to assure Tharion of their loyalty, Franz Dokken had been there all along, giving him insightful advice on the new burdens he would have to bear. So, when Dokken asked him to come out to his holding as a special favor on this damp, cool evening, Tharion could not refuse.
At the outskirts of the village the sol-pol sentries stepped forward to verify the identity of the riders. Tharion shook his head in disbelief. Who else on the entire planet might be riding up on a horse? The guards pivoted to accompany their landholder to the center of the village.
Incandescent streetlights on wrought-iron poles bathed the town with a harsh glare, burning electricity from Dokken’s hydroelectric plant at Trident Falls. Adobe dwellings clustered around the square, where a fountain chuckled over polished stones, misting a flower bed of marigolds.
In the center of the square Franz Dokken pulled his stallion to a halt; the horse snorted, shifting from side to side. The restless animal made Tharion nervous, but the landholder seemed to enjoy the challenge, patting the horse’s broad neck.
Dokken sat upright, looking around. “Captain Vanicus, would you ring the bell, please?” he said to one of the sol-pols. “Let’s get ourselves an audience, so we can make an effective demonstration.” The stallion snorted again, and Dokken patted its muscular neck. The guard jogged over to a tower made of metal crossbars.
“Franz …” Tharion said.
“Trust me,” Dokken answered. “This benefits you as much as it does me.”
As always, Tharion gave him the benefit of the doubt. He could smell the smoke from squat, beehive-shaped kilns, communal electric furnaces used round the clock. Prized terra-cotta pottery from Dokken Holding went for a high price in First Landing.
As the bronze bell rang in clear, high tones, people bustled out to see the excitement. Captain Vanicus tolled ten times before returning to Dokken’s side, and another contingent of sol-pols emerged from the garrison in the town square.
The second group of guards folded around five prisoners held within the garrison—a middle-aged, flinty-eyed man, a moon-faced woman whose red eyes were smudged with dirt and puffy from weeping, a young couple who clung to each other despite their bindings, and a sour-faced, matronly woman.
Tharion suddenly paid sharper attention. Did Dokken want him to do a truthsaying? A flicker of annoyance passed through him, though he kept it well hidden. Dokken should have warned him, so he could have at least taken a Veritas boost. Tharion didn’t know if his abilities were currently sharp enough to do a thorough mind-reading.
As Guild Master, he had done mercifully few truthsayings in the past two years, spending more time with the Landholders Council, advising the telepathic Mediators, and overseeing the crimes and punishments determined by his Truthsayers. He didn’t miss the onerous task of rooting out sins and guilt, though his recent task of sentencing Eli Strone up to OrbLab 2 had not been a pleasant task.
Dokken nudged his stallion closer to the village prisoners. The horse gave a token resistance to the commands, then acquiesced. The five captives looked up at the landholder on his tall mount; they looked at each other; some lowered their eyes to the packed dirt in the square. Tharion could sense the puzzlement and uneasiness in the crowd—these captives were people they recognized, friends or neighbors. Tharion wondered what crimes they were accused of.
“I make no secret of the things I will not tolerate in my holding,” Dokken said without further preamble. He didn’t raise his cultured voice, but his words carried across the crowd. “My rules are few, but they are firm.” He paused just long enough to let them think. “Paramount on my list of crimes is illicit use of Veritas, the Truthsayers’ drug. Atlas law forbids anyone but a chosen Guild member to use this substance. Other landholders may be lax in this regard—but there will be no such abuse in Dokken Holding.”
He took a deep breath, then let out a long, sad sigh that made him seem intensely paternal. “It seems that not everyone has understood this.”
Tharion narrowed his eyes, sitting stock-still on the mare’s back. Five users caught in a small village with only a few thousand inhabitants? His stomach knotted with anger and revulsion. His entire life in the Truthsayers Guild had been guided by unforgiving ethical training, knowing what was right and wrong—and this was so wrong. Only Truthsayers were supposed to have access to Veritas. Where had these prisoners gotten it? What trivial and mundane thrills did they use it for?
“You!” Dokken said to the moon-faced woman, who cringed and began to sob again. “So desperate to learn whether your husband was cheating on you, you stooped even to this—and for what? Was he guilty, or did your own groundless suspicions damn you?” Her wail was all the answer Tharion needed to hear. “And what will your family do, your children, your husband, now that you have breached their trust?”
Dokken turned to the flinty-eyed man, who flinched and looked away. “You—a craftsman trying to dredge up hidden knowledge about a competitor, stealing trade secrets rather than developing your own skill.”
Then the young couple. Dokken’s lips flattened into a thin line, and he seemed to be stifling a bemused smile. “And two lovers who wanted to flash into each other’s minds during sex, as if Veritas were a toy!”
He shook his head. “You thought working in the cotton fields was difficult? Hear me, because now I’m acting as Magistrate for my Holding. For the next three months, you are all assigned to hard labor at the dry lakebeds, strip-mining salt and processing nitrates. I doubt you’ll ever wash the chemical stink out of your skin and hair.”
The villagers gasped, but Tharion nodded. Such labor was usually reserved for the worst criminals, and he agreed with the sentence in this case—but sentencing was supposed to be done by a Truthsayer, not at the whim of a landholder.
“These can be punished,” Dokken said, then turned to the last prisoner, the matronly woman, whose sour expression intensified. She turned dull eyes up at Dokken, but said nothing. “But the person who sells the illegal Veritas cannot be tolerated.” He spun his stallion around, turning his back to the drug pusher. “She will be taken a thousand kilometers out into the unreclaimed lands and turned loose. Atlas can do with her what it wishes.”
The villagers moaned at the certain death sentence, but Dokken nodded to the sol-pols, directing them to follow his orders. Tharion sat in shock and anger on the gray mare. He could not grant a simple landholder the right to mete out executions; not even Eli Strone had been sentenced to death. “Franz!” Tharion whispered harshly. “Only the Guild—”
With a decisive sweep of his hand, Dokken shushed him. “Wait until we’re out of the range of lamplight,” he said under his breath. “I know what you’re going to say. But there’s time. Plenty of time.”
One man, muscular and dark-bearded, stepped forward from the crowd, apparently some sort of village leader. “Master Dokken,” he said, averting his eyes in respect, “a village representative should be given the opportunity—”
“Not in the internal affairs of my holding!” Dokken said vehemently. “Guild Master Tharion sits here beside me. I need no other authority.” He turned his stallion to leave. “Just see to it that I don’t need to crack down like this again!”
Tharion’s mare trotted beside Dokken as they hurried out of the village. He twisted the reins in his hands, annoyed at himself for being so easily manipulated. As always. His nostrils flared, and the night air was cold.
As they ascended the path into the bluffs, riding together under the stars and the whistling wind, Tharion finally reprimanded his mentor. “Franz, by dispensing justice yourself, you blatantly damaged my power. The Guild can’t let this go unchallenged!”
Dokken turned to him, his sea-green eyes shadowed but glittering. He smiled, kept his voice low and gentle. “Ah, but if we say you instructed me to do this, Tharion, then nobody is weakened. You were there. Everybody thinks you sanctioned it, probably even ordered me to do the sentencing. You know those people deserved it. Every one of them.”
Tharion was unconvinced. “I’d prefer to make up my own mind.”
Dokken scolded him now. “Tharion, think! I’ve been helping you to see the greater consequences, the second and third levels of power and control, not just the obvious cause and effect. These people could have been brought into First Landing, put to a Truthsayer in the middle of the great plaza—but I wanted it done here. In my holding, where it counts most. I want it known that I, Franz Dokken, will not tolerate black market Veritas.”
“You brought me here so I could pat you on the back, commend your efforts?” Tharion said, his throat tight with frustration.
“No, I wanted you here so we could discuss some new information I have uncovered. It has consequences for your entire Guild as well as my landholding. I’ve already taken care of it, and you will thank me for it.”
“Oh?”
“Let me explain it over dinner,” Dokken said, tapping the stallion’s sides with his heels. The horse moved at a faster pace. “Come to my villa. Garien is preparing fish tonight.”
Unable to think of anything else to say, Tharion rode his mare up the steep hill path to Dokken’s home in the cliffs.
ii
Garien, the chef, served a wonderful broiled trout from Dokken’s fish farms, seasoning it with herbs from the kitchen garden, served with a sautéed medley of tomatoes, onions, and unfamiliar green pods.
Dokken fell to his meal with gusto; after every three bites he methodically dabbed his mouth with a dyed linen napkin. His eyes were half-lidded as he savored the fish, peeling away crisped skin and flaking the delicate white meat.
Tharion sat at the polished rose-granite table, resting his elbows on the cool, slick surface. He tasted one of the sliced green pods, not a familiar vegetable raised in the greenhouse levels of Guild Headquarters. He found it tasty, but with an odd texture. “What is this? A new vegetable from the Platform gene library?”
Dokken speared a pod with his fork and held it up from his glazed terra cotta plate. “Okra. It’s a relative of cotton, and the kenaf we plant for paper fiber. I decided that since my kenaf was thriving so well, I would try the okra. You should taste Garien’s gumbo sometime.” He popped the vegetable into his mouth. “It amazes me what still remains untapped up in the Platform’s genetic bank.”
They finished their dinner with small talk about the season’s newly recovered lands, novel crafts and products emerging from the villages, and the annoying activities of the other landholders. Tharion maintained an impassive expression, since landholders always complained about their rivals.
One of the servants came in to clear away the dishes and to refill their wineglasses. Dokken swirled the dark red liquid in his clear glass, then sipped. Tharion drank the sour wine out of politeness, but he didn’t like the taste. Dokken seemed torn between criticism and enjoyment of the vintage.
“This is a Chianti,” he said, “a dark wine that’s traditionally Italian. The bottles are supposed to be wrapped in wicker, but nobody has cultivated the right kind of reeds for old-fashioned basketry. Maybe Sardili will try it down at the delta.” Dokken took another sip of the wine. “Let’s go sit by the fire.”
The landholder’s leather clothes creaked as he rose. To Tharion, in his loose white cotton garments and overrobe, Dokken’s breeches and tunic looked heavy and uncomfortable.
Tharion followed Dokken across the tiled floor to the sitting room. He took one of the chairs next to a snapping fire that did more to drive off the night’s chill than any of the villa’s corner thermal units. “Where’s Maximillian?”
“Away.” Dokken pushed his boots close to the fire and stared at the glowing embers. “I also just returned from another sojourn a few days ago. He’ll be back soon.”
By now, Tharion had learned not to be bothered by Dokken’s evasiveness. He relaxed in the comfortable chair, staring into the flickering flames, uneasy to see such an outrageous waste of wood, which had to be cut and shipped in from the pine forests in Toth Holding.
He sipped his bitter wine again. Dokken began one of his tangential lectures. “Trust me, this isn’t how Chianti is supposed to taste. The ground and climate here is dry and rocky, like parts of old Italy, and it should be perfect for growing grapes and olives. But the fruit tastes awful, even after decades of conditioning the soil. I’m still working on it, though. Either I’m improving, or my sense of taste is irreparably damaged. Maybe I’ll try coffee next. I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve had a good, rich cup of real coffee.”
Tharion made a noncommittal sound, though he couldn’t imagine where Dokken had ever tasted “real” coffee. He didn’t interrupt, though, but tried instead to relax and enjoy the fire.
All through dinner, Dokken had not broached the subject of the allegedly important new information he had learned. He knew better than to push his mentor; Franz Dokken was a master at playing his hints in the right order, drawing inevitable conclusions, manipulating results by virtue of his wise perspective and generous patience.
They sat in silence by the fire, sipping wine. Waiting.
Finally, Dokken raised himself out of his chair and refilled their glasses with the bad wine. “All right, my friend, I know you’re getting anxious,” he said. “Let’s go out onto the balcony.”
iii
Dokken set his wineglass on the polished ledge and placed both hands on the stone rail, looking down at the courtyard below. Clay pots filled with explosively colorful geraniums sat in the corners of the balcony.
The main towers of the villa rose up above them, walls of creamy stucco, roof overhangs of red tile, and a satellite dish antenna on the tallest tower, pointed out toward the stars. Below, mulberry bushes adorned the grounds, carefully watered and fertilized.
Dokken turned to his guest. “In civilized Earth society, I would be offering you a fine cigar.”
“A cigar?” Tharion asked. He’d never heard of the thing. “What is that?”
Dokken looked up at the veiled stars, as if trying to find the Earth system out in the galactic forest of lights. “Carefully selected tobacco leaves dried and rolled into a cylinder. You light the end, then inhale the smoke. It contained a mild narcotic, which was also a carcinogen. Rather pointless, I suppose, but there was a time when cigars allowed for wonderful social affectations. I hear Hektor Carsus is contemplating cultivating tobacco at his holding, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“One too many vices from Earth?” Tharion asked, wondering if Dokken would ever get around to the point.
The landholder waved away the thought. “No, the soil and the climate are lousy for tobacco. Not rich enough yet. I looked into it. Give us another few centuries of working the land.”
Tharion finished his Chianti and found that he didn’t want any more. Dokken would toy with him all night long, avoiding the question unless Tharion pushed. “Franz, about this important information you were going to tell me—”
Dokken smiled, as if he had been wondering how long his protégé would wait—but an interruption from the firelit sitting room disturbed them. Garien was setting out two small glazed saucers of honeyed strawberries, but a dark, slim woman pushed past him.
“No, I don’t want a third place setting,” she told the chef with weary patience, heading straight for the balcony.
Dokken frowned, then sighed. “Schandra, could you please excuse us while we finish our conversation?”
The woman, Dokken’s longtime lover, placed her hands on her slender hips and widened her coal-black eyes. Her hair was long and silky, like spun obsidian, and her features had a smooth exotic cast that spoke of an African/Asian genetic mixture. She wore a scarlet blouse and a swirling black skirt, both made of the luxurious silk that had made his holding famous. “No, Franz, I won’t just excuse you. I’ve been polite over and over again, and you always forget to make time to talk to me. A few days ago you got back from being gone for two weeks, out of touch with everyone, riding around your holding like some sort of scout, and we still haven’t talked. Maximillian won’t say a word to me—and I need to discuss our family.”
Dokken raised his eyebrows with a long-suffering expression and turned from Tharion as if begging his indulgence. “What family, Schandra? We don’t have a family.”
“Ah, now you’re getting the point, Franz. Everyone else on this planet has children, and we don’t. Is it so wrong for me to have a couple of dreams, too?” Obviously, Tharion thought, Schandra had been rehearsing the discussion with her mirror while waiting for Dokken to return from his sojourn in the outer lands.
Tharion thought about Dokken’s legendary lack of heirs, the rumors of his sterility. A great landholder such as Franz Dokken should have long ago assured his inheritance, rather than risk losing all the lands he had claimed.
Tharion sympathized with Schandra, though: he, like all Truthsayers, had been rendered sterile by constant use of the Veritas drug.
“Schandra, I don’t wish to discuss this now,” Dokken said calmly.
“When?”
“Later. Now, if you’d please leave us alone—”
“When? Can I make an appointment? You do this to me every time I want to talk to you.”
“Schandra, this may come as a shock, but I don’t keep you around for your conversation skills.” Dokken’s eyes narrowed, and his voice, though soft, held an unmistakable harshness. “I did not take you under my wing and spoil you with everything a woman could want just so I would have someone to chat with.” He glared at her with a fury he rarely showed to anyone. “Now, if you don’t leave immediately, I will throw you headfirst off of this balcony. Perhaps you’ll break your neck in one of the mulberry bushes. Then who will feed your precious silkworms?”
From the landholder’s expression, Tharion didn’t think Dokken was joking.
After a frozen moment, she forced a laugh. “All right, later then. Let’s do lunch sometime.” Schandra departed, taking one of the dessert plates with her, as if as an afterthought.
“I apologize for that,” Dokken said. “Women become so incensed about little things they have no control over, yet all the while they remain blind to the Big Picture. I never promised her children, yet now she thinks she has a right to demand them.”
Tharion toyed with his empty wineglass, set it on the balcony rail, then bent to sniff one of the geraniums. “It’s none of my concern, Franz,” he said. “My wife Qrista gets incomprehensible sometimes, though with the Veritas we can’t keep any secrets from each other.”
“A frightening thought,” Dokken said.
“Sometimes it is,” Tharion admitted. “Now, about this news?.”
Dokken smiled, and in that unmasked glance he seemed immeasurably ancient. “I think I might have found some way to stop the black market smuggling of Veritas. You see, by interrogating the woman you saw in the square tonight, the one who was selling the stolen drugs … I discovered her source!” He fixed Tharion with his gaze, as if daring the Truthsayer to read his mind. “I know how Veritas is being taken from First Landing and distributed among the other holdings.”
Tharion perked up. “How?”
Dokken shook his head sadly. “I regret to say the culprit was one of my own men. Cialben, my associate for twelve years. You’ve met him. He was behind it all, and I was blinded by my own trust.”
Tharion blinked. “Yes, I remember him. How did he—?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve taken care of it. After tonight, much of the black market trafficking will stop. You can rest easy.”
Tharion stiffened. “What do you mean you’ve taken care of it? Did you take matters into your own hands again? I can’t allow you to keep—”
“Oh, be quiet, Tharion!” Dokken said curtly. “You’re not thinking again. Because this smuggling is chipping away at your Guild’s power, the last thing you want is to make a public spectacle of how thoroughly you’ve failed. Who would believe in a Truthsayer’s impartiality when he’s digging for knowledge that affects the Guild’s own monopoly on Veritas? It is against the law for any person other than a legitimate Guild Truthsayer or Mediator to use the drug. No deliberation is required.
“I have taken care of Cialben, quietly and permanently. It will be an unsolved crime, but the black market smuggling will stop, at least on this end. That’s all you need concern yourself with.”
Tharion cinched his blue sash tight against the night chill that had suddenly begun to sink into his bones. He pressed his lips together, bristling at how Dokken treated him—like a child. “Where is he? A Truthsayer should interrogate him! We could get a lot more information.”
Dokken’s cool expression told him that there would be no interrogation. None at all. Tharion shook his head angrily. “When will you ever consult me before you do something like this, Franz? I deserve to be part of the decision.”
Dokken snorted with impatience and downed the rest of his wine, turning to go back to the fire and his dessert. “I have my own problems, Tharion. Some of the landholders are allying themselves against me. I can feel it, though they’re keeping it quiet. We could even have a bloodbath like the civil war sparked by Hong and Ramirez almost a century ago. That’s my main concern right now.
“For now, I’ve stopped the smuggling, Tharion—what more could you have accomplished by involving yourself? Get on with your work, and I’ll get on with mine. I need you to be strong for my coming battles.”
Then Dokken shouted for the chef to bring another plate of strawberries to replace the one Schandra had taken.