Alector's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Third squad stands ready, sir,” Mykel reported.

  Majer Vaclyn barely looked at the captain before raising his voice. “Bring forth the prisoner.”

  As he waited, although his head did not move, Mykel’s eyes flicked to the west, where the white sun hung just above the walls of the compound, then back to the flogging stand, a reminder not only of what awaited Polynt, but what could await any Cadmian who failed badly—including Mykel.

  Hands bound behind him, Polynt was escorted to the T-shaped form in the middle of the south side of the courtyard. The four Cadmians who led him also wore red armbands, although they were from the local Cadmians stationed permanently in Dramuria. They positioned him so that his chest was against the cross member of the stand. Then, his feet were tied loosely to the stand before his arms were unbound, and his wrists strapped to the stand.

  Once the condemned trooper was secured to the stand, and gagged, the four Cadmian escorts turned as one and marched southward beyond the stand. There, they about-faced and came to attention.

  Majer Vaclyn stepped forward, clearing his throat and speaking. “You have taken life, and life will be taken from you. You have created pain and suffering, and with pain and suffering will you die. May each lash remind you of your deeds. With each lash may you regret the evils that you have brought into this world.” He stepped back and nodded to the whipmaster.

  Mykel could sense that, for the majer, the words were merely a procedure. They should not have been. There should have been meaning behind them. Then, for Polynt, perhaps that was fitting, for the trooper had never had any appreciation of any life besides his own, and the final words before the lash meant as little to him as they had to the majer.

  Mykel should have guessed that Polynt had served time as a prisoner. The trooper’s description of the guano mine had been too graphic—and too out of the character that Polynt had presented as a trooper. The captain’s lips tightened—another failure on his part, and he was probably most fortunate that the Myrmidon colonel hadn’t picked up on that.

  The whipmaster stepped forward, raising the whip. The first lash ripped away fabric from the back of a tunic from which all insignia had been removed. Polynt convulsed, but the heavy gag muffled any exclamation or moan he might have uttered.

  As the whipmaster continued to strike, Mykel watched, outwardly stolid, despite the blood and agony before him. At moments, a faint line of pain seemed to fall across his own back, but that had to be his own imagination. Then, as Polynt began to sag in the T-brace, Mykel heard a muffled impact behind him as someone from third squad collapsed, most likely one of the newer rankers.

  Someone condemned was seldom actually lashed to death, but whipped until insensible. Then the whipmaster and executioner put a dagger through the heart. When that finally happened, all too close to sunset, Mykel felt a vague sense of relief, along with an emptiness and a sadness. Polynt’s death wouldn’t bring back those he had killed. It would ensure he killed no one else, and it might deter some trooper from following Polynt’s example.

  Vaclyn stepped forward once more. “Justice has been done. He stepped back.

  Four members of the death squad stepped forward and cut the body from the whipping frame, laying it on a flat handcart that two others had rolled into position.

  “Dismissed to officers,” Vaclyn stated flatly.

  Mykel turned to face third squad. Many rankers were pale. Mykel suspected he might be as well. “Squad leader, you have the squad. Restricted to quarters until morning muster.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chyndylt turned. “About-face! Forward!”

  Mykel stood silently for a moment.

  “Captain!”

  At the words from the majer, Mykel turned. “Yes, sir?”

  “I need a word with you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Mykel walked to the majer, stopping short a yard away and waiting.

  “This has been a most distasteful situation. Cadmians should never be on trial for murder. This whole incident suggests that your leadership has been less than superb. In fact, your leadership has been barely adequate at times.”

  Mykel waited, his face calm. Saying anything would just make matters worse, and Mykel was partly to blame, if not for any reason that the majer knew.

  “You’ll be returning to the mine patrols first thing in the morning with third squad,” declared Vaclyn. “You will report to me every Octdi afternoon, here at the headquarters building, no later than two glasses past midday. You will bring one squad, a different squad, each Octdi. You will begin this Octdi. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Vaclyn’s smile was cold. “You may go, Captain.”

  Mykel offered a slight bow, the least he dared, before turning and walking back toward the barracks. He’d need to talk to Chyndylt, and he might as well get that over with first.

  No matter what he did, matters between him and Majer ^ Vaclyn could only get worse. He would have to continue to document everything he could, however he could, in between riding and supervising patrols.

  Why did Vaclyn dislike him so much? Because the majer was afraid that Mykel would reveal how incompetent he was?

  Mykel shook his head. Vaclyn was too incompetent to ^cognize his own shortcomings, and too self-centered even to consider whether he had shortcomings. What Mykel didn’t understand was why the majer remained in command of the battalion. Sooner or later, Vaclyn would make a mistake that his captains couldn’t rectify and that Colonel Herolt couldn’t cover up. Then what?

  Mykel snorted softly. What would happen was that some captain would be blamed—most likely Mykel—and flogged or executed, or both.

  The court-martial had bothered Mykel, not because of the outcome, but because he had sensed that something had not been right about the entire situation. What that might have been, Mykel had not been able to determine, only that he felt that way. Polynt had deserved death, probably for two murders, if not more.

  Even so, the execution itself had been hard for Mykel, because flogging to death was painful. At times, he’d felt like he’d suffered some of the strokes, even though he’d only had to stand in front of third squad and watch. That had to have been an overactive imagination. What else could it have been?

  Quietly, he headed for the barracks as the last long light of the winter sun faded in the west.

  48

  As the long shadows that preceded twilight stretched across the compound, Dainyl watched from the corner of the headquarters building as Majer Vaclyn exchanged words with Captain Mykel. The captain’s posture remained formal, neither relaxed nor stiff with anger, but Dainyl could sense a core of feeling—hot rage encased in cold control. After the captain turned, Dainyl moved toward the majer.

  Vaclyn looked up, surprised at the alector’s appearance. “Colonel.”

  “Majer.” Dainyl projected a faint sense of curiosity. “I saw you talking to Captain Mykel, and you seemed concerned.”

  For several moments, Vaclyn said nothing. Dainyl could sense that he was irritated at what he felt was an intrusion, but the colonel held a pleasant expression on his face and waited, using his Talent, as well as his eyes and ears, to study the majer.

  “I am, Colonel. Any time a ranker behaves the way Polynt did is a matter of concern.”

  “I can see that, but Captain Mykel reacted well under the circumstances.”

  “He reacted. That was the problem. He never should have let it happen, Colonel. Good officers anticipate matters like that.”

  Dainyl had trouble seeing how the captain could have foreseen an unpremeditated murder by a man who had successfully hidden his background from a number of Cad-mian officers. Polynt had obviously changed his name enough so that he would not have been linked to a murder in Dramuria. He’d also enlisted in the Cadmians in a place remote enough from Dramur that no one would have thought to have checked his ankle for a prisoner’s tattoo.

  “I can see your concerns,” returned Dainyl. “Still… Captain My
kel should not be judged too harshly. He wasn’t the first one who failed to discover that Polynt was an escaped prisoner.”

  “If you will pardon my directness, Colonel… Captain Mykel’s difficulties cannot be excused by the failures of others.”

  “That is true,” Dainyl replied smoothly. “A commander’s shortcomings should not be blamed on those above or beneath him. Your point is well-taken, and all officers in the Myrmidons and Cadmians should be held to that standard.”

  Once more, Dainyl sensed the faint and distant feel of Talent about Vaclyn, yet he could sense nothing beyond that—and he knew he should, but not what or how. Not for the first time, he wished he had been given greater training in Talent, but because he had not manifested Talent when young, he had never been afforded that opportunity.

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  Dainyl doubted Vaclyn would be thanking him, not if the majer truly understood the meaning behind his words. “Thank you very much, Majer. I wish you and Third Battalion well in your efforts to deal with the rebels.”

  “Thank you, sir. We’ll make sure that there isn’t a real rebellion, choke off this unrest before it gets out of hand.”

  With a last smile, Dainyl turned and walked briskly toward the officers’ mess, where the food was barely edible, but the ale not too bad.

  49

  There are those who claim life is sacred in and of itself, or on behalf of some deity, yet they do not refer to all life, but that of their own kind. If they do claim that of all life, then they are either ignorant, or hypocrites, or both. To live, every being steals from another, for to live one must consume food. Consuming food is taking the life of another, or eating what another might have consumed to live, if not both. All cannot be equally sacred if one is prey to the other, and thus less than the other.

  One who truly believes that the end purpose of life is but to create more life—for whatever purpose—is not a thinking being, but a steer as fit for slaughter as any in a livestock pen. The smallest of creatures strive to reproduce to the limits of the food at hand. If beings capable of thought and reflection only strive to eat, pleasure themselves as they can, and reproduce to the limits of their world, what makes such beings any different from those millions of so-called lower creatures who live but to eat and reproduce? Can such beings be truly said to reflect any higher purpose than that of all other animals?

  Such beings will claim that they are indeed different, for they have tools, and they have developed weapons and cities. Yet the jackdaws and ravens use tools, and a weapon is but one form of tool. The ants and termites have cities. To say that one’s own form of life is special, or sacred, does not make it so. Nor does the assertion that some unknown and unproved deity has declared a people or a faith special make either a faith or a people special. Again, that is but an assertion based on a faith that has no root in what is, except a desire for it to be so.

  The actions and the purposes of a species are what determine its worth. Those actions must be more than the assertion of privilege and blind reproduction. Those actions must challenge the worlds and the stars. They must create beauty, art, and devices that none have seen before.

  Life is not sacred or exceptional merely because it exists, or because one asserts that it is, but by what it attempts, and by what it achieves. That is what has always distinguished us. We have not striven merely to reproduce, or to comfort ourselves with toys, pleasures, and food. We have changed whole worlds, and we have created art and beauty where there was none before.

  What we have done is what has given us the right to claim that we are above the steers…

  Views of the Highest

  Illustra

  1513 W.T.

  50

  A good two glasses before dawn on Sexdi morning, Dainyl walked across the courtyard from the temporary quarters that had become less and less transient, and more and more cramped. The night before, he’d been up late writing the report on the court-martial, included in the weekly dispatch to the marshal that Quelyt would be taking back to Elcien in a glass. Ahead of Dainyl, beside one of the squares, waited Falyna and her pteridon.

  The colonel adjusted the shimmersilk flying jacket and heavy gloves. While they weren’t necessary in the light east wind blowing across the compound, they would be in the chill heights above and around the Murian Mountains.

  Falyna inclined her head to the colonel. “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning, Falyna. You ready to fly me up there?”

  “Yes, sir.” The Myrmidon ranker paused, then added, “If you’ll pardon my asking, Colonel, and I wouldn’t ask anyone, but you were a flier for a long time—”

  “You’d like to know why I keep asking you to fly me out to where that ancient tunnel is? There’s something that keeps coming back there. Sooner or later,” Dainyl shrugged, “I hope that I’ll be there when it is. I want to get there earlier today. We’ve been too late before. I can’t help but think it has something to do with this so-called rebellion.”

  Falyna frowned, then nodded. “Those locals fired at us from right below there.”

  “It doesn’t seem like coincidence.”

  “No, sir. You want me to set down and wait?”

  “No. You could set down somewhere else, but not close. Give me a glass alone.”

  “We can do that.”

  Falyna felt that her colonel was wasting time, and perhaps Dainyl was, but he’d talked and questioned lander after lander over the weeks, read reports, and followed what the Cadmians were doing—and he knew very little beyond what he’d discovered in the first week.

  He nodded to Falyna. “Let’s go.”

  In moments, Dainyl was in the rear saddle and harness, and the pteridon sprang skyward, wings propelling it seaward into the wind. Once they were well clear of trees and buildings, Falyna eased the pteridon into a climbing turn toward the northwest over an ocean that was a dark, dark green, with scattered whitecaps. Then they were back over land, climbing above the casaran nut plantations to the north of the compound, headed for the Murian Mountains. The skies were clear, and promised to remain so.

  Dainyl could not sense either the soarer or her creatures, but she visited the tunnel every second or third day early in the morning. He hoped that he had guessed correctly. His eyes moved to his left, down at the road to the guano mine, then to the mine itself.

  Mines—the iron and coal mines in Iron Stem, the guano mine in Dramur—all were having troubles. Iron Stem was close to the towering Aerial Plateau, and the guano mine was in the lower reaches of the Murian Mountains. Was that because the ancients were involved, and because they preferred heights? Or just coincidence?

  He could sense the greater use of Talent by the pteridon | as it climbed until it was above the peak that held the tun-[ nel, then began to make an approach into the light wind.

  As soon as the pteridon touched down and half folded its wings, Dainyl unfastened the harness and slipped out of the saddle. “A glass from now!”

  “Yes, sir.” The ranker nodded.

  Dainyl hurried back to the western edge of the bluff or ledge to get clear of the pteridon’s wings. There he turned eastward and watched the wide-winged pteridon launch itself, then glide away, dropping lower as it left the higher peaks behind.

  After a moment, Dainyl entered the ancient tunnel, lowering his head.

  As so many times before, the only tracks on the fine sand were those of his own boots. There were no scratch tracks of birds, no swirled displacement created by snakes, or even fine lines drawn by insects—just the heavy indentations of an alector’s boots.

  From the outer metallic archway of the tunnel, he studied the mirror on the floor, a mirror that still puzzled him. Again, he probed it with his Talent. For the slightest of instants, the golden green that surrounded it seemed to stretch endlessly… somewhere.

  A flash of golden green light flared before him, and the soarer hovered above the floor mirror. Dainyl’s hand went to the grip of the light-cutter in
his belt.

  Do not touch that if you wish to live.

  Faced with that cold green authority, Dainyl decided against trying to use the sidearm.

  You have sought us. Why?

  “Because the indigens seem to worship this place—or you—and because they attacked me. Because miners are disappearing. I thought there might be a link.”

  You have raised your steers upon our world. Should those among us not also feed?

  Feed? What did that have to do with a revolt? Feed? Who was feeding on what?

  You see, but you do not see. Go out and look at the world below.

  “Why?”

  So that you may see. So that you will be warned.

  Warned? Dainyl didn’t like those words at all. Still, he moved back from the soarer, one step backward after another, never taking his eyes off her. His Talent revealed nothing about her except the golden green nimbus of Talent-energy surrounding her. The soarer followed him, keeping the same separation.

  Once outside the tunnel and the outer unnatural cave, Dainyl stepped sideways. The soarer glided past him, a miniature and perfectly formed winged woman perhaps half his size.

  “Now what?” he asked, his eyes and Talent scanning her and the area around them. There was no sense or sign of the violet-red stonelike creatures… but there hadn’t been any sign of the soarer until the moment she had appeared.

  Behold the world. Look out across the lands.

  Warily, Dainyl shifted his glance to the southeast, back toward Dramuria.

  Abruptly, he was surrounded by a greenish light or mist. He blinked, forcing himself not to draw the light-cutter. Through the green he still saw the lands below, stretching toward the distant ocean, but in addition to what he had always seen, a weave of color assaulted him, lines and webs of brown, and black, and amber—thin lines, thicker lines, all intertwined. His second sense was that he saw a subtle weave that filled the entire silver-green skies, the warp and weft of lifewebs that seemed to intertwine, and yet never touch.