Soarer's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “That soon?” Alcyna’s eyes widened only slightly.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know that it could be more than weeks or a few seasons at most. Zelyert doesn’t know, either. That’s why he’s worried about the Table.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “Yesterday. The High Alector found out early this morning.”

  “I can’t say I’m totally surprised,” Alcyna replied. “There or Soupat would be logical. They’re the most isolated. Do you want me to take First Company to Blackstear?”

  “Not this time. The Table’s been inactivated. That means they’re trapped there, but the High Alector wants the Table back on the grid as soon as possible. We can’t do that until we retake Blackstear. While I’m gone, you’re in command here.” Dainyl smiled wryly. “Why don’t you work out a plan for Seventh Company—and some of Fifth, if necessary—to deal with something like this happening elsewhere? Like in Soupat. You’ve already pointed out that there’s nowhere else more isolated in the west than Blackstear. In the east, they might target Prosp, but if they do, Brekylt and Noryan will have to deal with it. At least for now.”

  “You don’t think the Ifryn Myrmidons were sent information by Brekylt?” asked Alcyna.

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so.” Dainyl paused. “Do you?”

  “No. That’s not his way. He’d have no control,” she pointed out. “When are you leaving?”

  “In a glass, if we can manage it.”

  “That’s pushing it. You have cold-weather gear?”

  “In my study. I stopped and picked it up on the way back from the Hall of Justice.”

  “You would.” Alcyna laughed sardonically. “I hope you get back before anything else happens. I’d rather not deal with the Highest. He’s not all that fond of women.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t have to, either. I’ll be back to you before I head out.” After a nod to her, Dainyl left her and walked down the corridor toward Captain Ghasylt’s study. He’d noted the captain had been there when he’d first entered headquarters.

  Ghasylt immediately stood as Dainyl appeared. “Marshal, sir?”

  “We’re leaving for Blackstear—all of First Company—in one glass. A company of foot Myrmidons from Ifryn stormed the Table in Blackstear. The recorder escaped, and the Table is shut down. That leaves the rebel Myrmidons trapped in Blackstear, but the recorders can’t reactivate it until we retake it from them.”

  “It’s winter up there already, sir,” Ghasylt said, his voice even.

  “I know. It still has to be done. That’s one reason why I’m coming with First Company.”

  The company commander nodded. “We’ve got two fliers from third squad out on dispatch runs. They won’t be back until late this afternoon.”

  “That’s fine. They can fly urgent dispatches until the squads from Seventh Company get here tomorrow afternoon. Then they can fly to rejoin us.”

  “A glass might be pressing it, sir. We’ll have to make sure everyone’s got all their cold-weather gear.”

  “Do the best you can. I’ll have to get mine together as well.”

  “Sir…?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have to say if you can’t, but for a company of Myrmidons to take a long translation to Acorus…I mean, most of us have never even seen a Table…it’d seem to me that things aren’t good on Ifryn.” Ghasylt shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but kept his eyes on Dainyl.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Dainyl replied, “but my judgment would be the same as yours. There have been more wild translations and refugees coming through the Tables. Some of them have come through armed and firing weapons and had to be killed. I’d imagine conditions on Ifryn are anything but good and getting worse, but the Archon has said nothing to anyone here.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I wish matters were different, Captain, but Acorus won’t last long either, if thousands of alectors translate here in the next few weeks.”

  Ghasylt’s eyes widened as he understood the implications of Dainyl’s words. “No, sir, but it seems a terrible waste.”

  Dainyl nodded. “I don’t like it, either. All we can do, right now, is keep matters from getting worse. That’s probably all anyone can do.”

  “We’ll be ready, Marshal.”

  “I’ll join you shortly.” Dainyl turned.

  A terrible waste. Ghasylt’s words ran through Dainyl’s mind as he headed back to his study to go over the last-moment preparations for the immediate deployment. For the past few years, Dainyl and Lystrana had talked about what might happen, and how Efra and Acorus could not take all the alectors living on Ifryn and how many would die in the long translation and how many would become wild translations and die. In a sense, the words had been just that—words. Now, real alectors and alectresses and children were dying, even before Ifryn died. Yet, as Khelaryt had said, what could he do to save them without dooming all alectors?

  Why had it come down to this? Could the Archon not have planned better? Did the Archon and the High Alectors regard the majority of alectors in the same fashion as alectors viewed the indigens? Or was it inevitable so long as the oldest alectors drew so much lifeforce? Or was it that no one wanted to consider events before they drew near, when it was too late to even mitigate the situation?

  39

  There is no higher calling for a people than to create beauty and structure where it has not existed previously. In its time, every world in the endless universe will be formed, will exist, and will perish. Some will perish even before their creation is complete, and others may endure the long life of the universe. Upon many of those worlds, there will be no life. Upon others, that life will consist of lichens, algae, and other minute forms that will never progress toward intelligence. Upon still others, there will be animal and plant life, but sentience will not appear.

  Only upon a comparative handful of worlds will sentience appear, and in many cases, with the advent of technologies that enable widescale warfare, will come a decline that will destroy that sentience before it has barely begun to learn what intelligence is and could be. That occurs all too often because sentience without individual and societal self-mastery enables destruction more readily than creation.

  Sentience rewards those who possess it and master it—with creations of beauty and joy, with an understanding of what the universe is and will be, and with mastery of the worlds in which those intelligences find themselves. Yet, at the same time, sentience exacts great demands upon any world on which it arises and upon any society that reveres sentience.

  What do all these possibilities have to do with being a responsible alector? Everything, for the thinking alector must understand that sentience of a lasting nature is rare, and that no price is too high to pay for the perpetuation of a society that enshrines sentience. We must never forget that we, too, as a society will be called upon periodically to pay the price in blood for our way of life, and that at such times, not all will survive. Should we forget that price, and what it entails, all that we are, and all that we represent, will perish as surely as will we….

  Views of the Highest

  Illustra

  W.T. 1513

  40

  Two solid glasses of flight had brought First Company eastward over a lower section of the peaks of the Coast Range and then northward, roughly following the high road from Elcien to Harmony. The pteridons flew at an altitude of a thousand yards, high enough to afford the Myrmidons a view of the terrain ahead and low enough that the pteridons did not use an inordinate amount of lifeforce—nor did the fliers have to contend with the colder air that would have surrounded them at a higher altitude. Flying was cold enough, because they were under a high layer of clouds that blocked direct sunlight, and left the world beneath them looking winter-brown and gray, although there was technically still a week left in fall.

  Each Myrmidon had also been supplied with two lightcutters, in addition to the pteridon-powered s
kylances, for use inside the Blackstear Table building. Zelyert hadn’t been happy about that, either.

  As Ghasylt had announced to the company, the northward flight, especially as they neared Blackstear, would make a winter Spine run seem warm. Dainyl was flying wing on the captain, if in the second seat harness behind Halya, one of the younger members of the company, normally in second squad. As marshal, he did not rate a pteridon, scarce as they were, but he still missed being the one who actually flew the pteridon.

  From behind Halya, Dainyl studied the high road below and to his left. While there was an occasional wagon or rider, most stretches of the road were empty, except for the five vingts or so on each side of a hamlet or town. The horizon to the north was a featureless gray, and that worried Dainyl because it suggested one of the northern blizzards might be brewing.

  The wind had begun to shift, from the northeast to the northwest, and the air felt slightly warmer. Slightly warmer meant only that the air would freeze unprotected skin in perhaps a tenth of a glass rather than in moments. It also indicated a greater likelihood of a storm.

  Another third of a glass passed before Dainyl could see Harmony almost dead ahead, where the two high roads crossed, and where the one First Company had followed turned from a northeast direction to due east, running straight as a rifle barrel for three hundred vingts from Harmony to Soulend. The other high road ran to Klamat, some 270 vingts north of Harmony. Beyond Klamat no high roads ran. From there First Company would have to fly across the frozen Moors of Yesterday to Blackstear.

  From nowhere, a howling wind buffeted the pteridon, and the Talent creature’s left wing went up, and the right dropped, more than forty degrees. Even before Dainyl caught the sense of command from Halya to the blue-winged creature, the pteridon had righted itself. Even after they were level, the wind raked across Dainyl’s face like miniature daggers with ice-fiery points, then fell off until the pteridons were flying through absolutely calm air.

  Dainyl glanced ahead.

  The featureless gray looked more like a wall of clouds. He judged it to be a good twenty vingts away. What bothered him more than even the wall-like appearance of the clouds was the growing hint of blackish green behind the clouds.

  The light strengthened as the fliers continued northward, passing Harmony, and changing course so that they flew due north, following the high road that led to Klamat. Dainyl glanced up. The higher clouds that had been above them had thinned, but the sky still held but the barest hint of green, lost in a silver-gray sheen, although the air around Dainyl seemed to become both grayer and greener with each vingt flown.

  He looked ahead once more. Now the clouds had become more distinct, showing a wall of dark gray for the first few hundred yards up from the ground, and then turning positively black for the next several thousand. Under the leading edge of the storm, Dainyl could see a line where the ground and trees had begun to turn white from snow that fell in sheets.

  “Marshal!”

  Dainyl turned his head.

  Ghasylt had eased his pteridon closer to that of Halya and Dainyl. “We can’t fly through that!” The captain gestured toward the dark wall of the storm.

  “Turn back to Harmony! Land at the local Cadmian garrison there!” Dainyl called back.

  “Harmony Cadmian garrison! Yes, sir!”

  Ghasylt banked his pteridon into a descending right-hand turn.

  As Halya followed, an unseen force pressed the pteridon downward, into a dive.

  Dainyl could sense the increased lifeforce draw as the pteridon struggled to avoid losing more altitude, and as the wings beat faster. He watched as the forests flanking the high road drew closer and closer.

  The pteridon was less than fifty yards above the tops of the fir trees before Halya managed to level out. They had lost over a thousand yards in altitude in the space of moments. Slowly, the pteridon began to climb until, once more flying wing to Ghasylt, they followed the high road south back to Harmony at an altitude of roughly five hundred yards.

  Dainyl swallowed. He’d never felt that severe a downdraft, not in all his years of flying, but he’d flown mostly in the south. He glanced back at the rest of the company. While the other fliers seemed to have hit the same downdraft, they had not lost as much altitude, probably because their pteridons had not been carrying double.

  To the north, behind First Company, the clouds continued to darken, advancing inexorably southward. The advance fliers had not seen the storm rising. From where had it come? Had the ancients something to do with it?

  Dainyl shook his head. Storms happened, even unforeseen ones. They could only get to Blackstear when they could.

  41

  Lazy flakes of snow drifted past Mykel’s face as he rode westward on the high road from Iron Stem to Wesrigg. Beside him rode Rhystan, with Sixteenth Company immediately following. Behind Sixteenth Company rode the other companies of Third Battalion. Nineteenth Company brought up the rear. They had already been riding for two glasses along the westbound high road. The snow had become even more intermittent with each vingt they traveled. To the north of the road, at times, Mykel caught sight of a stream or creek, and for a time a small dam and a lake behind it. He thought that might be the reservoir for Iron Stem and for the ironworks.

  Now, in the distance ahead, Mykel could see that white covered the more distant summits of the Westerhills, the legacy of the storm that had swept through the Iron Valleys late on Quinti, leaving less than a span’s depth of snow on the ground, and nothing but a slight layer of slush on the high road. The wind had shifted once more, back to the northeast, becoming colder, but promising clearer skies. Mykel had already seen breaks in the clouds, and glimpses of the deep silver-green that marked a winter sky.

  “This isn’t going to melt quickly,” observed Rhystan, “except on the high road. The back roads will be muddy, where they aren’t frozen.”

  “They won’t be that bad, and it’s not that deep. Besides, it will make tracking the Reillies and Squawts easier. Hamylt will have to be careful he doesn’t close too quickly.”

  Rhystan nodded. “Looks like it’s a lot deeper to the west, up in the hills.”

  “If they retreat there, we’ll leave them for now. We can wait in Wesrigg for a few days if we have to and see what they do.”

  “They could wait all winter.”

  Mykel shook his head. “No, they can’t. They’ve pulled everyone from their hill steads. They can’t hold a force that size together for long. They’ll either have to attack or disband.”

  “If they disband…then what?”

  “We wait until they gather again in the spring, but I don’t think that’s what they’ll do.”

  “Why not?”

  Mykel didn’t answer what he felt—that something more was happening, that the soarers or the alectors—someone—wanted the Cadmians under attack and reduced in strength and ability. “They won’t have gone to all this trouble to pull together, just to give up. The leaders who called them together would lose too much influence.”

  “Have to wonder how many bad decisions have been made for reasons like that,” mused Rhystan.

  “More than anyone would like to think.” Mykel laughed.

  Over the next glass or so, Mykel began to feel a growing sense that they were being watched from the woods that lay behind the snow-covered fields and meadows bordering the road. Yet the scouts riding ahead of the column had yet to report seeing anyone, and they had seen no one on the road, and no sign of any travelers. The roadside steads gave way to occasional meadows set between stretches of woods, and then to unbroken stretches of trees, beginning about fifty yards back from the high road itself.

  Mykel shifted his weight in the saddle. “Rhystan…send some scouts out on the south side of the road ahead. Rifles ready. Have them look for signs at the edge of the woods there.”

  Rhystan half turned in the saddle. “Kursolt, Alberut, Wersylt…”

  As Rhystan instructed and ordered the scouts, Mykel studie
d the woods, probing with both his eyes and his Talent. Ahead, perhaps in the trees on the lower part of the hill that climbed away from the shoulder of the roadbed, he could sense someone. Where the trees began was a good ten yards higher than the road, and there were perhaps as many as two or three men, but he could not place where they were—as if they had some sort of partial Talent shield. He frowned. They’d let the road scouts and the vanguard pass, and that meant they were looking either for information or to attack the main body of the column, but with only a handful of men, that didn’t make sense, not unless they didn’t expect any pursuit.

  “…check the south side of the road, all the way up to that hill. Keep your eyes sharp and your rifles ready,” Rhystan finished.

  “Third Battalion! Rifles ready!” Mykel ordered as the additional scouts rode forward. “There might be snipers or Reillies somewhere ahead,” he added in a lower voice to Rhystan as he took out his own rifle.

  He studied the hillside ahead on the south side of the road. It bothered him, but he could only sense a few people, and fuzzily at that. He couldn’t very well order the battalion to fire until he knew what was there. They might well be shooting at innocent foresters or peasants.

  The morning was silent, except for the sound of the Cadmians.

  Mykel strengthened his shields, knowing something was going to happen, but not knowing exactly from where it would come.

  Crack! Crack!

  The first shot hammered Mykel back in the saddle, twisting his left shoulder from the force on his shields. He forced himself erect and lifted his own rifle, aiming toward the faint flash from where he thought the sniper had fired. He willed the shot home as he squeezed the trigger.