Alector's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Aelya sniffed.

  “I’ll bring them by tomorrow,” Sesalia promised. “You can feed them midday dinner and see how sweet they are then.”

  Mykel grinned. He’d helped Sesalia the day before.

  “Ah… how are things going with you?” asked Bortal quickly, looking at Mykel. “You won’t have to go off and fight anytime soon, will you, like with those raiders in the north?”

  “The Reillies?” Mykel shook his head. “Not for a while. They’ve been pushed back practically to Blackstear. The land’s not bad there—it’s the northern part of the Vales of Prosperity—and the Duarches have granted them the rights to use it, except for timbering. If they raid anyone, they lose that right.”

  “Raiding, that’s in the blood,” suggested Olent.

  “That’s why I said it would be a while,” replied Mykel. ‘They’ll try to settle down. Can’t do that much anyway now. We killed half the men who could carry weapons.“

  “I’d always thought you’d become an engineer,” interjected Sesalia.

  “Landers can only be apprentice engineers. The real engineers are alectors,” volunteered Viencet. “Even the head mining engineers are alectors. The ones at the mines just do whatever the alectors in Ludar say.”

  “Farlak is a real engineer,” suggested Aelya.

  “He’s Father’s age,” countered Viencet. “He does twice the work of all the alectors, and has for years. They made him an assistant engineer last year. That’s where they start the most junior alectors.”

  “It’s always been that way,” Mykel pointed out.

  Olent cleared his throat, loudly.

  “You think that Mykel should be a colonel?” Aelya arched her eyebrows at Viencet. “Or a Myrmidon captain commanding pteridons? Or that you should start as a master tiler?”

  Viencet winced.

  Mykel offered an easy smile. “I’m just a Cadmian captain of mounted rifles. That’s good enough for now.”

  “Not that many become officers,” Sesalia said.

  “All my brothers tried,” added Bortal. “Corylt was the only one they took. He’s only a squad leader, and he’s two years older than Mykel.” The blocky tile-setter frowned. “He’s in Zalt. That’s where they’ve just finished the high road between Tempre and Southgate. His last letter said that they might see some action, but he couldn’t say where. You heard anything?”

  “Someone’s always unhappy somewhere,” Mykel said. “Could be the Reillies in the north Westerhills, or the nomads in the hills east of the Dry Coast…”

  “What about the ancient ones?” asked Viencet.

  “There aren’t any left. Just a few ruins here and there.”

  “How do they know? The Ancienteers say they’re biding their time.”

  Mykel laughed dryly. “If the Myrmidons on their pteri-dons and the recorders of deeds with their Tables can’t find any trace of them, there aren’t any.”

  “Do the Tables really exist?” asked Sesalia. “Have you seen one?”

  “No,” Mykel admitted, “but I’ve been ordered places where we’ve found exactly what the recorders said we’d find, and there hadn’t been any alectors or pteridons anywhere near.”

  “Maybe the Tables don’t really exist,” suggested Sesalia. “Maybe the alectors just claim that they do so that they don’t have to explain how they know things.”

  Mykel shrugged. “That could be; but however they know, they do know. I wouldn’t want to try to keep anything hidden from them.”

  “Who are the alectors?” asked Viencet. “I mean… where did they come from?”

  “Where did we come from?” asked Olent. “We both came from the Great Beyond in the time before time, and the alectors have been our guides and mentors.”

  “You really believe that?” Viencet gave a laugh that was almost a snort.

  Olent gave an embarrassed smile. “That’s what we’re taught, and I don’t have a better answer. Do you?”

  “They’re not that much smarter.”

  “Even a little brains means a lot, Viencet,” countered Olent. “They’re also much, much stronger, and I’ve heard that arrows bounce off them. If you have a better idea, what is it?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t think all that’s true.”

  “Then where did we all come from?” asked Olent. “We’ve never found any ruins used by people or alectors, and only a few things that were used by the ancients.”

  Mykel tended to believe Viencet was right, but he’d already seen enough of Corns to know that what his father had just said was also correct. But unless or until he learned more, he wasn’t about to step into the argument. Besides, what good would it do? Viencet would just argue more, and his father would get his back up. From what Mykel had seen, the Duarches ruled Coras, and they didn’t do it that badly. In dealing with the Reillies, Mykel had seen what a mess both indigens and landers made of things.

  After a moment of silence, Sesalia spoke. “Bortal laid the foundations for another bedroom.”

  “Another bedroom?” Mykel blurted.

  “Congratulations!” Olent beamed.

  “Five mouths…” Mykel bit off the words and forced a smile.

  His older sister turned. “With the Duarches’ stipend for a fifth child, we can build the new room and still have silvers left over.” She smiled.

  “I’m glad it will work out,” Mykel offered as gracefully as he could. Five children? Even five well behaved children? He reached for the fowl platter and took another slice, followed by a healthy dollop of potatoes. He did like the way his mother cooked.

  3

  Dainyl stepped out of the steaming shower, wishing that he didn’t have to, but there was only so much hot water, even for an alector, even for a Myrmidon colonel, if one married to an assistant to the High Alector of Finance. He quickly wrapped himself in a heavy towel and dried before he got too chilled. After all the generations that had passed since the coming of the alectors to Acorus, he would have thought that they would have adjusted to the chill of the world, but it hadn’t happened. Not yet, although the Duarches kept assuring all the alectors that the place was markedly warmer than it had been in the centuries after the first seedings.

  Hurriedly, Dainyl finished drying and pulled on his undergarments. Straightening, he glanced at the full length mirror that showed a muscular figure of average height for an alector, roughly two and a half yards, with the shimmering black hair and alabaster complexion. His midsection remained trim. While alectors might not age, they could certainly get fat if they overindulged, and Dainyl had a fear of that, rare as it was. He slipped into the dressing area off the bedchamber, where he donned trousers, undertunic, and boots.

  “The girls have your breakfast ready. We’ll eat in the sun room,” called Lystrana from the base of the stairs. “It’s brighter there, but it’s a cool day for so early in harvest.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be right there.” With that warning from his wife, Dainyl decided to put on an old tunic. He’d change to his uniform tunic after he ate. On warm days, the hottest of mid- and late summer, he ate breakfast in his undertunic.

  He hurried down the stone steps to the main level and out toward the sunroom, with the wide glass windows overlooking the courtyard garden. As he passed the archway to the kitchen, Dainyl nodded to Sentya and Zistele. “Good morning-”

  “Good morning, Colonel.” The two serving girls— blonde landers, of course—wore sleeveless tunics. Dainyl could see a trace of perspiration at the hairline of Zistele, the younger.

  Lystrana was almost glowing as Dainyl stepped into the sunroom, and her smile was dazzling as she rose from the circular table and stepped around it toward him.

  “You look happy,” he said.

  “I am. We’ve waited so long.”

  “Just ten years. Some of the lower alectors never receive permission, and I’m not exactly the highest of the high. It’s more because of you than me.”

  “It could be because you’ll be the next S
ubmarshal.”

  “That’s far from certain, and even a Submarshal is less than a high assistant.” Dainyl and Lystrana had talked over Tyanylt’s death—quietly and when no one else was around—but neither could think of a reason for his death except for what the marshal had suggested. Going against superiors was always dangerous, regardless of whether one was correct.

  “Why doesn’t matter.” Lystrana threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. She was almost as tall as he was, and her body melded with his. “You don’t care, do you?”

  “Of course, I care. I’ve been as impatient as you’ve been. I may not show it—”

  “Oh, no. That’s not what I meant.” She whispered in his ear. “A boy or a girl. That’s what I meant.” She leaned back slightly in his arms, her violet eyes intent on his face.

  Dainyl grinned, ruffling her shimmering black hair with one hand. “Whatever will be.”

  “You always know the right things to say, and you mean them.”

  He hoped that he did.

  “You need to eat.” She stepped out of his arms. “Your day starts earlier than mine.”

  They seated themselves across the table from each other. The early-morning sun was not yet above the courtyard walls, but at least there was no chill from the full-length glass panels between the pillars that showed the fountain and the garden beyond.

  Zistele appeared with a pot of steaming cider, pouring it into the crystal mug set on the table beside his place.

  “Thank you.” He liked the taste of ale better, but the heat of the cider was also welcome.

  Zistele nodded, refilled Lystrana’s mug, and stepped away. Sentya slipped a platter in front of him, one with egg toast perfectly golden and three slices of lean ham. Beside the platter on the left, she placed a small bowl of freshly sliced peaches. Then she withdrew to leave the couple alone.

  Lystrana had finished but half of her breakfast while waiting for him, and she took a sip of the hot cider.

  Dainyl ate several bites, then sipped his own cider before asking, “What does your day look like?”

  “Long.” Lystrana offered a rueful smile. “I was working on the accounts for the new coal mines north of Faitel, but now the bursar in Tempre has misplaced something like three thousand golds from the Lanachronan main administrative account.”

  “Misplaced… or stolen?”

  “Misplaced, most likely. He reported it long before anyone might have suspected, and the regional Alector of Justice has already determined he isn’t lying.”

  “Landers.” Dainyl snorted. “You’re lucky he’s not an indigen. They’re even less perceptive.”

  “That’s not always true, and we’re not supposed to call them that,” Lystrana reminded him.

  “It’s better than calling them steers, the way some do, just because they feed the lifeforce that we need.”

  “Careful, dearest. Even in the Views of the Highest, they’re both called steers. Kylana has pointed that out more than once.”

  “Even some alectors are steers in the way they think. The Views of the Highest suggests that, too,” Dainyl pointed out.

  “Kylana—and your marshal—would rather avoid thinking about that. She says that if it looks like a steer, acts like a steer, and talks like a steer, it is a steer.”

  “Alectors look the same, but we have varying levels of Talent, and that’s a big difference. Landers and indigens even look different, most of the time. Most landers are blond, and some even exhibit Talent. No indigen ever has.”

  “I think you’ve made your point. Again.”

  Dainyl laughed softly. “I should never forget that my wife is a brighter and more important personage than is this poor colonel.”

  “Poor Dainyl,” teased Lystrana. “You command hundreds, and you think yourself less than a wife who has but a small study adjoining the High Alector of Finance.”

  “A wife who knows where every gold in Coras lies,” he retorted humorously, “and probably every alector who collects interest on each. And I don’t command anyone directly.”

  “Most of the usury is by landers. You know that. They’re far more interested in golds than in power.”

  He did, but found it hard to believe, even if his eyes reminded him every day. The dwellings in the merchants’ quarters were far more opulent than those of most alectors. Even the Duarch’s Palace in Elcien and the various mansions of the Highests were comparatively modest, and they comprised but a fraction of the alectors’ quarter. Dainyl and Lystrana’s dwelling was modest, with but four bedcham-bers, one of which was a seldom used guest chamber, plus, of course, the lower-level servants’ quarters. They only had the two girls, while most successful merchanters had staffs of a half score or more.

  “You’ll have to go to Tempre, then? By Table?” he asked. “It’s important enough that you can miss the sentence of justice this afternoon?”

  “I was at the last one, in the spring, and the one before that,” Lystrana replied. “I don’t need to be reminded of what happens if we abuse power. You’ll be there for me.”

  “We provide the guard—and the pteridons. I’m not looking forward to it.” Dainyl had come to dread those times justice was laid down upon an alector, infrequent as they were.

  “I know.”

  “You’re fortunate you can use the Table,” he said, trying to change the subject.

  “Nothing else is practical. By sandoxes, it’s almost a week each way. Even if there were a Myrmidon courier headed there, it’s a day and a half each way by pteridon.” Lystrana smiled ruefully. “Besides, it’s occasionally useful to have an alector from Elcien appear immediately in response to a problem.”

  “You will be back tonight?”

  “You had plans for end day?”

  “I had thought we could hear the concert at the Palace on Novdi evening. Colonels and above, and their spouses, were invited. I’d thought you would have gotten your own—”

  “I did.” Lystrana smiled warmly. “I didn’t know if you wanted to go… and I didn’t want to say anything in case you didn’t.”

  Dainyl again marveled at his wife. “You could stay in Tempre tonight and come back midday tomorrow if you need more time. I didn’t mean…”

  “I know. But if I can’t find the missing golds in a day, it will take all the records and a week.” She sighed. “Even local translations are tiring, but I am glad for the Tables.”

  “Will that be a problem… later?”

  Lystrana shook her head. “Not while I’m pregnant. Afterward… I wouldn’t want to carry a child to most of the provincial centers—except Alustre… or Soupat, because it’s actually warm enough.”

  “Your Highest needs you too much. No one else has a better feel for the Duarchy’s accounts.”

  Lystrana smiled. “You’d best be going.”

  Dainyl swallowed the last of the cider and rose. “You’ll be late this evening?”

  “I wouldn’t think so.” Lystrana also stood. “Sentya! We’re finished here.”

  “Yes, Alectress.” Sentya appeared with a tray before Dainyl and Lystrana had left the sunroom.

  “She’s good, I have to say,” said Dainyl, following his wife upstairs to their chambers.

  “We pay her to be good.”

  Unspoken was the thought that, without the alectors of Ifryn, Sentya and all the landers and indigens would still be living in mud huts and scraping out a bare existence from a cold and barren land.

  Back upstairs in the dressing chamber, while Lystrana bathed, Dainyl hung the old and warm black tunic on the rack on his side of the chamber and donned his uniform trousers, dark gray, and his shimmercloth tunic, brilliant blue with dark gray piping. He adjusted the collar and fastened the gray officer’s belt in place. Next, he checked the crystal charge level in his sidearm—the standard light-cutter for a Myrmidon officer—then slipped it into the holster on the left side of the belt.

  Last came the gray gloves. Depending on how cool it was outside, he might actually
wear them. The ride to Myrmidon headquarters would warm him some, especially if the hacker stayed on the sunnier streets.

  4

  Many worlds have life, but on most, life remains little more than pond scum, lichens upon the side of a rock facing a cold sun, or tiny animalcules darting through stagnant waters, too unaware to comprehend danger, however dimly, and too limited for their offspring or their offspring’s offspring ever to rise from those waters to awareness and thence to aspirations and dreams to place a stamp upon an uncaring and indifferent universe.

  Upon that mere handful of worlds hosting life-forms that rise above a thin grasp of rock and water, two kinds of life exist—that which is aimless and that which is directed, either self-directed or directed from without. Long have there been those who claim that higher life is always directed from without, and that such guidance proceeds from a supreme being, a deity who shapes a world until intelligence emerges, then reveals the divine will to selected individuals.

  This is a most comforting belief, yet, like most unthinking beliefs that offer comfort, there is little in the universe to support it. The multiplicity of barren worlds, as well as the demonstrated failures of such “divine guidance” in our own long history, should disabuse all but the most misguided of the illusion of the involvement of a supreme being in the affairs of life and living beings.

  In fact, as the chronicles of hundreds of centuries demonstrate, life arises by chance and as it will. All too often higher life upon a world will arise, then vanish, at times leaving no record of its passing, at others, leaving ruins that suggest either poverty of spirit and aspiration or little of ei-ther, save procreation. Is then life a game of chance, a set of bone-dice rolling itself against the odds?

  Views of the Highest

  Illustra

  W.T. 1513

  5

  At a quarter past the second glass of the afternoon, Dainyl began his preparations for the administration of justice scheduled to begin at the third glass, preparations he had expected to make, but not oversee completely. When he had arrived that morning, he had learned that the marshal had left for Iron Stem, leaving Dainyl fully in command of a proceeding that was exceedingly distasteful. All Dainyl knew was that the Cadmian officer in charge there had sent an urgent dispatch. The marshal had left no instructions.