Soarers Choice (42 page)

A
lightcutter beam flared over his head, reminding him that there were weapons
that could be used against him. He peered around the side of the boulder and
caught a glimpse of a gray and green uniform behind an embrasure on the second
level. Lifting his own lightcutter, he fired, adding a touch of
Talent-direction. Then he sprinted for the next boulder, one a few yards short
of the eastern wall of the building.

Crouching
there, he caught his breath, still holding his shields, and began to extend a
Talent probe into the building.

There
had to be some sort of Talent link between the lightcannon and the Table.
Otherwise, the lifeforce demands would have killed everyone in the buildings.
He probed farther, almost at the limit of his Talent, before he discovered a
node, or something like a lifeforce reservoir. There was a Talent “valve”
between it and the lightcannon.

Dainyl
nodded. Now... if he could use his Talent to “open” that valve full and let all
that force out at once, it should overload the control systems of the lightcannon.
Without the lightcannon operating, even if Dainyl had to accompany every pass,
the Myrmidons could come close enough to destroy the building at will, and in
less than a day.

He
fumbled, seeking the tiny Talent links that had to hold the “valve” together.

Another
lightcutter beam splashed against the stone above him.

His
forehead and neck felt damp, and he realized he was sweating. Alectors seldom
did. Dainyl couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Then,
he discovered the key link, and Talent-twisted. The lifeforce reservoir
collapsed, and all the compressed and stored lifeforce flooded through the link
to the lightcannon.

Dainyl
could feel the explosive force building and wedged himself between the
foundation and two large boulders.

The
entire structure shuddered, and stones and rocks began to rain down everywhere
around the building. Even more ominous, Dainyl could sense a void, a deep
pinkish purpleness that began to suck lifeforce. He reinforced his own Talent
shields, hoping they would hold against the void.

The
ground trembled, then shuddered with the impact of more stone and sections of
the building cascading down. Dainyl huddled under stone and his own shields,
hoping both held against the explosions and the seeking hunger of the lifeforce
void.

Struggling
to hold his shields and his mind, he closed his eyes, but his Talent told him
of each alector who died, one after the other, scores of them, if not more, as
the void he had inadvertently released sucked the very life out of all those in
the structure beside him. The sucking dark pinkness pressed against his
shields, gnawing, trying to erode his defenses.

Abruptly,
another, far larger explosion shook the ground, and more stones cascaded
everywhere. Dainyl felt his whole body being bruised from the impacts on his
shields, but the life-seeking void was gone. Dainyl had no
i.e.
what it had been, except that it had been some sort of feedback from or
reaction to the destruction of the lifeforce reservoir.

He
wanted to shake his head. If such weapons had been used on Ifryn, no wonder
people were trying to escape. No wonder the world had exhausted its lifeforce
far earlier than projected. And the Archon had allowed — or not halted — such
weapons?

After
several moments, slowly, he began to climb out of his protected position,
careful not to touch or dislodge any stones that might fall. His shields were
shredded, and his entire body was trembling. When he stood clear of the
enormous rubble pile, he sat down on one of the smaller boulders and forced
himself to use what Talent remained to him.

Deep
in the pile of stone beside him, he could still sense the Table. He sensed no
other lifeforce at all. None. In places, amid the stone, the afternoon light
glinted on shimmersilk tunics of green and gray, empty shimmersilk tunics.

He
rose to his feet, stiffly, and began to move away from the ruined structures.

He
had walked a quarter of a vingt before a pteridon appeared and flared to a
landing before him. From her harness on the pteridon’s neck, Lyzetta looked
down at him. “Marshal, sir? Are you all right?”

Was
he all right?

What
an inane question, although she could not have known that. All right, when what
he had done had just extinguished the lives and hopes of hundreds of alectors,
people who had been caught in forces beyond their control and who had merely
wanted to survive? He couldn’t even claim that he was like them, not after what
he had done.

“Sir?”

“I’m
in one piece, Captain. Thank you.” He cleared his throat of some of the sand
and dust that he had not realized coated it. “All the refugees are dead. All
those who were in the complex anyway. Some might have escaped during all the
attacks, but there won’t be many, and there’s little point in trying to find
them.”

“They’re...
all dead?”

“That
lightcannon was a lifeforce weapon. When it exploded, the backlash sucked the
life out of everyone in the building. I barely escaped, and that was because I
was outside, and it didn’t last any longer.”

“That’s
... a lifeforce weapon?”

Dainyl
nodded slowly. “That’s where it got its power. That’s why we had to destroy it.
If they’d kept using it...”

This
time Lyzetta nodded. “You’d better climb up, Marshal. You look like you might
fall over.”

Dainyl
wasn’t that exhausted ... except inside.

Dainyl
and First Company were up before dawn on Tridi, preparing for the long return
flight to Elcien. Dainyl would have preferred to have given the company a day
of rest, but he’d been out of touch too long. Had any true disaster occurred,
Zernylta would have dispatched one of the Myrmidons from Seventh Company, but
that didn’t mean that one wasn’t about to occur. If it hadn’t, First Company
could have at least Quattri off.

Dainyl
stood in the dimness outside the patroller barracks, facing Alcyna. “You should
be able to finish up here today. You know what to do.”

“Use
Seventh Company to pile enough rocks on everything that even if anyone could
use the Table — assuming it’s still in operation — there’s no way for them to
get out.”

“The
Table’s still in operation. With the number of long translations it’s accepted
recently, if it had failed, there would have been a much, much larger
explosion.”

“How
will you explain closing off use of a Table to the High Alector and the
Duarches?”

“As
the only alternative when the Archon is allowing lifeforce-destroying
lightcannon to be translated here. Do you see any way we could have taken the
Table without even greater losses?”

Alcyna
met his eyes. “Sir, I still don’t see any other way that anyone could have
taken the Table against those weapons without destroying most of the lifeforce
balance on Acorus, if not even more.”

“If
we’d fought them with the same kind of weapons, the result would have been
disaster,” agreed Dainyl.

“Neither
Zelyert nor the Duarches will wish to hear that.”

Dainyl
didn’t want to dwell on that. “Tomorrow morning, fly back to Tempre with
Seventh Company and use the Table there to translate back to Elcien as soon as
you can.”

“Yes,
sir.” She paused. “What do you think will happen now?”

“Brekylt
will find some reason to provoke a break with the Duarches. Khelaryt won’t wish
to accept it. I have no
i.e.
what Samist will do.”

“If
he can’t bring down Khelaryt, he’ll ally himself with Brekylt and try to take over
all Coras from the east.”

That
sounded all too likely, but Dainyl didn’t say so. “I’d better get moving. It’s
a long flight.”

“I’d
suggest giving Ludar a wide berth, sir.”

“We
definitely will.” With a nod to Alcyna, Dainyl turned and hurried across the
sandy space that held six fewer pteridons than it had three days earlier. Six
irreplaceable pteridons, more than twenty percent of the force he had brought
to Soupat. He climbed into the harness behind Halya.

“Ready,
sir?” she asked after he finished strapping himself in place.

“Anytime.”

“First
Company! Lift off! By squads!” ordered Ghasylt.

The
pteridon eased off the ground, rather than exploding into the air, another sign
that the Talent creatures were as weary as the Myrmidons who flew them.

As
they flew past the ruins of the regional alector’s complex, Dainyl took in the
destruction, the three piles of rubble in which more than a hundred alectors
had died, possibly nearer two hundred, all of whom had died either at his hand
or through his orders.

Yet...
with their use of a weapon like the heavy lightcannon, and their willingness to
flood Acorus with more alectors than it could support... what else could he
have done?

The
fact that he could find no answer did not help the way he felt.

All
too often, both less perceptive alectors and the vast majority of steers
consider the ideal ruler or administrator to be a paternal figure, one steeped
in care and love, and one who shows benevolence toward all under his
administration. Such an idealization of a ruler is mere wish-fulfillment, for a
“good” father is one who will do all that he can to ensure the survival of all
of his offspring. A good father has sufficient offspring to assure his heritage
is carried on unto the generations. And a good father will place his offspring
above the needs of the offspring of others and of a society as a whole. Thus, a
society comprised of “good” fathers will in fact populate itself into a crisis
of insufficient resources and a shortage of lifeforce.

A
ruler who follows the tenets of such a “good” father will doom his people to
destruction. Yet, any ruler who states that too many offspring are not in the
interest of all or who acts directly to assure that there are not too many
mouths to feed will find those under his rule becoming angry and rebellious.
Any ruler who would openly choose who can breed and who cannot will find
himself needing to muster and apply more and more force to his people with each
passing year until his rule collapses from lack of advancement and investment
or from outright rebellion.

What
is to be done, then?

The
wise ruler advises and admonishes quietly, but does not apply force directly in
attempting to reduce the number of offspring, whether of alectors or steers.
Because he controls privilege and position for alectors, he can limit their
numbers to some degree, but that will prove insufficient over time, because few
alectors perish from natural causes.

Thus,
he prepares his chosen cadre and sequesters resources for the time when all
will collapse into anarchy, assuring each and every alector that each is indeed
part of that cadre, but keeping the actual cadre far smaller and known only to
himself until the proper time has come when he must allow to perish those who
were so unwise as to breed themselves into death.

Then,
once more, he must begin anew, always preparing for the inevitable overbreeding
and the collapse that will indeed follow....

—
Views of the Highest Illustra W.T. 1513

The
three squads of First Company with Dainyl had flown tiredly into Elcien just
after sunset on Tridi, and Dainyl had dismissed them, putting them on flight
rest for both Quattri and Quinti. He had spent three glasses drafting his
report to Zelyert, and then retired to the house that felt so empty without
Lystrana. He’d even been exhausted enough to sleep most of the night
dreamlessly. Most of the night. He still woke before dawn.

A
half glass before morning muster at Myrmidon headquarters, he appeared at the
Hall of Justice. Zelyert was not there, but at an early meeting with Duarch
Khelaryt. Since the High Alector was expected within a glass, Dainyl sought out
Chastyl, to see what the Recorder of Deeds might be able to tell him.

He
found Chastyl in the Table chamber.

“Marshal!
Can you tell me — “

Dainyl
gestured for Chastyl to join him outside.

“I
don’t know that I should leave the Table chamber, Marshal,” protested the
recorder, glancing around the room at the five guards armed with Iightcutters,
all watching the Table.

“A
few moments won’t matter. If you like, we can retire to the foyer. It’s early
enough that we’re unlikely to be disturbed.”

“The
foyer... ah, yes, that’s close enough.” Chastyl’s face was drawn, and the
circles beneath his eyes were darker than ever.

“Exactly
what has been happening with the Tables?” asked Dainyl when the two were alone,
at least for the moment, in the small foyer between the corridor and the Table
chamber.

“We’ve
been getting more long translations. Too many, and most of them were in
uniforms and armed. There have been fewer yesterday and today. I don’t know
why. Perhaps you do.”

“Can
you tell which Tables were receiving them?”

Chastyl
shook his head. “We can tell which Tables are operating, and with their energy
levels, we can guess.”

“I’ll
be reporting to the High Alector when he returns. Soupat Table is sealed off,
but still operating.”

“Sealed
off?”

“We
brought the buildings down around it, and a weapon backlash wiped out the
rebels holding it. There’s so much stone and rubble over the Table that I’d be
surprised if anyone can even enter the Table chamber, by translation or
otherwise. They certainly won’t be able to leave it.”

Chastyl
shook his head once more. “I had wondered... when the translations dropped off.
There was also a huge surge of some sort of energy.”