Alector's Choice (6 page)

“And the two
pteridons at my disposal?”

“You may use them for
dispatches and for reconnaissance. I would prefer that, unless matters take an
unforeseen turn, the Cadmians deal with the matter.”

Dainyl was getting a
very chill feeling about his assignment.

“You may well
understand what is not said, Colonel. I would appreciate that understanding
remaining unspoken, even to your wife.”

“Yes, Highest.”

“Good. As Marshal
Shastylt may have told you, the Cadmians will be traveling on the Duarches’
Valor. They will leave Elcien on Septi and arrive in Dramuria no later than the
following Tridi. You will leave on Septi. That should give you enough time to
meet with the local Cadmian majer in Dramuria, the guild heads, and the council
chief in Dramuria—and the director of the mining operation.”

Dainyl nodded.

“If there is anything
else, you’ll know. As always, you must behave and act as if the highest of all
alectors are the Duarches.”

Why was the Highest
mentioning that now? It was an unspoken code, and breaking that code had led to
more than a few alectors’ deaths in the early years. Had someone let the secret
slip? Was that the source of the revolt?

“Enjoy your time away
from Elcien.” The Highest nodded to dismiss Dainyl.

The colonel half
bowed, took a pace backward, and gave a last bow before turning and making his
way back to the stairs.

As he climbed the
steps and crossed the halls, more than a few thoughts swirled through Dainyl’s
mind. From what had been said, and not said, conditions on Ifryn were becoming
even less favorable far earlier than anticipated. Dainyl suspected that the
lifeforce mass there was declining precipitously. That, in turn, meant that the
Duarches of Acorus were being pressed to build lifeforce more quickly. More
coal would have helped, as would more of the fertile bat dung from Dramur.
Instead, there was less of each, and using the pteridons would only draw more
heavily on the world’s reserves. The Highest was planning to use Cadmian lives,
if necessary, to reduce such a drawdown.

Dainyl would have
preferred to talk over his suspicions with Lystrana, but the Highest might well
learn if he did— and that was not something Dainyl was about to chance, not
after all the tens of years it had taken him to become a colonel of Myrmidons
on Corus—and certainly not after what had befallen the Submarshal.

He was also aware
that his assignment was a cross between a test and an opportunity and that the
Highest did not wish him to have the advantage of Lystrana’s knowledge and
wisdom.

He walked down the
stone steps from the Hall of Justice to the waiting duty coach.

After muster on Duadi,
Mykel conducted a gear inspection before returning to his study in the
headquarters building. There, he took out the folders he had found
earlier—those of the two rankers in his company from Dramur—Polynt from third
squad and Chelosyr from fifth squad. After taking a last look through the
folders, he wrote up three more of the individual training reports as he waited
for Bhoral and the two rankers.

Then there was a
knock on the door. “Sir?”

“Come on in.” Mykel
stacked his papers, stood, and watched as the senior squad leader ushered the
two rankers into the study, closing the door after them.

Polynt was tall,
angular, blond—and looked even younger than Mykel’s brother Viencet. Chelosyr
wasn’t that much shorter than Polynt, but he was brown-haired, square-faced,
stocky, and muscular, and seemed almost squat in comparison.

“You both know that
we’re headed to Dramur.” Mykel studied the two.

Polynt moistened his
lips, while the slightest hint of a smile hid in Chelosyr’s eyes.

“Your records show
that you’re both from there. Is that right?”

“Yes, sir.” The
responses were almost simultaneous.

‘Tell me about the
mines there.“

Polynt looked at
Chelosyr.

The older and more
muscular ranker shrugged, then looked at Mykel. “That’s one reason why I signed
up with the Cadmians, sir. Maybe, it just mighta been me, but always seemed to
me that when they got short of miners, lots of fellows all of a sudden got
caught doing things they said they hadn’t and ended up serving terms in the
mines. Fellows like me, younger sons of smallholders, folks who don’t have a
craft or much coin. Figured that I’d get a better deal in the Cadmians, and
couldn’t get much worse than staying in the shambles outside Dramuria. ‘Sides,
don’t care what they say, that bat dung really stinks.”

“How did they get
short of miners?”

“Miners die. Knew of
a couple got buried. Others got sick. Some couldn’t take it and ran for the
high mountains and the jungles. Guards got most of them—-killed ‘em—but some
always got away. Not much of a life there, either, always looking over your
shoulder.”

“The ones who got
away—did any of them get hold of rifles or weapons?”

“Don’t know, sir.
Never knew any, just heard stories.”

Chelosyr knew more
than that, but Mykel looked to Polynt. “What can you add?”

Polynt glanced from
Chelosyr to Bhoral, then to the captain. Finally, he began, his voice low.
“Heard tell… just heard, sir… could be that there’s someplace worse than the
mines. Couldn’t think what it’d be. Dust… there’s dust everywhere. Stinks,
worse’n you can imagine. Takes years for the smell to leave anyone lucky enough
to live through a term there. Guards there, they got whips with iron tips,
leave a man’s back wide open with one lash. Then the nightwasps get in the
wounds. Hurts and itches so bad men’ll throw themselves downshaft…”

Mykel had suspected
something of the sort, but suspecting and hearing were not the same. He waited
until Polynt finished before asking, “What’s Dramuria like?”

Again, Polynt
deferred to Chelosyr.

“Sort of like a
cleaner version of Northa, except it’s got some big houses on the hills, and
it’s a port… ships that carry out the bat dung, they bring back iron stuff, and
tin and stuff that won’t hold the stink. Other ships, they bring in cloth and
regular cheese, wines…”

“Cheese?” asked
Mykel.

“No milk cows on
Dramuria, sir. Nightwasps bite ‘em, and they waste away. That’s what they say.
Some half tame aurochs for meat.”

“… Won’t let folks
burn out the nightwasps, either,” added Polynt. “That’s ‘cause they got a real
sweet honey the factors make into a special drink, some kind of honey brandy.”

Mykel kept asking
questions. In the end, he didn’t learn that much more.

Once the two rankers
had left, Mykel turned to the senior squad leader. “Anything else I should
know?”

“I’m having Fessyt
keep a close eye on Kalosyr until we’re embarked.”

“Woman trouble?”

“The idiot married a
former pleasure girl from Northa. He says she’s a former pleasure girl. I think
she still is. She’s betting he’ll get it in Dramuria, and she’ll get his back
pay.”

“How many others has
she married?” asked Mykel dryly.

“Who knows? If he
comes back, she’ll have the marriage canceled on some pretext. If he doesn’t…”
Bhoral shook his head. “At least, he’s not a squad leader with more than ten
years in. This way, if it comes to that, there’s no widow’s settlement.”

“What else?”

“We’re short two
mounts for replacements, but we should have them by Quinti…”

After Bhoral left
another half glass later, Mykel stood, then left his study. He walked down the
corridor, pausing outside the last doorway on the north end. He pressed down on
the lever, opened the door, and stepped inside. The head-quarters library
wasn’t that large, a room three yards by five with shelves against all the
walls and a set of back-to-back bookcases in the middle of the room.

After searching
through the shelves, he finally found a thin volume with a lacquered cover,
entitled Geography of Acorus.

It took him a quarter
of a glass to find the section on Dramur, and less than half that to read
through it. There were no maps of the isle, and only a paragraph or so
describing it.

… The isle runs close
to five hundred vingts from the northern tip to the southern cape, but is no
more than a hundred and fifty vingts at its widest. The MurianMountains run
down the center of the isle, extending from the northern headlands to
MountDramanat, a volcano located some fifty vingts north of the southern cape.
The mountains are rugged, their rock unstable, and have never been fully
explored. The principal products of Dramur are guano and dyestuffs from
shellfish, which come from the eastern side of the isle. Although the lands to
the west of the mountains are fertile and suited to a number of crops, the main
product is shimmersilk, from the golden spinning spider. The only sizable town
or city is Dramuria, located on a natural harbor on the southeast side of the
isle some seventy vingts north of the southern cape… less than half a score of
other towns and no more than a score of villages and hamlets…

Mykel blinked. That
was it. There was more about mere towns elsewhere, such as Hyalt in Lanachrona,
than about an entire isle.

He shook his head. As
usual, the books hadn’t been much help.

In the dim light of
the sitting room on the main floor of the house, Dainyl took a last sip of the
brandy, then set the small goblet on the side table. “It’s not bad.” He
stretched, lifting his long legs just off the green carpet, then let himself
settle back into the armchair whose legs would have been too long for all but
the tallest landers. “The landers do make good brandy.”

“In addition to
boosting the lifeforce of Acorus, you mean?” asked Lystrana.

“Someone has to.
Although we need it, we certainly can’t generate enough to sustain us.”

“That’s what the
landers and indigens are for.”

“And for making Acorus
a better place for us.” Dainyl picked up the goblet and took another sip. “It
is good.”

“Better than good,
actually,” replied Lystrana, “although Kylana is always claiming that
everything here is second-rate compared to Ifryn.”

“She might know. We
were born here. She’s one of the few recent translations who supposedly held a
position of import in Illustra.”

“Supposedly?”
Lystrana laughed. “You mean that you have your doubts about Kylana?”

“No more than about
her husband. He knows far more than he ever lets on. I wish I dared ask him
about Tyanylt, but that wouldn’t be wise.”

“No, dearest, it
would not be. Unlike the Duarchs, he does not have a loyalty imprint, but he
would still report that.”

Dainyl wouldn’t have
minded Zestafyn or the Duarch knowing some of the details of what had happened,
but not his involuntary involvement. “Kylana bothers me. She’s like all the
others who’ve translated here recently. If it’s not from Ifryn or if it hasn’t
been praised as the best in Illustra, then it must not be very good. Against
that,, how can we compare?”

“We can’t, but there
aren’t more than a few translations every year.”

“No. Ifryn’s
comfortable, and no one wants to take the risks—not until they don’t have any
choices.”

“Of course. That’s
why the fieldmasters developed shadow matches. So they could imprint knowledge
without the risks of leaving Ifryn and its comforts.”

“They don’t always
take. Even when they do… I don’t think I’d want to be either of the Duarchs,”
mused Dainyl. “Why would anyone want to have to have a partial shadow match?”

“You don’t want power
enough, dearest. They are those with great Talent who wish to be duarch, and
who aspire to being Archon one day if the master scepter comes to Acorus, and
they must have some check imposed on them to ensure their loyalty.”

Dainyl snorted.
“Shadow matches, loyalty imprints… all that misses the point.”

Lystrana laughed.
“What point? I don’t think you made it.”

“My point was going
to be”—Dainyl paused and raised his eyebrows dramatically—“comparisons are dangerous.
We know that translation changes appearance. Does it affect taste? Smell? How
would we know? If things smell the same, is that because they do, or because a
translated body senses smells relative to the new world?”

Lystrana held her
glass, sniffing the brandy. “There isn’t a good answer to that. It’s
subjective, and I’d subjectively say that this brandy is better than any we’ve
had before. That shows improvement. Besides, we’re still Ifryn, even if we’re
here. Until we have the master scepter here, we’re still linked to Ifryn and
the Tables.”

Dainyl stretched
again, stifling a yawn. “I suppose we’d better get some sleep…”

Lystrana straightened
in her chair, but made no move to rise. “You’re leaving tomorrow, and you
haven’t said much about your assignment. Are you fretting about it? It’s not
like you to be so quiet.” Her eyes did not leave Dainyl’s.

“There isn’t much to
say. I’ve told you what I know.” He shrugged. ‘The Cadmian Third Battalion is
being posted to Dramur. I’m being assigned to observe and report. That’s one of
the occasional assignments that fall to colonels, especially those acting as
Submarshals.“

Lystrana laughed.
“And the marshal wants to see just what you can do without him or me looking
over your shoulder.”

Dainyl grinned.
“Marshal Shastylt never said anything like that.” The Highest had, but he
didn’t have to tell Lystrana that. “What I don’t understand is why, if they
want to observe what I do, they’re sending me to Dramur. The Highest can use a
Table to look anywhere, but the Tables don’t show alectors or anyone using
Talent. So how can they observe what I’m doing, unless they have another
alec-tor there?”

“You’re not known to
have much Talent, not beyond strong shields and flying,” Lystrana said.
“Usually, when alectors are given observation assignments, they choose those
known to be Talented.”

Dainyl had thought
about that. “That suggests that they don’t think I could detect another
observer? Or does the marshal wish to see if common sense can replace Talent?”

Lystrana raised a single
eyebrow, and Dainyl raised both. He couldn’t do just one, the way she could.
They understood each other perfectly.

After a moment of
silence, Lystrana asked, “Did you know that payments for the guano have dropped
off in the last weeks, but those for the purple dyes haven’t?”

“No, I didn’t.” He
could have guessed about the guano, with what he did know, but he hadn’t
thought about the comparison between guano and dyestuffs. “Who pays for the
guano?”

“Generally, the
agricultural factors in Southgate, Tem-pre, and Borlan. They resell it to the
lander growers. By using mals to mine it, the Duarches are effectively
subsidizing the final prices.” Lystrana did not quite look at her husband.
“That’s another way of subsidizing the growth of lifeforce mass. The more crops
that are grown, the more they warm the world. It’s not that simple, but it does
work that way.”

Dainyl knew he had to
be careful, but he didn’t see that talking about lifeforce mass would violate
the Highest’s orders. “Is there any relation between the amount of guano used
and the increase in higher lifeforce generated?”

“There has to be, but
I don’t know what it is. Those at Lyterna would know. That’s what they study,
or part of it. Everything ties together. That’s why we’ve pushed things like
coal mining. Burning the coal helps warm the air, and in time those vapors and
particulates help stimulate plant growth. Using coal also means that fewer
trees are cut, and the older growth trees also boost lifemass more than newer
growth. The landers still don’t understand that replanting isn’t the same, not
for centuries. The same is true for iron and steel, and stone and brick. The
more structures that are built of those, the less wood that is used, and that
is more important over time, because stone structures last longer.” She laughed
apologetically. “I wouldn’t even try to estimate how guano production and
lifeforce mass growth might relate, except that lifeforce is like a pyramid. It
takes a broad base of lower lifeforce to support a narrower base of a higher
level, and that supports a narrower base above that…”

“And we’re at the top
of the pyramid, siphoning off the lifeforce that helps support us.”

“So far as we know,”
Lystrana replied. “How would we recognize something higher?”

That was a good
question, one for which Dainyl didn’t have an answer. “Would we want to
recognize something superior? Or would we be like Kylana, always insisting that
whatever it was that was labeled good in Illustra was the best?”

“Be careful. Her
husband does have the Duarch’s ear.”

“And I have yours,
which is even better.” Dainyl rose from the chair, smiling and moving toward
his wife, then extending a hand.

Lystrana took it,
although she did not need it.