Alector's Choice (25 page)

The ranker had killed
the cot holder. There was no doubt about that, and there was little doubt that
Justicer Alveryt thought so as well. The fact that he had fled Dramuria after
committing one murder—and could not say where he had been—and that someone had
used Talent on the man’s thoughts to block those memories—that was far more
disturbing, because it meant either one of the highest of alec-tors was
involved, or that there was a highly Talented lander loose. Dainyl liked
neither of the possibilities. Still, he had to make a judgment on the facts
before him and to pass sentence.

“Polynt, please rise
and face your judgment.”

The trooper did. For
the first time, there was uncertainty and fear in his eyes.

Dainyl stood and
looked down at the trooper. “By the authority vested in me by the High Alector
of Justice, under the Code of the Duarches, and the regulations governing all
Cadmians, I hereby confirm that the accused has had the right to state his
case, and that all parties to the offense have been heard. The holder Casimyl of
Lecorya was shot and murdered on his own holding. This proceeding has
established beyond any doubt that you, Apolynt of Santazl, committed that
murder. For that murder, you will be flogged until dead. Your sentence will be
carried out one glass before sunset tonight.” Dainyl paused just briefly, then
added the ritual phrase. “Justice has been done; justice will be done. This
court-martial is hereby concluded.”

“No! I didn’t!”

Polynt started to
move, but before he took half a step, the Cadmian guards seized him. In
moments, his hands were bound, and a gag was across his mouth.

Dainyl noted that
Captain Mykel had been right there. He and his men had anticipated what Polynt
would do, and they had been ready. That was the mark of a good officer, but a
good lander officer who might discover his Talent was something else again. Yet
good officers were always hard to come by, and many who were potentially
Talented never did discover their Talent.

That meant that
Dainyl would be the one to watch Captain Mykel. There were no other alectors
near, and, equally important, after what he was discovering, whom else could he
trust?

Mykel stood facing
north in the Cadmian compound, third squad before him. The entire squad,
including Mykel, wore red armbands—the sign of blood shed wrongfully.

Chyndylt took one
step forward, then stiffened, and snapped, ‘Third squad, ready, sir!“

“Thank you, squad
leader. Stand fast.” Mykel about-faced, so that he looked directly at the
T-shaped flogging stand directly before him.

On the right of the
flogging stand was Majer Vaclyn. Beside it on the left waited a thick-thewed
figure in black wearing a black mask and cowl, and holding the execution whip,
with its razor-sharp barbs.

“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.

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 Mykel 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.

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.