The Chosen

Gerta looked over at the villagers. It was extremely tempting, the thought of simply herding them all into the church and setting it on fire. Perhaps that would be the best policy: just kill off the Empire's population and fill up the waste space with the natural increase of the Land's Proteges. But no. Behfel ist behfel. That would be far too slow, no telling what the other powers would get up to in the meantime. Besides, it was the destiny of the Chosen to rule all the rest of humankind; first here on Visager, ultimately throughout the universe, for all time. Genocide would be a confession of failure, in that sense.

'No doubt the ancestors of our Proteges were just as unruly,' the infantry lieutenant said thoughtfully. 'However, we domesticated them quite successfully.'

'Indeed.' Although we had three centuries of isolation for that, and even so I sometimes have my doubts. 'Carry on, then.'

'What would you suggest, Hauptmann?'

Gerta blinked against the harsh sunlight. 'Have you been in garrison here long?'

'Just arrived-the area was lightly swept six months ago, but nobody's been here since.'

She nodded; the Empire was so damned big, after the strait confines of the Land. Maps just didn't convey the reality of it, not the way marching or flying across it did.

'Well, then. . let your troopers make a selection of the females and have a few hours' recreation. Have the rest of the herd watch. From reports, this is an effective punishment of intermediate severity.'

'It is?' The lieutenant's brows rose in puzzlement.

'Animal psychology,' Gerta said, drawing herself up and saluting.

'Jawohl. Zum behfel, Hauptman. I will see to it.'

Gerta watched him stride off and then vaulted into her waiting steamcar, one hand on the rollbar.

'West,' she said to the driver.

The long dusty road stretched out before her, monotonous with rolling hills. Fields of wheat and barley and maize-the corn was tasseling out, the small grains long cut to stubble-and pasture, with every so often a woodlot or orchard, every so often a white-walled village beside a small stream. Dust began to plume up as the driver let out the throttle, and she pulled her neckerchief up over her nose and mouth. The car was coated with the dust and smelled of the peppery-earthy stuff, along with the strong horse-sweat odor of the two Protege riflemen she had along for escort.

Wealth, I suppose, she thought, looking at the countryside she was surveying for her preliminary report. Warm and fertile and sufficiently well-watered, without the Land's problems of leached soil and erosion and tropical insects and blights. Room for the Chosen to grow.

'We're in the situation of the python that swallowed the pig,' she muttered to herself. 'Just a matter of time, but uncomfortable in the interval.' That was the optimistic interpretation.

Sometimes she thought it was more like the flies who'd conquered the flypaper.

* * *

'Mama!'

Young Maurice Hosten stumped across the grass of the lawn on uncertain eighteen-month legs. Pia Hosten waited, crouching and smiling, the long gauzy white skirts spread about her, and a floppy, flower-crowned hat held down with one hand.

'Mama!'

Pia scooped the child up, laughing. John smiled and turned away, back toward the view over the terrace and gardens. Beyond the fence was what had been a sheep pasture, when this house near Ensburg was the headquarters for a ranch. Ensburg had grown since the Civil War, grown into a manufacturing city of half a million souls; most of the ranch had been split up into market gardens and dairy farms as the outskirts approached, and the old manor had become an industrialists weekend retreat. It still was, the main change being that the owner was John Hosten. . and that he used it for more than recreation.

'Come on, everybody,' he said.

The party picked up their drinks and walked down toward the fence. It was a mild spring afternoon, just warm enough for shirtsleeves but not enough to make the tailcoats and cravats some of the guests wore uncomfortable. They found places along the white-painted boards, in clumps and groups between the beech trees planted along it. Out in the close-cropped meadow stood a contraption built of wire and canvas and wood, two wings and a canard ahead of them, all resting on a tricycle undercarriage of spoked wheels. A man sat between the wings, his hands and feet on the controls, while two more stood behind on the ground with their hands on the pusher-prop attached to the little radial engine.

'For your sake I hope this works, son,' Maurice Farr said sotto voce, as he came up beside John. He took a sip at his wine seltzer and smoothed back his graying mustache with his forefinger.

'You don't think this is actually the first trial, do you, Dad?' John said with a quiet smile.

The ex-commodore-he had an admiral's stars and anchors on his epaulets now-laughed and slapped John on the shoulder. 'I'm no longer puzzled at how you became that rich that quickly,' he said.

If you only knew, Dad, John thought.

wind currents are now optimum, Center hinted.

'Go!' John called.

'Contact!' Jeffrey said from the pilots seat, lowering the goggles from the brow of his leather helmet to his eyes. The long silk scarf around his neck fluttered in the breeze.

The two workers spun the prop. The engine cracked, sputtered, and settled to a buzzing roar. Prop-wash fluttered the clothes of the spectators, and a few of the ladies lost their hats. Men leaped after them, and everyone shaded their eyes against flung grit. Jeffrey shouted again, inaudible at this distance over the noise of the engine, and the two helpers pulled blocks from in front of the undercarriage wheels. The little craft began to accelerate into the wind, slowly at first, with the two men holding on to each wing and trotting alongside, then spurting ahead as they released it. The wheels flexed and bounced over slight irregularities in the ground.

Despite everything, John found himself holding his breath as they hit one last bump and stayed up. . six inches over the turf. . eight. . five feet and rising. He let the breath out with a sigh. The plane soared, banking slowly and gracefully and climbing in a wide spiral until it was five hundred feet over the crowd. Voices and arms were raised, a murmured ahhhh.

The two men who'd assisted at the takeoff came over to the fence. John blinked away the vision overlaid on his own of the earth opening out below and people and buildings dwindling to doll-size.

'Father, Edgar and William Wong, the inventors,' he said. 'Fellows, my father-Admiral Farr.'

'Sir,' Edgar said, as they shook his hand. 'Your son's far too kind. Half the ideas were his, at least, as well as all the money.'

His brother shook his head. 'We'd still be fiddling around with warping the wing for control if John hadn't suggested moveable ailerons,' he said. 'And gotten a better chord ratio on the wings. He's quite a head for math, sir.'

Maurice Farr smiled acknowledgment without taking his eyes from where his son flew above their heads. The steady droning of the engine buzzed down, like a giant bee.

'It works,' he said softly. 'Well, well.'

'Damned toy,' a new voice said.

John turned with a diplomatic bow. General McWriter probably wouldn't have come except for John's wealth and political influence. He stared at the machine and tugged at a white walrus mustache that cut across the boiled- lobster complexion. . or that might be the tight collar of his brown uniform tunic.

'Damned toy,' he said again. 'Another thing for the bloody politicians'-there were ladies present, and you could hear the slight hesitation before the mild expletive as the general remembered it-'to waste money on, when we need every penny for real weapons.'

'The Chosen found aerial reconnaissance extremely useful in the Empire,' he said mildly, turning the uniform cap in his fingers.

McWriter grunted. 'Perhaps. According to young Farr's reports.'

'According to all reports, General. Including those of my own service, and the Ministry.'

The general's grunt showed what he thought of reports from sailors, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs'