The Sword and the Plough Read online

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” Caroline asked.

  “No miss, I’ve got to get home – to the prison.”

  “But couldn’t you get away with us – tonight?” Lars queried.

  Old Seth shook his head. “That would give the game away and blow the whole thing sky high,” he said. “Prison life’s not too bad, you know, not with a bit of freedom like this now and then. Still,” he added wistfully, staring up at the stars, “I miss not being out there at times. Life’s too short to miss out on such ecstasy.”

  “The queen will reward you handsomely for what you have done for us, I promise you,” Caroline said quietly.

  “I know, miss,” he answered softly. But strangely, Lars noticed, it did not seem that the thought pleased him.

  Caroline put her arms round the old man and hugged him. Her hazel eyes were shiny with tears.

  Lars put out his hand, but Old Seth wrapped him in a hug, too.

  “Now off you go. Curfew’s a little over an hour away and you’ll have to be airborne by then. Good luck, my friends. May you be in time to save our sweet queen Bess from Megran’s tyrant.”

  The old man raised his hand in farewell as the little cab whirred away from the kerb into the night.

  Above, the Megran sky had reached its final shade of midnight blue and adorned itself with the silver splendor of the stars.

  “Light speed!” Old Seth called out to the empty dark.

  * * *

  The queen’s secretary, Cecil, sat hunched at his desk. His desk lamp was the sole lighting in the basement room, an island of light in a sea of shadows. His black velvet jacket had sunk in the gloom. Only his white shirt and red bow tie were clearly visible. His face, half-seen, half-unseen, wore a worried expression. He was engaged in a serious conversation with the life-like hologram of an attractive young woman. The 3D image had dark hair, and was clad in the scantiest of clothing. A pair of high-heeled gold slippers adorned her feet. She paraded one provocative pose after another as she spoke.

  The hologram was the royal computer’s latest manifestation; its most successful materialisation to date.

  The man shook his head at the image’s latest pronouncement.

  “Operation Valkyrie? What does that mean, Mata Hari?” he asked. His blue eyes were puzzled.

  The dark hair shook. “Nothing Cecil,” the hologram replied. “That is all there was.”

  “And everything else in the Megran government computer was correct and in accordance with the queen’s laws?” the man queried further.

  “Perfectly correct, Cecil, as are they all throughout the Commonwealth.” The image pirouetted gracefully round on the tips of its gold slippers.

  “But it must mean something, Mata Hari,” the man persisted. He frowned. “Operation Valkyrie,” he repeated. “It sounds like a code name for something. Could the details of the operation have been deleted?”

  “Then it did exist, but is no longer existent, Cecil,” the computer image replied. The image swayed forward and puckered a seductive red-lipped kiss.

  “But what if it were deleted, because whatever it was, is now in operation, and a record of it no longer needed?” the man continued, asserting his logic as precisely as he could.

  “Then I would have found the implementation of the operation,” the hologram explained patiently, and there is nothing functioning called Operation Valkyrie.”

  The image smiled to show even white teeth. “Be assured, Cecil, I have discovered all there is to discover.”

  The queen’s secretary stood and took a few steps to observe the image more closely. The hologram was almost perfect, real in every way, except for the one or two places he could see through.

  “But what if it is being kept a secret?” the queen’s secretary persevered. “What if…?”

  “A secret must still exist, Cecil,” the computer responded. Condescension had now entered its tone. “I have found Operation Valkyrie, therefore it is not a secret. I have found everything there is to find, and nothing exists save the name.”

  The man shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mata Hari, but I fear your logic and mine do not agree. I think it is imperative that I inform Her Majesty of Operation Valkyrie right away.”

  The image shrugged. “You will be informing the queen of nothing but the name of something that does not exist,” it warned.

  “Perhaps, Mata Hari – perhaps,” the man agreed with a nod. “But then again, perhaps that is exactly why I should inform Her Majesty.”

  It was rare for Cecil to leave his basement command centre; he had become the quintessential hermit. But this day he did. He picked up his walking sticks and scurried away to seek an audience with his queen.

  The scantily clad image froze on one toe, poised in the middle of another pirouette as it watched him depart. It shook its head disbelievingly, its dark hair swirling.

  “Human reasoning makes no sense,” Mata Hari’s likeness muttered.

  Chapter 24

  In Megran orbit

  Lars stood and peered out through the shuttlecraft’s porthole. “Nothing much to see,” he muttered. “It’s still night out there.”

  They were huddled in the tiny, double bunk cabin of a small, silvery, delta-winged vessel moored under a larger vessel in Megran orbit, 200 kilometres above the skies. There were no lights on in the cabin. Their pilot did not want his guests’ presence known. It had been almost pitch black for most of the trip, though their eyes had adjusted to see the vaguest forms of their surroundings by starlight.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Caroline’s voice answered from behind him. “Jeremiah will call us when it’s safe to go up onto the flight deck.”

  Lars sat down again on the narrow bunk beside Caroline. The young woman squeezed over to make room. Her thigh pressed warm against his. He had known her now for six whole days. For almost as long, he had cherished romantic thoughts about her. But he knew this was foolish. She was the Lady Caroline, next in line to the throne. One day, when all this was over, their disparate worlds would inevitably part, and they would never see each other again.

  “We will just have to be patient,” Caroline continued. “I know it’s hard, but there’s nothing else we can do.” She paused and her eyes sought his in the darkness. “I guess you’re worried about your sister too,” she murmured kindly.

  Lars nodded. “Yes, I am. But I guess she’s as safe as any of us anywhere, at present.”

  The shuttlecraft was a working vessel belonging to Young Seth. Jeremiah was her pilot. And like all working vessels, the shuttlecraft had its daily responsibilities. It was essential, as Jeremiah had pointed out to the two impatient Trionians, that the little ship follow her normal routine to avoid suspicion. There was a night’s work to do before they could leave for Young Seth’s company depot in orbit.

  Lars and Caroline had quickly understood what business the shuttlecraft was so busily engaged in. Both had seen the advertising on the little craft as they boarded. Ace Rubbish Removals, Salvage and Scrap Merchants, the sign writing said.

  * * *

  The porthole went unexpectedly bright, then dark again as the little craft let go its magnetic connection. At once, they could feel the thrum of the solar engines as the shuttle accelerated. They were underway again.

  Over the next few hours, they were to lose track of how many ships’ bellies they anchored under to collect scrap and waste. They dozed at times, leaning into one another; at other times, they talked about their childhoods, each seeking to learn more about the other.

  “You can come up now,” a voice crackled abruptly in the air above them. “The Megran cruiser Starlight was our last call.”

  Jeremiah was in his flight chair, checking his navigation screen when Lars and Caroline arrived on the flight deck. He motioned to the Trionians to buckle themselves into the two vacant seats beside him. Caroline took the place next to Jeremiah.

  “Safety before all else,” he said. “The gravity compensator hub is a wee bit faulty and goes
in and out of phase every so often. You can end up floating before you know it,” he explained.

  Jeremiah’s voice had an accent, a lilt, such as Lars had not heard before. At some point, he decided, he would ask him where he hailed from.

  A man of gruff charm, Jeremiah was about the same age as Old Seth, but as lean as a Trionian rock snake. Deep wrinkles lined his aged and weather-beaten face, and his close-cropped grey hair stood up like a worn scrubbing brush.

  Jeremiah had changed from the civilian clothes he had been wearing when they first met into yellow overalls. The company’s name and logo were printed on the back.

  “Hope you weren’t too cramped down there,” he said when they had settled. “But I couldn’t take the risk of anyone seeing you. Some of those ships’ captains, especially the warship ones, can be a mite nosey at times.”

  The shuttlecraft had travelled now from night into day, and the flight deck afforded its passengers a panoramic vista of the sunlit side of the planet. On the far horizon, the largest of Megran’s four moons was drifting away to join its fellows and light the Megran night in their reflected glory.

  Caroline surveyed the planetscape beneath them. “I’m almost loathe to say it, but Megran looks quite appealing from up here. From this distance it reminds me a lot of Earth – the colours of the continents and the oceans.”

  Jeremiah nodded. He didn’t look, he didn’t need to, he had seen it all before.

  “Can’t see the rot from this high up,” he commented drily.

  “Yeah, it’s nice all right,” Lars muttered. “But there’s not enough black rock down there to make me feel at home.”

  Jeremiah looked up. “Lumaian or Trionian?” he asked.

  “Trionian to the core,” Lars responded.

  The old man bobbed his head. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I’m Lumaian born – spent my childhood and youth there. Since then I’ve been to every planet in the Commonwealth, but the black rock hills and plains of Lumai will always be the place I call home.”

  “So, your accent is Lumaian, then?” Lars queried.

  Jeremiah gave a shrug. “I guess,” he answered. “I didn’t know it still showed. It’s a long time since I’ve been home.”

  “So, why did you leave Lumai?” Caroline asked.

  “Case of having to, miss, it’s where my work is,” Jeremiah replied. “But one day, maybe, I’ll go home again.” His blue eyes stared out wistfully at the stars. “Forty years is a long time…”

  Outside, the sunlight glinted brightly on the shiny metal of the shuttlecraft’s stubby delta wing, but for the moment, Jeremiah’s gaze saw nothing but the black rock planet of his birth.

  “How much longer, Jeremiah?” Caroline asked softly, breaking in on their pilot’s reverie. “We seem to have been up here forever.”

  Jeremiah’s thoughts evaporated and he glanced down quickly at the ship’s navigation panel.

  “It’s just over the horizon now,” he said. “Should see something of it before too much longer. We have to climb a bit higher yet. Young Seth tries to keep above the main orbit patterns – prefers to keep his business private, like his dad before him.” He shot his passengers a grin. “And to be sure, no one’s ever complained. Nobody likes to see their rubbish flaunted in front of them. It’s something they’d rather forget, just so long as someone else deals with it; out of sight, out of mind, as the ancient saying goes.

  “Of course, getting rid of the rubbish is not always as easy as you’ll soon see.”

  The shuttlecraft had now passed in its passage from one hemisphere to the other, from one season to its opposite. Far below, grey clouds banked and cold rain fell upon a pale winter landscape.

  “There!” Jeremiah announced suddenly. “Young Seth’s place is showing on the scanner now. It should be visible any minute.”

  Lars and Caroline stared ahead, intent on catching the first glimpse of their destination.

  “Ah, there’s the start of it now,” Jeremiah exclaimed a short time later, “so auto-pilot off.” He switched the flight controls to manual. “There’s quite an art to getting through all the junk. Looks like a regular minefield, don’t it?” His eyes were sparkling in anticipation of his passengers’ amazement.

  Lars gasped out in awe at the sight ahead. A quick sideways glance told him that Caroline was as wide-eyed as himself.

  In front of them, piled high in orbit above the planet, floated a mountain of man-made debris, obsolete and worn out equipment, the shattered parts of a million different things. Sad things, dead things – broken, rotted; bones of ships that had once sailed deep space with pride. And here and there a larger hulk, the skeleton of some derelict space station, grey and powerless.

  The shuttlecraft slowed, retrorockets glowing, and then they were in the midst of the twisted wrecks, dull and jagged metal all around them, threatening to tear their frail craft apart.

  A hundred metres or so off their port bow a laser-cutter flared against the blackness, and for a second or two they glimpsed men at work, slow clumsy figures in their protective spacesuits.

  “It’s not your everyday rubbish that’s the problem,” Jeremiah explained. “A quick blast in the disintegrator and it’s gone forever. No, it’s the metals, plasarm, and the like. Hard to know what to do with half of it. Of course, some of it’s useful, even profitable. Most of the better materials we can break up and compress into blocks.

  “Megran’s too rich to bother with scrap, but the younger planets buy it, planets like New Terra and your Trion, Lars; Lumai and Theti too, sometimes, saves them building expensive processing industries of their own.

  “Look over there,” Jeremiah said suddenly, pointing out the starboard window. “The old cruiser Liberty – sailed right into an asteroid shower; ripped open a seam in her outer hull and ruptured the inner one before they knew what had hit them. Lost most of her crew before they could compensate for the air loss – limped home with just a handful of survivors. Strained the old girl’s hull so much she had to be scrapped.”

  The dark shape of the vessel hung suspended, her stern towards them, dwarfing the other flotsam around her. Black holes about her hull showed where sections of her battered skin had already been cut away.

  “She’ll keep Young Seth and his boys busy for a few more months yet,” Jeremiah continued. “They don’t come much bigger than the Liberty.”

  “What about a battleship?” Lars asked.

  “Yeah well, there ain’t too many of those,” Jeremiah responded.

  The ocean of wreckage around them seemed almost endless. The shuttlecraft was travelling through a narrow tunnel in the wasteland of scrap, the danger of collision and almost certain destruction never far from each wing tip. Young Seth’s place was somewhere deep inside, the keep as it were, in a fortress of junk.

  It was a full twenty minutes before the isolated space station came into view. It floated in an area clear of detritus.

  The hum of the solar motors ceased and the shuttlecraft floated, drifting gently forward. Jeremiah was using its own momentum to carry it up to the docking tower.

  Jeremiah and his passengers were silent. They were looking down on top of the space complex.

  “Quite something, isn’t it?” Jeremiah said at length.

  Lars nodded. He had not yet found the words for what he saw. He was unused to the nature of the cosmos, and the sheer size of the space station hanging like a bright moon in the blackness, filled him with wonder.

  The space station was an enormous white disc, a hundred and fifty metres or so in diameter, and three storeys deep. It filled the view from the shuttlecraft’s cockpit. A four storey high docking tower stood at its centre, like the axle of a wheel. Sunlight sparkled on a myriad of portholes and windows. It was an oasis in the desert that was space; a world in its own right for all who lived there.

  * * *

  There was a slight bump, and the shuttlecraft came to a halt.

  “Okay, the docking magnets have caught us.”


  Jeremiah activated the internal reciprocals docking the little craft securely.

  He smiled across at his passengers. “End of journey.”

  * * *

  It amazed Lars that the floor of the space station should feel so solid – as solid as any foundation set upon the black rock of Trion. It was difficult to believe, and indeed impossible to understand, that he was walking above the Megran sky, beyond its clouds and its climates, like some ancient god in control of the destinies of the puppet mortals crawling far beneath. His mother had told him of the strange beliefs and practices of earlier times; of gods and goddesses – their priests, rituals and prayers, the sacred books. He could almost now believe it to be true.

  Lars and Caroline were waiting to meet their latest benefactor, Young Seth. The room, in which they were waiting, was large, about the size of the main dining room in the restored Buckingham Palace, Caroline told Lars. Jeremiah explained the station had once been a safe house, a palace in orbit, for the Megran rulers in the days of the pirates. The room still showed some signs of its former glory.

  However, the gold carpet was now threadbare, and the sometime frescoed walls mottled by stains and grime. It also smelt a trifle musty. Bought from the current Megran government as obsolete and surplus, it had become the headquarters of the Ace Rubbish Removals, Salvage and Scrap Merchants – Seth and Son proprietors.

  Three old armchairs, a somewhat nondescript grey in colour, a crumpled air couch, a large, one-time ornate dining-room table, with twenty dilapidated chairs, and a bronze model of the Commonwealth star systems, made up the total trappings of the room.

  “Look Lars, look how beautiful Megran is. She looks even more magnificent from this far out in space than she did from the shuttle.”

  Caroline was standing staring out the plasarm glass windows on the far side of the room. “No matter how many times I gaze out on a planet it never fails to entrance me, to spark again in me that wonderful, awe-inspiring sense of mystery. It is not Megran that’s evil, only those who rule her.”