The Sword and the Plough by Carl Hubrick Page A

the
road back towards town, the scene of his encounter with the two
troopers the evening before.
    It was still early. The twin suns hung poised
on a pastel pink horizon. He took a deep breath, relishing the
cool, fresh morning air, and a farmer’s joy in the lush scent of
the land. To the east, the walls of Vegar stood bright lit by the
golden glow of the suns, their colours dazzling. In contrast, the
western walls stood dark, casting a curtain of shade, which muted
the green and gold crops on the fields below.
    But the way ahead looked clear, and there
was nothing it seemed to disturb the rosy stillness of the morning,
save the sounds of his heavy farm boots on the black grit road.
However foolish and dangerous he knew his course might be, it was
likely the town was where he would find Helen, and she must be his
first priority – his only priority…
    As his steps returned him in the direction
of the town’s south gate, Lars became aware of a blur of noise
ahead of him, voices perhaps, but other sounds as well.
    All at once, the open road seemed a dangerous
place and he quickly took cover in a field of ripening maize. The
crisscross of tall stalks hid him from view, but also prevented him
from seeing further ahead. He crouched low and moved as quietly as
he could in the direction of the sounds.
    After a while, the rumble of men’s voices
grew more distinct, as well as the sounds of numerous activities,
the detail of which he could only guess. Whatever was happening, it
was happening close by.
    Lars dropped to his hands and knees to make
his way forward, conscious of every twig that cracked and every
stone that scraped in his path.
    After a few moments on all fours, the mass of
green stalks ended abruptly at a black stone wall, the ubiquitous
Trionian fence. Lars raised his head warily and peered over the
top.
    His blood ran cold. In front of him, a large
site had been cleared of crops, and polka-dotted with perhaps
twenty to twenty-five grey barracks. They had not been there the
night before.
    Everywhere Lars looked he saw troopers in
Megran green. Meredith pistols hung from their hips. Heavy Bess
rifles, big sister to the Meredith weapon, stood in clusters of
tepee shaped stacks.
    It was obvious the camp was still in the
process of being organised. A squad of troopers, naked to the
waist, arrived nearby to unload a heavily laden hover-barge into a
storage tent. A big, red-faced man in a white apron watched them
briefly and then berated the officer in charge, his hands
gesticulating wildly. Lars heard the anger swell in his voice.
Elsewhere, Lars could hear an irate sergeant bawling out his
shame-faced men.
    It puzzled Lars that the troopers had chosen
to encamp outside the town instead of commandeering the best hotels
and homes as one might expect. Furthermore, though the camp would
be out of sight of the townsfolk, it was too close for them not to
be aware of its armed presence.
    But it was the tri-motored horses that really
caught his attention. The silvery torpedo shaped machines, with
their blunt prows and tapering sterns, were parked under a grove of
lofty trees on the far side of the barracks, their tall tail fins
reaching up into the green of the lower branches. Lars had never
seen so many at one time. His guess put it at a hundred or
more.
    The Royal garrison at Vegar had horses of course, or
something like them, but probably no more than twenty, and patently
obsolete. Lars had seen the local garrison’s horses on Renaissance Day parades
ever since he was a child. However, even from where he was, Lars
could see the Megran machines were different – bigger, sleeker,
shinier, and with that smug look of newness. The garrison’s
machines would have been no match for such as these.
    The horse carried a heavy light-bolt cannon in the nose, and
served as a high-speed reconnaissance and attack craft. The horse
trooper sat astride the shiny metal fuselage behind a swept up
fairing that protected his legs and torso. A