by Carl Hubrick
Two green clad troopers gripped his arms and hauled him to his feet. He heard the scratch of their boots on a black grit pathway.
“Walk fool!”
Lars answered the command automatically and lurched forward blindly. How long he had been insensible, he did not know. Just where he was, he did not know.
“Move it. We’ve a nice little cell waiting for you.”
The bright sunlight gave way to shadow. He was inside a building. Blurred shapes moving by him spoke and the men who held him laughed. He tried to focus, but the gloom forestalled him.
He stumbled down steps and fell to his knees, pulling down those who held him. He tried to stand, but his legs were jelly. They kicked him hard in the ribs and he cried out at the shock of it. They took him by the shoulders and dragged him the rest of the way.
* * *
The two troopers halted. They dropped their burden face down on the black stone floor. The stone was cool to Lars’s skin, a soothing relief to the burning of his cuts and abrasions.
“Not another one?” The voice that spoke was harsh and complaining. “What’s your name, boy?”
The troopers hefted Lars to his knees. But he could not speak. He struggled to focus his one working eye. A solitary solar lamp lit a small room where two Megran guards sat at a wooden table, their food in front of them. He saw the rough-cut black lava walls, hewn by the primitive tools of the early settlers, the laser axe and the adze. Keys hung from a row of rusted spikes hammered into the stone. There was only one such place he knew of – the dungeons of Fort Vegar.
* * *
Ninety years before, Vegar’s pioneers had built the fort to protect themselves against the unknown perils of the new world. They cut passageways beneath the black lava rock of the planet, and carved out storage rooms for their weapons and supplies. Later, when the need at last arose, they hewed out prison cells as well…
In time, the town of Vegar had grown up round the market place a few kilometres to the south, and the fort had become the seat of the military alone. Lars had visited Fort Vegar in better times as a boy and witnessed the royal garrison parade its colours on Renaissance Day.
* * *
“I asked what your name is, boy – and I want an answer.”
The man who had spoken was huge, a giant, and enormously fat. His shaggy black hair was greasy and unkempt. Flecks of food dribble speckled his scruffy beard and moustache. His green uniform stretched tight about him, straining at the seams, so that a host of worried stitches showed. Three-bar black and yellow chevrons on his ham-like shoulders gave his sergeant’s rank He studied Lars through small dark eyes funneled back in his face, and munched away thoughtfully.
“What happened to him?” he said at last, poking his fork in the direction of Lars. “Did he have his own little war?”
The other trooper at the table now blinked down at Lars. “Freeze the stars! Is all that blood his?” he exclaimed. He turned away in disgust, sliding his plate of food as far from the sight as he could.
The giant man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He belched noisily, displaying a mouth of crooked yellow teeth.
“Ugh, get him out of here,” he growled. “He’s spoiling my dinner.”
The troopers hauled Lars to his feet. He hung in their grip. He heard only a meaningless fog of words, as if he were listening with his ear to a wall.
Lars fought the haze in his head. Gradually, the grey mist lifted and the scene became clear.
“Yeah, he’s the town fool – a right idiot.” The ice blue eyed trooper was saying. “Came into our camp – said he wanted to join our army. The lads there gave him a right Megran welcome…”
The laughter that followed was cruel and demeaning. The mammoth man rocked on his chair and slapped his knee in hideous glee.
Ten out of ten, Lars thought woefully. Ten out of ten, for being a fool.
“He can share the same cell as them,” the huge man chortled. He added a snigger. “Serve them right to have a fool for company, damn stuck-up Trionian aristocrats.”
He reached round and flipped a key off the third rusted spike in the row.
“A fool!” His enormous body quaked with laughter.
Lars was jerked into movement by his captors. They followed the ponderous giant down steep stone stairs into deeper darkness, where the air was hot and stale.
“Number three cell for you, lad,” the giant sergeant said. “The VIP cell.” A huge grin split his porcine face from ear to ear.
The iron bar door squeaked open on rusty hinges.
“Here’s a jester for your court,” the big man bellowed through the black hole of the doorway. “A fool to entertain you.”
He grabbed the prisoner from his guards by the scruff of the neck and thrust him forward. Lars staggered into the murk of the tiny cell and fell…
* * *
Later, back in the guardroom, the giant Megran sergeant entered a new name into the prison records.
Lars Kelmutt: Trionian… Occupation: fool…
Chapter 16
Fort Vegar
“Lars? Lars? Are you there, Lars?”
Martha Kelmutt stood in the doorway of her son’s bedroom. She was wiping her hands on her apron.
Martha was a tall woman with golden hair and laughing blue eyes. Her plain blue dress was of the homespun cotton weave favoured my most Trionian farmers. The finer fabrics from Earth or Megran were far too expensive for toilers of the land, and lasted not half as well.
“Ah, there you are, Lars – I’ve been calling and calling…”
Twelve-year-old Lars was sitting on his bed. He too, was clad in the same rough cotton cloth – grey shirt and dark trousers. He looked up at his mother. To Lars she was the most beautiful woman he knew, and his apology was sincere.
“I’m sorry Mother, I didn’t hear you.”
“Hmm, of course, absorbed in a book. What is it you’re reading?”
“It’s a book about the planets,” the boy explained. “It’s got some wonderful pictures. It’s amazing! Look!”
His mother smiled and came over. “A book! You must be one of the few people who still read, Lars, and I’m so pleased that you do.”
“Look Mother, Trion’s here, Megran and the others. And here, look at Earth. It looks so beautiful with its huge blue oceans. Is it beautiful, Mother?”
Martha Kelmutt looked at the Earth image “Yes, I’ve been told that’s it’s beautiful,” she murmured, nodding. “Very beautiful.”
“They call Earth the Mother Planet,” Lars said. “Why do they call it that?”
“Because we all started there, Lars – people, that is, millions of years ago.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “One day, maybe, we will all go and see her – see our mother, Earth.”
Lars smiled dreamily. “I’d like that,” he said.
“But in the meantime young man,” his mother said with a sudden briskness, “there’s work to be done. I want you to deliver some eggs, milk and bread over to our new neighbour, Hakim.”
“Has he moved in already?” Lars asked excitedly, jumping to his feet. Hakim was seven years older than Lars, but the closest thing to a friend for dozens of kilometres.
His mother nodded. “Yes, your father and the other neighbours finished the roof of his cottage yesterday, and to celebrate I want you to invite him over for dinner, tonight, at seven.”
Martha Kelmutt caught her young son by the arm as he attempted to rush by her.
“Not so fast,” she said laughing. “Remember the eggs, milk and bread – and – don’t forget to ask your sister. She might like to go too.”
But Lars was already on his way.
“Wait for your sister, Lars,” Martha Kelmutt called. “Wait for your sister… wait for your sister… wait for your sister…
* * *
Lars awoke with a start.
“It’s all right, Lars,” a voice said reassuringly. “You’ve been dreaming. A bad dream I think, about your sister, Helen.
”
The voice was warm and feminine, and had the distinctive cut glass accent of an upper-class Earth education. Lars remembered the voice well.
He was lying on his back. He forced his sole, uninjured eye to focus. The laser cut black stone walls shone dully in the thin light of a small solar bulb.
He attempted to sit up, but was astonished when his efforts failed him. Pain numbed every sensation, save its own.
“Lie still,” a man’s voice said with some impatience. Lars saw a head of almost pure white hair; a man in his late fifties, wearing a red uniform heavy with gold braid. “We can’t tend to your wounds if you don’t lie still.” He shook his head indignantly. “Those Megran bullies certainly gave you a thorough going over.”
Lars was lying on a narrow wooden tabletop, which was too short to support his whole length, so that his legs, from the knee, hung limply over the edge. There were three people gently cleaning and bathing his many wounds; the white haired man, Caroline and another woman, perhaps a similar age to the man.
The pleasant perfumes of the women were in stark contrast to the overall stale stench of the cell.
“We know you’re worried about your sister, Lars,” the man continued. “But the captain’s already asked about her and we should have an answer soon if she’s here in one of the cells.”
“How can you…” Lars tried to speak, but his words came out as a hoarse whisper.
The man smiled. “You want to know how we communicate with the other prisoners?”
Yes, Lars mouthed
“Water pipes, Lars,” the man said. “The same pipes go through each cell. The captain’s on the job now, and Rupert over there, is keeping an eye on the corridor for any unwelcome visitors.”
Lars’s one working eye caught a blurred image of a tall man with a tanned complexion and dark brown hair, standing at the cell door. He too, was wearing the queen’s red.
Lars began to remember… When he arrived, there were five others already in the cramped two-bunk cell. Two middle-aged men, both tall in the queen’s red, a thin middle-aged woman, with grey hair, wearing a nondescript brown dress, a young captain from the queen’s garrison, suffering a shoulder wound, his jacket gone, his white cotton shirt heavily bloodstained, and the pretty auburn haired young woman with the hazel eyes.
He could not remember how long he had been with them.
The water pipes sounded. A message was coming through from another cell; a coded message tapped out with a spoon.
The young captain turned to the group, his pale face jubilant.
“They’ve found her. Helen’s here!” he said. Beads of perspiration dotted the young man’s brow, and there were signs of fresh bleeding at his shoulder.
“And there’s a question. She wants to know if you’re all right.” He grinned at Lars. “Shall I say that you’re okay?”
Lars gave his most emphatic nod. Yes, his lips formed.
The young officer bent back to the pipes, and the spoon recommenced its resonant tones.
“She’ll be quite safe, Lars,” Caroline said. “The captain’s men and the other prisoners will look after her.”
Lars tried to answer, but the young woman put a finger to her lips. “Hush! Don’t try to talk anymore.” She smiled down at him. “You must rest now.”
For a moment, his one good eye watched the shiny auburn of her hair fall like a curtain, hiding the lovely profile of her face as she bent to tend his wounds again. Then a black wave washed over him…
* * *
“Look, he’s sound asleep already,” Caroline whispered to the white haired man standing beside her.
The man gave a nod. ”He’s been through quite a lot in the past day or two by the look of him,” he said quietly. “But he seems a pretty determined young man.”
Caroline passed the bowl of blood-tinted water to the man who poured it down the cracked china washbasin in the corner.
“Yes father,” she answered smiling softly. “I believe he is.” She wiped her wet hands down the chartreuse silk of her hips, and shrugged at her father’s questioning look.
“It can’t get much dirtier,” she said. “Anyway, I’ve no intention of ever wearing this gown again.”
She sat down tiredly on a stool and leaned her back against the stone wall of the cell, her hands resting in her lap.
Her father spoke. “Well, that’s all we can do for Lars at present,” he said. “Sleep is the only medicine we have.”
He spoke to the man at the cell door. “Rupert, we’ll shift Lars onto the bunk now. I don’t think he’ll waken.”
“Right governor,” the man answered.
They lowered Lars’s sleeping form gently onto the dubious comfort of the narrow paillasse and arranged the thin pillow under his head.
The young captain was lying on the only other bunk in the room. His wound was throbbing fiercely. Rivulets of perspiration trickled down his ashen forehead. He slept a feverish and fitful sleep.
There is little that can be done in the field for a light-bolt injury; the burnt flesh is decaying – dying. Specialist surgery with ready grown flesh and growth hormone applications is the only hope.
* * *
Caroline sat and watched Lars sleeping. She still knew so little about him. Her first recollection was the vividness of his blue eyes, almost violet, and the firm line of his jaw.
His soft lilting brogue clearly identified him as a local, and he had said something about ploughs, so maybe he was farmer. Ah yes, his cotton field clothes might attest to that.
Her gaze focused unhappily on his battered face. It was black and blue with bruises, with one eye swollen shut. Some of the cuts on his forehead and cheeks would leave permanent scars – battle scars she thought grimly.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. He had been her knight in shining armour – her paladin. She shuddered inwardly. Without his intervention, things might well have turned out much worse than they had. There was much to admire in him. His courage, as he launched himself at her captors - his willingness to help her when he should have left and gone home.
Strangely though, she had the feeling she had always known him; knew what he was like and the things he might say and do. Strange, for in all her life she had never met a farmer.
Caroline opened her eyes and surveyed the length of the tall young man where he lay. It would take some time for him to recover fully. She scowled to herself. The Megran troopers who had done this to him were evil. Civilisation in the 22nd century had moved beyond such acts. There was no question. The Megran regime must be destroyed.
* * *
The cell door flew open suddenly with a squawk, and the giant Megran sergeant ducked his head and squeezed his way through the gap. His bearded face was puffed out in an inane grin. The Meredith side arm hung from his enormous girth like a child’s toy.
The big man’s voice rumbled out of his barrel chest. “Ah, our guests are waiting for their dinner.” He beckoned to his sidekicks. “Bring it in lads, don’t keep them waiting.”
Behind him, two Megran guards crowded into the cell wheeling a trolley bearing a large steaming pot of broth.
The giant sergeant glanced round the cell. “So-o-o, there’s a sleeping beauty here, is there?” He turned to his men. “And who’s going to wake him up with a kiss, eh?”
His eyebrows rose quizzically and his men grinned in reply, enjoying the pantomime.
The big man shoved a stool next to the bunk where Lars was sleeping, and lowered his immense weight slowly onto it, testing its strength. The brass buttons of his green shirt strained against the packed folds of flesh, and the back of his trousers stretched, alarming the stitches along the seam. He leaned toward the sleeping form, his large stubby fingers spread wide on his huge rounded knees.
“Wakey, wakey,” he warbled softly.
There was no response, save the deep regular breathing of the sleeper.
The big man leaned closer. “Are you in there, Lars?” he asked in a singsong w
hisper. “This is your good friend, Sergeant Wykes.”
A loud snigger came from one of the Megran guards.
The sleeper slept on.
“Lars,” the man cooed. “I want you to wake up and have your dinner.
But no answer came.
“Lars!” The sergeant’s singsong was rising in pitch and volume. “I’m losing my patience.” He paused and leaned to within a few millimetres of the young man’s face. “Are you going to wake up?”
Lars slept on.
The vast chest swallowed a deep breath. “Lars! It’s time for your din-ner,” the big man thundered, bawling the last two syllables directly into the young man’s ear.
Lars shuddered and startled into consciousness. His one eye opened to gape in shock at the fat face with the small dark eyes leering down at him.
The red mouth in the thick black beard opened and the giant sergeant laughed out loud, the sound coming up from the very depths of his massive belly. The guards were laughing too, enjoying the performance. The prisoners alone kept their silence.
“Right, up to the table with you, Lars,” the mammoth man ordered. “And see what Sergeant Wykes has brought you for your evening meal.”
A huge hand took Lars by the arm, plucked him from his bunk, and shoved him in the direction of the table.
What the sergeant had brought was a bowl of mud coloured broth thick with globules of fat, its smooth oily surface disturbed only by the occasional morsel of grey meat.
The sergeant tousled the young man’s hair, cuffing him in the process.
“Come on,” he crooned. “Eat up, Lars. You don’t want your Uncle Wykes to have to feed you, do you?”