The Sword and the Plough (26 page)

The young man finished speaking and stared at
them silently. He looked like he wanted to cry. It was in the droop
of his face, the wilt of his limbs and torso.

“Did you not think to invoke the queen’s
justice?” Caroline asked gently after a brief spell of silence. “It
is there for all, no matter their status. Perhaps it is not too
late, even now.”

“
No!”
For a moment, the young man’s
eyes seemed to burn. “No! We can never do that,” he
said.

“I’m sure the queen would want to help…”

His ‘
No
’ came again, more emphatic, more
adamant.

“I must have your promise that no one will
ever know who it was planned your escape. I must have your promise
or I cannot help you.”

“Yes, of course,” Caroline replied in a low
voice. “If that’s what you wish.”

“I do. Do you swear it?”

“You have my word.”

“And mine, too,” Lars added.

“As a respected member of our royalty I
accept your word, Lady Caroline. Thank you.”

He glanced over at Lars. “I accept your word
too, Lars. But please understand I put my trust in you to keep
it.”

“It was not given lightly,” Lars replied.

Young Seth nodded.

“You need a ship to take you to Earth,” the
young man began again, abruptly changing the subject.

“Yes, can you find us passage?” Caroline
enquired eagerly.

He nodded.

“How soon can we leave?” Lars asked.

“In one hour,” Young Seth replied. “Jeremiah
will be your pilot. If anyone can get you through, he can. In the
meantime, please feel free to use the facilities on board. There is
food in the kitchen, and if you should wish to shower and have a
change of clothes…”

Caroline smiled. “Thank you very much.
Something to eat, a chance to freshen up, and a change of clothes
would be wonderful.”

The young man gave a curt nod. “Good.
Jeremiah will call you in an hour. Meanwhile, I’m sorry, but I must
leave you. I have much to attend to.”

He turned on his heel to go, then stopped and
turned back to face them. “Good luck,” he said with a stiff bow.
Then he was gone.

* * *

They showered and found a supply of fresh
T-shirts and jeans, similar to those that Old Seth had
provided.

“Standard stock issue, I guess,” Lars
commented with a grin. “At least they don’t bear the logo.”

Caroline laughed. “Yes, I couldn’t
bear
that,” she
said.

After wandering through a maze of empty
dormitory type rooms, they found the kitchen.

The kitchen was commercial in size. Designed
to feed a large crew, it had tables enough to seat fifty.

There were no chefs or cooks, but Lars and
Caroline were able to find readymade pizzas in the vast freezers
and the means to reheat them.

“So, what did you make of Young Seth?” Lars
asked as they sat down to eat. “Seemed a rather offhand fellow to
me.”

Caroline frowned. “He’s hiding something. I
don’t know what, but it is something serious. Something he is
afraid to tell us.”

“You mean about his father’s crime?”

“Hmm! Well, his father’s crime, if crime
indeed there was, is now out in the open. Therefore, it must be
something other than that.”

A frown wrinkled her brow for an instant
before she continued.

“I can understand his fear that Ferdinand
might somehow get to hear that he helped us. Such alarm is just
plain common sense. However, what I do not understand is his fear
of the queen. Her Majesty’s gratitude for a mission such as this
would be boundless. She would pardon his father without a doubt.
Indeed, I would so recommend it. For such assistance and loyalty
she would bestow more rewards and wealth than most people receive
in a lifetime.”

Lars nodded soberly. “I agree. There is
something very strange about… Well, about
everything
.”

They ate silently for a time still pondering
Young Seth’s bizarre manner.

All at once, Lars broke the quiet. “But hey,
it doesn’t matter,” he exclaimed excitedly. “What matters most is
we have a ship.” He was grinning hugely. “We’re on our way.”

Caroline caught his enthusiasm. She cupped
Lars’s face in her hands and kissed him passionately on the
mouth.

“
We are on our way,” she repeated happily.
“Ferdinand – look out, your evil days are done.”

* * *

The shuttlecraft moved out slowly using its
micro-thrusters only until it had cleared the docking tower. On the
control panel, the red magnetic mooring light flickered once,
twice, and then went off, indicating the vessel was now free of
external control and able to proceed under its own power. Jeremiah
pushed the joystick to starboard, and the little craft pointed its
nose out to the stars.

Jeremiah pulled back on the solar thrust
throttles and the little delta-winged craft began to move more
swiftly. A second later, it was skimming over the white rim of the
space station, heading into the blue-black abyss of space.

Caroline again had the middle seat of the
three on the little craft’s bridge.

“How far is it to our ship, Jeremiah?”
Caroline asked, as they got under way.

“Not too far, miss. If it weren’t for all
this,” he said, waving a hand at the mass of space junk ahead of
them, “you’d be able to see her right now.”

Caroline looked puzzled. “She arrived very
quickly, Jeremiah. Was she in orbit somewhere in the vicinity?”

“In a way, miss,” he answered.

The young woman tried another tack.

“Where did she come from originally?” she
queried. “What port?”

“Well miss.” Jeremiah paused and looked
steadily at her. “She’s been here all the time.”

Caroline’s hazel eyes widened in disbelief
mixed with some horror.

“Not one of those derelicts out there?” she
protested.

“
She’s no derelict, miss,” Jeremiah
responded quietly. “She’s well found and space worthy. In fact, the
finest little vessel you could ever hope to find. Aye, and she’s
fast too and well armed. She’ll give a good account of herself, if
it comes to it.”

“
You mean
fight
?
Fire
upon another vessel? You would even
contemplate
it?”
Caroline’s voice had risen sharply, the strain of the last few days
beginning to tell. “I do not want to
start
a war, Jeremiah. I’m trying
to
stop
one.”

The young woman paused to regain her
composure.

“
Look Jeremiah,” she began again at length.
“I’m beginning to be concerned about things. I do not want our
mission jeopardised. Tell me
please
, what is this ship and where does she come
from?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you much, miss, not
without Young Seth’s say so.”

“
Listen to me, Jeremiah. I do not pretend
to know what’s going on, what the big mystery is all about. But I
want you to know I’ve had enough of the secrecy, all the
ambiguities. I want some
straight
answers.” Caroline’s tone bore the power of a
royal.

“
Lars and I carry information that is vital
to the security of our Commonwealth. Ferdinand will be watching
every port, every ship. We cannot risk being caught…” Her words
hung in the air. “Do you
understand,
Jeremiah?”

Caroline waited a second or two, but when
Jeremiah did not respond her jaw tightened and she carried on.
“Jeremiah, in the queen’s name, I
order
you to tell me. Where does this ship come
from?”

Still he did not answer. Caroline glared
at the old man. The intensity in her voice rose. “Jeremiah, I, Lady
Caroline Tudor, next in line to the throne,
command
you to answer me.
Where – does – this -ship
–
come – from
?”

Finally, their pilot nodded his
acquiescence. But he did not answer straight away. He was too
intent on maneuvering the small craft through the narrow gaps, the
hidden
channels,
in the floating mass of sun-perished plasarm and the jagged
spikes of space-rotted metals. It was a labyrinth of junk, with
traps and pitfalls for the unwary at every turn. All at once, Lars
realised that
that
indeed was what it was, and that their pilot knew the way
through the perilous maze only too well.

At last Jeremiah spoke. “I reckon I can guess
what Young Seth has told you,” he said, his eyes still fixed firm
on his task. “And I guess I know too what he hasn’t.” He exhaled a
sigh. “It’s quite a story.”

He dropped the little craft into a sudden
dive down a narrow funnel of barbed wreckage. When the way became
clear, he carried on with his tale.

“
A son has a duty to his father and to his
own. And that will always come first,” he said, beginning his
explanation. “Young Seth has kept a few truths back in an effort to
protect his father – and no one can lay blame on him for that. Had
it been up to him, I doubt he would not have offered you any help
at all. He’s doing what his father asked him to do – in
his
honour – not
what he, the
son,
thinks is right.”

Caroline nodded her understanding. “We are
not ungrateful, Jeremiah,” she said softly.

“Old Seth and I go back a long ways
together,” Jeremiah went on in a low voice. “In fact, there ain’t a
time I can remember when Seth and I didn’t know one another.
Leastways, it seems like that to me. So, I guess that gives me the
right, under the circumstances, to say what I’m about to say.”

The old man paused for a moment and his gaze
flickered across his passengers. He gave a slow smile. A sad smile,
Lars thought.

“The truth’s simple,” he continued, “even if
there ain’t no easy way of saying it. And if I’m putting Old Seth’s
head in a noose, I’m putting mine in one as well.”

Caroline glanced across at Lars. There was
exasperation in her look. But she did not attempt to rush the old
man.

“
You see, that ship out there is Old Seth’s
ship, his and mine. And she’s been waiting out there for nigh on
thirty years. Waiting for her day – waiting to
run
if ever we should need
her.”

“
Run?
” Caroline echoed.
“I don’t understand. Why should you want to run? And where would
you run to?”

“
The
where to
ain’t so easy, miss, but the
why
… Now there’s a yarn
or two to tell if we had the time.”

The old man broke-off the telling, his
concentration fixed for an instant on maneuvering around a jagged
metal section of something, which had unexpectedly drifted into
their path.

“You see, miss,” he continued when the peril
was past. “We broke the law, Seth and I. And I make no excuses for
it. We did what we did and that’s the truth of it…”

Another hazard interrupted his account again.
The danger of a collision was once more all about them. Sharp edged
metal shards as fearsome as battle-axes swirled around them.

Caroline’s frustration was plain on her
face.

At length the old man resumed his tale.
“Thirty years ago we stopped a freighter. We boarded her and took
her crew captive, then set them adrift in their life capsules. Then
we stripped the ship of her cargo and everything else of value that
we could find.”

He looked over at Caroline and Lars, and his
final words made his story plain.

“And then the king’s warships came and we
fired on them and made a run for it.” He shrugged.” And we’ve been
on the run ever since.”

Caroline gasped. “
Pirates!
You’re pirates! Then the ship’s
a…”

Jeremiah nodded. “Aye miss, the
Stellar Gypsy’
s a pirate
vessel. And Seth and I still have a price on our head and the death
penalty, by hanging, if we’re taken.”

The young woman frowned. It was plain she was
worried. “Pirates! So that’s why Young Seth seemed so upset when we
mentioned telling the queen.”

“Aye! Young Seth’s been brought up with the
fear, miss. He’s known it all his life.”

Jeremiah gave a faint smile. “Time passed,
and Seth and I grew successful hauling scrap and waste. There’s a
lot of money in other people’s rubbish. An irony ain’t it? But we
never tried to fool ourselves. We always knew that one day
the
Stellar Gypsy
would have to run again.”

“And so you hid the ship out here in all this
junk,” Lars murmured.

Jeremiah grinned. “What better place to hide
her?”

“
And you’re prepared to risk your life and
fly her now –
for us.
” Caroline said quietly with sudden
understanding.

“She’ll never be more needed,” Jeremiah
replied simply.

* * *

The pirate ship was small and they did not
see her until they were almost on top of her, hidden as she was
between two grey and rotted freighters. She floated, waiting in the
dark silence of space like a sleek bird of prey, tethered to the
protective maternal shapes of the plump old hulks.

She was a narrow beamed vessel, of not
more than thirty metres in length. Her lean straight lines gave her
more the appearance of a missile than a ship. Shiny silver, with a
black stripe running from bow to stern along the row of portholes,
it was clear she had been lovingly maintained, from the long,
rapier like scanner in her nose, to the six solar engines in a ring
round her stern. The engine nacelles reminded Lars of the revolving
chambers of the ancient projectile handguns he had seen in books
under the classification:
Revolvers
. Three snub-nosed light-bolt cannons jutted out
from under her fuselage at the bow.