The Sword and the Plough (4 page)

“Helen!” Lars spoke this time as an older
brother. “I was only kidding. I need a rest even if you don’t. If I
keep going much longer in this heat, I’ll drop. Meet you at the
trailer.”

* * *

The trailer was a cheerful canary yellow
in colour, with a green awning down one side shading a table and
two chairs. Towed by plough to each
new field
site, the trailer sat awaiting
its owners, its refrigerator humming over its contents of food and
drink, a haven from the punishing heat.

Inside, two long bunks ran its length,
beneath which medical supplies, clothing, and extra spares for the
ploughs were stowed.

As well, Lars and Helen often made use of
the trailer to sleep over and make an early start. Each
new field
that came
under their ploughs was farther from the Kelmutt homestead than the
one before. A sea of green fields, with borders of young trees,
already extended from the homestead centre for nearly a kilometre
radius.

* * *

“To the queen!” Lars raised his glass of
ice-cold orange juice in obeisance to their monarch.

“To the queen!” his sister echoed raising her
own glass.

Lars, and his sister, Helen, were second
generation Trionians, but their loyalty to Earth’s monarchy was
never in question.

They were relaxing in loungers in the
green shade of the trailer’s awning, the colours of their
little
oasis
in
stark contrast to the black lava plains beyond. Here and there,
hundreds of metres apart, small volcanic cones jutted upward,
incongruous elements in an otherwise flat terrain.

Helen, at just 16, was nearly four years her
brother’s junior, but at 1.78 metres, almost as tall. Her brown
hair, the ends blonded by the sun, and the radiant blue eyes, which
matched her brother’s, left no one in doubt they were looking at
siblings.

“Does that make you feel better?” Lars asked,
watching his sister gulp down her juice. A broad grin lit his
face.

Helen leaned across as if to cuff her
brother
– but
relented.

“Don’t try and tell me you didn’t need a
break any less than I did,” she said, and then sighed. “Yes,
better, much better,” she admitted.

She leaned back in the lounger and closed her
eyes. “Don’t mind me,” she murmured. “I’m just going to doze off
for a moment.”

Lars smiled. “Go ahead, Sis, I think I might
join you. Despite the breakdown, we’re well ahead of schedule.
We’ve got all the time in the cosmos.”

High above them, a peregrine falcon floated
on high in her world, wings outstretched over the blue deep of the
sky. The small dark eyes surveyed the green and black land beneath
for the giveaway signs of life that would focus the cruel curve of
beak and talons in a plummeting testament of death.

The bird and her soaring grace were
perfection. To her, it mattered not that her ancestors had evolved
on another world, in another star system, across a galaxy’s
timeless depths. She would be forever unaware that man, remembering
Noah, had brought her kind, along with hundreds of other species,
to help repopulate the black planet.

Helen sat up suddenly. “Lars, wake up. I’ve
been thinking.”

Lars opened his eyes reluctantly.

“
Have you ever thought of doing something
else? I mean – like leaving Trion and going to one of the other
Commonwealth planets or maybe even Earth, herself?”

She paused, her sapphire eyes suddenly
gleaming. “Now that’d be something, wouldn’t it,” she continued
excitedly, her thoughts accelerating rapidly as she spoke. “We’d
have the money if we sold the farm. We could change our whole
lives, become two different people, not Lars and Helen Kelmutt –
dirt farmers, but people who travel – people who have time to stand
for hours to catch a glimpse of the queen. We could visit the royal
court. I know all about that. The deputy governor came and spoke to
us about the history of the royals last year at the school
prize-giving.”

“What did he tell you?”

“
He told us about the later
21
^st
century on Earth. How it was
divided up into nations; how politically corrupt it had become, and
the way it went from one economic disaster to another. How civil
war had become rife throughout the globe.

“
He explained how the most important
positions of power on Earth in those days were controlled by people
who knew nothing of government – had no real commitment. Power went
to those who were rich or backed by the rich; people who could
articulate ideas and make promises, even if they didn’t intend or
even know how to keep them.” She shook her head. “And others just
stole power through war and rebellion.”

Lars nodded. “I remember. We had the same
speech.”

“But do you know your dates?” his sister
asked, her tone all at once challenging.

“Yep! 2081, the peoples of the Earth rebelled
against their leaders. No such world revolution had ever happened
before.”

Helen nodded. “Right! But in what month?”

“August.”

“Day?”

Lars shook his head. “Sorry, can’t
remember.”

“
The 17
^{th –}
starting in Australasia and rippling like ah – um – Mexican
Wave right round the globe.”

“What’s a Mexican Wave?”

Helen shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“
Okay – the 17th. I’ll take your word for
it.”

“But Lars, more importantly, what was the
reason?”

Her brother’s eyes squeezed into a thoughtful
squint for an instant before he answered.

“Hmm! I know this one. The threat of another
world war. There had been two already and many other conflicts
almost as critical. A third would have destroyed the planet.”

“Good answer! Who took control of the Earth
then?”

“The media,” Lars replied promptly. “They
united the peoples of the Earth through global satellite television
and the various social media of the day, and warned them of the
perils of continuing to live as separate nations.

“
They organized the
World
Debate,
with all the most
famous journalists and political commentators from around the
planet putting forward their ideas about which form of world
government would be the best.”

“What regime did they eventually choose?”

“Well that’s obvious, isn’t it? The
monarchy!”

“Right! But why did they choose it?”

Lars frowned. “Hmm, not so easy, don’t forget
I had this speech some years ago now.”

“Give up?”

“
No – never!”

Lars studied the
new fields
about them as if they might
somehow hold the answer. In places, the black soil was still
smoking.

“Ah, they chose the monarchy,” he said at
last, “because ah…it had a heritage of training, and ah… a
tradition of personal sacrifice.”

His thoughts began to quicken and the words
raced to his tongue.

“
And royalty were born and bred to rule –
had generations of rule in their blood. Personal wealth, power and
acclaim were already theirs. The one ambition left was to govern
and to govern well.”

Helen clapped her hands. “Star stuff, Lars,
well done. I could almost hear the deputy-governor speaking.”

Lars grinned. “Yep, it’s all coming back. I
had to learn it off by heart at the time.”

Helen’s gaze narrowed. “But now answer this.
To what Earth nation does our monarchy owe its beginnings?”

Lars opened his mouth to speak, but no words
came.

“Give up?”

He smiled. “Yes Helen,
this
time I give up.”

Helen gave a smirk of triumph. “Well, I know
the answer,” she said. “It was…” she started, then broke off, a
perplexed look on her face.

She began to laugh. “Well, I don’t remember
the name of the nation, but the monarch at the time was Elizabeth
III.”

“Who were Elizabeth I and II?” Lars
queried.

“
I don’t know. The deputy-governor didn’t
say. But the main point is that Elizabeth III managed to unite all
the nations of the Earth into one people. And of course we
celebrate it now, every year, with
Renaissance
Day
.”

“I suppose I have to ask how she achieved
such unity,” Lars teased.

“By the promotion of space exploration,”
Helen replied smartly.

“Took the population’s collective mind off
the problems at home, eh?”

Helen nodded. “Yes – and then later she
encouraged hundreds of thousands of pioneers to venture out to the
newly discovered
Goldilocks*
worlds to take the population pressure of the
Earth and provide respite for the home planet’s rapidly dwindling
resources.”

“Wow, you seem to know the deputy-governor’s
speech off by heart like a teacher robot,” Lars observed, grinning
broadly.

“He provided an electronic handout,” Helen
explained. “Anyway,” she continued, “that’s where we come in or at
least our grandparents, or maybe our great grandparents.”

“But that wasn’t under Elizabeth III,” Lars
objected.

“
Oh, I know that. It would have been under
Elizabeth IV, or maybe a George or a William – it took generations.
For every planet that could sustain life, hundreds were
barren.”

* * *

By the third year of Elizabeth III’s reign,
the first interstellar spaceships had successfully returned from
their voyages of exploration.

Continuing sophistication of
quantum physics*
experiments in the middle years of the
21
^st
century had resulted in the
development of the
photon
engine. Light drawn into the engine was
accelerated many times faster than
standard light
speed
(
SLS)
via a
photon
accelerator
powered
by
dark energy*
,
powering the spaceship forward on a beam of
light
.

Although the speeds of military craft were
usually kept secret, freighters and other such craft could reach
speeds up to
SLS
x 7.

However, all spacecraft travelling above
light speeds required a
mass compensator,
which used the properties of
antimatter*
to safeguard
the vessel from disintegrating at light speeds and
above
;
opposite
physics derived from an opposite world.

There were, however, distinct limitations
and dangers to this device, and it was therefore always heavily
shielded and centred in the bowels of the ship as an added
safeguard; it was as precarious and hazardous as the
powder magazines
of
old.

The laws of physics can sometimes be bent,
but are broken at our peril.

Nevertheless, even at such speeds the
galaxy is so vast, travel to other planetary systems would not have
been achievable had it not been for the discovery of a series
of
wormholes
* at
the edge of the solar system in the latter part of the
21
^st
century. The wormholes allowed
short cuts to other parts of the galaxy and the discovery of more
remote
Goldilocks
worlds. However, to date, no known spacecraft has journeyed
beyond the
Orion Spur
*.

* * *

A puff of air rippled the green bringing with
it the scent of distant fields already under growth, and, on the
air, the faint roar of a faraway laser-share as another farmer’s
plough exploded the black rock into soil.

For a while, brother and sister sat in
silence, gazing out at the black soil vista that was their world.
Here and there, spurts of green proclaimed the presumption of weeds
in the
new fields.
They too had clandestinely made the long voyage to find a
home in this new world.

* * *

“Elizabeth V,” Helen said abruptly.

“What about our magnanimous queen?” Lars
enquired.

“
I was just thinking – day dreaming really
– what it must be like to have a
number
after your name; to be loved and respected
by millions – to be
royal
.”

Lars grinned and made a sweeping bow as best
he could from his lounger.

“Helen the First,” he exclaimed in his most
sonorous tones. “Our most glorious and sovereign majesty.”

“Yes, and Lars the Last, if you’re not
careful,” his sister countered. “But just think,” she went on,
“Earth, Megran, New Terra, Lumai, Theti, Trion, all belonging to
you; the whole Commonwealth of Planets to do what you like
with.”

Lars scooped up a handful of the black soil
and let it sieve through his fingers. Its quality and texture
swelled his farmer’s pride.

“
I don’t think the Royal Family would think
like that,” he mused. “They’re born to it – it’s their job, like
ours is ploughing fields and planting. It’s just the way things
are.”

Helen shrugged. “Maybe, but they do have
everything.” She gazed out at the black fields. “Just think what it
would be like to live in a big city – a city with a population
larger than all of Trion’s people put together…” Her voice had
taken on a faraway timbre. “Elizabeth V – oh, how I should love to
meet her – see her crown, her jewels, her palace…”