Breaking Ranks

Braun: The Fore Gate

We left early the next morning, and it was a good thing too. I had been having nightmares of the local serfs trotting toward me with buckets and eager expressions. As before, I rode along in the back of the rickety cart, though the container was now empty and would remain so for the rest of the trip. At least I could yawn all I wanted, though no matter how I wedged myself it was impossible to get any more sleep. The moment I found some form of comfort the cart would bounce off a rock, sending me bouncing into the air. There was a lesson in that, I supposed. Never volunteer for espionage work.

We were making for Sandstone, that much I knew. It was a town by Agricultural Section standards, and like all of their towns Sandstone was a city-state that guarded its hydroponics facility jealously, with rings of crude earthen walls and guards armed with swords and bows. Sandstone mainly cultivated sweet potatoes, I remembered, thinking back to my briefing. The hydroponics facilities were extremely efficient, yet every city-state had sprawling farming estates outside of its walls either operated by gentleman farmers or by independent sorts. It was these estates that took human waste as fertilizer, the towns at least having enough sense to decline such "goods."

Still, they would always take coins, and the trader's wagon rattled with various bits and pieces of copper and silver. Some pieces were unglamorous Engineering-stamped bullion, though most were coins featuring Chiefs and would-be Superintendents, most of them long dead and some even dating from before the Second Mutiny. The trader would exchange these bits of metal for true wealth; a wagonload of calories to ship up to the insatiably hungry hab blocks of the upper decks. He would also make a tidy profit, as is the way of things.

Normally a merchant with such valuable goods would be easy prey for bandits, and in the old days there would be Bridge security along to ride shotgun. But very few bandits were desperate enough to violate Regulations in such a blatant manner, and there were usually enough armed patrols around to keep the roads clear at least. Even so I couldn't help but keep a wary eye scanning the plains, back and forth, and back and forth.

"Ever been to Sandstone?" the trader asked, yelling over the sound of the rattling wheels. Any Engineer with access to a proper Forge could have fabricated a better cart in half a day, and revolutionized life in the Outer Rim. But revolutions were something to avoid. And so we trundled along in the primitive wooden conveyances that the passenger brutes were able to hammer together. It was a sensible policy to keep them focused on their only real purpose for existing: growing crops. Even so, an hour spent bouncing around in this wooden beast next to a container that still stank of excrement provided a good argument for progress.

"No sir," I said, in the rough accent of someone from the Engineering slums. Those "below decks" as it were, the ones who couldn't hack it in primary school or fell to drinking, the bullies of my half-remembered school days. The only ones who would take a job as laborer to a trader. I wondered, and not for the first time, what my parents would think if they could see me now. It brought a wry smile to my face.

"Well, you weren't kidding when you said you were new at this. Sandstone's the closest town of any size to the Engineering elevator, so it's always first stop for me. First and only, usually, and for many traders working out of the Engineering Section." He fell silent for a moment and there was only the rumbling of the cart to distract me from my thoughts.

"You did a good job with that slop there! That's usually what gets the laborers to quit. Well, you can breathe easy now!" He said this last part with a laugh, as though he had the great fortune to deliver the funniest joke in the world. "It's just loading sweet potatoes from here on out, and that smells a lot better. You can breathe easy!"

I was beginning to suspect the hard work wasn't the only thing that made this trader have a hard time finding a reliable dung hauler. Still, it was because of this opportunity that the Engineering Espionage Unit had managed to wrangle me a pass to snoop around the Outer Rim. It wasn't the assignment I would have chosen, but at least here I was.

"It ain't nothing," I said with conviction, echoing a philosophical phrase that I had noticed was popular among the lower classes.

"Here we are then," the trader said, and I leaned out once more. I must have been getting used to the swaying motion, for I was able to examine the long walls of dried mud that circled around Sandstone, and the gate of cut timber that was even now swinging ponderously open as if to swallow us whole. I could make a sketch of it, I decided. I doubt it would be of much use, but every bit counted. And, after all, what else was there to do? At least with a mission I could pretend to be something more than a common laborer.

There was a commotion of sorts at the gate. The guards looked a haggard bunch, too distracted muttering about "Samander's boys," and "those Twelve-damned raiders," to do much more than glance at us. A few dust-stained families were let in the gate along with us, casting furtive glances behind them as they went. Provincials, unless I missed my guess entirely.

"We'll lodge here for a few days," the trader was saying, leading his horse and cart to a sprawling ramshackle three floor wooden dwelling beside the Fore Gate. "You'll be in the common room. It beats the stable, anyway, and—" he fell silent as I became aware of clopping noises echoing behind us. I turned around.

It was disconcerting to see a band of cavalry riding toward me. It was even more disconcerting to see, behind the lances and shields and scaled armor of the first rank, a man and a woman with data slates strapped to their chests in white cloth. They seemed a very holy pair, the two of them, and it was clear they were calling the shots. The man spurred his horse toward the refugees, barking something at them, as the woman approached.

"You there," the woman said to the trader. "We'll need your wagon to help transport the wounded."

"Wounded?" the trader asked in astonishment.

"Yes, the wounded," the woman snapped. "There's a war on, or didn't you know? Now, are we going to have trouble?"

"No trouble, ma'am, no trouble," the trader said, hurriedly stripping his bag off and handing it to me. "Get us squared away," he muttered to me in a low voice, handing me a few chipped silver coins featuring the profile of some bearded barbarian. "I'll be back before long," he said, straightening his back and patting the plow horse. "I hope."