Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 2 Read online

  SOVEREIGNS OF THE COLLAPSE

  BOOK TWO – THE VALUE SYSTEM

  *

  MALCOLM J WARDLAW

  The Value System

  Copyright © 2020 by Malcolm J. Wardlaw.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or else are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is entirely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 1

  [Somewhere on the east coast of England, early October 2106]

  “Value! Get on deck.”

  Value. That means you, Lawrence. Two hands plus two feet minus one mouth equals one head of value. Such is the arithmetic of slave labour.

  Biting cold air fell through the hatch and poured around the hold, bringing with it a minty odour of bog. He caught not the slightest hint of smoke or manure. It confirmed what he already suspected—this place of calm waters and silence lay a hell of a long way from anywhere else.

  Unfamiliar boots clumped on the deck overhead.

  “What’s the business tonight?” The stranger had the accent of Soho industrial asylum.

  “A full load and three head of value.” That was the hoarse voice of the barge captain. Lawrence sensed the two men knew each other.

  “Then where the fuck are they?” Something metallic clanged on the steel frame of the hatch. “Get moving value, or I’ll whack your arses up here with my cracker pipe.”

  Lawrence struggled to get to his feet. Around his neck was chained a lump of steel the size of a beer tankard. It was a piston from a Public Era diesel engine—torn apart long ago, its guts to be reused in these enlightened times for anchoring slave labour in transit. To stand upright, he had to heft the anchor from a posture of bending as if to touch his toes. Cradling it on his stomach, he edged over to where a thin light from the hatch illuminated the ladder. By a spasm of effort, he climbed up on deck, where he stood peering through quivering eyelids, dazzled by the glare of an oil lantern. In the voyage from Tilbury on the Thames Estuary, his pupils had scoured nothing brighter than cracks in the deck, opening and shutting with the heaving of the barge.

  “You’ll do well here, value.” This voice spoke with the accent of Camden industrial asylum. “Take a drink.”

  Lawrence had to twist his head awkwardly forward and sideways to gulp the cool water in the calabash, for the chains prevented him raising his arms above shoulder height. That is, he could complete necessary functions of toilet through a hole in a plank, but he could not fight back. He drained the calabash.

  “That was meant for the three of you,” Camden Man said. The darkness laughed. “You may as well hog this while you’re at it.”

  Lawrence received a block of what turned out to be a sweet, delicious cake of nuts, honey and seeds. Like a wild animal, he forced whole chunks down his gullet. Only the strong live—weaklings join the Nameless Gone.

  Above him the wind clattered through a mass of rigging. Lawrence knew ships from having commanded a patrol barge in his previous life as a glory officer, before he was flushed away to this slaving world of Night and Fog. He knew from the crew’s yells this vessel was a two-master worked by three sailors. These sailing barges were simple and surprisingly fast, easily able to cover two hundred miles a day. The motion of the barge during the two-day voyage suggested an erratic course, as if they had sailed far out into the North Sea and then tacked back east towards the coast of Britain. The captain might have done this to avoid the coastal sea lanes, or perhaps his intention was to deceive the three head of value that their destination was farther from the Thames Estuary than it actually was.

  There were several figures gathered about the deck hatch. Three wore Shetland jumpers. These must be the crew of the barge. Camden Man wore the black uniform and helmet of an ultramarine trooper. The stripes revealed him to be a master sergeant. This rank typically embodied an amalgam of testiness and bigotry.

  An under-sergeant and a leading heeler descended into the hold where they stamped about shouting. Their efforts yielded a dark form rising into the lantern’s light. He was a giant, even taller and broader than Lawrence, who was six foot two. This must be the owner of the deep voice named Pezzini. He had the largest breasts Lawrence had ever seen on a man. His head was shining bald and massively boned, the skin tone medium-brown. There was a telling absence of stubble on his jaw. Indeed, his whole body was smooth and flabby, more rounded than one would expect of a man; the poor fellow was a spay, a eunuch. He stood aloof, chin above those around him and the reflection of the lantern glittering on his eyes. This lofty manner suited the polished modulations of the voice Lawrence had heard in the darkness of the hold. He guessed Pezzini was an official—a senior one like a minister—from the staff of a sovereign clan, since glory trusts did not accept spays.

  From below erupted a crying like a child and a steady thwack thwack thwack of cracker pipe striking flesh. Soho Man bellowed with fury.

  “You fat little fuck, get to your feet.”

  A minute later and the third arrival had been bodily hauled up on deck, where he lay curled, a fat little man with a soft, pouting face. This was the owner of the whining voice named Gnevik. He was precisely the model of cringing little drip that Lawrence had pictured. The master sergeant prodded Lawrence’s shoulder and held out Gnevik’s rope.

  “Get him over the side, value—and you watch your step, that’s a floating pier. If you fall in, your anchor will drag you straight to the bottom, and there you shall remain.”

  Lawrence pulled Gnevik and his anchor across the deck to the gunwale. A rope ladder dangled to a narrow pier about six feet below, on which stood a couple more heelers, one holding a lantern. Lawrence made the descent quite safely himself. Alas, when he pulled Gnevik over the gunwale, the little man wailed and dropped into the black water, yanked straight to the bottom by his anchor. Lawrence merely observed, with a detached interest, almost the full length of rope gone into the depths. He could feel struggles from the far end, like a hooked fish.

  “Better hoik him up, value,” one of the heelers said. Lawrence stooped to brace and reeled Gnevik in, accompanied by laughter and cheers from those on deck, who had crowded to watch after hearing the great splash. Little Gnevik emerged whooping and sobbing, pouring off freezing water.

  Now big Pezzini came down the ladder, moving like an elephant, slow, monumental and dignified. With the three value together on the pier, the heelers shooed them ashore and over the top of some kind of banking. On the far side, the heelers brought them to a halt and shuttered the lantern, leaving all five of them in complete darkness. Lawrence suspected the bank they had come over was a dyke built back in the Public Era to ke
ep the sea out, so the land could grow crops for the Fatted Masses in their great illuminated cities. They waited in silence, surrounded by the soft rush of distant surf and occasional clinks of their anchor chains. Lawrence could taste the crisp freedom of the night. Not the slightest dot of habitation glimmered anywhere out there; this place was indeed a long way from anywhere.

  The rest of the ultramarines and the barge crew came pounding over the bank, breathing hard. None of them offered any explanation for the haste, nor did the two heelers ask questions. It appeared to be part of the routine.

  “From now on we follow blackout drill,” said the ratty master sergeant from Camden. “That means left hand on the shoulder of the man in front, marching steady time. You, big man—” He laid a hand on Lawrence’s back. “—will go at the back. If the locals grab that useless runt, just let go. He isn’t worth a fight with a bunch of savages.”

  They formed a line, the master sergeant at the front and Lawrence at the back, towing Gnevik.

  “Shutter the lantern. OK, three, two, one… march.”

  The master sergeant obviously knew this landscape like his bedroom, as he never had any difficulty keeping the tail of men on the gravel path. The little bastard Gnevik kept tripping and whining, until Lawrence simply dragged him and his anchor along the gravel. The ultras had not executed Gnevik, as they would have done at Chatham. Perhaps this place was not so bad…

  At about that moment, the wind dropped. In the peace, Lawrence could have sworn he heard a dreadful moan from behind them, like doomed cattle far down in hell.

  “Right, let’s keep it sharp,” the master sergeant shouted. “Left, right, left, right, nice and steady, no bunching.”

  Their boots crunched, the wind picked up again, that appeal from the doomed was lost, or perhaps it was just a distortion of breakers carried across mud flats. Who could say?

  Lawrence reflected on his situation. It was necessary to be realistic. He alone out of all the hundreds at Chatham camp had been called out at parade for transport to this place. Why? He must be worth more in this place than he was at Chatham. But why?

  The march could have lasted an hour, or several. Lawrence was past caring. The one mercy was that the path was flat as a plank the whole way, tending to harden Lawrence’s suspicion this place was somewhere lost in the vast marshes of eastern England. Finally, they were in calm and their paces sounded hollow, as if they were in a tunnel. Lawrence could make out white squares—window panes. The ratty master sergeant with the accent of Camden asylum called a halt.

  “Get ready to meet The Captain,” he said.

  Chapter 2

  Lawrence was at first blinded by something he had not encountered in months of Night and Fog: electric light. Gradually, he made out a polished floor and a broad desk with the Euclidean perfection of a machine-made Public Era heirloom. Behind it sat a lean man—clearly an officer—in the black uniform of the ultramarines. This uniform caught the light with a purple shimmer. The collar tabs and cuffs each bore an eight-pointed silver escarbuncle, which Lawrence knew to be the motif of an ‘owner’, that is, one without superior; a member of the Ultramarine Guild.

  The officer relaxed back in his chair, which had a high, encircling back, no doubt to suggest a throne. His entire form was surrounded by gleaming, dark brown leather.

  “Good evening The Captain. Master Sergeant Ratty presenting three new head of value.”

  “Excellent. And the load?”

  “Nature has taken its course, The Captain.”

  Lawrence absorbed some first impressions of The Captain, being careful to avoid eye contact. He was roughly mid-thirties, a big-shouldered athletic fellow. The head domed over an impressive capacity of brain, accentuated by receding black hair swept straight over into a short back and sides. The nose was slender and noble. Yet this aloof intellectualism was contradicted by a thin-lipped mouth and taut cheeks. The eyes were thin and projected a scathing militancy. Lawrence sized this man up as a shit, first class.

  “Welcome to my Value System,” The Captain said. “Please relieve them of their anchors, Under-sergeant Brummie.”

  The under-sergeant with the Soho accent released the padlock about Lawrence’s neck, freeing him to lower the steel piston to the floor. His shoulders experienced a floating sensation. For the first time in two days, he could stand upright without thirty pounds of Public Era steelwork dragging at him.

  “Leave the anchor in that crate, value,” Under-sergeant Brummie said, gesturing to a crate against the wall. Lawrence bid the piston goodbye without regret, closely followed by Pezzini. Little Gnevik provoked amusement with his struggles to lift his anchor over the lip of the crate even heaving with both arms and uttering amorous groans.

  “Mark Chetley Gnevik,” The Captain said. The scathing eyes landed upon Gnevik and the thin mouth curled into a sneer.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Not sir; I am The Captain.”

  “Yes, The Captain.”

  “Why you are here?”

  The silence became painful. The Captain’s eyes shifted.

  “Assist him, Under-sergeant Brummie.”

  The under-sergeant raised his cracker pipe and swiped Gnevik’s elbow. The little man uttered a yelp like a terrier and folded over, whining and snivelling. The Captain’s scathing eyes remained fixed on him.

  “Why are you here?”

  “S-s-sex with children, The Captain.”

  The Captain lifted a cardboard folder from a drawer. It bore the motif of Universal Parrier, one of the leading glory trusts of Britain.

  “Gnevik is a persistent sex-offender,” he read aloud. “Numerous complaints received all through his service. Charged for fellating recruits in a shower. Charged again for assault of a ten-year-old kid whilst extracting infestation. Caught buggering a boy in a client’s kitchen. It goes on and on. Gnevik was finally caught with three young girls in a garage. I shall not go into the sordid details. Unfortunately for him, they were the daughters of a senior officer.” He smiled up at Gnevik, with the blandness of a primary school teacher. “You must have a taste for danger, never mind little girls, to try a stunt like that.”

  The Captain gazed at Gnevik until Lawrence could see, out of the bottom of one eye, the man was visibly shaking and grinding his chubby little fists in terror. The Captain just shook his head and tossed the folder on the desk.

  “Let me explain something, not just to you Gnevik but to all three of you. Everyone in my Value System gets tagged. Your old name is finished—you will never use it again. If you do, you will be lashed for the first offense and executed for the second. In time, your old name will pass from memory.”

  He dipped into a side drawer and picked out a small metal tag—similar to a dog tag a trooper would wear around their neck. He extended his arm and Under-sergeant Brummie took the tag and stood just behind Gnevik.

  “Gnevik, you are Value Zeta727.”

  “Respond, Value Zeta727,” Master Sergeant Ratty said, raising his cracker.

  “I am Value Zeta727, The Captain.”

  In a quick movement, Under-sergeant Brummie gripped Gnevik by the left ear and seemed to snip with a pair of what looked like pliers. Gnevik leaped and screeched. His hands fluttering about the ear. Lawrence saw, with disgust, the metal tag was now clipped to the ear lobe. A drop of blood swelled and dripped.

  “Kindly relieve us of his despicable presence, Under-sergeant Brummie.”

  “Yes, The Captain.”

  Under-sergeant Brummie in turn ordered a leading heeler to take Gnevik to Dormitory 21. The leading heeler grabbed Gnevik by the collar and hauled him out backwards.

  The Captain now drew an altogether different style of folder from the desk. This one was of sky-blue vellum stitched with burgundy catgut. Its front was decorated with the coat of arms of the Sovereign Lands of Krossington. Lawrence knew the design well enough, having spent most of his career serving on Krossington lands. That clan shared with
all the sovereign caste a taste for the gilded lily: glaring eagles, flowing banners, medieval helmets and so forth. The clan motto was “Aurum Vita Est” (Gold Is Life).

  The Captain stared up at clumping, big-breasted Pezzini.

  “You are Antonio Kwasu Pezzini. Formerly chief demographer of the Sovereign Lands of Krossington.”

  “That is correct, The Captain.”

  “How did you come by such an exotic name?”

  “My father’s family came from Italy. That was a nation state of southern Europe before the Glorious Resolution—today we call it the Roman Confederation. My mother’s family came from Egypt. That was a nation state of Africa before the Glorious Resolution—now it is the Nile Districts.”

  If The Captain was irritated at being patronised, he displayed no sign of it.

  “What do you feel guilty of, Pezzini?”

  “I do not feel guilty of anything, The Captain. A mistake has been made.”

  Pezzini sagged, groaning. Master Sergeant Ratty had jabbed him in the kidney with his pistol.

  “We don’t make mistakes, value.”

  Shaken but determined to absorb the blow, Pezzini recovered to stand at attention. The Captain remained silent, his head down, reading through the file. After which, he gathered all the papers up and banged them square on the desktop.

  “From your clean chin, it is clear you are a spay. Why is that?”

  “My parents had me spayed as a boy. They believed it would improve my chances of acceptance into the service of a sovereign clan.”

  “Your citizen’s record states you were born in the industrial asylum of Brent Cross. As a boy, you displayed an IQ of 135, which unusual talent won you a scholarship through the Talent Court of Krossington. You have lifted yourself from nothing by your brains alone. That is, of course, not least because you have nothing but your brains left. Lately, you were no less than the chief demographer of the Sovereign Lands of Krossington, the most powerful of all the sovereign lands of Britain. You must have been close to Tom Krossington himself. Did he take you to nice places?”