Never Sound Retreat Read Online Free PDF Page A

that he now was he would not change, not Kathleen, the children, even the dream of the Republic he had struggled so hard to create on this nightmare world. Yet as he looked at the stars above he wished that somehow he could recapture and hold what once was, the lazy summer nights of Maine, the youthful innocence, the belief that such hopes would indeed be true.
    "Thinking of Maine?"
    He turned to see Hans by his side, looking up at the stars as well.
    "How did you know?"
    "Could tell somehow. I feel the same. A wish for peace, a place for my wife, my son to be safe. Remember that meadow we hiked to north of Augusta, back when you were a fresh young lieutenant and we marched your company for the first time?"
    Andrew smiled wistfully. "Snow Pond above Augusta. Remember it well."
    "It was peaceful there that day, so peaceful, the breeze rippling the water, the white clouds drifting in, the blue sky, the air cool, fresh like it was the day the Earth was born. I've dreamed of it ever since. When I was back there"—he nodded toward the south—"at night I'd dream that I could close my eyes and the years would peel back and we'd be there again and all that would happen to us was then a dream yet to be."
    Andrew said nothing for a long moment. The Hans who had come back to him from the hell of the Ban-tag prisons was changed. He was still the same old grizzled sergeant major, that was eternal, yet now there was a tragic longing, a looking for something he feared they would never find in this world.
    "We're in trouble, Hans," he finally said, and as he spoke, he continued to gaze at the sky. "When the last war ended I dreamed it was over, but it never will be, at least as long as we are alive. Maybe for our children, but not for us. It will just keep going on, and on."
    Hans nodded as he reached into his pocket, fished out a plug of tobacco, and bit off a chew. He absently offered the plug to Andrew, who took a bite, then looked over at Hans and smiled. It was a ritual they had developed so many years back when they were still on Earth. In the years when Hans was a prisoner, the memory of this simple gesture could move him to tears.
    "Why us, Hans?" Andrew sighed.
    "Because we're here, lad, because we're here."

Chapter Two

     
     
    "My Qar Qarth."
    Ha'ark, grinning with delight, accepted the bow and salute of his lieutenants, Jurak and Bakkth, two of his companions who had traveled through the Tunnel of Light with him. Ha'ark Qar Qarth the Redeemer looked around at the assembled umen leaders and clan Qarths who were gathered in his golden yurt and felt a cold chill of delight. Hard to believe, even to imagine, that five years past he was but a frightened draftee, forced to join the imperial forces in the war of the False Pretender back on his home world.
    Was that even me, he wondered? More a scholar than a soldier, wanting nothing of the war, driven to it because of an unfortunate encounter with the daughter of a petty judge who, to defend her honor, had later claimed that his attentions were forced rather than gladly accepted. The thought was amusing now; at least he had claimed that they were not forced and, with a wry smile, realized that the truth fell somewhere in the middle.
    By the time he had been forced into the army the glorious early days of victory for the imperial side were long past, and when he had left for the depot his family offered the traditional services for the dead. It was no longer a war of honor or quarter, and the imperial armies were in retreat. Cities still loyal were under constant bombardment, and the great palace had disappeared under a rain of atomic rockets.
    When he and the rest of his unit had fallen through the Tunnel of Light to this world he had thought it was the end . . . and now he was Qar Qarth.
    The memory of it all caused him to laugh softly, and those around him, his clan leaders, his umen commanders and tribal Qarths started to laugh as well. They knew not why they were laughing, simply