The Barbarians
By Algis Budrys
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Algis Budrys
Algis Budrys (1931–2008) was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, where his father served in the Lithuanian diplomatic corps. The family came to the United States when Budrys was five years old. A Renaissance man, he wrote stories and novels, and was an editor, critic, and reviewer, a teacher of aspiring writers, and a publisher. In the 1960s Budrys worked in public relations, advertising products such as pickles, tuna fish, and four-wheel-drive vehicles. His science fiction novels include Rogue Moon, Hard Landing, Falling Torch, and many others. His Cold War science fiction thriller Who? was adapted for the screen, and he received many award nominations for his work. Budrys was married to his wife, Edna, for almost fifty-four years.
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The Barbarians - Algis Budrys
The Barbarians
by Algis Budrys
©2020 Positronic Publishing
The Barbarians is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, locales or institutions is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except for brief quotations for review purposes only.
ISBN 13: 978-1-5154-4583-8
Table of Contents
The Barbarians
The Barbarians
History was repeating itself; there were moats and nobles in Pennsylvania and vassals in Manhattan and the barbarian hordes were overrunning the land.
It was just as he saw The Barbarian’s squat black tankette lurch hurriedly into a nest of boulders that young Giulion Geoffrey realized he had been betrayed. With the muzzle of his own cannon still hot from the shell that had jammed The Barbarian’s turret, he had yanked the starboard track lever to wheel into position for the finishing shot. All around him, the remnants of The Barbarian’s invading army were being cut to flaming ribbons by the armored vehicles of the Seaboard League. The night was shot through by billows of cannon fire, and the din of laboring engines, guns, and rent metal was a cacophonic climax to the Seaboard League’s first decisive victory over the inland invaders. Young Geoffrey could justifiably feel that he would cap that climax by personally accounting for the greatest of the inland barbarians; the barbarian general himself. He trained his sights on the scarlet bearpaw painted on the skewed turret’s flank, and laid his hand on the firing lever.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of another tankette rushing up on his port side. He glanced at it, saw its graceful handcrafting, and knew it for one of the League’s own. He could even see the insigne; the mailed heel trampling a stand of wheat; Harolde Dugald, of the neighboring fief. Geoffrey was on coldly polite terms with Dugald—he had no use for the other man’s way of treating his serfs—and now he felt a prickle of indignant rage at this attempt to usurp a share of his glory. He saw Dugald’s turret begin to traverse, and hastily tried to get the finishing shot into The Barbarian’s tankette before the other Leaguesman could fire. But Dugald was not aiming for The Barbarian. First he had to eliminate Geoffrey from the scene entirely. When he fired, at almost point-blank range, the world seemed to explode in Giulion’s eyes.
Somehow, no whistling shard of metal actually hit him. But the tankette, sturdy as it was, could not hope to protect him