McPhee sat on the edge of Harry’s desk. ‘You’re referring to a decision that was made some time ago. When time-travel technology was still in development. We thought it would be unwise for the human race to know too much of what might happen in the future.’
Simon nodded.
‘If people had easy access to travelling forwards in time, they could find out things like winning lottery numbers, or the best shares to buy on the stock exchange,’ McPhee went on. ‘They could come back, buy tickets in the lottery, or put bets on the right horses, and make a lot of money. Unscrupulous people could use the same means to change and manipulate world events. It could be catastrophic.’
Simon nodded again. Not that long ago, he would have thought it kind of cool to know who all the future World Surfing Champions would be, and whether he’d have any chance at the title. But he had other things on his mind now.
‘Take another look at the screen. A closer look,’ McPhee said. ‘Bring up the future timelines, Harry.’
Harry punched some keys, and six horizontal red lines appeared from a line marking the year 2321. They connected back to several vertical lines in a block eight hundred years earlier.
Simon studied them. ‘They look like mission lines to a spot in the twenty-fourth century. I don’t get it, sir. How does this fit in with not doing missions to the future?’
‘Those are red lines, not yellow, Savage,’ McPhee said. ‘If you look carefully, you’ll see these missions originate in the year 2321, and link to a variety of locations and times back in the sixteenth century.’
‘So those aren’t our missions?’ Simon asked. He could think of only one other explanation. ‘Does this mean someone else has worked out a time-travel system?’
Harry smiled. ‘The kid’s twigged straightaway, sir.’
‘An organisation in the twenty-fourth century does have time-travel capability,’ McPhee said, ‘and the Bureau would like to find out who they are. We’ve got some idea of what they’re up to, but we don’t want this technology to fall into the wrong hands, or to be used for the wrong purposes. We want to control it.’ He paused. ‘And this means that the future is now part of your job.’
Simon couldn’t believe his luck. He was breaking new ground. The Bureau was sending him on a mission of the utmost importance. And the more they trusted him with assignments like this, the more chances he would get to look into the past. And that way, Simon figured, he was bound to discover more about his father’s disappearance.
But the past can wait a little longer, he thought to himself.
‘So, how does Danice come into it, sir?’ Simon asked.
‘Danice lives in the twenty-fourth century,’ McPhee replied. ‘We brought her here to work with you—and to take you there.’
Simon was amazed. No wonder Danice had been acting weird. She must have been even more homesick than the rest of them. ‘Now I understand the secrecy,’ he managed to say.
‘Are you ready for it?’ asked McPhee.
‘Can’t be soon enough for me,’ Simon replied with a grin. ‘Sir!’
12
Early 17th Century, England
It was market day in Bucklechurch. A few tattered flags fluttered from the battlements of the ancient castle on the hill above the town.
‘This joint has seen better times,’ Simon said. He and Danice left a laneway beside a ruined abbey and strolled into the town’s cobblestoned square. A few dozen raggedly dressed townsfolk milled about, gawping at items that were displayed along a ramshackle row of stalls.
‘That abbey was plundered by the soldiers of Henry VIII,’ Danice said, pulling her hooded cloak tighter around her shoulders. ‘In 1534 all the town’s privileges were taken away and the local lord’s title was abolished.’
‘Yeah, that long ago?’
‘You read the briefing file, didn’t you?’
‘I had a quick look at it.’
Danice grabbed Simon’s arm and pulled him into a gap behind a hay-laden cart. ‘You should have read it all,’ she said with quiet intensity. ‘These are real people, and the past is real, just like the professor said. We can’t just rush in and do what we like, as if it were a game.’
Simon sighed. Danice was getting on his nerves. He’d been feeling a bit more friendly towards her since he’d discovered she was from the twenty-fourth century, but she was still a pain. Always wanting to do everything by the book. ‘Look, I read our mission statement,’ he said. ‘This is a training run.’ He looked around at the market stalls. ‘We arrive, we retrieve, we leave. Stop making such a big deal of it!’
‘Okay, have it your way. You take charge.’
‘Good,’ Simon said, heading towards the market stalls. He was frustrated that McPhee had chosen to send them to the past again, after all the big talk of going to the future. The professor had insisted on more training, and in the seventeenth century, to boot. It was a waste of time. ‘Let’s do what we have to,’ he said, ‘and get out of here.’
‘The vision’s dropped out from our satellite,’ Harry Hammil said, swivelling in his chair to face the professor and Captain Cutler.
‘Where are they now?’ Cutler asked.
‘They’ll be entering the market,’ Harry replied. ‘Shall I move the TPS and the timeline?’
Cutler lifted a questioning eyebrow. ‘What do you think, Professor? Are they up to the challenge?’
‘Yes, move it,’ McPhee ordered without hesitation. ‘It’s time to make things harder for them. See how they respond.’
As they sauntered past the market stalls, Simon tightened the hood of his cloak around his face to better conceal his sun-tanned skin. He and Danice wore woollen shirts and baggy breeches over their travel suits to blend in with the local townsfolk.
The Bureau’s Costume Department has got it pretty right, Simon thought. But nothing prepared him for the sights and stinks of the market. The pages of their brief had been clean, but the real streets of history were far from it. The butcher’s stall was a good example. The sheep carcasses hung from hooks, black flies crawling over their fatty flesh, while under the counter two mangy dogs fought over the eyeless, decaying head of a pig. Piles of garbage and grey cesspools of muck lay scattered about the square.
‘Fresh mutton, young’uns?’ the butcher asked, holding up a blood-spattered meat cleaver.
Danice turned away.
‘Let’s try over there,’ Simon said, pointing to a cookware stall heaped with bowls and cast-iron pots and pans.
Their task was to take back some solid object, and that was as good a place to look as any.
‘Okay, give it a try,’ Danice said.
As she turned, a burly farm boy balancing a rusty hoe on his shoulder bumped into her.
‘Sorry!’ Danice gasped. ‘I didn’t see you!’
The flaxen-haired youth scowled and stared at Danice suspiciously. He had heard rumours, only that day, that witches had been seen over the last couple of nights. Hags in disguise who had left the dark forests to haunt the villages. And now there were two cloaked and hooded strangers in the marketplace.
‘Quick!’ Simon grabbed Danice’s elbow and steered her across to the kitchen stall.
‘A good day to ye!’ said the owner.
He wore a filthy leather apron, and beamed with a toothless grin as he waved a claw-like hand over his homemade range of products. ‘Pray look at some of me proper fine wares. I’ll make fair trade, I’ll not deceive or cog thee.’
‘I think he’s giving us the big sell,’ Danice whispered.
Simon picked up a small iron pot and turned it over in his hands. ‘Well, let’s nab some piece of junk, pronto,’ he whispered back.
‘Ah, good sir, there be a fine pot,’ the fellow said.
‘Yeah, a saucepan,’ Simon agreed.
‘Simon!’ Danice snapped.
‘What dost thou call it?’ the man asked.
‘A saucepan,’ Simon said.
‘Simon, shut up!’ Danice hastily dropped a couple of silver c
oins into the man’s hand. ‘There, thank ’ee!’
The man’s eyes popped with delight at her generosity and the spit dribbled from his lips. It was a payment three times the normal price. ‘Well, thank ’ee and good bounty be with thee!’
‘Let’s go!’ said Danice as she dragged Simon away.
‘What’s up?’
‘You called it a saucepan!’
‘That’s what it is,’ he replied, stashing the pot in his nano-carrier backpack.
‘Not yet, it’s not.’
‘What?’
‘It’s what I was saying. We have to respect the time we’re in,’ Danice said, pushing through the crowd. ‘The word saucepan wasn’t used round here for another sixty years or more. Maybe not even till the eighteenth century.’
Danice was right, but Simon didn’t want to admit it. ‘Oh, is that all?’ he said.
‘It’s careless,’ Danice said. ‘It’s interfering with history.’
He stopped. ‘Look, I didn’t have time to check the language recordings. So I’m sorry, okay!’
On the far side of the square, the farm boy was talking with three older men and pointing towards the two temponauts. One of the men looked official. He wore an armoured breastplate, and a sword hung at his side.
‘We’re being watched!’ Simon muttered.
Danice glanced across the square. At that moment, the boy and the men started shouting and shoving their way towards them. Attracted by the excitement, a motley rabble of townsfolk grabbed hold of makeshift weapons and joined them.
‘We’d better make tracks!’ Simon said, activating his wrist pilot and heading back to the laneway beside the abbey. The timeline that would take them home was at the far end of the lane, out of sight of the square.
Suddenly he stopped. ‘Hang on! Where’s the timeline? It’s moved. Check your reading.’
Danice activated her wrist pilot. ‘You’re right. Now it’s by the bridge on the far side of the castle. Command has shifted it!’
Simon glanced over his shoulder. The farm boy and the growing mob were now shouting, ‘Witches! Witches!’
‘Quick! Down here!’ Simon said.
They ducked into another laneway that led out of the village to the farmlands beyond. Simon took off his cloak.
‘If we get these rags off, we can use our suits as camouflage,’ he said, glancing towards the ivy-covered wall that ran alongside the laneway. ‘Toss your stuff along the path. Now!’
Danice scattered her clothes along the lane as she ran. ‘But we’re supposed to take these costumes back with us,’ she said.
‘Too bad,’ Simon said, as the voices of the mob got closer. ‘Stand still. And stay still!’
They pressed their bodies against the wall. Within a few moments their suits took on a leaf pattern that exactly matched the ivy-covered wall. A second later, a score of angry villagers poured into the lane.
Simon and Danice froze.
‘Ho, there! Look!’ The farm boy pointed at the clothing. ‘The witches have fled this way!’
‘Advance!’ the soldier ordered.
He lumbered along the lane and the crowd followed him, yelling and waving their hoes, axes and pitchforks.
Danice stepped away from the wall. ‘Hey, these suits really work!’
‘Yeah, but let’s not stand around admiring them.’ Simon grabbed her arm. ‘Let’s move!’
Danice tugged away from him. ‘We can’t run through the village in these outfits!’
She was right. Simon selected a map of the area on his wrist pilot. ‘The bridge is on the other side of the castle. But we don’t have to go through the square to get there.’
He glanced at the wall behind them. ‘It’s only a couple of metres high,’ he said. ‘We can climb over here. The map shows an orchard on the other side that extends around the back of the castle. After that there’s a stream we can follow down to the bridge. Okay?’
‘Okay!’ Danice replied.
Simon took a step back, jumped and grabbed the top of the wall. ‘Give us a leg-up!’
Danice crouched, cupped her hands under Simon’s left foot and lifted. He straddled the wall and stretched an arm down to her. ‘Grab hold—quick!’
Danice took his hand, scrambled her feet up the wall and made it to the top.
‘Go!’ Simon said.
Danice dropped down the other side. Simon looked around for a moment to check no one was following.
Then he, too, was gone.
13
The feast that Damien spread on the family table was the best they had seen for a month or more. There were the usual beige, tasteless chunks of Syn-food, a processed protein from the Prison Farms. But there was also a roast chicken, two loaves of fresh bread, a bunch of celery, some potatoes, carrots, apples and a big, spiky pineapple, all from the Chieftain’s own private farm and kitchen.
‘The Chieftain was pleased with our haul,’ Damien said. ‘This is our reward.’
Alli polished an apple and passed it to her mother, Hanna.
Hanna irritably waved it away. ‘So, how much gold did you steal?’
‘Five or six hundred kilos,’ Damien replied. ‘We would’ve got more … well, if Lee hadn’t messed things up.’
‘It was his first trip,’ Alli said in Lee’s defence.
‘He was clumsy.’
‘He’ll get better.’
‘He’s your friend, so of course you’ll defend him. But he’ll have to shape up quick,’ Damien said. ‘These trips aren’t games. They’re hard work, they’re dangerous——’
‘Danice should be here to enjoy this, too,’ Hanna cut in.
‘I know Mama,’ Damien replied. ‘I said I was sorry about what happened.’ The feast couldn’t make up for his sister’s disappearance, and there was no way he could start a search for Danice himself. Nor could Damien find out where the men who had snatched his sister had come from.
He tried not to think about it, and turned his attention back to the feast. At least it showed he could still provide for his family.
‘I’m not sure how you eat this,’ Damien said, holding a knife over the pineapple, a fruit he had seen once but never tasted.
‘I’ll show you,’ Hanna said, getting up. Her crippled legs wobbled as the tree house swayed slightly in the wind.
Alli dashed to her side to support her.
‘I’m all right!’ Hanna pushed her away. ‘Wind’s a-rising, things will buckle and fold for a while. Don’t bother me.’
Damien hated seeing his mother in this surly mood, especially as there was nothing he could say to make her feel better. Talking wouldn’t bring Danice back.
He turned to the open window. Great banks of storm clouds brewed along the horizon and a rising wind ruffled the treetops. Lights flickered from the candles in the other tree houses. These days, they were inhabited mainly by women, young children and the elderly. Most of the adult men were gone, working as slaves, or as poorly paid factory workers in Old City.
‘I better go and see Bigdad,’ Damien said. ‘I can give him a share of the food. And these …’ He took a pair of scuffed leather boots from a hessian sack and showed them off proudly.
‘Where did you get those?’ Hanna asked. ‘You didn’t do some silly piece of trade, did you?’
‘The Chieftain gave them to me,’ Damien replied. ‘I think they were going to be thrown out.’
His mother grunted. ‘Trouble. Working for the Chieftain is causing us nothing but trouble.’
‘A lot of the other families here are starving, Mama,’ Damien reminded her. ‘You know that. Working for the Chieftain is risky, but it puts food in our bellies!’
‘Not unless we eat, it doesn’t!’ Hanna snapped. She reached for the pineapple. ‘Cut the leaves off the top, trim the thick skin all around till you reach the flesh. Then eat it … if you have the appetite for it.’
Damien opened his bag and packed some of the chicken, a couple of apples, a few vegetables and the boots into it. ‘I�
��ll eat when I get back later tonight,’ he said. He slung the bag over his shoulder. ‘I’d better go while it’s still light.’
‘Be careful, Damien,’ Alli said.
‘Those people have already taken Danice,’ Hanna added. ‘How do you know you won’t be next?’
‘I’ll be all right, Mama. I can look after myself,’ Damien replied.
‘Then watch out for the——’ Hanna began, but Damien didn’t wait to hear her out.
He stepped onto the timber landing outside. The wind in the soughing redwoods smothered his mother’s voice. Damien didn’t need reminding. He knew the dangers of the night.
‘Care for what’s left?’ the Chieftain asked, taking the last portion of grilled steak from a platter on the table.
‘No, boss, thank you,’ O’Bray replied politely, and sat back a little in his chair.
‘You prefer the synthetic stuff from the Farms?’
‘Syn-food is nutritious, it’s filling,’ O’Bray said, ‘and they say it’s non-carcinogenic.’
‘This is real food,’ the Chieftain said, cutting into the meat and lifting a juicy chunk to his mouth.
O’Bray let his master eat. If that was the sort of thing he liked, who was O’Bray to object? The Chieftain had different tastes and habits, acquired in the Far Lands. Or so he had said on the few occasions he had mentioned his origins.
O’Bray didn’t enquire too deeply. Warlords like the Chieftain came and went all the time. This one had first arrived over a year ago, along with a great deal of gold. Enough to buy a large share of whatever technology was available in this unsophisticated world. And also enough gold to buy friendship with the Tribunes who lived a few kilometres away in Old City.
Gold meant power, and O’Bray knew this better than most. He worked for whoever paid the best price. For now, that person was the Chieftain.
‘Mmm, delicious.’ The Chieftain wiped his lips with a white napkin. ‘Now, O’Bray, let’s talk business.’
O’Bray bowed his head slightly. ‘You wish to launch another gold-seeking operation?’
‘A big one,’ the Chieftain said. ‘Winter’s coming, and power from the nuclear station will cost us more. Also, the Tribunes are fond of their large and regular payments from my treasury. We need to get hold of as much gold as we can to last through the colder months, and into next year. What have you discovered?’
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