Send Simon Savage #1 (13 page)

‘We’ll probably have to hunt if we stay here much longer,’ Alli said.

‘There’s plenty of game in this part of the forest,’ Hanna agreed. ‘There’s deer and elk and possum.’

‘Don’t worry, I went back and fetched the bread and some of the fruit,’ Damien said, tossing his bag on the bed. ‘We can eat that. We won’t have to hunt for a few days.’

He got up, walked to the entrance and looked out at the rain. ‘I’m worried about Danice and that boy she’s with.’

‘Simon,’ Alli said.

‘Yeah, him.’

Damien didn’t trust people he didn’t know. Living hand-to-mouth and day-to-day, with the threat of slave raids and their precarious situation as the Chieftain’s gold hunters, made him think like that. He only trusted the people he knew.

Damien was worried that Simon was in league with the people who had abducted Danice. Although Simon had brought his sister back, he was now leading her into dangerous situations without explaining why.

‘Where’s he from?’ Damien asked. ‘The past? The future? Who’s he working for, and why won’t he say why he’s here?’

‘Danice trusts him,’ Alli replied, ‘and she seems to know what she’s doing.’

‘Maybe she does. But whatever it is they’re up to, I don’t like it,’ Damien said. ‘I’m going to look for them.’

‘Look for them?’ Hanna protested. ‘Where? You don’t know what’s happened to them or where they’ve gone!’

‘Mama, you probably don’t want to know this, but when I went back to get the food, someone told me they saw Danice and Simon climbing up into one of the airships.’

‘That’s stupid!’ Alli cried. ‘Why would they do that?’

Damien shrugged. ‘To get into Old City, I suppose. That’s what I have to find out.’

Hanna waved her hand irritably. ‘Then go! Find her and bring her back. I want all my children here, with me. Safe.’

‘Don’t forget to block up the entrance,’ Damien said, pointing to the sturdy wooden grate that his family would have to nail into place before dark. It was the only way to keep out the wildlings. ‘Don’t worry, Mama, I’ll be all right.’

He stepped into the chilly afternoon and was gone.

‘We’re picking up a new timeline from 2321,’ Harry reported to Captain Cutler.

‘Is it anything to do with Simon and Danice’s mission?’ Cutler asked, leaning forward to examine the red line on the Operations Screen.

‘This is totally new, sir. Sent by our mysterious Chieftain friend, I’d say.’

‘An exploration satellite? Before they send out temponauts?’

‘That’s my calculation, sir.’ Harry pointed to the other red timelines on the screen. ‘In the past, they’ve sent one, two, or sometimes three TP Satellites to reconnoitre new locations.’

‘Rather like we do,’ Cutler said.

‘We’re usually more thorough than they are, sir.’

‘To where does the timeline link?’ Cutler asked.

‘Indonesia, sir. 1515. The northern coast of Sumatra, to be exact. A fairly uninhabited area, by the looks of it.’

‘Any intelligence on the area?’

‘From around 1513, the Portuguese were very active in this region. They were after spices, sir, and …’

‘Gold, yes, I know,’ Cutler cut in. ‘Do we have a TPS on standby?’

‘Not at the moment,’ Harry replied. ‘But I can have one moving pretty soon.’

‘Activate it, then. Investigate the location as soon as the satellite’s operational.’ Cutler frowned. ‘What’s that chieftain up to now?’

19

I
t was late afternoon. The yellow lights of the power station glinted dimly in the drizzle that fell from the darkening sky.

‘Too many people at the front gate, there’s no easy way in there,’ Simon said, looking up from the clump of low bushes where he and Danice were hiding. He’d managed to calm himself down, and felt back in control.

‘We’d better find some other way in,’ Danice said. ‘Our second objective is to find out if this is the source of the power for the Chieftain’s time-travel system.’

Simon nodded.

He left their cover and crawled along a deep drainage ditch. Danice followed. Once they were out of sight of the gate they clambered up the bank and skirted along the base of the razor-wire fence that surrounded the station.

Danice looked up at the fence. ‘It’s about five metres high,’ she said. ‘Another job for our springers.’

‘And the ground’s pretty hard here,’ Simon said, ‘so let’s fly.’

Retreating a few metres, they activated their wrist pilots and, on Simon’s command, leapt forward, bouncing and soaring over the fence. They landed in the long grass on the other side.

Danice winced, lifting her right leg to reveal a jagged tear that had sliced through her suit to the flesh underneath. ‘Ouch, that hurts!’ she moaned. ‘I snagged the top of that razor wire as we went over.’

Simon twisted around and took a small metal phial from his travel pouch. ‘Try some of this repair solution,’ he said. ‘Stay still.’

The spray frothed over the wound. Within seconds, the cut in Danice’s skin was healing. Tiny, dark threads appeared at the edges of the tear in her suit and began to reweave the fabric.

‘How’s that?’ Simon asked.

‘Better,’ Danice said. ‘I still can’t figure out how that stuff works. But we should have kept it for an emergency.’

‘It was an emergency!’

Danice managed a faint smile. ‘I guess we don’t make too bad a team, after all.’

Simon turned to the power station that loomed over them. ‘So, let’s find a way in.’

Danice pointed to a ramp and a set of double doors at the side of the main building. One door was open, and two casually dressed workers were unloading cartons from the back of a truck and stacking them at the base of the ramp. ‘Over there might be a good place to start,’ she said.

‘It looks like a loading bay,’ Simon said. ‘We can be part of their delivery.’

They crept silently through the long grass, keeping their heads down until they reached the edge of the parking bay.

‘Wait,’ Simon said. He watched as the men picked up a carton each, strolled lazily up the ramp and through the open door into the power station. He estimated that there was about thirty metres of open space between them and the ramp. ‘We’ll have to run,’ he whispered.

‘My leg’s okay,’ Danice replied. ‘Just say when.’

‘Now!’

They dashed across the parking area, up the ramp and disappeared inside the power station.

‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve asked you all here,’ Professor McPhee said with a quick smile and a probing gaze at the small gathering in front of the Operations Screen. The three temponauts, Nick Spenser, Taylor Bly and Ivan Ho made up a tight group, while Captain Cutler stood beside Harry at the control desk.

‘You’re planning to send us on a big mission, sir,’ Nick said glibly.

‘Correct,’ McPhee said, ‘but I’ll get to that soon.’ He nodded to Harry. ‘Activate the new locators.’

‘Coming on now,’ Harry replied, hitting a couple of keys. ‘Look at the bottom-right of the screen, Professor.’

All eyes quickly fixed on a map of the west coast of the United States. Then the picture faded into a continuous stream of night vision from a darkened complex of buildings.

‘The year is 2321,’ the professor explained. ‘This is where Simon and Danice are working right at this moment.’

‘They’re in the future!’ Ivan gasped.

‘I can’t believe it—they never told us!’ Nick said.

‘What’s that we’re looking at?’ Taylor asked.

‘A power plant, some distance inland from the northern coast of California,’ Harry said.

‘We can see it with our new satellite,’ Cutler added. ‘We’ve put it into orbit around the Earth in the twenty-fourth century. Every ninety minutes it gives us the exact position of our temponauts, using micro-transmitters that we’ve embedded into your suits.’

‘Is this something new?’ Nick asked.

‘Yes, we’re trialling it on this mission.’

Nick grinned. ‘Bet they don’t know they’re being tracked.’

‘We weren’t sure the system would work effectively,’ Professor McPhee went on. ‘It was best they didn’t know, in case it failed when they were relying on it.’

‘Seems to be functioning okay, sir,’ Harry said.

‘So, those two red dots flashing on the screen,’ Ivan said, taking a closer look, ‘they’re Simon and Danice?’

McPhee nodded. ‘And by the looks of it, they’re right inside the power plant.’

‘The dots aren’t moving,’ Taylor observed. ‘Are they okay?’

‘That’s one thing the locators can’t reveal exactly,’ Cutler replied. ‘They could be in trouble, or they could be simply taking in the view, or talking, or hiding. We don’t know. The important thing is to keep monitoring them.’

‘So, while they’re running around in the twenty-fourth century, what do we do, Prof?’ Nick asked.

‘Now that you’ve seen what Simon and Danice are doing, we have a job for the three of you,’ McPhee said. ‘Sumatra, in the year 1515. Your job is to prevent one heck of a gold robbery.’

‘We’ve been here twenty minutes. We can’t wait all night,’ Danice said, glancing at the security camera that was fixed just below the ceiling of a corridor deep inside the power station. ‘You think they’ve seen us yet?’

‘They would have been here long ago if they had,’ Simon replied, checking the entry handprint-reader for the tenth time. He was trying to work out some way of overriding it, so they could get through the security doors and further inside. ‘The electronic security’s tight, but there don’t seem to be many people around here.’

‘Famous last words!’ Danice whispered. ‘Someone’s coming!’

Simon dragged her into a nearby janitor’s cupboard. He pulled the door to, leaving a narrow crack to peer through. An agonising few seconds went by. Then there was a noise like an electric blender.

A small motorised robot approached the security barrier. It reached out with a prosthetic hand attached to one of its metal arms and placed it on the handprint reader. The other arm supported a tray which held a steaming mug of tea.

‘Cute waiter,’ Danice whispered, stealing a look.

‘Are you ready to run? We’ll probably have a second or two to get through the doors after the robot passes through.’

The thick metal doors parted and slid back in their grooves. The robot moved on.

‘Follow it—now!’ Simon hissed, dashing for the doors as they reached their maximum opening point.