Simon and Danice sat in stunned silence. Simon, because he couldn’t believe what was going to happen. Danice, because she couldn’t believe what had already happened.
‘Over the past few months, we have sent hundreds of Time Positioning Satellites to view the Earth and map it every year between now and 2321.’ Creele glanced at McPhee, who nodded, and then at Simon. ‘You already know that we have discovered a time-travel system operating somewhere in 2321.’
Simon nodded, ‘I saw the timelines on the Operations Screen.’
Creele hit another key and brought up a high-altitude aerial picture of a massive forest. She turned to Danice. ‘I think this is what you call Big Forest.’
‘That’s where we live,’ Danice confirmed. ‘But it’s never looked like that to me.’
‘These pictures were taken a few days ago, in Danice’s time, in the year 2321,’ Creele said. ‘The redwood forests have expanded greatly in three hundred years. Due to a warm, wet and foggy climate, they now cover large areas of what we call northern California, Oregon and Washington State.’
‘If this is a photo of my home, does this mean you’ve been spying on us?’
‘They do that a lot,’ Simon whispered.
Cutler cleared his throat behind them. ‘Only since we became aware that time travellers were being sent from this timezone,’ he said. ‘Travellers like you, Danice.’
Danice nodded. ‘The Chieftain sends us.’
‘There are now all sorts of wild animals living in this forest,’ Creele said. ‘Feral boars, dogs, lions, tigers, even elephants.’
‘What—in North America?’ Simon turned to Danice. ‘Is this true?’
‘You bet.’
‘This is a different North America,’ McPhee said, scratching his beard with his long fingers. ‘The ancestors of these creatures probably escaped from zoos during the water wars, then bred and spread into the forests.’
‘That’s why we live high in the trees,’ Danice added.
Creele changed the screen to a close-up image. It showed a section of the forest, as well as a rocky escarpment and what looked like a walled city. Three large buildings in the centre were surrounded by roads, laneways and thousands of smaller structures.
‘That’s what you call Old City,’ Cutler said to Danice. ‘Naturally, you’ve never seen it from this angle, but if you look closely, you might recognise some landmarks.’
Danice stood up and stepped closer to the screen. She pointed at the larger buildings. ‘These towers are where the Tribunes live.’
‘Who are they, exactly?’ McPhee asked. ‘We know very little of the political situation.’
‘They’re our … rulers,’ Danice replied. ‘Not very nice people. But we have to do what they say.’
‘What do you mean?’ McPhee asked. ‘Do they use force? Fear?’
Danice bit her lips, nervous about being the centre of attention. She glanced from the screen, to McPhee, to Cutler and back to the screen again.
‘There are only three Tribunes,’ she explained. ‘But they have soldiers and guards. If you ignore their orders, or refuse to work for them, or pinch food from the stores, then they send you to the Prison Farms. Or make you a slave in the factories.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘They took my father and made him a slave because he was trying to help people escape from the city. And he was trying to set up a school.’
‘A school in the forest?’ Simon asked.
Danice nodded. ‘Though people get punished for a lot less than that. My dad was a teacher for a while, that’s why I can read and write. A bit, anyway. The Tribunes have special teachers for their own kids, and for the kids of their friends. But, mostly, no one can read or write.’
‘Tell us about this Chieftain that you mentioned,’ McPhee said.
‘We work for him.’ Danice pointed to the screen. ‘His fortress is just there, south of the city.’
Creele hit a key and the screen changed to an image of a walled compound on the cliff edge, with a few stone buildings and a couple of visible cave entrances.
‘That looks like it,’ Danice said. ‘You see? Those two big gates are in the wall around the caves where he lives.’ She moved even closer to the screen. ‘The gate in the north wall is for the road to the city, and the one on the western wall is where we come and go from the forest.’
‘Are you saying this Chieftain lives in a cave?’ Simon asked.
‘Yeah, the cave entrance is there.’ Danice pointed to a dark patch on the escarpment, about a hundred metres from the northern gate. ‘But it’s well set up inside. A room with a big throne, lots of furniture. Kind of …’
‘Luxurious,’ McPhee suggested.
‘Yes,’ Danice replied. ‘He gives us special food. Not Syn-food, but real food, fresh meat and vegetables. He’s not short of anything.’
‘Do you go on your time-trips from these caves?’ Simon asked.
‘Yeah, but from deep underground,’ Danice replied. ‘There’s this big tunnel and a Time Accelerator, just like the one here.’
‘So now we’re narrowing things down!’ exclaimed McPhee. ‘Perhaps we could have the next picture, Sandra?’
‘Right. Further inland, on the eastern side of Old City, there’s this structure,’ Creele said, showing an image of a big square building with a colossal domed structure to one side. ‘It’s a nuclear power station, a few kilometres from the centre of the city, but still within the city walls. It’s over a hundred years old. However, it’s been rebuilt several times and it’s well maintained.’
‘I’ve seen it from a distance,’ Danice said. ‘But no one I know has ever been in there.’
‘We believe it might provide the power for this Chieftain’s time-travel missions,’ Cutler said.
McPhee stood up and joined Danice by the screen. He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Thank you for explaining these things to us,’ he said. ‘This is the reason we brought you here. I apologise for the way it happened, but if we had made ourselves known to you, instead of taking you by surprise, your brother would have pushed you into your own timeline and we would have lost you.’ He paused. ‘And we need you because of your intimate knowledge of your home.’
That’s why the Time Bureau needs Danice, Simon thought. But what’s in it for her? She seemed to have taken her kidnapping amazingly well. But maybe she had no choice. Simon knew from his experience that the Bureau were good at getting people to do what they wanted.
‘So, sir, why do you need me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know anything about Danice’s time at all.’
‘All you need to know is that your role is important,’ McPhee replied.
‘You’re the two fittest and the best qualified for the job,’ Cutler explained. ‘Danice, because of your knowledge, and Simon because of your energy and your nerve. You’ll need each other.’
Simon and Danice exchanged a quick glance.
‘Your mission has three objectives,’ Cutler continued. ‘The first is to enter Old City, and to observe the current situation there. We want you to see how much control the Tribunes and their forces have over the local people.’
Simon nodded.
‘We want you to do this quickly while on the way to checking out the power station. Your second objective is to assess the security there, then attempt to enter the facility and find out if it’s definitely the source of the power for this Chieftain’s time-travel system.’
‘It’s important that we have this basic information,’ McPhee added.
‘Your third and most important objective is to learn more about this Chieftain,’ Cutler said. ‘Such as, who he is, exactly, where he keeps his Time Accelerator, and what are his immediate plans. And any other information you can find.’
‘We’re giving you forty-eight hours,’ McPhee added. ‘Understood?’
‘Yes, sir!’ they both replied.
Simon frowned. ‘I have one question about this Chieftain guy. Do we know why he’s using time travel?’
‘Danice?’
McPhee lifted a questioning eyebrow. ‘Would you like to tell him?’
‘The Chieftain’s after gold,’ Danice said.
‘But we don’t know why,’ McPhee added. ‘It seems easier for him to steal it from the treasure houses of history than to mine it for himself.’
‘Maybe there’s no gold left in the ground in the twenty-fourth century,’ Simon said.
‘Whatever the reason, it is something we’re planning to stop,’ McPhee said. ‘We can’t allow future citizens to steal the world’s reserves of gold. It could wreck the economies of both past and present nations.’ He paused and gazed almost kindly at Simon and Danice. ‘So, are you ready for this mission?’
‘It would be a good idea to read your brief thoroughly, Savage,’ Cutler said. ‘This is Danice’s home, but for you it is the future. It is a very different world.’
‘I’ll be ready, don’t worry, sir,’ Simon replied.
His nerves tingled, though he couldn’t tell if it was excitement or terror. He would be the first temponaut to travel into the future. But it was dangerous. A leap into the unknown. Would he survive the experience? If he didn’t, there would be no one left to find out the truth behind his father’s death.
‘Hi, Harry,’ Simon said an hour later, and sat down at the command console in front of the Timeline Operations Screen. ‘I’m here for my Time Control and Mission Tracking System session.’
‘You’re on a mission first thing tomorrow,’ Harry replied. ‘We can do this when you get back, if you like.’
‘It’s okay, I’m too nervous to relax.’ Simon looked up at the range of clocks across the timezones and ages. It was after nine o’clock Present Time but he didn’t want to miss any opportunity of seeing how Time Control worked. ‘Is it all go for tomorrow?’
Harry toggled a few keys and a blue Future Mission Line appeared to the year 2321.
‘All systems are ready. The Spin Box is already charging up and your TPS is on standby.’ He grinned at Simon. ‘The future, eh? S’pose you know you’re making history.’
‘So they reckon,’ Simon said. ‘But Danice is going to the future, too, except she’s kind of going back there.’
‘Still, they’ll probably put up your picture in the entrance foyer one day.’
Simon laughed. ‘Oh, sure. So who can look at it? No one ever comes to Mayfield and no one knows what we do.’
‘Yep, it’s tough. We don’t get rich, we don’t get famous and we still have to work the late shift.’ Harry grinned. ‘So, what shall we do tonight?’
I’ve been thinking about this for weeks, Simon thought. I want to work out how to get back to where Dad disappeared. Only I don’t want to let Harry know that’s what I’m doing.
‘I’ll be getting plenty of the future tomorrow,’ Simon said. ‘So how about you show me how to send a TPS somewhere in the past?’
‘Sure, why not? We’ve got another satellite on standby, we can play around with that one,’ Harry said. ‘You know the protocols for establishing a timeline?’
Simon tried to recall the exact procedure. ‘Um, access code, handprint, get clearance …’
‘Okay, take it one at a time. Put in your code.’
Simon punched his six-number security code onto the keypad. The words: ACTIVATE PRINT CLEARANCE appeared.
‘All in the fingers, mate,’ Harry said. ‘We conquer time with our fingers. But don’t rush it.’
Simon carefully placed his right hand on a flat glass touchplate.
‘You—have—clearance!’ came the electronic reply.
‘I hate that voice,’ Simon said.
‘They say it’s the prof’s voice specially re-recorded, just to freak us out.’ Harry smiled. ‘Is there any particular past date you have in mind?’
Simon thought carefully. After being recruited by the Bureau, he had memorised the geographic coordinates of the beach where his father’s car had been found. He had also memorised the approximate time of his disappearance. ‘Um, Kiama Beach, south of Sydney, November ninth last year,’ he said coolly. ‘About three p.m.’
Harry chuckled. ‘Got dumped by a big wave there, eh?’
‘Yeah, sort of.’
‘Okay, let’s put the TPS on standby,’ Harry said. He typed in the coordinates and a series of commands from a manual that lay open by his right hand. ‘Then I hit ACTIVATE. Got it?’
Simon nodded and kept his eyes on the Timeline Operations Screen. A second later, a red flag flashed at the start of the timeline.
Harry raised his eyebrows. ‘Huh? That’s unusual. It’s red-flagged.’
‘Why? What’s that mean?’
‘For some reason, normal access to that time and that location is off-limits. It happens. Sometimes they bar particular timezones. Is it significant?’
Simon quickly checked out Harry’s body language. Did he know more than he was saying? But one look at Harry’s open manner made Simon relax.
‘No, I just made it up on the spot,’ Simon lied.
‘Well, no worries then.’
Simon took a long look at the red flag. No access. Why would the Bureau stop a TPS going back to that day? Were they hiding something?
Simon pretended to yawn. Now all he wanted to do was get back to his room—and think about what that timezone bar might mean. ‘Hey, you know, I might call it a night after all.’
‘We’ve only done ten minutes. Do you want to end the lesson?’
‘Yeah, reckon I will. I am feeling a bit tired.’
‘All right,’ Harry replied. ‘We can take this up again when you return.’
‘Okay, Harry, thanks,’ Simon said, heading for the exit.
‘Good luck on the mission!’ Harry called out, watching him go. Then he frowned, reached for his clipboard and jotted a few notes on the evening report sheet.
Simon shuffled into the garden and looked beyond the cloudy sky to the distant stars. Tonight, the stars seemed even further away than ever.
16
The 24th Century, North America
Simon opened his eyes, blinked a few times and felt a brief surge of dizziness. Then he scrambled to his feet, found his balance and spotted Danice nearby. ‘Hi—are you all right?’ he said.
‘Yeah, I feel a bit woozy, but I’m here.’
‘So we made it.’ They were standing on a roughly made wooden platform high in the treetops. Simon touched his wrist pilot to retract his helmet. The musty smell of wet trees filled his nostrils and the timbers under his feet creaked as the trees swayed in the cool pre-dawn wind.
First things first, he thought, switching off the Zone Activator on his wrist pilot. The hovering TPS vanished and the wormhole dissolved.
‘Better check our location, too,’ Simon said.
‘I know where we are. This is the right place,’ Danice said, retracting her own helmet. ‘Follow me—this way!’
She stepped onto a rope-and-plank suspension bridge that connected their platform to another tree platform about forty metres away.
Simon followed.
‘You can’t tell in this light, but we’re about sixty metres up,’ Danice said. ‘Just stay along the middle of the bridge and walk steadily. If you don’t move too much from side to side it won’t rock. And don’t look down if it makes you feel weird.’
‘I don’t mind the height,’ Simon replied. ‘That isn’t what’s making me feel weird right now. Where are we going?’
‘To my house!’
‘Right, I knew that.’
Simon soon found a steady pace as they walked from bridge to bridge through the dense forest canopy. The bridges were like an elevated trail above the ground—a series of suspended walkways linked together so the tree-dwellers could move from one section of the forest to another without having to risk their lives on the forest floor.
As they walked, the sun rose and the sky lightened. All around, the spires of thousands of massive trees spread far into the misty distance.
‘Awesome!’ Simon breathed. He still coul
dn’t believe he was really in the twenty-fourth century.
‘Take a look down there.’ Danice pointed to the ground below.
A striped feline body flashed across the forest floor.
‘What’s that?’ Simon asked.
‘A tiger, I think.’
‘A tiger?’
‘Yeah, there’s a few in this part of the forest,’ Danice replied.
Suddenly there was a swishing sound and an arrow thumped into the trunk in front of Simon.
‘Sheesh—watch out!’ he cried, jumping back.
Danice tore the arrow from the bark and checked the three feathered vanes at the notched end. Clearly, she recognised them because she laughed.
‘This is funny—someone shooting at us?’ Simon asked. ‘Is that what you do for kicks around here?’
Danice ignored him and looked across to another colossal tree, a hundred metres away across a gully. ‘Alli!’ she yelled. ‘Alli!’
Simon saw that a dwelling had been built ingeniously in the tree’s topmost branches. On the platform outside there was a girl. She started jumping up and down and waving her arms.
‘Danice! Danice!’ she screamed. Her cries echoed through the forest.
‘Someone’s glad to see you,’ Simon said.
‘It’s my sister,’ Danice said with a grin. ‘A few more bridges and we’ll be there. Just follow me.’
‘They’ve been successfully inserted,’ Harry reported. ‘They’re in the neutral zone now, sir. The TPS has withdrawn. Shall I program the satellite to return to the same location in forty-eight hours?’
Cutler nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the mission schedule.’
Harry looked at the timeline and grimaced. ‘We could have delivered them closer to Old City.’
‘Not worth the risk,’ Cutler replied. ‘The Chieftain would be more likely to pick up their timeline if we opened it too near his cave.’
Send Simon Savage #1 Page 7