Send Simon Savage #1 (12 page)

Simon turned and spotted the man dangling from a rope tied tight around his ankles. He struggled helplessly as he was hauled into the cabin of the airship that hovered above.

‘Hurry, or we’ll end up like him!’ Danice said, dragging Simon onto the next walkway.

‘There—search that house!’ a soldier’s voice barked behind them.

Simon and Danice sprinted to the end of the walkway and flattened their bodies against the brown trunk of the next tree.

‘I hope our camouflage kicks in quickly,’ Simon whispered.

Two armed soldiers pounded past, burst into Hanna’s house and started to trash the contents.

‘They’ll be busy for a while. Come on!’ Danice said, darting onto another walkway.

Behind them, the forest resonated with sharp shouts as soldiers continued their sweep of the area.

‘What’s going on?’ Simon asked, sprinting to keep up with Danice. ‘Who are these guys?’

‘They have black uniforms, which means they work for the Tribunes. They send out soldiers every month. They look for slaves who might have escaped from Old City,’ Danice said.

‘Isn’t this part of the Chieftain’s area?’

‘Yeah, this is his part of the forest,’ she replied, making a sharp turn around a tree and onto yet another swinging walkway. ‘But the Tribunes don’t care. They’re more powerful than he is. They go where they like. And it isn’t just slaves they’re after. They round up anyone.’

Far behind them, the crying protests of another captive demonstrated her point.

Simon stopped mid-stride. ‘So you’re telling me the soldiers are taking them back to the city?’

Danice turned and gaped at him for a moment. Then she shook her head. ‘No! I know what you’re thinking.’

‘Stop guessing and just listen,’ Simon said, grabbing her arm. ‘We can hitch a ride with them.’

‘These guys are our enemies,’ Danice hissed. ‘They’re ruthless.’

‘Look, it’s a simple situation. Either we spend ages crawling along that filthy tunnel you told me about, or we get to the city by airship, clean and fast!’

‘You’re crazy.’

Simon looked up at the nearest airship and the six ropes that dangled from it. ‘I’m not saying we surrender to them,’ he said. ‘I’m saying we sneak on board and stow away.’

‘What about the soldiers?’

Simon looked at the two airships furthest away from them. More captives were being hauled up by ropes into the open hatches of cabins which were attached under the hulls of the craft.

‘They’ve got their hands full over there … but not here,’ Simon said, carefully checking the cabin of the airship above. For the time being, it looked deserted. ‘Look, we’ve probably got a few minutes before the soldiers start coming back with more captives.’

‘And how do we get up there?’

Simon pointed to Danice’s feet. ‘Our springers. Wouldn’t the captain call this “getting out of a difficult situation”?’

It took them only a minute to find their way to a spot directly below the ship.

‘Up there?’ Danice said doubtfully.

‘Let’s do it.’ Simon punched the command
SPRING SHOES
on his wrist pilot and his shoes clicked into their ‘ready’ position. ‘You reckon this platform’s strong enough?’ he asked. ‘No rotting boards?’

Danice glanced down at the walkway and nodded. Then she stared up at the underbelly of the airship. ‘But it must be fifty metres up to the hatch!’

‘There’s only a five-metre gap between us and the bottom of the ropes,’ Simon pointed out. ‘All right—are you ready?’

‘Yep—we go together!’

‘Okay.’

They ran forward two steps, hit the planks hard with their feet and sprang into the air. There was a moment of panic when they almost collided in midair. Then they grabbed the nearest ropes.

Simon spun around wildly as he tried to avoid crashing into Danice, who was twisting on her own rope.

‘Get inside the ship, before they notice us!’ Simon said, trying to steady himself. He hooked a loop of rope around his left shoe and started the upward climb. He glanced at Danice, who was struggling to bring her rope under control. ‘You can climb, can’t you?’

‘I’ve been climbing trees since I was a baby!’

Together they shinnied swiftly up the ropes to the yawning black hatch of the airship’s cabin.

‘Any word on their progress?’ Professor McPhee asked, glancing over Harry’s shoulder at the Timeline Operations Screen.

‘Not yet. Early days, sir.’ Harry glanced at his superior. ‘So to speak.’

McPhee went to stand beside Captain Cutler, who was quietly assessing the situation. ‘This is the first time we’ve trusted a major mission to temponauts who aren’t adults. What if they don’t find out what we want to know?’ he asked.

Cutler smiled. ‘It’s more a case of
who
they find, rather than what, isn’t it?’

The professor nodded. ‘You’re right. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.’

The airship had been flying smoothly. But now it shook from end to end. Simon and Danice were hiding in the furthest corner of the passenger cabin. They gripped a railing on the wall to stop themselves sprawling across the cabin floor.

‘What’s happening?’ Danice whispered.

Simon lifted his head cautiously and peered over a pile of canvas tarpaulins and fuel barrels. A few metres away, four soldiers stepped amongst a group of about fifteen sullen forest-dwellers in leg chains.

‘Come on, get up!’ one soldier yelled, kicking a bearded man with the toe of his boot. ‘Time to move!’

The man tried to lash out at his captor, but fell back as the ship lurched again.

Simon glanced at Danice. ‘I think they’re anchoring the ship.’

They stayed hidden as two soldiers unbolted and opened the main door.

‘Move your lazy butts!’ a soldier yelled, pushing the bearded man and a female prisoner through the opening and following them outside.

‘Move! Move!’ the other soldiers roared.

One by one, the rest of the prisoners shuffled through the door in their rattling chains. They were followed by their guards.

At last the cabin was empty.

Danice rose. ‘Let’s go——’

Simon suddenly dragged her back. ‘Wait!’ he hissed, as two uniformed pilots appeared from the front cockpit of the airship.

‘We should get a bonus for capturing that hairy fellow again,’ one man said.

‘Bad luck for him—he escaped a couple of months ago,’ the other replied. ‘He’ll go to the Prison Farms for sure this time.’

They stood for a moment at the door, looking at the string of prisoners being led down a set of steep metal stairs. Then they stepped out, laughing and chatting.

Simon and Danice waited a few moments more until they were sure the cabin was empty. Then they crept to the doorway and peered into the daylight.

The airship was floating high above the ground, moored by steel cables to a metal tower as high as a seven-storey building. Two similar towers formed a triangle in the airfield, with two other ships also secured at their berths. From that height, they could see a broad section of Old City and its chequerboard layout of buildings, streets and alleyways. Dotted around the edge of the city were as many as a dozen airships anchored to other towers.

‘That looks like the only way out,’ Simon said, pointing to where the crew, soldiers and prisoners were making their way down the stairs almost directly below them.

Danice grabbed Simon’s arm. ‘Hey, we’ve forgotten one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Clothes. Something to wear in the city over our suits,’ she replied. ‘I was supposed to get some clothes from Mama. But with the raid …’

‘I saw something we might be able to use,’ Simon said, heading back inside the cabin.

Danice brought up a map on her wrist pilot. ‘I’ll just check the exact location of the power station from here. It’s about three-and-a-half kilometres that way—east.’ She looked around. ‘Hey, where are you?’

Simon came back with two pairs of worn, paint-spotted overalls and a couple of khaki caps. ‘What about these?’

‘Real attractive.’ Danice smiled. ‘But they’ll do.’

Several minutes later, in disguise and having climbed down the tower, they sauntered into a crowded town square outside the airfield.

‘What is this, some sort of carnival?’ Simon asked.

‘The open-air market,’ Danice said. ‘It’s on every Saturday—the whole city turns out. For most people, it’s the only time they get off work.’

Simon nodded and looked around the city square. A troupe of fire-breathing performers lit up a distant corner and a circle of eager children watched an elephant perform balancing tricks. Bumpy horse-drawn wagons trundled along a narrow, centre road, alongside new, shiny solar-powered cars. Neatly dressed shoppers haggled for bargains at pushcarts laden with bright clothes and knick-knacks, while ragged beggars called out for food or money.

Simon realised that the city square was a combination of both the old and the new worlds. He also realised that he and Danice were two out of just a handful of people in all of history who had directly experienced both worlds for themselves.

But what Simon noticed most were the security guards and soldiers. They seemed to be everywhere: mean-looking men in blue or black uniforms, their eyes hidden behind wraparound sunglasses. All of them had thick leather belts bristling with batons, pistols, crowd-control sprays and handcuffs. Here was proof that the Tribunes and their men were in tight control of the city and its people, Simon thought. He could easily report that to the Time Bureau when they returned. He and Danice had achieved their first objective.

‘Keep off the road! Keep off the road!’ a guard roared at a cowering child.

‘Don’t stare,’ Danice murmured to Simon. ‘If you stare, he’ll think you’re challenging his authority. They don’t like being challenged, believe me.’

Simon turned his head away and immediately tripped over a bag of spilt potatoes. He stumbled into the road. A horn blared. Danice grabbed him by the overalls and pulled him out of the path of an armoured minibus. ‘Let’s get out of here! You’re attracting too much attention!’

She elbowed her way to the far side of the square with Simon in tow, then hauled him down a narrow lane and into the shadows.

As he was dragged along, Simon was glad Danice was leading the way. He felt out of his depth here in the future. But he knew he would have to get a grip on himself soon, if he wanted to make it back to the twenty-first century.

18

R
ain lashed down through the dripping trees.

‘How many of our people did they take?’ Hanna asked. She was sitting on a log near the entrance of a giant, hollow redwood.

‘Thirty, forty, no one’s sure,’ Damien replied, stepping inside and wiping the moisture from his face. ‘Some might have escaped to the other hiding places.’

‘Then we probably won’t see them for a while,’ Alli said. She huddled on a stool and pulled a possum-skin rug tight around her shoulders for warmth.

Damien swept dirt and leaves off a rickety wooden chair and sat down. A rush of tiredness swept over him. He badly needed to rest.

‘Get yourself a drink,’ Hanna said, pointing to the gourd of water on the makeshift table.

Damien gulped down a few mouthfuls and glanced around the inside of their temporary hide-out. It was many months since they had used the Fire Caves—soot-blackened chambers burnt deep into the boles of the trees by the wildfires that tore through the forests every decade or so. The hollow was the size of a small room, about three times Damien’s height. It showed plenty of signs of non-human habitation. Spider webs hung from above in tangled strands, and the mossy floor was scattered with bird and animal droppings. On one side was a rough bed covered with more skins. There was also a dusty wooden shelf that held a few tins of Syn-food, a rusty hammer, a jar of bent nails, a bow, and a buckskin sheath of arrows. A metal-tipped spear leant against the wall.