Send Simon Savage #1 (16 page)

‘I … didn’t … say that,’ Simon said, choking with the pressure from the man’s hand.

‘
Pah!
’ The man let go and stepped back.

Simon rubbed his neck.

‘I’m being easy on you, Savage, or whatever your name is,’ the man said. ‘But the Tribunes have other people who can extract this information from you. Tougher people, much more brutal than me.’ His beady eyes flicked to a neighbouring room. ‘And your friend might be in danger from them right at this moment. On the other hand, she might be telling us the truth.’

‘Danice … is she all right?’ Simon asked.

‘Cooperate and I might be able to tell you.’

Simon stared out the window again. What could he say? Nothing worked with this guy. He didn’t believe the lies, and he didn’t believe the truth either.

‘Perhaps you think silence might work,’ the officer said. ‘Okay, so I’ll give you time to think about your story. Think about what you want to tell me.’

He pressed the red buzzer on his desk. The mean-looking guard from the pond entered the room and saluted.

‘Take him away!’ the officer snarled. Then, as if having a new thought, he smiled. ‘Take him to the Pit!’

Danice heard a man laughing in the next room. She looked towards the connecting door, then back at the solemn face of her interrogator. This was a slim, dark-haired female officer in a smart blue uniform.

‘So you continue to insist you’re a time traveller, from the twenty-first century?’ the woman repeated for the fifth time.

‘That’s right,’ Danice replied patiently.

‘Which you say explains this strange outfit you’re wearing. But your story is too fanciful. It’s the story of a child, the sort of thing you probably heard in a fairytale. Not something that happens in the real world. You’ll have to come up with something better.’

Danice realised that the woman had no idea Danice was actually a local forest-dweller. Her time-travel suit had put the woman off the scent and was as good as a disguise. But Danice wondered what the woman actually did know. Did she know about the Chieftain’s time-travel missions? Did she know where or how he got his gold? Apparently not, but Danice was more worried about revealing even the slightest clue that she had a family living in the Big Forest, and a father who slaved away in the city. She had to protect them, and the safest course was to keep distracting this woman.

‘But maybe time travel does happen here. Maybe it does happen in this time. Have you ever thought about that?’ Danice said.

The woman smiled thinly. ‘Go ahead and think these fanciful notions, if you want to, but they don’t interest me.’ She stood up. ‘Still, maybe we can jog the truth from you in other ways. A little time at the Prison Farms might be good for you.’

Danice groaned inwardly. That would be the worst fate of all. If she went to the Farms she would never be heard of again.

‘But they don’t send kids to the Farms,’ she said, without thinking.

The woman pounced. ‘And how do you know that?’ she demanded. ‘You seem very knowledgeable about our society, for a newcomer. For someone who says they’re a stranger.’

‘Um, it just sounds bad, real bad,’ Danice said quickly. ‘A prison farm, I mean.’

‘It’s worse than you can imagine,’ the officer said. ‘I suggest you think long and hard about your story. And think about how long you’ll survive out there at the Farms! Someone will be along soon to take you to the Pit.’

She turned and left Danice alone in the room.

23

T
he Pit was aptly named. It was a deep, damp and miserable dogbox carved into the solid rock in the courtyard of the City Prison. The top of the Pit was open to the sky through a grate of thick metal bars. Simon sat on a slimy block of stone and stared up at a sun that gave little comfort at that depth below ground.

At least his suit insulated him from the cold. He tried not to flinch at every drop of water that fell on his head, or at the scuffle of every creature scuttling in the dark corners. The black cockroaches were giants. He had spotted one over eight centimetres long—bigger than the ones that crawled around their Sydney kitchen in summer.

Simon wondered if his situation could get any worse. He was imprisoned in a hole, stranded in a time that wasn’t his own, in a country he didn’t know. And he was separated both from Danice and the timeline back home. The mission was on the verge of being a failure. No one would ever know who the Chieftain was, or what had happened to Simon. He would never get back to his own time. He would probably die, right there in a pit in the twenty-fourth century.

Simon buried his face in his hands.

Suddenly there was a cry from above. ‘Simon! Simon!’

The grate was lifted by a burly guard, and a moment later, Danice was shoved down the slippery metal ladder.

Simon jumped to his feet. ‘Danice! Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m all right,’ she replied. ‘
Phew!
This place really is the pits!’

Simon’s spirits were already lifting. ‘It’s quiet and there’s plenty of running water,’ he said.

‘What about spiders?’

‘No. But cockroaches and lizards, yes.’

Danice shuddered. ‘That’s all right, then. I hate spiders, especially when you can’t get away from them.’

‘Did they give you the third degree?’ Simon asked. ‘What did you tell them?’

‘That I was a time traveller from the twenty-first century. They didn’t believe me.’

Simon smiled. ‘Funny, I tried that one, too.’

‘Didn’t work?’

‘We’re in here, aren’t we?’

‘Okay, so what are we going to do?’

Simon shrugged. ‘No one knows we’re here and no one knows we’re in trouble. Not your family, not the Time Bureau, no one.’

‘We’re on our own,’ Danice agreed.

‘And we’re a long way from the TPS rendezvous point,’ Simon added.

‘Not much future at the bottom of a pit,’ Danice murmured.

‘I don’t see how we’re going to get out of this dump,’ Simon said.

‘And I’m starving.’

Simon patted the empty travel pouch on the right thigh of his suit. ‘Did they take your food bars from you, too?’ he asked.

Danice nodded ruefully.

Simon looked around at the slimy dark walls. ‘How long do you think they’ll keep us here?’

‘Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to be long.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘They’re just leaving us here to soften us up. I think they’re planning to send us away.’ Danice made a face. ‘In fact, I’m pretty sure they are sending us away.’

‘Where?’

‘One place we don’t want to be. The Prison Farms!’

‘Ah,
porcus
! Please try the
porcus
, gentlemen,’ the Chieftain said.

He indicated the roast suckling pig that O’Bray had placed in the centre of the dining table. On each side of this new platter were solid gold bowls, filled with fresh fruits, nuts, cheeses and fresh bread rolls. ‘And please do try these baked dormice, dipped in honey and rolled in poppy seeds!’

‘A true Roman banquet. Extraordinary!’ one of his three guests said.

Tyrone was a stern man with an ugly scar furrowing his left cheek. He brushed a few bread-crumbs from his red silk shirt, and then took a baked dormouse between a thumb and forefinger, lifted it into his mouth and crushed the creature’s tiny bones between his teeth. ‘Mmm, absolutely delicious!’ he said, licking his lips. ‘This is like something described in the history books—the food extolled by the poets of old.’

The Chieftain chuckled. ‘Well, I’m a great fan of the poets of old.’

‘It certainly beats the dull fare we usually have for lunch,’ Cyrus said. He was a hunched man with big hands like crab claws. He leaned forward to spear a roast pigeon with his fork and dumped it on his plate. ‘We’re lucky if we get good meat and fresh vegetables three times a week.’

‘How do you manage all this?’ Magnus enquired. He had tanned, leathery skin and the steel-grey eyes of a carnivorous lizard. He eyed the gold dishes and cutlery with envy, and tried to hide his curiosity. The Chieftain’s ability to acquire wealth, fine foods and wine was a constant mystery to him.

The Chieftain eased back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at his three guests. They were the Tribunes, the much-feared rulers of Old City. Men whom he disliked and held in complete contempt, though he would never admit this out loud, even to O’Bray.

‘It takes hard work, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘When you’ve been trading and travelling as long as I have, you make contacts. And gold always helps. Speaking of which, there will be the usual gifts for you gentlemen to take home with you today.’

The Chieftain nodded to O’Bray, who hurried across the room to a covered trolley. ‘O’Bray, if you please!’ the Chieftain ordered.

O’Bray bowed, and then with an exaggerated flourish, whipped away a fine, embroidered cloth to reveal three piles. Each pile contained fifty gold finger bars, three golden horn-shaped beakers and three baskets of gold coins.

The Tribunes gasped in unison.

‘Trinkets from antiquity for you to do with as you please,’ the Chieftain said. He clicked his fingers. ‘Bring them over, O’Bray, let my friends get a closer look.’

As O’Bray pushed the trolley towards the table, Tyrone whispered to his lizard-like neighbour, ‘Did you hear that? He thinks we’re his friends.’

Cyrus smiled, turned to the Chieftain, and pointed to the trolley. ‘These golden horns, they’re superb.’

‘I believe they’re from a medieval castle in Bulgaria,’ the Chieftain said vaguely.

Unable to keep their hands off their gifts, the Tribunes rose from their chairs and began to inspect the gold on the trolley.

‘If I may have a word with you, boss,’ O’Bray murmured in his ear.

The Chieftain excused himself, left the table and followed O’Bray to the far side of his reception room. O’Bray glanced over his shoulder, ensuring the Tribunes could not hear their conversation. ‘Firstly, your guests sent their thugs on a raid into the forest today. To your part of the forest.’

‘I saw the airships passing over.’ The Chieftain gritted his teeth. ‘And after I pay them so well to stay off my patch.’

‘They go where they like,’ O’Bray muttered, eyes to the ground. ‘Just to exercise their power.’

‘Just to show they can,’ the Chieftain added.

‘And secondly … the mission to Sumatra has failed.’

‘How could that happen? We planned it so carefully!’

O’Bray hesitated. He hated delivering bad news. The Chieftain would sink into a foul mood, and worse, he would take away the bonus that O’Bray had come to enjoy after every successful mission. But there was no holding back what he had to say.

‘Damien reported that most of the gold was already gone,’ O’Bray said. ‘He and Lee found only a few kilos of coins that had spilled into the sea. They bagged the coins and brought them back, so we do have something for our efforts. But the bulk of the treasure had already disappeared.’

‘This is a disaster!’

‘I’m sorry, boss.’

‘Sorry won’t do, O’Bray,’ the Chieftain snarled. ‘How am I supposed to maintain this fortress, pay the guards, and pay for the power I need for our missions? How do you expect me to keep paying the Tribunes?’

‘There’s something else,’ O’Bray said, ignoring the Chieftain’s outburst.