Send Simon Savage #1 by Stephen Measday Read Free Book Online Page B

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
    I t 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