Before the Storm Read online

  BEFORE THE STORM

  Sean McMullen

  First published by Ford Street Publishing, an imprint of Hybrid Publishers, PO Box 52, Ormond VIC 3204

  Melbourne Victoria Australia

  © Sean McMullen 2007

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This publication is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction should be addressed to Ford Street Publishing Pty Ltd, 2 Ford Street, Clifton Hill VIC 3068.

  First published 2007

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  McMullen, Sean, 1948-.

  Before the storm.

  ISBN 9781876462505 (pbk.).

  I. Title.

  A823.3

  Cover design & photography by Grant Gittus Graphics

  Sara and Tom clothed by Malcolm’s Costume Hire, Collingwood VIC.

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Before the Storm

  Sean McMullen is one of Australia’s leading SF and fantasy authors, with fourteen books and sixty stories published, for which he has won over a dozen awards. His most recent novels are The Ancient Hero (2004) and Voidfarer (2006). In the late 1990s he established himself in the American market, and his work has been translated into Polish, French, Japanese and other languages. The settings for Sean’s work range from the Roman Empire, through Medieval Europe, to cities of the distant future. His work is a mixture of romance, invention and adventure, while populated by dynamic, strange and often hilarious characters. When not writing he is a computer training manager, and when not at a keyboard he is a karate instructor.

  Also by Sean McMullen

  The Centurion’s Empire

  Souls in the Great Machine

  The Miocene Arrow

  Eyes of the Calculor

  The Ancient Hero (The Quentaris Chronicles)

  Voyage of the Shadowmoon

  Glass Dragons

  Voidfarer

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1: Soldier

  2: Victim

  3: Leader

  4: Spy

  5: Gentleman

  6: Girlfriend

  7: Commander

  8: Thief

  PROLOGUE

  FoxS3 cowered in the darkness, and there was such silence around him that he believed he had lost his hearing. It was as if someone had slammed a door on the battle where he had been only a moment earlier. The air had the reek of rotting things, and even this was beyond his experience. The smell of charred bodies was nothing unusual to a warrior cadet like Fox, but in all of his short life he had never smelled rotting vegetables. He was still holding his wounded commander, BC, and had a plasma lance rifle slung over his shoulder. He removed his sunglasses, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw that he was in a narrow alleyway.

  Now the sound of something else beyond Fox’s experience caught his attention. Warily he lay the unconscious BC down and thumbed his plasma rifle into life. As his finger began to squeeze the trigger, a horse clopped past in the street beyond the alley’s entrance, pulling a carriage filled with people who were laughing and singing. FoxS3 flicked the energy weapon off, feeling vaguely foolish, then he suddenly realised that there was nothing wrong with his hearing. There was no background rumble of a city jammed solid with machines. This was a city with very few machines.

  Fox checked BC, who was breathing but still unconscious. Setting the rifle’s target laser to broadview, he lit up the alley. It was filled with rubbish bins, broken barrels, shards of glass from smashed bottles, and wind-blown newspapers. The dates of the newspapers spanned several weeks, but all had the same year in common: 1901. Fox switched off the light and melted into the shadows at the sound of approaching voices.

  A man paused at the entrance to the alley, glanced about, then entered. Adrenaline burned through Fox as he prepared to drop the intruder silently. That would conserve energy in the plasma rifle’s power lattice. The man fumbled with his trousers, then began to urinate against a wall. Fox again felt extremely foolish. Two more men stopped at the entrance to the alley.

  ‘Oi, George, would ya be pointin’ the poker in there?’ called one of them.

  ‘Away with ya, give a man some peace,’ George shouted back.

  ‘Now fancy doin’ a thing like that!’ called the third man. ‘Fortnight a-fore Melbourne becomes capital of Australia, an’ what does he do? He pisses on it.’

  ‘Yeah, no respect for the first Australian parliament,’ called his companion.

  ‘Parliament’s not to be meetin’ in this alley,’ George replied as he walked out, buttoning his fly. ‘Shake a leg now, or we’ll miss the last train.’

  ‘Aren’t you gonna wash yer hands?’

  ‘Didn’t piss on ’em.’

  As the voices faded into the distance Fox heard the faintest of gasps as BC returned to consciousness.

  ‘Fox, to me!’ the young commander hissed in the darkness.

  ‘Reporting!’ Fox responded.

  ‘Status?’

  ‘Timejump, on target. Night, April, 1901.’

  There was a short silence while the wounded student-commander grasped the implications of the words.

  ‘NineFive, in future, still!’ BC panted.

  ‘On target,’ said Fox.

  ‘Fox, order, mark!’ said BC urgently. ‘NineFive, prevent.’

  Fox considered the brief order carefully, not because he was slow-witted, but because it was so very important.

  ‘Order, NineFive, prevent, verifying,’ he whispered steadily.

  ‘Lockdown,’ said BC.

  ‘Lockdown,’ echoed Fox, confirming that he understood the most important order in all of Earth’s history.

  1

  SOLDIER

  The Lang children went boating on the Yarra River every Saturday afternoon during summer and autumn. While their father was at the Melbourne Club, and his wife met her friends for tea and cakes at a nearby café, Emily and Daniel would hire a boat and glide up and down the river among the racing shells of the school crews training for the regattas later in the year. It was a family tradition that was only three years old, but for Emily and her brother it seemed like they had been doing it forever.

  On this particular afternoon there were artists on the bank. The thought crossed Emily’s mind that the scene might soon become some famous painting, and that their boat would be included.

  Daniel had the gangly, stretched look of someone who had recently grown too fast, and while Emily had the figure of a woman, she still had to wear her long, auburn hair brushed out like a girl. The artists might have waited until Daniel and she had grown up a little more, but she decided to make the most of it.

  ‘Look your best, Danny, people are painting us today,’ she said as she straightened her straw hat, then leaned back in the bow of the boat to let her hand trail in the water.

  ‘Artists?’ he asked, looking about. ‘Where?’

  ‘On the south bank, near the boatsheds. They are probably painting the river, with St Paul’s Cathedral in the background.’

  ‘What a boring picture,’ replied Daniel. He then shipped the oars, removed one from its lock, and stood up in the stern. Predictably, the boat began to wobble.

  ‘Danny!’ cried Emily. ‘What are you doing? Sit down!’

  ‘They need something interesting on the river, not just a rowboat,’ he laughed as he dipped the end of the oar into the water. ‘Now they can paint a gondola and a gondolier, Australian style.’

  ‘Daniel! The boat’s starting to rock, it’s … Danny!’

  It was too l
ate. The boat rocked sharply. Daniel dropped his weight to the other side, but only succeeded in rocking it more violently in the other direction. He grabbed at the side as he fell out, pulling the boat right over to capsize on top of them.

  That was as much as Emily saw for some moments. There was the shock of cold water, no air to breathe, water slowing her every move, muted sounds, dim light and then she was back at the surface. She spluttered, shrieked and sank again, then her hand brushed against the upturned rowboat. She grasped at the slippery, painted wood, got a grip on the keel, managed to get her head above the surface, then coughed water and screamed. Her fingers began to slip on the slime-covered keel of the rowboat.

  Daniel was nowhere to be seen, but on the bank there were people shouting and waving. While a group tried to launch another boat, Emily saw someone take off his coat, run down the bank and dive into the water. She lost her grip on the keel, then managed to grasp it again. There was still no sign of Daniel. She called his name over and over, between calls for help. Her fingers aching, Emily lost her hold on the keel yet again. She sank. For a moment she was suspended beneath the surface, with no idea of up or down. Everything was suddenly serene, and she felt oddly calm, and then a strong hand grasped her arm. Emily spluttered water as her head broke the surface.

  ‘Breathing, Miss?’ called Emily’s rescuer as she gulped for breath.

  ‘My brother!’ she gasped. ‘Save Danny.’

  ‘Swimming, you can?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘My shirt, holding. I swim.’

  Emily had been towed most of the way to the bank before she realised that she was going to be safe. The youth with the oddly precise, clipped foreign accent was very strong, and swam like a champion. Ahead of them she could see people wading into the water and holding out their arms.

  ‘My brother, he’s back there,’ she gasped between mouthfuls of air and water.

  ‘Returning, rescue, for purpose of,’ called the youth.

  Suddenly there were hands grasping Emily and people shouting instructions and questions. A man in a dark coat with a cigar clenched between his teeth lifted Emily from the water and began wading for the bank while others gathered around, mostly asking if she was all right. She was put down on grass, and a picnic blanket was wrapped around her. A woman came running up with a wooden folding seat, but Emily tried to push those holding her away.

  ‘My brother!’ she panted. ‘Danny was in the boat, too.’

  Several voices answered her.

  ‘The boat’s still floating.’

  ‘That boy’s reached the boat.’

  ‘Can’t see anyone else.’

  ‘He’s dived.’

  ‘Been down a long time.’

  ‘There’s a head.’

  ‘It’s just the lad who rescued the girl.’

  ‘He’s dived again.’

  Emily pushed her way through the crowd around her in time to see the youth surface, then dive a third time. The wavelets died away, and there was nothing to be seen except for the upturned boat.

  It was at this point that Emily’s mother returned. The sight of Emily drenched and muddy, and everyone pointing to the upturned boat in the middle of the river, told Mrs Lang what had happened in an instant. She shrieked, ran over to Emily, hugged her daughter convulsively for a moment, then tried to rush into the river in search of her son. She was seized by several men and dragged back to the grassy bank. Emily noticed that she had lost one shoe.

  ‘Sixty seconds down,’ said a man holding a pocket watch.

  ‘That’s a long time,’ said another.

  ‘Where’s that other boat?’

  ‘They can’t find the oars.’

  ‘Gad, Sir, they can paddle with their hands.’

  ‘There’s schoolboys in a racing shell, they’re coming over to help.’

  ‘What can they do? The two lads have sunk.’

  ‘Murky water.’

  ‘Ninety seconds.’

  ‘The other lad’s been down five minutes, there’s no hope.’

  ‘There he is! Ninety-seven seconds and there’s another head! He got him!’

  Emily managed to stay on her feet long enough to see the boys in the racing shell start to tow her brother and their rescuer in the direction of the bank, then she collapsed back into the arms of those around her. She was guided back to the folding chair. There was more splashing as men waded out into the muddy water to get her brother ashore. Again she could see nothing, but the babble of voices painted a picture for her.

  ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Fox Essthree, Sir!’ the boy replied in a staccato, almost military, patter.

  ‘That was very brave of you, Fox.’

  ‘The other boy looks gone.’

  ‘There’s a cut on his head.’

  ‘The boat must have hit him when it capsized.’

  ‘Get him on the bank.’

  ‘My Danny!’ shrieked Mrs Lang above the other voices.

  ‘On his side.’

  ‘On his back.’

  ‘On his stomach.’

  ‘Let me through, I’m a doctor.’

  ‘He was down for five minutes and thirty seconds, I timed it.’

  ‘No breathing.’

  ‘No pulse.’

  Now Emily screamed Daniel’s name and surged out of the folding chair. She struggled past the other onlookers in time to see her rescuer pushing a man in a top hat away from Daniel’s body. He knelt beside him. The youth had neatly cut hair and was heavily muscled, without being solidly built. Even at a distance Emily could see that his eyes were intensely blue. He was tall enough to pass for a man.

  ‘Get back there, lad, have some respect for the dead,’ said a man wearing a frock coat and a straw boating hat, who then tried to drag the youth away.

  There was a brief struggle, and for a moment Emily saw the man having his arm twisted up behind his back. His mouth gaped open in either shock or pain, then the youth pushed him away. The man went stumbling off down the bank and into the shallows.

  ‘You, doctor, pulse, monitor!’ barked the youth, pointing at the doctor as he returned to kneel beside Daniel.

  Something about the youth’s manner had established his authority over the crowd by now. He rolled Daniel on his back, checked his pulse, then pressed down about a dozen times on his chest with the heels of his palms. Next he pulled Daniel’s jaw down and breathed into it twice. Again he pumped at Daniel’s chest. The voices began again, but this time they were hushed and hesitant.

  ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Can’t say I know.’

  ‘It’s a Hindu trick. I once saw a yogi buried alive for three days when I was in India.’

  ‘The boy’s dead!’

  ‘Seven minutes and fifteen seconds without a breath.’

  ‘A pulse!’ shouted the doctor.

  The youth sat back, then Daniel coughed. The crowd gasped with amazement, then cheered loudly. Emily fainted.

  When Emily revived she could hear her mother’s voice calling Daniel’s name over and over. With the help of the woman who had brought the folding chair, Emily went over to where Mrs Lang was embracing her limp but living son. The youth named Fox Essthree was standing nearby, his coat over his shoulders and his arms folded. After some moments of embraces and tears with Emily, Mrs Lang demanded to know what had happened.

  ‘Our boat capsized, and Master Essthree swam out to rescue us,’ said Emily, pointing to the youth even though she knew it was rude to point. ‘He pulled me ashore, then went back for Danny. He is awfully brave.’

  For a moment there was silence. Several dozen pairs of eyes turned to Fox, who still stood with his arms tightly folded, shivering.

  ‘Accident, observed,’ said Fox in his soft voice and unfamiliar accent. ‘Rescue, performed.’

  ‘Daniel was dead, but you brought him back to life!’ babbled Emily breathlessly.

  ‘I swear it’s true,’ said the man who said he was a doctor. ‘He
had no pulse whatever, and was not breathing.’

  ‘Status, dying, not dead,’ explained Fox, looking embarrassed. ‘Revival, procedure, I performed.’

  ‘Gad, Sir!’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘I’m a physician, and I’ve not heard of such a thing.’

  Fox shrugged, then stared at the ground. The doctor had authority, yet Fox had revived Daniel.

  ‘The Chinese do things like that,’ called someone.

  ‘Chinese?’ exclaimed the doctor. ‘Nothing good ever came out of China!’

  Still Fox said nothing. Daniel coughed and shook his head. Emily put her arms around her brother.

  ‘Well, you never know with those Chinese,’ conceded the doctor. ‘Somebody fetch a hot drink for these young people, else they will catch a chill.’

  Someone handed Emily a mug of hot chocolate. She sipped at it once, then the doctor took her temperature with a glass thermometer and peered down her throat. One of the schoolboys from the rowing shell found Mrs Lang’s lost shoe and returned it to her. A policeman arrived, asked what the fuss was about, then made some notes in his book. A journalist from The Argus asked whether anyone had drowned, then seemed to lose interest when told that both Emily and Daniel had been rescued. Mrs Lang gave a florin to each of the boys from the rowing shell, and gave ten shillings to Fox. Finally the doctor offered to take Mrs Lang and her children home in his pony gig.

  ‘And, ah, have you been long in Melbourne, Fox?’ Mrs Lang asked Fox, who had been standing by quietly and saying nothing.

  ‘Arrival, recent,’ replied Fox.

  ‘Your accent sounds foreign, but I can’t place it. Definitely not French, German, or …’

  ‘Norwegian, I’ll wager,’ said a man behind Emily.

  Fox frowned slightly, and seemed to think carefully for a moment.

  ‘Norwegian, I am,’ he replied.

  ‘Thought so!’ exclaimed the man. ‘Damn fine sailors.’

  ‘Able seaman, first class, ranking, mine, Sir!’ declared Fox, snapping to attention with his left foot slightly back and his fists held as if he were presenting a rifle across his chest.