Changing Yesterday Read online

  Changing Yesterday

  Sean McMullen is one of Australia’s leading SF and fantasy authors, with seventeen books and seventy stories published, for which he has won over a dozen awards. His most recent novels are The Time Engine (2008), The Iron Warlock (2010) and Before the Storm (2007). 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 Se-an’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 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

  Before the Storm

  The Time Engine

  CHANGING YESTERDAY

  Sean McMullen

  First published by Ford Street Publishing, an imprint of

  Hybrid Publishers, PO Box 52, Ormond VIC 3204

  Melbourne Victoria Australia

  © Sean McMullen 2011

  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.

  Ford Street web site:

  http://www.fordstreetpublishing.com/

  First published 2011

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-

  Publication data:

  McMullen, Sean, 1948- .

  Changing yesterday/ Sean McMullen.

  ISBN 9781921665370 (pbk.).

  For young adults.

  Time travel – fiction

  A823.3

  Cover design © Grant Gittus Graphics

  In-house editor: Saralinda Turner

  Printing and quality control in China by Tingleman

  Pty Ltd

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1: Sleepwalker

  2: Traveller

  3: Photograph

  4: Bystander

  5: Engineer

  6: Musician

  7: Castaway

  8: Warrior

  9: Hunter

  10:Hero

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  A prince was coming to Albury. He would not be there long; in fact, he would just be passing through, but he was heir to the British throne. One day he would become the most powerful king in the entire world. Nobody so important had ever visited Albury, so everyone wanted the town to look its best.

  In the shunting yards at Albury Railway Station the rubbish had been collected, the weeds between the tracks were gone, the buildings were newly painted, and even the steam engines gleamed like new. The yardmaster watched with satisfaction as a shunting engine moved three trucks to beside the line where the royal train would pass. They were being placed to hide some things that could not be easily moved or neatened: piles of track ballast and a stack of rusting rails. The wagons were new, and while not actually beautiful themselves, they would prevent his royal highness seeing anything that was actually ugly.

  Three miles away, two people on a bushfire watch tower were paying very close attention to the wagons. One of them was watching through a telescope, and while this should have been innocent enough, the telescope had crosshairs, and was part of a gun. The assembly of black tubes, pipes, cables, panels, studs and mountings did not look like a gun, however. It was the fourteenth of May 1901, and plasma lance assault rifles would not be invented for another century.

  ‘Er, ya not gonna do anythin’ weird with that thing, are ya, Miss Liore?’

  The speaker was four foot eleven inches tall, and had the sort of slightly scruffy, commonplace appearance that blended easily into crowds. This was a big advantage when he was blending into a crowd with a pocket watch that belonged to somebody else. His name was Barry Porter, but he was better known as Barry the Bag because he always carried a battered leather bag of stolen goods with him.

  ‘Barry, surroundings, check,’ said Liore.

  ‘I checked the bleedin’ ground already, didn’t I?’ muttered Barry.

  ‘Check again.’

  Liore was twelve inches taller than Barry, and had cold, sharp blue eyes that would make the average guard dog back away very hurriedly and look for someone else to bark at. She was dressed as a youth, and in clothes that were as shabby and unremarkable as those that Barry was wearing. Barry was fairly sure that he had been born in 1886. Liore would not be born for another ninety-five years.

  On the platform of the distant railway station Daniel Lang had a camera set up on a tripod, and was making a big show of finding the perfect angle to photograph the royal train when it passed through on the following day. He was dressed in his school uniform to give the general impression of being harmless. On a nearby bench his sister Emily was reading a book, and doing her best to look as if she had nothing to do with Daniel. Her knitting bag was beside her on the wooden bench, which she had to herself. People avoided Emily, because her look and manner were rather like that of a particularly strict school headmistress, or perhaps the governor of a women’s prison.

  The stationmaster regarded Daniel with approval. He would take a fine photograph of the royal train passing through his station. The shunting yards beyond the platform were looking tidier than they had since the station had been established, so the photograph would be fit to hang on the wall of his office.Must get the boy’s address and ask him to send me a print, he thought.

  Fox was about Daniel’s age, but was dressed in a long, shabby coat, had a scruffy beard glued to his face, and wore a hat pulled down to his eyebrows. He had been pacing slowly about the platform, as if he had arrived hours before his train was due and was now at a loose end. His hands were in his pockets, and in his left hand was a device that should not have existed for several more decades. It vibrated silently. He lifted it to his ear, pretending to scratch his beard.

  ‘Three reporting, serial K37WCB0542, trans,’ he said to the device.

  ‘BC, status ready,’ said Liore’s voice in the small black box. ‘Fox S3, report status. Trans.’

  ‘On platform, crew, FoxS3, DanS2, EmilyS4. Status, ready. Trans.’

  ‘Plan Scramble, initiate. Verify. Trans.’

  ‘Lockdown, trans,’ said Fox after one last scan of the platform.

  ‘Lockdown, trans, out,’ said Liore.

  Putting the shiny black device back in his pocket as he walked, Fox now strode briskly for the seat where Emily was sitting. As he passed her he snatched up her bag then broke into a run and made for the platform gate. Emily screamed several times, then shouted ‘Stop, thief !’ as she ran after Fox.

  Everyone on the platform now dashed after Fox and Emily. This included Daniel, who was carrying his camera and tripod. Just seconds later the platform was completely deserted.

  Far away on the watchtower, Barry confirmed that nobody was nearby. Liore touched her thumb to a pad on the side of her weapon, and a small red light came on. Barry watched with interest as she made an adjustment to it.

  ‘So the red light means ya can shoot now?’ asked Barry.

  ‘On target,’ said Liore, loo
king through the telescopic sights again.

  ‘Can ya see the Lionheart cove wot ya gonna give the big push?’

  ‘Targeting wagon.’

  ‘Oh. But are ya sure ya not gonna kill some innocent bystander?’

  ‘On target.’

  There was a series of soft clicks and cheeps as she made more adjustments to her gun. In the distance, the steam engine was backing away from the three wagons.

  ‘Look, I know a thing or two about guns,’ continued Barry. ‘I got a mate, Luker the Lurker, an’ he knows guns so he told me stuff. He reckons ya can’t hit nothin’ with a rifle more than half a mile off, an’ that wagon’s about ten miles off.’

  ‘Three miles, seven hundred and twenty-six yards.’

  ‘How’d ya know that?’ asked Barry, sounding doubtful.

  ‘Gun.’

  ‘The gun? That’s horseshit. Guns can’t talk.’

  ‘Has display.’

  ‘Wot ya mean?’

  ‘Displays range.’

  ‘Yeah, well, even if yer gun could talk, it can’t hit nothin’ that far off.’

  ‘Target clear. Lockdown.’

  There was a shrill squeak from Liore’s weapon as she squeezed the firing stud. A bright flash burst out from the direction of the shunting yards, then a red and orange cloud boiled up into the sky, raining glowing fragments that trailed sparks.

  ‘Frig me doggles!’ exclaimed Barry. ‘It blew up!’

  ‘On target,’ replied Liore.

  ‘But it blew up wi’out no noise, an’ that’s –’

  After travelling for seventeen seconds at seven hundred and seventy miles per hour, the thunderclap blast from the wagon’s annihilation burst over the tower. It was followed by a series of echoes.

  ‘Bleedin’ hell!’ exclaimed Barry.

  ‘Assess damage,’ said Liore, handing Barry a brass telescope.

  Barry trained the instrument on the distant shunting yards, where the dust and smoke were now dispersing.

  ‘Er, there’s a bleedin’ great hole where the middle wagon was, and the other two wagons aren’t there neither – oh wait up, yeah they are, but they’re a lot further away now an’ they don’t look much like wagons any more.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘So wot now?

  ‘Lionheart evidence, destroy,’ said Liore, pointing her weapon elsewhere. ‘Target clear. Lockdown.’

  There was another squeak from the weapon, then another, and a third. Barry put his hands over his ears and braced himself for more explosions, but none came.

  ‘Thought ya never miss,’ he said.

  ‘On target.’

  ‘But ya missed then.

  ‘Rooming house, oil lamps, on target.’

  Barry looked out across the roofs of Albury with the telescope. Smoke was starting to pour from a distant building.

  ‘Friggin’ frig! Why’d ya do that?’

  ‘In building, evidence planted, by Lionhearts.

  Provoke Century War, with Germany.’

  Muriel Baker was in central Albury, flirting with some of the local boys. This was something that she did particularly well, for she was very pretty, wore herflame-red hair brushed out, and was dressed more stylishly than the local girls. She was also putting on a French accent and telling everyone that she was Michelle, an artist from Paris.

  The sound of the wagon blowing up had the effect of freezing everyone in the street for a moment. Muriel shrieked, and threw her arms around a boy known as Slim. A second or two later the cloud of smoke and dust became visible, showing that the explosion had come from the direction of the station. Some of the boys now dashed off to investigate, but Muriel held on to Slim very tightly.

  ‘No, no, please stay and protect me, I am very frightened!’ she pleaded.

  Sensing that this was a chance to embrace a beautiful girl and be a hero without doing anything at all, Slim made the sensible decision and stayed with Muriel. Three other boys also stayed, hoping that they too might get a chance to protect her. Staring over Slim’s shoulder, Muriel watched the upstairs windows of a nearby rooming house. Suddenly there were three flashes in quick succession, accompanied by the tinkle of breaking glass. Muriel waited some moments for the flames to get properly established before speaking.

  ‘Monsieur Slim, that building!’ she cried. ‘It is on fire!’

  Slim and the other boys dashed across to the rooming house and raised the alarm. Before long everyone inside had been safely evacuated, and the boys were being hailed as heroes. Slim would have preferred to have been in Muriel’s arms as well, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Liore and Barry descended the steps of the tower, then walked across to where their horse was tethered. Liore mounted and pulled Barry up behind her, then they set off for the town.

  ‘In Albury, shocked bystanders, we are,’ said Liore.

  ‘That’s an easy.’

  When they reached the railway station they learned that frantic efforts were already under way to fill in the crater and repair the tracks, so that the prince’s train could pass through on schedule the next day. However, that was not what most people were talking about.

  ‘Lucky it blew up today,’ a man in a railway company uniform was saying.

  ‘Jeez mate, ya call that lucky?’ exclaimed a youth, gesturing at the distant hole and wreckage. ‘Yarder says there were seven railway guards in the next wagon and four in the one behind.’

  ‘Are they all right?’ asked a woman with an English accent.

  ‘All right?’ exclaimed the youth. ‘Yarder says they was smeared over the insides of the wagons like raspberry tarts.’

  ‘Oh my word!’ exclaimed the woman.

  ‘It could have been much worse,’ said the conductor. ‘That wagon was right beside the line where the crown prince was due to pass tomorrow. If it had blown up while his carriage was passing, well, what do you think?’

  ‘Australia would be having its first royal funeral,’ the youth concluded.

  ‘Too right.’

  Barry took Liore by the sleeve and led her away from the group. It was a cool, clear day in late autumn, but his face was beaded with sweat.

  ‘Bleedin’ hell, did ya know them coves was in the wagons?’ he whispered.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So that was an accident?’

  ‘Is war.’

  While Barry was quite accomplished as a petty thief, he tried to avoid violence because he was very small and would always lose any fight. Eleven deaths, accidental or otherwise, were enough to leave him very unsettled.

  ‘So them coves in the wagon, ya reckon they was Lionhearts?’

  ‘On target. Dynamite, were guarding.’

  ‘So no more fighting?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Barry shivered. Standing beside Liore was like being in the same cage as something very large that ate meat. One had to stand quite still and hope not to be noticed.

  Slowly the members of Liore’s unlikely squad gathered on the street outside the railway station while police and railway officials hurried about. Fox had discarded his coat, hat and beard, and was now carrying a sketch pad and box of pencils. He was pretending to be Muriel’s brother, who did not speak English. Daniel and Emily were bickering about who had left their tickets back to Melbourne in the bag that Fox had stolen and discarded. Muriel took Daniel by the arm and sneered at Emily.

  ‘Silly cow, my Daniel would not do something as stupid as losing the tickets,’ she said. ‘He arranged for Fox to take your silly tickets out of the bag before he threw it away.’

  ‘Squad, to me,’ said Liore. ‘Debrief.’

  ‘Plan Scramble worked perfectly,’ said Emily, glaring contemptuously at Muriel as she spoke. ‘We got everyone off the platform and chasing Fox before the explosion. No innocent bystanders were hurt.’

  ‘Plan Windows worked even better,’ said Muriel, putting a hand on her hip and casting another sneer at Emily. ‘I attracted a crowd of boys by being so charming that they even
stayed with me after the explosion. When the rooming house began to burn I sent them over to raise the alarm. Nobody was hurt.’

  ‘You probably attracted them by taking your clothes off !’ snapped Emily.

  ‘If you had taken your clothes off they would have run away!’ retorted Muriel.

  ‘I’ve spoken to the stationmaster,’ said Daniel before the exchange became any worse. ‘A train from Melbourne is being held at the edge of the shunting yards, and it will be turned around and sent back. It will have us home by this evening.’

  ‘So that’s the end of them Lionhearts, then?’ asked Barry.

  ‘On target,’ said Liore.

  On the surface, the little squad was functioning perfectly. Only five days earlier they had prevented the bombing of Australia’s first parliament, and now they had stopped the shadowy Lionheart conspirators again. The two cadets from the future and their four recruits from 1901 had changed history twice, so the world had been saved from the Century War. As far as Daniel was concerned it was time to live happily ever after with Muriel, while Emily had no plans other than persuading her brother to break up with her worst enemy. However, everyone else was thinking through far more devious agendas as they set off for the train. In its moment of triumph the squad was already falling apart, but superficially it was as strong as ever.

  Barry’s plans were particularly ambitious.

  Well, I reckon it’s over, he thought as he walked. No more Lionhearts, so no more fightin’. If there’s no more fightin’ I reckon that Liore won’t need that fancy gun wot she brung from the future. Reckon the king would like that gun. Reckon he’d change me name from Barry the Bag to Sir Barry Porter if I give it to him.

  Chapter 1

  SLEEPWALKER

  The last day of May 1901 was like the end of any other school week for Daniel Lang. He was in his second last year at an expensive private school, and life was going very well for him. For the first time in his life he had acquired a sweetheart in the form of Muriel Baker, a beautiful classmate of his sister’s. For Daniel, this was even better than getting a medal. Muriel knew that Daniel was a hero, and for Daniel her opinion was the only one that mattered.