Lost Worlds

by Andrew Lane

  He could feel his heart beating faster than usual. He felt breathless, excited.

  The chase was on.

  ‘He says that this is an insult, and it must be punished.’ Levan levered himself up on one elbow. His chest was swaddled in bandages that looked like they were left over from the Second World War, and he was lying on a makeshift camp bed at the back of the village hall where his wounds had been treated and his dislocated shoulder had been popped back into place.

  Rhino nodded. ‘I can understand his point. There’s only so much food theft that a small community like this can tolerate.’

  He glanced at the front of the hall where a villager with a long grey-and-black beard and a scar across his right eye was gesticulating to a crowd of his friends. Adjusting the band that encircled his head, he murmured, ‘Are you getting all this?’

  ‘Getting it,’ Calum’s voice whispered in his ear from several thousand miles away, ‘but not understanding it.’

  ‘He says,’ Levan continued, translating, ‘that if someone wants to come and trade with them, then that is acceptable, but to sneak around and steal from the storage barns is wrong under all circumstances.’ He paused, letting the bearded man say something else. ‘He says that any male villager over the age of sixteen and under the age of fifty should take up a rifle and join him in tracking this thief into the mountains, where they will get their food back and take revenge.’

  ‘At night?’ Rhino asked.

  ‘He says that they can take torches.’

  Someone in the crowd asked a question. The bearded villager tried to answer, but someone else got in first and the debate quickly disintegrated into a series of shouted diatribes. Fists were shaken and it looked as if fights might break out.

  ‘There appears to be some debate over whether or not they should wait for the morning,’ Levan said drily. ‘There is also a small but vocal minority who say that the thief is an Almast, which is a supernatural creature, and that hunting a supernatural creature will bring death and devastation to the village. Others want to see this thing’s head stuffed and mounted on the wall of the inn, regardless of whether or not it is supernatural.’

  ‘We have to delay them,’ Calum’s voice said via the headband. ‘Can you do anything, Rhino?’

  As the village head man walked to the front of the crowd and raised his hands, trying to exert some measure of control, Rhino’s mind raced, evaluating the various possibilities that might spin out from this moment, depending on how the arguments went. ‘They’re an angry lot,’ he said, crouching down closer to where Levan was half lying, ‘and that’s not a good thing. When tempers get frayed, the wrong decisions get made, and that can lead to trouble. The last thing we want is a gang of armed villagers with flaming torches and pitchforks roaming the countryside looking for a monster.’ He looked at Levan and shrugged. ‘No offence,’ he added.

  ‘None taken,’ Levan said. ‘I too have seen Frankenstein, and it does not end well, either for the monster or for several of the villagers.’

  ‘Can you interrupt?’

  ‘What do I say?’

  ‘Point out that there may not be just one Almast – there may be a whole village or tribe of them. Point out that if one Almast can rip your chest like it did, then ten or twenty of them could cause a lot more damage, and a hundred of them could kill every man in Ruspiri. Tell them that our expedition can leave quickly and hunt the creature down using our electronic devices without giving ourselves away, and that we can come back and tell them where the Almasti are based and how many of them there are.’

  ‘You would do that?’

  Rhino shrugged. ‘I work for Calum Challenger, not for them – but they don’t need to know that. I just want to avoid them going out mob-handed and kicking off some kind of riot.’

  Levan extended a bandaged hand and Rhino pulled him up off the camp bed. ‘I should have gone into diplomatic corps,’ he muttered, then stumbled to the front of the crowd. He got control of the argument simply by shouting louder than any of the others. Maybe it was his force of personality, maybe it was just that the villagers felt sorry for him because of his injuries, but they let him talk. He spoke rapidly in Georgian, emphasizing his words with dramatic hand gestures. At one point he indicated the bandages on his chest, and Rhino assumed he was talking about his own recent fight with the Almast. A few questions were thrown at him, and he bounced the answers back without hesitation. Eventually the crowd quietened down. Some kind of agreement seemed to have been reached.

  Levan returned to where Rhino stood. He was looking white and drained. ‘They will agree not to set out to hunt this thing down until tomorrow lunchtime,’ he said. ‘If you wish to leave before then to find the Almast, then that is your affair.’ He shrugged. ‘I think they are beginning to realize the dangers of what they are doing, and they want to get a priest in to bless them before they start.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry – best I could do.’

  ‘I only hope it’s enough,’ Calum’s voice said in Rhino’s ear as Rhino scanned the crowd. ‘It would be a tragedy if this tribe of Neanderthals, or whatever they are, got wiped out before the world even knew they were there.’

  Natalie stared down at the ground, hoping against hope that a flash of colour would attract her attention. She was retracing her steps through the village, as best she could. Somewhere out here was her headband, which she had slipped back into her pocket as soon as the group meeting had finished. Forgetting the fact that it was a complete fashion disaster: Calum had made it clear that there was a lot of expensive technology in those headbands, and he wouldn’t be pleased if she had lost one before the expedition had really got under way. He had already emphasized – more than once – that he was annoyed with her for not wearing hers at all times.

  ‘Damn it,’ she muttered, ‘why can’t it have a flashing light or something?’

  It occurred to her that if she told Rhino she’d lost the headband then he could get Calum to do something, like shout loudly through her loudspeakers, or set off some kind of alarm or something. But that would mean admitting she’d made a mistake, and that was the last thing she intended doing. No, she would find it herself.

  She looked around, making sure she knew where she was and, more importantly, where the others were in relation to her. The centre of the village wasn’t in sight, but she knew that it was just round two corners. She could retrace her steps pretty quickly if she needed to, and she’d swapped her shoes for trainers back at the inn so she could run quickly if anything happened. Not that she was expecting anything to happen. Surely her share of bad luck had been exhausted for the day?

  Just as the thought crossed her mind, she heard a noise behind her. She turned round. Part of her expected it to be Rhino or Gecko looking for her, but part of her was worried it was the Almast again. Her heart skipped a beat, then seemed to go to double time.

  It wasn’t Rhino. It wasn’t Gecko. It wasn’t even the Almast. It was a man she didn’t recognize. He looked more Norwegian than Georgian, with fine, blond hair and pale skin. He was thin, almost bony, and he was wearing similar camouflage fatigues to Rhino’s. On Rhino they looked functional, but on this man they almost looked like high fashion.

  Oh, and he had a gun strapped to his hip. She felt her stomach lurch as she noticed that.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘You must be Natalie Livingstone. I have seen your photograph.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, tensing, ready to run.

  ‘Don’t worry – there will be time enough for introductions later.’ He smiled, but there was no humour in the expression. ‘For now we need you to come with us.’

  ‘Us?’ she parroted, wondering who else there was. As a hand clamped itself across her mouth and pulled her backwards, she decided that there were some questions it was best not to ask.

  When Rhino appeared from the village hall, marching towards the van as if he was on a parade ground, Gecko stepped forward to intercept him.

  ‘Everyone’s collecting their
stuff,’ he said. ‘I’ve checked the fuel, oil and water, just in case, and we’re all right. We’re just about ready to go when you are.’

  ‘All of the supplies and provisions loaded in the van?’

  Gecko nodded.

  ‘What about ARLENE?’ a voice said. Gecko looked around for a few moments before realizing that it was Calum, speaking through the headband loudspeakers.

  ‘We’ve put ARLENE together,’ he replied, ‘which means that it won’t fit into the van. The idea is that ARLENE keeps pace with the van until we run out of road, then we leave the van, load ARLENE up and head off into the mountains.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Calum said. ‘As far as I can tell from the digital maps and satellite photos, you’ll only be able to go ten miles or so before the gradient becomes too steep for the van, and, frankly, I can’t see you making more than ten miles an hour for that first section, even with four-wheel drive.’

  Rhino nodded. ‘Agreed, but it’s ten miles that we don’t have to walk, and it gets us further ahead. The villagers are holding off on any hunt until tomorrow afternoon. We need to get significantly ahead of them in that time.’

  ‘It should be possible,’ Gecko said. ‘They don’t have the advantage of Calum tracking Natalie’s mobile phone.’

  ‘For as long as that advantage lasts. The phone might fall out of the Almast’s pocket, or it might discover it and throw it away,’ Calum said.

  Gecko shrugged. ‘We will have to take our chances. What about our guide – is he coming with us?’

  ‘No, he’s too badly injured. If those cuts open up and start bleeding while we’re in the Caucasus Mountains, we’ll never be able to get help to him. I know about first aid, but I’m not a surgeon. Best we leave him behind.’ Rhino laughed humourlessly. ‘It’s not as if we’re expecting the Almasti to speak Georgian. I doubt that a translator would be much use.’

  ‘If this thing is an Almast,’ Gecko pointed out. ‘It might still be someone from an unknown village in the mountains.’

  A voice came from the direction of the inn. ‘Hi – are we ready to go?’

  Rhino and Gecko turned to see Tara walking towards them. She had a rucksack slung over her shoulder.

  ‘Just about,’ Rhino said. ‘Where’s Natalie?’

  Tara shrugged. ‘No idea. I thought she was with you guys.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her since our meeting,’ Gecko said. ‘Maybe she’s gone back to her room for a lie-down.’ He paused. ‘Calum – can you see from her headband where she is?’

  ‘She’s not wearing her headband.’ Calum’s voice echoed in Gecko’s ear, and presumably in Tara’s and Rhino’s ears as well. He sounded annoyed. ‘I think she’s got privacy issues. I think she’s also a spoilt brat. She knows how much those headbands cost.’

  ‘What about her mobile phone – can you track it?’ Tara asked. She caught herself straight away. ‘Oh, right. She gave it to the Almast.’

  Rhino looked around decisively. ‘Right – Tara, you search the inn. Gecko – you take the village hall. I’ll walk around the village. First one to find her gets to tell her how stupid it is to wander off when there’s an Almast somewhere in the vicinity, not to mention a whole lot of excitable villagers.’

  Everyone headed off in different directions, all aiming to do the same thing – find Natalie. Following instructions, Gecko headed for the village hall. It seemed like most of the men above the age of fifteen were streaming out of the place following the meeting about the Almast. There were beards and moustaches on display that Gecko found almost frightening. He slipped past them and checked out the hall from front to back. It smelt of tobacco, alcohol and lots of people wearing wool clothing. He made sure he checked every nook and cranny of the place, just in case Natalie was hiding away somewhere, but there was no sign of her anywhere.

  He emerged into daylight to find Tara coming out of the inn. She shook her head before Gecko could say anything. ‘No luck – I looked everywhere I could. Unless she’s booked a different room under a false name, she’s not in there.’

  ‘What do you think has happened to her?’ Gecko asked.

  She shrugged casually, but there was worry written across her face. ‘No idea. Maybe the Almast came back to get the one person who’s seen it. Or maybe one of the younger villagers took a shine to her.’

  ‘I doubt he’d be able to keep her in shoes for more than a week,’ Gecko said drily. He shook his head. ‘Este é louco,’ he muttered. ‘This is mad.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Rhino called as he strode back. ‘I’ve checked the whole village, and I’ve got nothing.’

  ‘Tara thought that maybe the Almast had got her,’ Gecko suggested.

  ‘It’s as good as explanation as any.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We do what we were going to do – follow Natalie’s mobile signal. We thought we’d be following the Almast, but we might be following her as well. I’ll make sure Levan keeps an eye out for her here, just in case she comes back.’ He clapped his hands together. ‘Right – everyone in the van. Gecko – you’re navigating. Tara – you’re making sure that ARLENE keeps up. I’ll just go and tell Levan about Natalie and let him know that we’re off.’

  Within minutes, they were leaving the village and heading towards the mountains. Rhino was driving, Tara was sitting beside him and Gecko was in the back. ARLENE trotted like a pony by the side of the van. Some of the villagers stopped what they were doing to watch them leave – probably more because of ARLENE than anything else. Gecko wasn’t sure whether he liked the place or not – the villagers had seemed pleasant enough, but they didn’t go out of their way to be friendly.

  He glanced sideways, expecting to see Natalie on the seat beside him, looking bored, but the seat was empty. He felt a jolt of concern run through his heart.

  Wherever she was, he hoped she was OK.

  Natalie’s captors manhandled her through the village and out into the countryside without being observed by anything larger than a dog. They were professional and economical in their movements, responding silently to hand signals given by the man who had originally confronted her.

  Natalie couldn’t help but notice that, when they got to the sensor systems round the border of the village, four of the men opened up what looked like blankets of thin metallic foil. With a man on each side, they manoeuvred the blankets so that they formed a tunnel between two of the sensors. The remaining men took Natalie out between the blankets without, presumably, triggering any reaction.

  A quarter of a mile or so from Ruspiri, the men pushed her towards a clump of trees and scrubby bushes that were big enough to hide a couple of elephants. The men didn’t have any elephants – or, if they did, they were hidden somewhere else – but they did have three Humvees – wide, squat, four-wheeled vehicles that looked like a cross between an SUV and a Transformer. Natalie recognized them: the vehicles were something of a fashion accessory around Los Angeles. These three were painted a matt black, and bristled with antennae of various types.

  The blond-haired man steered Natalie towards the passenger side of the lead Humvee. He held the door open while she entered and then, slamming her door, moved round to the driver’s side and got in.

  He stared at her for a few long moments with his pale blue eyes.

  ‘What am I doing here?’ she snapped as angrily as she could manage. ‘I know this is a foreign country, but I am an American citizen and the US embassy will be very concerned to know that I have been kidnapped.’

  ‘Let’s dispense with the theatrics,’ the man said. ‘You must know that we won’t be scared by mention of the US embassy, and you must know that there is no task force ready to set out and rescue you. You are on your own, and your safety and survival depend only on the decisions that you make. Clear? Now, there are certain things I want to know. They include the commitment of your various friends to this expedition they are on, the nature of the supplies you have brought with you and whether Captain Gillis and
your guide, Levan Ketsbaia, are armed.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you anything.’ Natalie folded her arms defiantly and looked away, but her heart was beating fast.

  ‘You will,’ he said calmly. ‘I deplore the use of unnecessary violence, although I will countenance it if required, but there are easier ways to get the information I need. I could tie your hands together, attach them to a long leash, fix the leash to the rear bumper of this Humvee and drive off, leaving you to either keep up or tell me what I want to know. I understand you are a long-distance runner, back in the USA. You might be able to keep up for a while, but one misstep would lead to you being dragged along the ground, scraping the flesh from your legs and arms and back. But that is a crude, unpleasant way of getting information. My preference is for a drug that, within a few moments, will cause you to feel unbearable thirst. I have a can of soda here with me, fresh from the cool box. I will hold it up in front of your eyes, with the condensation misting on its surface, and you will tell me everything and anything I want, just to get hold of it. I have seen experienced soldiers break down within ten minutes just to get a sip from the can. You will not be a challenge. Now, it should be obvious to you that you will tell me everything. The only choice you have is whether you do so quickly, without pain and suffering, or slowly.’

  Natalie sighed, and closed her eyes momentarily. This was a nightmare, but she wasn’t waking up.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘My name is Craig Roxton,’ he said, in exactly the same tone of voice that he had used to terrify her, ‘and I work for a company named Nemor Incorporated. Now that we have introduced ourselves, let us begin . . .’