by Andrew Lane
‘OK.’
‘Third – one of the villagers took a fancy to her and has her captive in his house while he tries to persuade her to marry him.’
‘Ouch. I don’t like that one much.’
‘Fortunately for Natalie, I don’t think it’s what’s happened. Before I left I talked to the village head man, Shota Gigauri. He just laughed when I suggested the possibility that she’d been kidnapped by someone in the village. He said, and I quote, that she’s too thin, too pale and too talkative to make a good wife for anyone in Ruspiri. Regardless, I’ve asked Levan Ketsbaia to keep an eye out for her.’
‘That’s reassuring. So what’s the next theory?’
‘Second – she decided she doesn’t want to be on the expedition and she’s paid one of the villagers to drive her back to Mummy in Tbilisi.’
Calum considered the idea for a moment. ‘Possible. She certainly didn’t want to go to Georgia in the first place. I guess I could phone Gillian to find out if Natalie’s been in contact with her, or if she’s suddenly appeared back at the hotel, but that would tip her off that something was wrong.’
‘Calum, if Natalie suddenly appeared back at the hotel in Tbilisi, Gillian Livingstone would be straight on the phone to you to find out what had happened.’
‘Good point. We can rule that one out, then. So what’s the front runner?’
Rhino paused before answering. When he did speak, his tone was more serious than before. ‘There’s a slim chance the Almasti have taken her, but given how timid they are, that’s unlikely. What bothers me is the other expedition, the one Gillian warned us about, the one that left Tbilisi shortly after we did . . . If they’re looking for the Almasti as well, and if they’re unscrupulous enough, they might just decide to take one of our expedition prisoner to find out whether or not we know where the Almasti can be found.’
Calum felt a cold wave wash over his heart. ‘You think they would do that?’
‘Depending on who they’re working for, yes.’ He paused again. ‘It’s what I would do.’
‘Hmm,’ Calum said, not quite sure what the best response was to that admission.
‘Did you manage to find out anything about the expedition?’
Calum shook his head, despite the fact that Rhino couldn’t see him. ‘Nothing. There’s no trace of these people going into the country, no trace of them booking into any hotels, no trace of them renting or buying any Humvees or supplies . . . absolutely nothing. Assuming that Gillian’s information was correct, of course, and there is a second expedition heading out into the Caucasus Mountains. It could just be a mistake, or a misunderstanding.’
‘I tend to believe her.’
‘So do I,’ Calum admitted. ‘Look, I’ve got a suggestion,’ he continued after a few moments. ‘You’re not going to like it, and Tara and Gecko are going to hate it.’
‘Go on.’
‘Unpack ARLENE and give it orders to stay back and scout the area behind you. If this second expedition is following you, then ARLENE might be able to find them.’
On the screen showing what Rhino was seeing, the view suddenly slewed around to show ARLENE, lumbering along behind the expedition members. Rhino was obviously looking at the robot, considering.
‘Interesting idea. I presume the idea is that we carry what we can ourselves, and leave the rest cached here to recover later.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is ARLENE up to handling a mission on its own?’
‘I think so. Check with Tara. She’s read the technical manuals, and she’s got the control software on her tablet. She can tell you if ARLENE can be reprogrammed to independently search for a party of people in three vehicles, and she can also tell you if ARLENE’s visual sensors and control algorithms are good enough to pick Natalie’s face out from a group of others.’
‘There’s a lot of terrain to cover back there. Just based on probabilities, there’s little chance that ARLENE will stumble across this other expedition.’
‘You’re missing something,’ Calum said forcefully. ‘Let’s assume that this second expedition is following us. Let’s also assume that they were responsible for the attempted theft of your equipment back at Tbilisi airport. It makes sense to assume that they have some means of working out where you are. Maybe the Mitsubishi Delica has a tracking device in it, maybe it doesn’t, but the terrain being as limited as it is, at some stage that expedition is going to pass through where you left the van. They’ll probably have to ditch their vehicles at around the same point. Send ARLENE back to the van, using bushes and trees as cover. If the other expedition isn’t there, then ARLENE can wait for them. If they’ve already got there and moved on, ARLENE can follow their tracks.’
Rhino was silent for a few minutes, thinking. Eventually, he said, ‘You’re right – it’s the only option we have, short of just forgetting about her. I’ll tell the others and get started.’
‘Keep me in the loop.’
Rhino raised a hand to his headband. His fingers appeared huge in the field of view of the camera. ‘Calum, while we’re wearing these things you’re in the loop whether you want to be or not.’ His voice suddenly became louder. ‘Tara, Gecko – stop for a minute. I’ve got something I need to discuss with you . . .’
The Nemor Inc. expedition had got just about as far as it could on wheels – even wheels as wide and robust as those on the Humvees. Ahead of them the ground rose up more steeply than before. It also looked to Natalie as if it was softer, muddier.
The van that Rhino and Gecko had liberated from the thieves at Tbilisi airport sat in the middle of an area of open ground. Seeing it, Natalie felt a momentary pang of loneliness. She was trying not to think too much about what was going on, just living from moment to moment, but knowing that her friends had been there only a little while before made her feel tearful.
Her friends? When had that happened? When had they gone from being just people she was stuck with to people she kinda liked being with?
When they had been so concerned for her, back in the village, that was when.
Roxton had stopped the three vehicles and was standing out on the sloping grassland next to the van, obviously making a judgement about what to do next. The wind was ruffling his fine blond hair. Three of his team were standing with him, consulting maps and compasses. Natalie was in the passenger seat of the lead Humvee, where she’d been ordered to stay, watching them all with little interest.
Eventually Roxton left the group and walked back to the Humvee. ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, my dear, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to abandon the vehicles and carry on by foot.’ He smiled. ‘In deference to your position as prisoner I have decided that you won’t have to carry your fair share of supplies.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ Natalie said.
‘You’re going to carry twice your fair share.’
‘Brilliant – thanks for the consideration.’ She paused, embarrassed. ‘Uh, I hate to ask, but is there anywhere I can, like, pee?
‘I’ve got an empty water bottle. Would that do?’
She just stared at him darkly.
Roxton glanced around. ‘There are some bushes over there. Would that suit Your Highness’s modesty?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘not even close, but I guess it’ll have to do.’
‘If you’re not back in five minutes, I’ll send someone to look for you and, believe me, they won’t be gentle when they find you.’
‘I’ll be back,’ she said. ‘I mean, where else would I go?’ As Roxton walked back to his team, she muttered, ‘I swear, I’ll never again go to anywhere that doesn’t have air conditioning, a spa and a decent bathroom.’
She pushed open the passenger-side door and got out of the Humvee. Reluctantly she walked across the marshy ground that lay between her and the clump of bushes that Roxton had indicated. With every step she took, they looked smaller and sparser.
She walked round the bushes, and nearly screamed.
Something dar
k and huge was towering over her.
CHAPTER
seventeen
Moments passed, during which Natalie was scared rigid and speechless. The late-afternoon sun gleamed off the metal of the creature’s legs and neck. The cameras that formed its head were aimed at her, examining her, evaluating her.
It was that thing . . . ARLENE. The load-carrying robot that Tara and Rhino had brought back from America.
The realization that it wasn’t the Almast again made her feel weak with relief. She felt her muscles relax. She glanced sideways, but the bushes were thick enough that she couldn’t see the Humvees or the Nemor expedition. That meant they couldn’t see her or the robot.
She glanced uncertainly at ARLENE again. ‘Can you . . . can you hear me?’ she asked.
The robot’s head bobbed up and down twice.
‘Calum – is that you?’ she whispered.
The robot nodded again.
‘You sent this thing to find me?’ A wave of gratitude washed over her, making her feel weak and tearful. ‘Thank you. Can you . . . speak? Does this thing have a voice? If it does, be quiet – the people who kidnapped me are only a few yards away.’
The robot’s head shook from side to side.
‘No loudspeakers, huh? I suppose that makes sense. I mean, who would ARLENE talk to? And what would it need to talk about?’
The robot’s head tilted slightly, watching her at an angle. It then pivoted to look at where the Nemor expedition was, if the bushes hadn’t been in the way, and back to her again.
‘They’re following you,’ she whispered. ‘It’s someone called Nemor Incorporated. They want to get to the Almasti before you do.’
ARLENE’s head continued to study Natalie. Was Calum really watching her through its lenses? Was Tara watching her too? But what about ARLENE – did the robot have any kind of consciousness? Was it watching her as well?
‘They’ll miss me,’ she said eventually. ‘I need to get back. And I need to pee.’
She blushed, and suddenly hoped that the robot’s sensors couldn’t pick up the increased heat from her face.
The robot’s head twisted round to stare at its own back, then twisted to look at her again.
‘Are you trying to tell me something?’
It nodded again.
‘What?’
The head rotated 180 degrees again, so that it was looking at its own ‘spine’, and then back to look at Natalie.
‘Don’t tell me that you want me to climb up on your back. Please don’t tell me that.’
No movement. The cameras were pointed straight at her eyes.
‘That is what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it?’
The head nodded.
‘Oh heck,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I really don’t want to do that.’
No movement again. Calum wasn’t really giving her a choice. Not, she thought, that there was much of a choice anyway. It wasn’t like she could stay here with Roxton and his entourage of grim-faced bodyguards.
‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything as useful as a saddle around?’
Instead of shaking its head, ARLENE bent down, front legs first and then the middle and back legs, so that she could scramble on to its back. There was a curved section of metal like a saddle between its first and second pair of legs, and she found that she could lean forward and sit reasonably comfortably with her legs clutching tightly to the robot’s flanks. Her hands gripped two smooth metal projections on its neck that were probably somewhere to attach straps for securing supplies. If ARLENE stopped suddenly, then she would jolt forward, right into the sharp metal staircase of its neck. She grabbed hold extra-tight with her hands and legs, and promised herself that if ARLENE ever did stop suddenly then she would do her best to roll sideways and fall off. It didn’t matter how hard the ground was – it would be softer than getting herself impaled on those metal vertebrae.
Quicker than she would have liked, ARLENE levered itself upright. Natalie gasped as her head was suddenly two and a half metres above the ground. She could probably see over the tops of the bushes if she straightened up, so she kept low.
‘OK,’ she whispered into the robot’s microphone ear. ‘Let’s run like the wind – but safely!’
Calum was confused.
He had been watching what ARLENE had been doing on his computer monitors. The robot had got back to where the van had been left in just half an hour, moving rapidly downhill and using its own programming to work out the best route across the hilly terrain. Once it was there, and once it was obvious that the second expedition hadn’t arrived yet, it had selected the best place to hide – a clump of bushes that would completely screen it from sight. It had stayed there, motionless, waiting for something to happen. Fifty minutes later, it did. Three Humvees turned up, circled the van and stopped. Men and women with guns got out and tried the locked doors. A thin man with blond hair had joined them, and they had all talked for a while.
Most importantly, Natalie had been in the front passenger seat of the lead Humvee.
She’d looked bored, and scared. Calum’s heart had ached for her, but he knew that there was nothing he could do. He didn’t have access to the control functions for the robot. Tara had some of them on her tablet computer, and she had persuaded Calum before leaving England that two of them trying to take control of the robot at the same time would be madness. But even she couldn’t take full control of the robot – most of its functions were designed to be autonomous. It wasn’t a remote-control system – it was a robot that made its own decisions, within broad pre-set mission parameters. And, besides, Calum guessed that Tara was too busy walking uphill with a large rucksack on her back to be monitoring and controlling ARLENE on a moment-by-moment basis. So, now that ARLENE had found Natalie, there wasn’t very much they could do. Calum had watched her for a while, wondering if there was any way to attract her attention, but then something strange had happened. Natalie had wandered towards the bushes of her own accord, apparently unaccompanied, and managed to find ARLENE by herself, and she had started talking to it. She had mentioned Nemor Incorporated, which had made Calum suddenly sit up and take notice. And ARLENE had responded to her. Using gestures and movements of its head, the robot had persuaded her to climb on its back. Calum had to admit that it was an innovative solution, but where had it come from? Had ARLENE come up with a plan all by itself?
Whatever the reason, looking at the monitor now, all Calum could see was grass and bushes and trees hurtling past, and up ahead the increasing slope of the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. Every now and then, when ARLENE’s cameras tipped up far enough, he could see the purple and grey sawtooth peaks of the mountains themselves, with the sun dropping behind them. He couldn’t even see if Natalie was still managing to hold on. At first he had been relieved to have found her, but what would happen to her if she slipped off and fell to the ground while ARLENE was travelling so fast? She would almost certainly break a bone, and there would be no way to know where she was or how to get her treated. This was a disaster! He must tell Rhino.
Natalie kept her head down, tucked into her shoulder, as ARLENE raced across the ground. The thudding of ARLENE’s six metal feet against soil and rock vibrated up through its metal skeleton and into Natalie’s body like continuously rolling thunder, making it difficult to take a breath. Air whistled past her ears and drew her hair out behind her. The metal of the robot’s chassis poked her all over.
Moments after she had got on to ARLENE’s back, the robot had broken into a lolloping gallop away from the bushes. Somewhere behind them Natalie had heard a shout, and a brief burst of gunfire that had fortunately gone right over her head. She had been missed, and her escape had been seen. Fortunately, ARLENE was making better speed than Roxton’s personnel could manage on foot, and they couldn’t take the Humvees any further uphill. There was no chance they would catch up.
There was a strong chance, however, that Natalie might end up falling off AR
LENE’s back if she wasn’t careful. The robot wasn’t built for passengers – there were no real handholds, and wherever she clamped her thighs to get a grip she felt sharp metal points digging into her skin. It was like trying to find a comfortable spot to perch on a lawnmower, or a clothes horse.
Her hands were damp with sweat, and they kept slipping off the smooth bits of ARLENE’s neck on to which she was desperately trying to hold. She wasn’t sure she could take more than a few more minutes of this. How far away were Rhino, Tara and Gecko? Surely they couldn’t have walked more than a couple of miles from the van in that time?
ARLENE jerked to one side and jumped unexpectedly. Natalie nearly slid sideways off the robot’s back, saving herself only by flinging her arms tightly around its neck and holding on for dear life. From the corner of her eye she saw a glittering stream flash beneath them, and then ARLENE’s front feet hit the ground on the other side and they were pounding across the ground again. Small stones sprang up from beneath the robot’s metal hoofs and clattered against the underside of its body.
This was hell, and it felt like it was never going to end.
The rucksack’s straps bit into Gecko’s shoulders as he slogged on across the Georgian landscape. His head was low, chin on chest, and all he had seen for the past hour was his feet, repetitively taking steps.
The straps were padded, but they still hurt. He was used to the freedom of free-running with nothing holding him back or weighing him down.
He looked up from the constant hypnotic movement of his feet and stared around. They were higher up now, and the grass and bushes were sparser, interrupted by stretches of bare earth and rock. Ahead of them the ground split apart as if hit by some giant’s axe, with steep slopes to the right and the left and a dark ravine or defile directly ahead. Rhino seemed to be aiming them directly for the defile, which made sense. They weren’t in any condition to climb the steep slopes to either side, not with the equipment they were carrying on their backs. Presumably Rhino was hoping that the defile opened up into a wider area, like a valley, with a shallower slope upward. Gecko hoped he was right. His experience as a free-runner on London’s rooftops had shown him that you couldn’t just make assumptions about what was round the corner, or over the edge. You couldn’t throw yourself off a roof because you thought there might be a wide ledge underneath.
