FRONTIERLAND: LOST WORLDS 1

PROLOGUE

1889

The rain continued to pour relentlessly down to the gloomy and almost subterrene darkness at the floor of the rainforest. The lightning lit up the black night of the jungle in camera flashes, each time catching the sheets of rain before they crashed to earth like shattered glass, while thunder rolled and cracked after each blue-white flash like the rending of the sky itself. The sun rarely penetrated this far below the green roof above into the primal deep and would in the morning descend in greenish shafts as if into the waters of the sea, while the growing heat of the forest would turn the rain into steam. The rain temporarily cooled the humid melting pot of the jungle as below the wide leaves of the lower foliage, Challenger's expedition huddled in small conical tents, under hastily erected awnings, or in the case of the Indian bearers, under the foliage itself, waiting for the storm to pass as the water flowed in rivulets over the edges of the leaves and awnings, and the doors of the tents. Centipedes, beetles and caterpillars crawled everywhere and no-one could get more than a few minutes' sleep from swatting biting insects away.

Challenger stared out from under the wide brim of his hat into the gloom as he sat in the doorway of his tent hoping and waiting for the sun to come and chase away the rain: at least that way they might get a couple of hours' sleep before the humidity built up again. The expedition had been, as far as Challenger was concerned, virtually a failure. He had hoped to extend the narrative of evolution with his research programme and find new positives of adaptation, perhaps new links, even undiscovered species. True, he had come close with specimens of a hitherto unknown frog genus, which had become the lead he had followed. The specimens he was bringing back with him might just be worth cataloguing, but Challenger was only too well aware that he would find it hard to obtain funding in the future unless he could provide more concrete evidence of how evolution worked. The science was still new, still challenged by the Church, still developing, and Challenger knew he could stand with Wallace and Bates among others if only he could break through with compelling linking evidence.

Challenger's train of thought was abruptly broken into by the voice of Allan Taylor, his translator and second in command, next to him in the awning of the tent. There was little room in each of the three tents they had to accommodate two expedition members and the assorted equipment they had brought with them. It frayed tempers.

"Filthy weather", Taylor declared. "And the wet season isn't supposed to start just yet. Let's hope it passes soon." Challenger didn't say anything: the comment was too obvious for him to entertain.

"The bearers are becoming restless." Taylor went on, again stating the obvious. This happened all the time: the bearers were local to the Amazon basin, you could buy a certain amount of loyalty with money, but the work was back-breakingly hard, the conditions unpredictable and treacherous.

"That's why we have the overseers to keep them in line." Challenger replied in his deep, rumbling bass. "That's your responsibility, Mr. Taylor."

Taylor nodded, a morose expression wrinkling his leathery face. Challenger did not fool himself that his men trusted him: they thought him a slave-driver and a difficult man to work for. Driven, intolerant of fools and physically immensely strong, he boasted that he would never ask of his team anything he wasn't willing to do himself. Yet he had to choose his men carefully. Few had the strength and stamina required for an environment like this. That was why he often had to bribe his men with extra money.

"God, I need some sleep." Taylor muttered. "Is it all worth it?" Taylor was himself a botanist, Challenger a zoologist and fellow of the Royal Zoological Institute in London, with two doctorates to his name. The third scientist, Plummer, in the next tent, was a specialist in various types of insect. Plummer was actually sleeping at the moment, an astonishing feat.