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From: mandil_k@hotmail.com (mandil)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Jul 2002 23:20:16 GMT
Subject: {ASSM} Masters of the Arches   chapter 19
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 03:10:03 -0400
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.                            Masters of the Arches
                                   by Mandil

 

                                  Chapter 19      

  

The light was coming through a fine grill in the floor of the duct.
The yellowish glow filtering inside the air channel was causing an
eerie reflection on the faces of the three explorers who had been
crawling on hands and knees in the air passageway.

After his eyes had adjusted to the light, Vincent was able to
distinguish, through the three square feet grill, a green carpet on
the floor of the room below them. After long minutes of trying to
remove the thin grill, he was finally able to pull it aside thus
leaving a hole for them to slide through.

The distance from where they were to the floor below was more than ten
feet.

 He first got his legs through the square opening, and then he finally
was able, with much difficulty, to get his hips and torso also through
the hole. A few seconds later he found himself hanging by his hands
while holding his body weight by the side of the square hole. With his
arms stretched thus, he could tell that his feet were at least four
feet from the green carpet.

But he was in a perfect physical condition now. As a matter of fact he
did realized  that never before this day, had he felt so good. His
body was lean – his belly and excess fat were now all gone - and
the outdoor life he had been living for the last three or four months,
(he could no longer tell exactly how long he had been on this new
planet), had contribute a lot to the restoration of his body muscles.
But more important still, it was the action of the Rad Virus that kept
his body healthy and free from all diseases and imperfections.

At last Vincent finally let go of his grip around the edge of the
opening and he let gravity pull him down to the carpet that absorbed
much of the impact.

While Nika was letting her body slip through the same opening in the
duct, he had time to turn around in a complete 360 degrees circle and
thus get a general idea of the size and shape of the room they were
in.

It was a large room, probably a dormitory of some kind. He could see
two rows of beds on opposing walls of the long room. Each bed was
separated by some sort of partition so as to allow some kind of
privacy to whoever had been sleeping in them.

Now that his eyes had gotten use to the light, he could tell that its
intensity was relatively dim and it seemed to come from thin strips
crisscrossing the ceiling.

As soon and Nika had her body through and was hanging by her hands as
he had done a minute earlier, he caught her lower body in his arms and
he gently lowered her onto the soft carpet. Then it was Verla's turn
to get down and once the three of them were on the floor, they got
busy looking around and examining their strange surrounding.

"This must be the home of another talking machine," finally said
Verla.

"If by machine you mean a computer, I don't think we will find one
here. If there was one, Brumelle would have mentioned its existence to
us. No, I think this is something different. You see those two rows of
beds along the walls, at one time there must have been a great many
people living here, and judging from this room, they were either
soldiers or workers."

"If these small platforms are beds, then they were met to hold only
one person" remarked Nika;"therefore those that lived here had no time
to make love since they all slept one to each bed."

"You are right. This is why I say that they must have been soldiers or
workers. What they were doing must have been very important and they
probably had no time for anything else. As to what exactly they were
doing here, I wish I knew the answer to that."

"Then they must have been very stupid people," remarked Verla "and
they got what they deserved."

"It could well be that they did deserve whatever happened to them, but
on the other hand maybe they had no other choice on the matter. We
will probably never know. One thing is certain though; none of their
descendants are around to tell us how it all ended. Judging by the
looks of things here, as well as by the amount of dust everywhere,
there hasn't been anybody in this room for a very long time. This is
what makes me say that it is safe for us to look around."

He didn't wait for the girls to react to what he had just said to
them. Instead, he slowly began to walk toward the first of the small
cubical with its walls that went only half way to the ceiling. Except
for the bed, the only pieces of furniture inside the small rectangular
space was an uncomfortable looking chair made of a glass-looking
substance, which was placed next to the bed and a small bureau also
made of the same plastic-like material.

He soon got busy pulling opened, one after the others, the six
drawers. Inside were clothing items such as socks and shirts and what
seamed to be undergarments. Every piece of clothing was neatly folded
as if the owner had left to attend whatever his occupation had been
and had never returned back to the room to claim his belongings.

Vincent then sat on the bed and he examined the blanket. The only
traces of the passage of time on it, was the thick layer of dust that
was everywhere. After blowing some of the dust away from the blanket,
the light brown colour looked as fresh as if the blanket had been new.
He passed his hand over it and he was able to tell that it wasn't made
of cotton or wool but of synthetic fibres that felt both soft and warm
to the touch. Had it been made of natural fibres it would have
probably disintegrated into shreds after all these years.

The bed itself consisted only of a thin mattress that was a little
over twenty inches from the floor, and instead of resting on a springs
support; it was stretched on a low pedestal. Vincent then noticed that
there was a panel underneath the bed, and when he finally managed to
open the rectangular door that went the whole length of the bed, he
was pleasant surprised to discover that it contained two pairs of
boots and half a dozen light green, one piece coveralls that were
neatly folded.

"Well, our days of freezing in the cold are over girls," he said while
looking at his women with an expression of satisfaction on his face.
"From now on we will also wear boots, and who knows we may even find
food in this place."

"I think we should take what we need and leave immediately." Said
Nika.

"We will, but not before we have a look at the rest of this place. We
might find items that will be very useful to us as we travel."

They had to check half a dozen cubicles before Vincent found a pair of
boots that was his size. The three of them then walked toward the
doors of the dormitory wearing boots and dressed in the light green
one piece uniform. Vincent could not help himself admiring the grace
of his women as they were walking dressed in the long coveralls and
knees length boots.

At the end of the long room, a wide pair of swinging doors opened on a
brightly lit corridor that seemed to go on forever on their left as
well as on their right. They turned right for no particular reason.
After long minutes of walking, there came to a door on their right.
When Vincent tried to open it, if gave way easily.

It was another dormitory, and it also looked as if the inhabitant had
left with the intention of returning since everything seemed to be
tidy. Even the few beds he could see through the opened partitions,
were neatly made.

The next two doors they tried also led to dormitories. After that, the
corridor went on for a long stretch, and then it suddenly turn ninety
degrees to their left. As soon as they had made the turn, they saw
ahead of them two dozens glass panels, - which proved to be doors when
they got near them - with a view on a very large room.

 Inside the immense chamber, they could see rows upon rows of table
and chairs, some tables were met to sit four people around them while
others were much longer and twenty could have easily sit in front of
them. Vincent reasoned that it must have been a sort of cafeteria
where people came to relax as well as to eat or simply to be social.

He told himself that it was not worth investigating since any food
that could have been left in there would have long ago turn to dust.
They kept on walking until they stood at the top of a wide stair that
let down. Everywhere he looked it was clean and tidy - except for the
dust of course - and once they reached the foot of the stair, fifty
feet below them, they found themselves in a giant room where strange
machines could be seen everywhere. Most of them being in various
stages of completion.

As to the purpose of these great machines, he couldn't even guess, but
owing to the size and complexity of the many circuits that could be
see everywhere, it was plain that a great many people must have been
working at their assembly.

For the next couple of hours they explored the underground complex and
they investigated many more rooms. They discovered two other levels
deeper down and both level were similar to the first, with sleeping
quarters, cafeterias and working places as well as storerooms.

Toward the end of their exploration they came to a fifteen-degree
sloping ramp that led to the surface. Vincent figured that it most
probably had been used at one time to move the numerous equipments to
the surface once they had been assembled. But now the ramp was sealed
tight by two immense doors halfway toward the surface.

They were about to turn back so as to leave the complex by the same
ventilation shaft they had use to get in when Verla pointed to a door
which no one had noticed before.  It was situated on the side of the
ramp at the end of a small platform.

The instant that she pushed on the door it continued of its own to
slide in the wall and a long stairway could be seen on the other side.
They all agreed that it was worth investigating since it did seem to
be leading on a parallel path to the ramp and they were all hoping
that it might take them to the surface.

As it had been inside the corridors, the lightning was intense in the
staircase and after ten minutes of climbing they found themselves in a
circular dark cave with its walls of rock.  A small opening to the
outside world could be seen on the opposite rock wall.

Once they were into the daylight, they could tell that if was
extremely difficult to see the entrance to the cave from outside since
it was well hidden by vines and numerous small trees growing very
close. If someone had no previous knowledge of the existence of the
entrance, it would have been impossible to detect. Vincent felt
positive that the cave must have been an emergency exit.

"Well it seem that we won't have to crawl back in that windy and dark
passage of the ventilation shaft after all."

"Oh,I am so glad," said Nika, "I don't think that I could have made it
back the same way we got in. Let us get away from this bad place."

"Not so fast. It is cold here and it will be dark soon. We will go
back below and spent the night in the warmth and safety of the
complex, in the morning we will leave."

He was right, and both women knew it.  They went back below to the
first level. They ate in one of the storage room and afterward they
stretched on the floor on blankets that they had taken from one of the
dormitories.

The room they were was very near the stairway leading out. On three
sides its walls were covered with shelves on which had been stored
many strange gadgets that fascinated Vincent.

On one section of the wall, the shelves were stacked with rows of
cubical devices, each the shape and seize of a portable television. As
Vincent focused his attention on one of the box-like object, he
noticed that four of its sides were perfectly smooth while the other
two - one opposite the other - were covered with a fine grill. On one
of the sides having a grill - the side facing him - there were two
small knobs at the bottom and the grill had a circular projection.

The more Vincent thought about it, the more it reminded him of an air
blower or a heater of some kind. At last he got up, and while both
Nika and Verla were watching him, he removed one of the cubical
devices from the shelf. It was heavier than it appeared, weighing
close to forty pounds.

He carefully placed it on the ground with the circular projection
parallel to the floor then he turned the smaller of the two knobs.
Immediately there was a soft humming sound that came from the machine
and at the same time a strong stream of air - neither hot nor cold -
which disturbed the layers of dust on the floor far away in front of
the cube-like machine.

By now, both Nika and Verla were standing next to him with fright
written all over their face.

When he proceeded to turn the second and largest knob, the air became
warm and the more he turned the knob, the warmer it got until it was
so hot in the room that even at twenty feet away he couldn't place his
hand in the stream of hot air without the risk of burning it.

At last he turned it off and he told his two companions to wait for
him while he went outside with the heater.

Once in the cave he set it on the floor with the nozzle pointing
toward the outside opening of the cave, then he switched the heater on
again with the small button and he turned the big knob three quarter
of the way. In a few seconds, the previously cold and humid cave was
uncomfortably hot and he was forced to set the big knob to a half turn
only.

It was well know to him that anything that produced heat had to use a
great deal of power, he was thus very intrigued about the capacity of
the power source of such a heater. But since the device had been made
to be portable and was not met to be connected directly to a power
line, Vincent figured that the capacity of the battery or whatever was
its source of power must be very impressive.

Wanting to get more information about the power supply of the heater,
he let the heater hum at half capacity and he got back into the
complex. It was his intention to see for how long the power supply
incorporated within the heater would last.

Then, an idea began to take shape in his mind. It was such a fantastic
idea that he wouldn't even admit it to himself yet, but all through
the evening and for half the night, he thought about it and he even
made plans without really being aware of it.

By now, he knew that they would need many months and even years of
difficult travel to get where they intended to go, which was the
southern tip of the planet. But they were moving about as fast as
travelers had been moving in his world four or five hundreds year
previously, and even then they mostly had horses which he didn't have
now.

For anyone to get from one pole to the other in the fifteen century -
provided of course one accepted the fact that the earth was a sphere
at that time - would have been unimaginable because of the great
distance involved. But this is exactly what they were trying to do now
and unless they could find a faster mean of travel, he now felt that
it was an impossible undertaking.

While they had been exploring the complex, Vincent had noticed that
all of the large machines that had been completed were covered with
thin synthetic tarps. The material of those tarps was very light yet
impossible to cut with his knife. More important still, he had
previously tested the permeability of the tarps material and it did
proved to be completely waterproof.

One of the smaller storage rooms held rolls upon rolls of the thin and
very flexible almost paper-thin material. The rolls were of two
different colours, forest green and sandy beige. The reason for these
particular colours soon became evident to Vincent.

The green was exactly that of any forest while the beige was also very
similar to that of the barren land and rocks. The tarps had thus two
purposes, one of which was to protect against the rain and sand
whatever it was covering while at the same time it served as
camouflage.

But he still had to make another test on the material of the tarps
before he could begin to put his plan into execution. How would it
react to heat and fire? He took down another heater from one of the
shelves and he carried it into one of the very large rooms. Next he
placed a length of tarp material very close to the mouth of the
heater. He then  turned on the heater at high intensity.

 After long minutes of waiting and watching, he stopped the heater and
he went to inspect the paper-thin sheet in front of the heater. In all
evidence the intense heat had had no effect on it.

Early the next morning, he told the two women to wait for him while he
would go into the cave for a few minutes. It was terribly hot inside
the cave; the small blower of the heater was still humming and sending
a stream of hot air through the opening of the cave. After making sure
that the heater was not excessively hot, he finally turned it down.

 He was very impressed by the performance of the power supply of the
heater. It had been sending a steady jet of hot air during the whole
night and this without any sign of its power supply being exhausted.

Vincent was about to bring it back into the complex, but after having
given the matter some thoughts; he decided to leave it in the cave.
There were hundreds more below so why should he bother with that one.

His next problem was to find a way to cut the tarp material. He went
back to the room where the rolls were stored and he began to look
around so as to see if there could be a special tool to cut the thin
material. Since his knife had no effect on it there had to be
something in the room that would do this. It took him almost half an
hour to figure a way to cut a strip from one of the rolls.

In the room, there were a few long tables, but he hadn't paid too much
attention to them. But now he did notice that each table had above it,
a suspended track on which could slide - crosswise or lengthwise - a
pencil seize rod with a sharp point fixed to the track. It then
occurred to him that the point of the rod must be a mean to cut the
material, but it did not seemed very sharp.

On closer inspection he saw near the tip of the pencil-like rod, a
black projection that could be pressed. When he did just that, a thin
ray of laser red light could be seen coming out of the tip of the rod
as it hit the top of the table without any apparent effect to the
table.

His heart began to beat must faster now, he was relatively certain now
that the laser light was a mean to cut the seemingly indestructible
material form the rolls.  When he did actually tested the laser beam
on a length of material from a roll, he was relieved to be left with a
neatly cut strip in his hand.

There was only one thing for him to do now. The project that he had in
mind was feasible and he now had ahead of him the rather difficult
task of explaining to his women about his plan.

 Since they were both natives from the world he were on now, Vincent
was well aware that they would be horrified by what he was about to
propose to them. But it was well worth the effort to convince them
since if they were successful in building what he had in mind, it
would make their travel a lot easier as well as much faster.

"Nika, Verla, I have something to tell you. You may not like what I am
planning to do, but it has to be done if we are to get where we intend
to go."

Both women looked at him with an expression of expectation and a touch
of apprehension also, but neither one said a word as he went on to
explain what he had in mind.

"First of all I must tell you that I still have my doubts about that
computer that called itself Brumelle. She did almost begged us to
undertake this tremendous trip to the south pole so as to get rid of
her crazy brother. But even if there is only a small chance that her
story should be true, we must still go there and investigate. If it
should happen to be true and we do nothing about this Valdo who want
to destroy this world as well as many others, we will be partly
responsible for all the destruction he may cause. On the other hand we
might fall into a trap and come to an end much worst than death, but
still we have to assume that what Brumelle said is true and act
accordingly. So it is important that we reach our destination as fast
as possible."

Both women seemed to agree with what he was saying as they both were
nodding their approbation to what he was saying.

"So here is my plan. I have given it much consideration and I do think
it will work. Using this material," he still had the strip he had just
cut in his hand, "we will built a hot air balloon."

When he realized that neither of them hadn't the slightest idea of
what he was talking about, he went on to explain what an hot air
balloon was.

"It's an airtight bag filled with hot air. Since hot air is lighter
than colder air, the hot air in the bag will make the balloon rise. We
will tie the balloon to a kind of box that is called a gondola and in
it we will travel. We have everything we need here to built this
balloon and the gondola; we also have an efficient source of hot air.
Those heaters that I tested yesterday, they will be perfect for our
source of heat. It might take us a couple of weeks to built and
assemble everything, but once we are on our way, we will be able to
travel ten times faster than walking and it will be a lot easier for
all of us. So what do you say, are you willing to help me built this
balloon?"

He had to wait long seconds before he got an answer from them. From
the look of incredibility on each face, it was apparent to him that
neither of them  understood  much what he was talking about.

Verla was the first to react.  

"You must be joking and making fun of us. Nobody has ever built such a
device and nobody ever will."

"Yes, Verla is right," went on Nika, "this is a much too serious a
matter to play jokes on us Vincent."

"Believe me girls, I would never try to make fun of you. I respect and
love you too much for that. What I have said is true. We can built
such a thing, they do exist where I come from and people do travel in
them."

The both looked at Vincent, still not convinced, but when it became
evident to them that he was not joking, they finally agreed to help
him in his project.

Vincent knew perfectly well that that he was yet a long way from
getting them to climb in the gondola if they were successful in
building the balloon. After all, in the back of each of the girls mind
they were a hundred percent certain that what he had proposed to them
was not possible, so the fear of being lifted high in the air was not
been something they consider yet.

  

                                 (end of chapter 19)
<http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/mandil/www/>                       
<mandil_k@hotmail.com>

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Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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