Masters of the Arches

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 for a long time on their hands and knees in the air passageway.

Once 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 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 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 and he let gravity pull him down to the carpet which absorbed much of the impact of his fall.

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 for those that 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 safely standing on the soft carpet, 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 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 in this place, I wish I knew the answer to that."

"Then they must have been very stupid people, " remarked Verla "and they got what they deserved since they are all dead now."

"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 color 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 fibers that felt both soft and warm to the touch. Had it been made of natural fibers 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 continue searching for Valdo in the south."

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 on the other side.

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 on both sides 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 to a lower level of the complex. 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 probably had been used at one time to move the numerous equipments of machines 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, 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 in 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 an expression of fear 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 feeling pain.

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 so as to kill Valdo. 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 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 – 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 colors, forest green and sandy beige. The reason for these particular colors 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 at the surface 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 shut 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 of tarp material 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 practically 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 could 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."