Masters of the Arches

Both women were now beginning to appreciate the tremendous advantages of this new means of travel. Verla even admitted the next day that she was no longer afraid of the great height in which the Rumar made them climb. They were now covering over two hundred miles each day and the warming of the temperature was beginning to be quite noticeable also.

By the end of the second day after their departure from the underground complex, they were drifting almost straight south. They were always at the whim of the different air currents and on that day they finally left behind them the last of the snow.

Vincent was aware that the next time they would see snow again, it would either be at the top of a high mountain on their way south or when they would reach the southern hemisphere of the planet.

As long as they were moving over plains and while the weather -- especially the wind -- remained relatively calm, he knew that they were quite safe. Both of these conditions did prevail until the fifth day.

It was just about noon and they were still moving over a grass covered plain while observing the different herds of grass eater under them when the wind began to pick up.

Previously, Vincent had checked his map and it had indicated that less than twenty miles ahead of them they were going to pass over a forest while far to their right was a huge body of water. Since the southern winds were taking them in a general southerly direction, Vincent didn't pay too much attention to that great sea which stood directly to the west of their present path.

Then in a matter of a few minutes, the Rumar entered a new air mass and its direction changed from almost directly south to directly west.

Vincent did try to change their altitude so as to find another air current moving in a more appropriate direction, but it now seemed that the whole air system was now moving in the same direction which was directly westward and over the sea.

By the time that Vincent became aware of the danger they were in, it was already too late. They were already over the forest and with the windy condition it would have been very risky for them to try landing the craft in these conditions. There was now nothing else to do but to let the winds take them in the direction it was blowing.

It felt very strange to be in the Rumar under these conditions. For one thing, even if they could see and feel the balloon itself over their head being shoved this way and that way, it was creating just a mild swinging in the gondola.

Stranger still, even though they could tell that the wind was blowing hard, judging by the bending and swaying of the branches of the trees under them, they didn't feel the wind that much in the gondola since they were moving at the same speed as the air mass itself.

Not wanting to scare the women, Vincent sent them inside the small cabin to rest while he remained on the lookout for the next three hours. Later, Nika replaced him for a couple of hours.

Then, before darkness felt completely, the rain began to fall and they were able to see for the last time the top of the trees below them. After that they were moving over the sea and judging by the last of the forest they had seen previously, they were at a height of about a thousand feet.

Again he tried to change their altitude so as to find another air current that would take them south again but he had no luck. By then it was completely dark and he no longer could see the water bellow them.

As a last resort, he took the Rumar to a much higher altitude so as to minimize the risk of crashing into the waves below if they should happen to loose height slowly without their realizing it.

During the night, Nika came out so as to replace him on the lookout, but he didn't want to go into the cabin. Instead he told her to take charge of the "on" and "off" control of the blower while he would bent over the side of the gondola and try to detect signs of the water below them so as to predict their altitude.

This went on until early dawn. By then the winds had not diminished by much but the rain had stopped. But even then, the Rumar was still being shaken by gusts of wind blowing in cross directions.

Then as the first sign of dawn appeared on the low cloud, while Vincent had his head bent over the side trying to judge their height, he was hit by the splashing of cold water.

In those few seconds he got the answer concerning their height, they were no more than ten or twelve feet above the surface of water and the wind was blowing cold and salty water over his face.

Of course he shouted to Nika to turn on the blower as he prepared himself for another impact with the waves below them.

On the first impact the Rumar had bounced up a dozen feet but now he could tell that it was coming down again. How hard would they hit the water this time, he couldn't say but he was certain that this would be the end of them all if the gondola was to be sucked by the waves.

It took another five or six seconds before they hit the crest of a wave again. This time there was a lot of water that poured inside the gondola.

With the increase in weight, the buoyancy of the hot air in the balloon was not enough to lift the gondola plus its new load of water, so it suddenly became a boat floating on the surface of the waves.

For ten to fifteen seconds the gondola seemed to remain on the rough waters as it rose on one crests to fall next into the deep depressions between two crests.

Then after reaching another crest, the gondola did not fall all the way down to the bottom of a through. But when the next crest came, it hit it sideways as it shook and splashed everything inside.

But by then the flow of hot air in the balloon was increasing their buoyancy. They slowly began to lift again as the water leaked out through the many holes in the floor, in so doing it created dozens of rivulets over the floor and thus their weight decreased further as the water leaked out.

At last they were gaining altitude again and they were doing it at a faster rate. It the gray dawn light they continue to gained altitude and soon they were high enough to see the spread of the sea under them.

The water was very rough below them and the huge waves seemed to be trying to reach for them while the wind kept on blowing droplets of salted water at them.

They had narrowly escaped the fate of being pulled into the sea by the huge waves and it was only then did they all realized how close they had come to being swallowed by the sea and thus face certain death.

By now Verla was out of the cabin and as the three of them were looking down at the rough sea no one dared to say a word.

All through that day they drifted at a good speed over the water and by mid-afternoon the wind did decrease a little and the sea became a little calmer under them.

At dusk, the wind was almost non-existent, judging by the non-existent waves under them.

Just before it got completely dark, Vincent took the Rumar to a height of well over six thousand feet even though it was much colder at that height, he didn't want a repetition of what had happened the previous night. All through the night he did his best to keep the Rumar at that altitude.

As soon as it was light enough the following day, he got out his map and he checked their position by mean of the blinking light.

As expected, it did confirm that they were now well off over the huge sea. On the map, there were symbols and words here and there that appeared as the position of the blinking light changed, but it was written in a strange language and Vincent had absolutely no clue about their meaning.

Of course he knew that some of these words were most probably the name given to the sea below them and other fact about their present position, but he couldn't read any of it, the symbols used in the writing were all new to him.

One thing was evident to him as he examined the map. While the storm had lasted, the Rumar had drifted almost directly west and they were now still moving in that general direction.

Previously, before encountering the strong winds, he had predicted their path to be in a southwesterly direction and thus had they gone in that general direction, they would have missed completely the sea, which was under them now.

But the storm had changed all that. They were now over a section of the largest body of water on the planet and judging by the map, it seemed to rival the Atlantic Ocean on his world in its size.

Furthermore, the flashing spot of light on the map indicated that they were well over three hundred miles at sea now. Vincent knew that it was quite impossible to turn back. Furthermore, there were no means to predict which way the winds were going to take them once the air mass began to move once again.

He was in deep thought outside the small cabin when Nika came to join him that morning.

"Do you know where we are exactly?"

"According to the map, we are far over a huge sea and I don't think that the winds will take us back toward the coast from where we came ."

"Well at least we did not drown when we hit the water, we can always move south again when the winds are favorable to us."

"Yes I suppose we should be grateful that we are still alive but we are still not out of danger. How much food and water do we have?"

"Water will not be a problem since the two large containers from the underground complex are almost full from the last rain. But we will run out of meat in three days. After this we must reach land so as to gather fruits and hunt."

"Well this is the problem. Look at the map, the nearest land is behind us, there is no way we can get there again. Then, depending on the direction of the winds, if we are lucky we could reach the continent on the other side in five or six days."

"Then we better ration what little food we have left."

"Yes. Go in the cabin and make an inventory of the food we have left, you must then figure how much we should be eating each day supposing it will take us another six days to find land again.

The next four days were not so bad. The Rumar was being carried in a southwesterly direction and the temperature was getting noticeably warmer every day now. The winds were ideal for them, not too strong but still they kept the Rumar moving high above the waves.

But things went bad again when on the fourth day, the air mass did change direction again and the Rumar began to drift directly south once more.

As soon as Vincent checked his map, he was shocked to discover that there was absolutely no land ahead of them. Had they continued to move west they would have reached the other shore of the sea in a day or so.

But now the closest land mass that he could see ahead of them would be at least another week away. There was no way that they could survive that long with the little food they had left since they were half starved already.

Even if the direction of the air mass was to change direction and move west again, it was now too late since this far south the huge sea was much wider at that latitude.

He did check and re-check the map carefully so as to see if there was an island on their predicted path, but it seemed that either there were no islands on this sea or the maker of the map had neglected to mark them.

The days that followed were sad days for them all. By the end of the sixth day, their food was all gone and they were all very weak since they had been eating so little during the previous week.

For two more days they drifted south and by now even their water supply was getting low, it hadn't rained since the last storm.

Both women spent much of their time sleeping in the cabin, coming out once in a while when they felt strong enough. Even Vincent would fall asleep in the shade of a small tarp outside the cabin and even though he did try to remain awake, he sometimes would pass out for a couple of hours at a time.

He knew that the end was near now, at one time he even contemplate asking his women if they would not prefer to end their suffering quickly and let the Rumar fall into the sea below them.

On the morning of the eight day, having just about given up hope of getting to solid ground before they were all dead, he slowly got up to relieve himself over the side of the gondola when he noticed in the distance a small craft on the relatively calm sea ahead of them.

As the Rumar got closer, he decreased their altitude so as to get a better view of the small boat.

It was a boat carved from the huge trunk of a tree. In it were four men (he assumed they were men), they were all seated one behind the other and were paddling toward an unknown destination.

They hadn't seen the Rumar yet since their small craft was moving in the same direction as the Rumar at that moment and the air ship was still somewhat behind them but in the process of overtaking them quickly.

Vincent decreased the altitude of the air ship even more until the Rumar was barely a hundred feet above the men in the boat.

He now could tell that they were all men and their naked bodies, although not dark black, were darker than most of the natives that he had seen on this planet so far.

As soon as one of them saw the Rumar quietly and graciously floating over his head, he ceased paddling and stood up with much agitation while extending one of his arms toward the gondola above him. Soon the others also got up and they all became extremely exited at the sight of the strange apparition in the sky over their head.

Before the Rumar was too far ahead of the small boat, Vincent called both women out of the cabin so that they could have a look at the small craft underneath them. By now they could see the men in the distance, they had resumed paddling, but to Vincent it seemed that they were doing so with much less enthusiasm than before.

Nika was the first to speak.

"There has to be land ahead of us. These people in that boat under us cannot have been paddling for too long, they must have a tribe not too far away."

"Yes it has to be." Said Verla with much hope in her voice. "Unless we have just passed over land and did not noticed it."

"No. When I first saw them, I did look behind us and no land was in sight in the direction we came from. But I do think that there must be land in the direction they are going. We must keep a sharp eyes for it."

"But how is it that you cannot see it on the map that you have?" Went on Verla.

"You are right, the map does not show anything in this region. It indicates that we are a long way from land yet, but still there is no way that those paddlers below us could be in the middle of this huge sea in so small a boat. There has to be small islands that are not shown on the map. So from now on let us keep a sharp eye for land."

Less than ten minutes later, they saw, far in the distance straight ahead of them, a mountain peek. The closer they got to the tall mass ahead of them, the more apparent it became that it was an extinct volcano cone of great height.

They immediately became extremely exited. A couple of minutes later they could see a long sandy beach about ten miles ahead of them. Of course it met a possible landing place for the Rumar and everybody was happy.

But Vincent wanted more information about this land mass and he took the Rumar to a much higher altitude so as to get a general idea of the topography of the land.

With the hot air blaster at maximum they climbed to a height of well over five thousands feet until they could make out the contour of the island. Its average width was about thirty miles and it had the rough shape of a half moon with the volcano's peak being at one end of the sixty mile span of the island.

How strange, though Vincent, that it did not show on the map while much smaller islands elsewhere on other seas had been clearly indicated, all even had names for them. This fact more than anything else bothered him.

He had a strange feeling deep inside as if the maker of the map, for some unknown reason, had purposely omitted to indicate the position and existence of the island below them. But they didn't have the luxury to be choosy at the moment and they did needed food in a hurry since they were all very weak from the lack of it.

As they continued to loose altitude and approach the island at the same time, they noticed that even though they could see snow on the high tip of the cone-shaped, apparently dead volcano, the rest of the crescent-shaped island was very green and flat.

By the time they began drifting over the island itself, they were just a few hundred feet high and while he noticed that the island was covered with trees of many varieties, Vincent saw ahead of them a wide span covered with tall grass and having just a few trees here and there.

It was a perfect spot to land the Rumar so he aimed his decent for this opening.

Soon the gondola was slowly drifting barely fifty feet above the long grass-covered plain under them. In the distance to their left, they could see herds of grass eaters of all kinds. Some seemed vaguely familiar but most were completely new to him.

Yes under different circumstances, this place could be called a hunter's paradise he told himself.

It the far distance on his right, just at the edge of a forest he saw predators also. Could they be tigers or bigger relative to that family of great cats? He couldn't tell, but there were a pack of them lying in the grass and he was glad that the Rumar was now drifting slowly in the direction of the grass eaters instead of that of the predators.

Then he saw sunlight being reflected from the surface of a small stream ahead of them and he aimed his decent so that they would be as close as possible to the source of water.

Their landing was smooth and the operation went just like he had hoped it would. First the gondola touched the tip of the tall grass, then it gently touched the ground with a small jerk to be finally dragged by its momentum for a distance of ten feet or so and gradually it came to rest pressing the long grass underneath them.

They had two options now. One was to anchor the gondola with ropes tied to sticks inserted into the ground and thus letting the balloon float with a certain volume of hot air in it or to simply let all the air out of the balloon and fold it so that they could cover it with grass and thus camouflage their position.

For some reason that he could not explained, Vincent decided on the second option and as soon as the air in the balloon was cold enough, they all proceeded to stretched it on the grass and they folded the material of the balloon until it was in a neat pile.

Next they proceeded to hide it with piles of the three feet length grass that they cut with their knives.

Judging by the height of the sun over their head, it was now just about noon and they proceeded to carefully walk toward the first heard of grass eaters that they had observed from above.

They were walking in a single file so as to disturb the grass as little as possible and thus hide their presence on the island. Vincent was in the lead with one of the paralyzing guns in hand when they came to the small stream that they had seen from above.

They all had a drink of cool water and soon they were back on their way once again toward the closest heard.

But just a few hundred feet from the stream they heard squawking and movements in the tall grass.

Then a few seconds later half a dozen birds that must have weight al least ten to twelve pounds each began to slowly take off. Before Vincent could turn and aim his paralyzing gun at one of them, Nika had sent an arrow in the neck of closest one.

Upon closer inspection, it looked very much like a white goose, a variety of geese, which Vincent was familiar in his home world. It was a big one at that.