Masters of the Arches Ch. 20

He could always have waited until the air inside the sphere had cooled more, then the Rumar would have descended close enough to the ground for him to get the ropes free of the stones. But he figured that his women would then jump off the instant they were close enough to the ground. It would then be very difficult, if not impossible, to get them back in the gondola after that.

He explained to Nika what she had to do and when to do it, and then he began to shake one of the rope that was tied to the corner of the gondola. It took him long minutes before he saw the stone roll on its side and at last free itself from the rope. But at the same time, the only restraint now being the other anchor it slowly began to tilt to one side.

"Now, now, do it." He shouted to Nika.

As soon as she pulled on the short end of the knot, the rope immediately began to slip free and falling toward the ground in the process and he felt the Rumar jerked as it began to accelerate upward for a couple of hundred feet. Nika threw herself flat on her belly and she began to cry softly, but the craft was free.

With the side of the gondola up to his underarms, Vincent stood up to watch the receding, snow covered ground below him. In the distance, far away, he could see one of the circular radiation patches with its lack of vegetation.

Right underneath them, about three hundreds feet below, the snow covered land was like a white carpet which hid all the small details of the landscape. Even though the Rumar was still gaining altitude, the whole air mass, including the air ship, was now slowly moving in a general southeast direction. Their horizontal speed, judging by the unfolding of the landmarks bellow them, was around fifteen to twenty miles per hour.

Even as he watched below him, the Rumar passed over a series of cliffs, and then he saw the reflection of the sunlight on the water of a small creek toward the north. It was a most impressive sight and the fact that everything was so quiet -- he did not feel or hear any wind since they were all moving with the air mass -- did add to the beauty and majesty of the scenery below.

After a while he realized that he could hear moaning, he soon realized that it was Nika crying at his feet. She was still under shock and she kept on making strange noises without really realizing it. Both women were very brave and they had prove it many times before, even risking their own life to help him, but the fact that this lighter than air craft was completely new to them added to their fear of height was too much for them. He knelt beside her and he began to explain to her that everything would go well now that they were airborne.

To get back safely to the ground was an easy matter he explained to her, all they had to do was to let the air cool off in the balloon and the Rumar would slowly descend until it would gently touch the ground. He had seen it done many times in his world and it was perfectly safe he added. In the back of his mind he did know that there would be risks involved when the time to get down would arrive, but if would certainly not calm her if he was to tell her this.

After a few minutes he was able to convince her go get on her feet while he held her in his arms and she finally did look over the side of the gondola. He realized that they were no longer gaining in altitude and he knew that soon he would have to go in the small cabin and start the blower again.

As he held Nika in his arms while they both looked at the landscape slowly unfolding underneath them, he felt her relax in his arm and he knew that she was in awe at the beauty of the scenery. He explained to her that the Rumar would slowly start getting closer to the ground and this would be the way it would happen when they next landed. When he realized that she was much calmer and seemed to be doing fine, he told her to sit on the floor again while he would go start the blower.

For the next half hour he switched the blower on and off thus climbing for a while then slowly descending -- each time going a little higher than the preceding time -- until Nika's fear began to fade away. He even taught her how to start and shut the blower and thus changing their altitude in the process.

As for Verla, she was still lying on the mattress in the cabin and she still seemed in a state of shock. Vincent didn't want to disturb her for now since it was imperative that he did get Nika to understand the basis principles of the functioning of the air ship first.

Half an hour after the Rumar had been set free; they finally checked carefully on Verla. After a few minutes of trying, they were able to make her come back to her sensed, and before she could say anything, Nika reached for her and she cuddled her head in her arms. Vincent went out of the cabin and he left them together, he thought it would be better if Nika were to talk to her and try to make her understand that there was nothing to be afraid now that they were on their way.

The Rumar was truly an airborne ship now as it drifted with the air currents. It was now slowly moving over a forest of evergreens, and from above it appeared to be a very dense forest at that. This cheered Vincent to the point of expressing his joy with a broad smile. It met that whoever was trying to follow them was going have a very hard time of it because of the almost impossible task of moving through the dense forest below.

While experimenting with the buoyancy of the craft, Vincent discovered that he could pretty well guide it by changing its altitude. By choosing the appropriate air current -- there were many different air currents at different altitudes and some going in almost opposite directions - he could get them moving in a general southerly direction. Above a thousands feet, the Rumar was being carried toward the east, but between four and seven hundred feet it mostly went directly south.

By noon of their first day of being airborne, they were still moving over the evergreens forest and there were no signs of its end in sight. This began to worry Vincent since there was no question of trying to land the Rumar in the forest below since it would mean almost certain catastrophe. On the other hand he didn't want to spend the night drifting aboard the Rumar since it would be very difficult to judge its altitude without a clear view of the ground bellow.

It then occurred to him that he still had the map that he had taken form Kowla. It was stored with their weapons and still neatly folded in a large bag he had taken from the complex. With it he would be able to tell exactly where they were and more important still, he could change the display of the map and get a look at what was ahead of them. Just pressing the proper squares in one of its corners could change the map so that it would show what was ahead of them in any direction he wished.

When he got inside the cabin, Verla was still in Nika's arms. She did smile a little at him when she saw him enter. He could tell now that she was going to be fine since the colors had begun to return to her face. So as to give her something to do, he asked her to get the map out of the bag and to spread it on the mattress.

The minute it was unfolded between them, the blinking spot of light began to flash thus showing their present position. It was easy to detect the forest below them on the map, its screen-like flexible surface was pale green where the forest was with lots of parallel lines that represented the countless trees.

From the map's information, he realized that it was a huge forest. Being approximately a hundred miles wide and at least two hundred miles long, its length being from north to south and judging from the position of the blinking light, they had now covered about half of its length which met that they were right over the middle of it. On the southern tip of the forest -- in the direction they were now moving -- the map indicated a series of plains with still more trees to come after that.

It had taken the Rumar more than four hours to get where they were so it met -- provided that the speed of the air mass in which they were didn't change -- that they had at least another four hours to wait before they would see an end to the forest. Only then could they begin to look for a safe place to descend. This met that if everything went well, they could land in late afternoon at the earliest.

It wasn't going to leave them much time to hunt once they will have landed but even so he knew that they would have to try to get food somehow since they had nothing to eat at all. They hadn't had a good meal for at least a week now and so far that day they had not eaten at all.

Nika and Vincent took turn in observing the ground below whereas Verla kept well inside the cabin. In the middle of the afternoon, while Vincent was resting on the mattress with Verla in his arms, Nika suddenly rushed in the cabin to inform him that far ahead of them she could see the edge of the evergreen forest below them. He judged the end of the forest to be well over ten miles away but even then he could clearly see the line where the trees ended.

He immediately went back inside the cabin and he shut off the heater completely so that the Rumar could loose altitude. Next they prepared themselves for the landing

By the time they were near the edge of the forest half an hour later, the bottom of the gondola was moving barely fifty feet from the top of the last trees and the Rumar continued to drift lower over a grassy, snow covered plain below them. The Rumar kept loosing altitude and getting closer to the ground until if was just five or six feet above the snow covered grass. Then, as gently as could be it touched the snow topped grass and it simply skidded for a few feet to finally stop completely.

They all remained inside the gondola for another five minutes so that their body weight would prevent the Rumar from moving and thus allowing the air inside the balloon to cool, in so doing of course in would decreasing the buoyancy of the craft.

When the majestic balloon began loose its spherical shape, both Nika and Verla got out of the gondola on Vincent's recommendation. They each carried the rope with them and the Rumar was anchored to one of the small bushes that grew everywhere around them.

Without its renewal of hot air, the great sphere soon began to collapse completely and this was further accelerated when the material of the sphere made contact with the thin layer of snow covering the grass.

Food was now their most important priority. They took their weapons -- Vincent carried one of the paralyzing handguns while each woman had a bow and arrows -- and they began to walk in the direction of the forest only half a mile away.

While they had been drifting over the forest earlier, whenever the trees were not as closely packed or when there was a small clearing, they had noticed the abundance of animal life running everywhere in-between the trees.

Therefore it didn't take them long once they were hidden in the cover of the trees, to spot a deer. Before Vincent could point his handgun, two arrows hit the long legged animal at the same time -- one went in straight through its heart -- and it felt dead in its tracks.

An hour later the animal was completely butchered and they had a fire going. Never before had Vincent enjoyed a meal so much, even if it consisted of meat only.

During the evening and through the night, they took turn in keeping watch while the fire was fed with damp wood so that they could smoke the remainder of the venison.

Later in the evening, Vincent studied his map again by the light of the fire, by his estimate they had covered about one hundred and eighty miles from the underground complex. This was far more than they could have done walking on land for five days. Of course this was assuming that they could have cross through the dense evergreens forest over which they had just floated.