Chapter 22

As soon as Vincent saw the shape of the arch with its familiar platform in front of it, his blood went cold in his veins. He experienced a strange feeling deep inside. For some reason that he couldn't explain, he knew that they were soon going to learn much more about Valdo, the supposed crazy brother of Brumelle. Of course he already knew that Brumelle was only a futuristic computer program that was able to create a lifelike holographic representation of a beautiful woman that used to live eons ago on this world. But he had very little information about Valdo and he couldn't really predict who or what he would be.

The vast room in which they were kept was sumptuously decorated with a multitude of statues and paintings on its walls - paintings that had certainly not been created by the people that were holding them prisoner. The floor seemed to be made of a hard synthetic material with intricate patterns. It was immaculately clean. Both, the wall to his left and the one to his right had a soft whitish glow that gave the room an exotic appearance. Both walls were also lined with life-size statues of men.

With the artificial light seeming to come from the ceiling as well as from the walls, all parts of the large room were illuminated with the same intensity and no shadows were visible anywhere. After paying more attention to the facial features of each statue, he realized that they represented the same man - the same man, but in different poses. As they walked deeper into the large room it occurred to him that all the statues were either plated with gold or they could even be made of solid gold.

The trio of prisoners was brought toward the very centre of the room. Half of the crowd - mostly men, but there were a few women also - that had captured them had now scattered in such a way so as to form three concentric circles around the trio. The rest remained in a tight formation of three half- circles that blocked the large exit at the back of the room.

Soon, a man with his face painted with intricate designs and his body covered with a black and white pelt, came forward from the back of the room. As he approached he broke each circle with his passage and slowly walked to the centre where Vincent and his two women waited. Once there, he stood quietly in front of the three captives. At that moment all the chattering stopped completely in the enormous room. For long seconds the man stood there looking at each of the prisoners in turn. After what seemed to Vincent to be long minutes, he began to talk in the universal language of the planet. He proceeded to explain what was to become of them.

"You have been brought here by order of Valdo. He has been searching for you for a long time now and he has given orders that you be sent to him at once. You will remove all the garments from your body so that you can stand naked before Valdo."

Even though Vincent was half expecting this, upon hearing the name of Valdo he experienced goose bumps on the back of his neck. He became very nervous in anticipation of what was to come.

If what this man was saying was true, then it meant that this whole island was under the control of Valdo. This probably explained why the island did not appear on his map. It had intentionally been omitted by the maker of the map to keep unwanted visitors away from the island.

As soon as they were completely naked, - even Vincent's boots had to be removed - the man who Vincent supposed was the highest authority on the island continued to speak slowly while he now looked mostly at Vincent.

"You will soon be standing in front of Valdo and whether you live or die will depend on him. Do you have anything to say before you meet the one that protects and guides us all?"

"Do we have to meet him? Suppose we are not interested in talking to him? Do we have any choice in the matter?"

"No. Valdo will decide what will become of you all. His decision is the law. Now come."

Of course Vincent knew that he and his two women had no choice since there was absolutely no way for them to escape from this room. Besides, in the back of his mind Vincent was eager to meet at last the one that he had been sent to destroy. He was now well aware also that soon all three of them would either be dead or Valdo would no longer be a menace to this world. The latter was far less probable of course.

On a signal from their leader, the first circle of men lowered their spears and pointed them toward the prisoners. They began to close in on them and the circle opened until the trio was forced to walk toward the low platform in front of the arch at the back of the room.

They were then pressed even more to step onto the platform and the now tight crowd of men extended their spears forward to force the trio step onto the disk of the arch. Vincent could tell that they didn't want to get too close to the arch. That was why they held their spears at arm's length to keep their bodies as far away as possible from the arch.

"Very well," said Vincent to the two women, "let us step together onto the disc. That way we will be sure to be transported all at the same time."

Saying this he took one hand of each woman and they stepped onto the disc together all at the same time.

By now they were familiar with the sensation of dizziness that always seemed to accompany the use of the arch. What did surprise them a few seconds later when they arrived at their destination, was to find themselves in a room with transparent walls. They could see water everywhere they looked.

They were now standing on the floor of a circular room surrounded by a circular wall of transparent plastic or glass. Over their heads was a huge transparent dome. They could see bright lights that illuminated the water around the dome, but they couldn't see any sunlight coming from the surface of the water. Vincent soon deduced that they were at the bottom of a very large mass of water. Large fish and other creatures could be seen on the other side of the circular room. Judging by the way that they remained near the transparent wall and nudged at the glass-like surface it was evident that these creatures could see them also.

Before they had time to study their surroundings much longer, a trap opened in the floor and a stairway appeared leading down. A voice that seemed to come out of nowhere then told them to go down the stairs and walk to the very end of the corridor. Once there they would get further instructions.

"I don't like this at all," said Nika.

"Well we have very little choice about accepting this direction. Either we do as we are told or we stay here until we die of thirst or hunger. So we may as well go and see where this will take us."

Vincent was the first to proceed down the stairs. The staircase took them to a level that was at least fifty feet lower and they found themselves in a wide corridor that seemed to stretch to infinity.

For the next ten minutes they moved ahead without seeing a single door. As they walked, their naked feet made practically no noise on the synthetic material of the floor and no one had an urge to say anything.

Eventually, they saw the end of the corridor ahead of them. From the distance they couldn't see the door, but as they approached the wall-like end of the corridor the whole section was suddenly raised and the same voice told them to continue.

The room that they entered was luxurious and spacious, with thick carpet and rich furniture. Large paintings depicted exotic sceneries of strange landscapes while others showed futuristic cities. Even the style and exotic colours of the furniture was strange to Vincent. Both Verla and Nika were in awe, their mouths half open as their eyes registered the splendours before them.

<<You may sit.>>

The voice again seemed to come out of nowhere in particular but it could be heard perfectly - just as if the speaker was standing next to them.

Vincent went to sit in the middle of a long, deep red, velvet-like sofa while the girls sat on each side of him. Still there was plenty of room left on both sides of the long sofa.

A funny thought had come to Vincent. He was thinking how strange they must look now. They were all naked, sitting on this much larger than average size sofa, and being very quiet. It occurred to Vincent that they must look like three children waiting to be punished as they sat there. He didn't like this image that they were projecting but of course it had probably been planned that way.

Then, before he had time to process more thoughts, a tall handsome man of about twenty was standing before them. One second there was no one where he stood and the next second he was standing there. He had brown, shoulder length hair and an extremely handsome face. He was dressed in a knee length beige robe with a wide belt around the waist. His robe was opened deeply at the neck and he had on brown boots that went to mid-calf. The boots looked extremely flexible. Around his neck, and reaching over both shoulders, was a wide necklace decorated with a multitude of shining stones.

He looked at each of them for a few seconds. Then his eyes went to rest on Vincent - just as the leader of the natives of the island had done a short while before.

<<I am Valdo.>>

Vincent felt very small and powerless sitting there naked in front of this powerful man. For a while he couldn't speak. However, after telling himself that he was probably dealing with a hologram of Valdo, as had been the case with Brumelle, he managed to lose most of the intimidation that he had experienced when he first saw Valdo appear. This man had died a long time ago and Vincent was only seeing a representation of him now.

"We were forced to come here," said Vincent as he stood up.

<<Yes I know, I am the one that ordered that you were to be brought here. But I also gave orders that none of you should be harmed. >>

"That is not good enough for me. We are not here of our own free will."

<<It had to be this way. First, listen to what I have to say. Then you can leave anytime you want after that.>>

Vincent had the impression of dealing with someone that was used to giving orders and he knew that it would be against their best interests if he were to get arrogant with Valdo. He had the feeling that Valdo would not hesitate at all to kill them if he couldn't use them. He therefore walked back to the sofa and sat back between his two women.

"Very well, say what you have to say and we will listen to you."

<<First of all I must tell you that I know about your encounter with Brumelle.>>

Had someone hit Vincent in the face he would not have been more surprised. Verla and Nika also were stunned as they looked at one another. Shock was very evident on their faces.

"Yes I suppose you do have spies everywhere and they did report our meeting with your sister. "

<<My sister! Is that what she told you? I was born two hundred years before her but we do have the same father. If that makes her my sister then she is.>>

"Where I come from that would make her your half sister - but this is not the cause of friction between her and you. The divergence between you two goes much deeper than that I think."

<<I don't know what she told you but before you pass judgment on me you must hear what I have to say first.>>

For a few seconds Vincent thought that he could detect anger in Valdo's reaction. Probably no one had talked to him in such a way for a very long time. This made Vincent believe that Valdo must really need his help desperately to tolerate this lack of respect.

<<She probably explained to you how our people evolved and proceeded to expand out of our own solar system - then finally out to the stars. With the aid of the Simultravel we did get to occupy thousands of planets and our living conditions did improve greatly. Then with the discovery of the Rad virus we were able to eradicate all diseases and furthermore there was now no limit to the longevity of our citizens.