The Lost Time Probe Page 14

  The incredible thing was there no sign of a sun, and they never realized what could be constantly lighting the sky, if was a sky, as it just glowed like something else, and the rain clouds and mist formed far below it.

  The first plant was found by Orwell, buried away in rocks, and they examined it and tasted it, and they were sure it was edible, and left it until they checked what else there was to eat.

  At times, as they shifted on, constantly examining everything around them, and on the horizon, seeking answers, he was sure the world was far more than a natural occurrence and had been created by something incredible, and he was not even sure it was a race of beings, and constantly considered different forms of things.

  What type of inhabitants could build and live on a place such as it? Had the creators of it actually lived there?

  Yet why was there no sign of their existence, and why had it just been built in such a natural state, and not a highly advanced top layer and with structures, but what if it had been built for something else, which they had not yet seen, and the ground was not its proper state, or what if it was to be populated by some species in the future, and he wondered if the creators were in fact inside its interior, and that the outer shell was there to protect it.

  He thought of the colossal size of it and what could be buried away below, and he then realized that it could be built by anything for anything!

  The horizon was astoundingly strange all about them, and not quite the same as any world they had been on.

  Finally, after climbing a large hill, they spotted complex artificial lines of silver marking the surface of the energy shell below, in the almost blinding light of the energy shell there, in a vast flat region at the other side, where there was no land, and they sat studying millions of patterned lines that were mathematically perfect, going out into the distance, at every angle, like a complex circuit, with thousands of different objects the silver lines entered, and they studied it trying to discover what its proper use was, and anything that matched it, and none of them recognized it, and Cronenberg studied it going up to the bottom of the hill below, and tried to see where in went in the ground, and realized that there had to be something under the hill they were on.

  They remained there, hidden away, waiting to prove something existed there, and that whatever it was it was still functioning, and they detected it activating in different places, and they wondered what had created it, and they finally left, and as they went to go down the other side of the hill Cronenberg took one last look there, wondering what he had missed, and saw a blinding flash from a large object within it, and a streak of light shot over a silver line, and he saw it glow and thousands of lines of it shoot all about it, carrying out a task, which he unsuccessfully tried to identify.

  After days of journeying across the vast world they realized there definitely was no night or day, and he wondered if had a dark side that was covered completely ice and snow, and they checked the world continuously wondering what they were missing, and they finally came to the remains of an ancient civilization in a large valley, where there were the remains of structures everywhere, and they realized that it was of an entirely different race, and that they had to have been like humans as their structures were almost identical, and they realized the value of it, and that there might be something of great value there, if they ever returned to the Earth.

  When they arrived at the first structure he felt the hot temperature at the area, and felt it coming from the ground, and the energy shell below, and he realized that they had to have deliberately built it there for it.

  They strolled through the sand in the streets and buildings, and found the remains of furniture and other objects, and wondered where the race had gone as they had clearly left all their objects and possessions.

  Gently breezes blew sand and bushes over the sand covered streets and between buildings, and he saw the sand everywhere, and bits of metal from old vehicles that had rusted away, and the remains of other objects.

  Types of rats, they scared away, scavenged there, and ran about when they arrived, and some followed them about, and some leapt into the air and glided on early forms of wings, and sometimes glided about them and the buildings they were in.

  At the center of the civilization they spotted a large circular structure, and largest there, and they observed it from the top of many buildings, and they slowly worked their way over to it, where they looked around, and they found the building remains about it were different, from the rest of the civilization.

  Massive vegetation similar to trees grew in the lanes, and some in structures, and had broken through the roofs, and plants and other types of vegetation densely covered the whole area, and layers of mud and sand covered everything, and forms of insects pestered them, and flying animals dived from buildings and dived at them, and altered their course when they saw them up close.

  Inside the central structure they found a large round central area and explored it for signs of what its inhabitants had been like, and found most it had caved in and was buried under bricks and sand and was grown over with forms of moss, shrubs, and weeds, and thick layers of dirt covered the stone walls, and they were surprised at how close it was to human structures, and that it was like a different form, which seemed to have had something different influencing its construction, and they were surprised at different things being virtually identical and some with strange characteristics, which they attempted identify, and some were more advanced, and with unknown technology!

  Cronenberg had no idea how long the civilization had remained buried away there, in the vegetation, but it proved that the world was stable enough to allow life forms and civilizations to survive.

  Clouds of dust blew about inside it, as they entered the massive building further, and they marched through giant stone corridors, and it became dark, and they turned on their spacesuit lights.

  In places they heard incredibly loud sounds of small creatures that had entered regions of the structure.

  They went through corridor after corridor into its mysterious maze, which was sealed and untouched by the outside, and animals, and they searched everything.

  The greatest mystery they wished to solve, which kept them searching to discover, was what sort of beings would have built the building and civilization, and what had happened to them, as they could not find any trace of anything showing what they had looked like or anything! There had to be something there but they just could not find it, and they kept trying to find it.

  Most of the time it was like exploring the remains of a ghost race, and them wondering what had happened to them, and they felt happy that they had not found their skeletons or signs of anything having happened and an immense war taking place.

  He could not accept that they just died away, and he kept trying to accept the idea, but he could not accept that the place would look like it did, and he kept believing from everything he found that they had just left there, leaving their vehicles and other possessions behind, and because they were not human.

  He kept attempting to find the central part of the central structure and eventually he found it, and it was a giant dome hall, with small windows high up on its roof that dimly lit it, and they all silently explored the structure, like it was the remains of the Earth in the future, and he realized by its appearance it was a type of governing place for the civilization.

  In the darkness of a small room, at its front, they found a trapdoor, and he pulled it up, and they marched down a stone ramp going below, and he used his spacesuit light to illuminate a large room full of large stone squares, and they tiredly shifted about them, and their shapes intrigued him, and he lifted up the stone cover of one and placed it down at its side, and vaguely perceived, in the light in it, a skeleton of one of the beings.

  Its size and shape was virtually identical to a small human, and they watched it glowing with a purple radiance, and he sensed the existence of the energy sphere, and he knew they were leaving there, and he saw a gatew
ay forming, and he wondered where the world had been, and he realized that it had not been a world and that it had been the energy shell of the outer universe, which had been exploding out since the big bang, where matter and highly advanced civilizations had explored and settled.

  The place furiously vanished and the astronauts exploded out and into a new gateway, blasting across the vast reaches of space.

  Chapter 25

  The Mind-Bending Gateways

  A brilliant radiance of blue blasted through what looked like a crack in the universe, which he knew normally never existed, and if he had not been through what he had he surely would not have recognized it, and have mistaken it for something else, and in his alert state he positively recognized it and entered it knowing it was a gateway of great significance.

  For some reason, which he could not grasp, he thought the universe had altered in some way, and that things had somehow changed, and that it was the dawn of a new era in its evolution!

  His emotions ran amok as they leapt through, seeing the spectacular view of space about him, and in the darkness he saw the circle of mirrors, and the world it was on emerged around him, and he no longer had eerie sensations of the mirror gateways and knew that they would return home. He sensed a presence, of the existence from the alien energy sphere on Mars was nearby, and he realized that the other existence had been destroyed, and the astronauts stood in a circle facing the mirror gateways, waiting for some form of indication of what one to enter.

  How was this existence associated with what was trying to kill them? Why had it done what it had? He just had to know!

  There were no signs of Mars in the depths of the gateways in the mirror gateway he studied, and he was sure that it existed.

  He tenderly approached one, seeing one of the astronauts had discovered something there, and he entered it with them, hoping they never entered another supernatural gateway in it, and they rushed through and shot through blueness and vast amounts of gateways, appearing everywhere in trillions, in a region outside the normal cosmos, which had the size of a small galaxy, and he wondered how anything could create such a place, and in wonder he realized he was being taken somewhere, and soon spotted a gateway away in the distance, and them going there.

  He could not fully imagine what it could be as he could not imagine them getting away from there after all their attempts, and he started realizing things were now different, and he waited to find the outcome.

  Even with so much there the place seemed empty, without life and a desolate place, buried away in the depths of space, endlessly trapped in infinity, where life never existed.

  The entrance became more visible, and its shape, he started to get ready to leave there, and he suddenly saw surreal blue shades wavering about, in patterns of whiteness.

  By the amount of worlds that he had seen, and had been on, he knew that the universe must be far more organized and vaster than he had ever imagined, and he had never even fantasized alien worlds and civilizations were all connected, and being controlled, and he could never have realized it was possible, unless he had witnessed what he had, and an existence put there by the creators of the universe, at the dawn of time, controlled it all.

  He was beginning to believe that mankind had a powerful presence in it, which few civilizations had ever had, and he realized mankind had existed in vast highly advanced civilizations since the beginning of the universe, and that the Earth was buried away in an empty region of space.

  At his approach to the gateway he saw something strange and thought he saw a sphere rotating, and its familiar pattern of movements fascinated him, and he felt as if his appearance was timed to coincide with something, and he rested, and left it, and when they entered the gateway he was blinded by light, and it and everything about him vibrated furiously, and saw something in a blur of images.

  Though it was bright it was not daylight, and he spotted artificial lights beaming down, as they entered further, and to his delight he saw the laboratory on Mars, and all the scientists stood staring, as they marched out.

  Chapter 26

  The Laboratory

  At the edge of the black hole, altering wildly and stabilizing, gleams of light blasted out like miniature bright stars, being held motionlessly, and were being filmed and studied by the scientists, as they continued their series of black hole experiments.

  The entire laboratory was now covered in equipment, scientists, the media doing news coverage, for back on the Earth, and were studying the black bubble of the black hole, in its chamber, and a leading scientist there gave incredible evidence of their findings, recent discovery, and discovery made earlier in close examinations of the black hole.

  A special reinforced camera was placed and entered into its field, and the scientist reacted immediately when they received results, and concluded that it was moving out the universe and entering a gateway, where they had fully entered the probes, and that they were working on a probe that could be entered further into the gateway, exit into another place, and be returned.

  They occasionally gave detailed scientific explanations of what was there, and believed was occurring, and they had a probe released more further into it than before, edging it into the confines of the gateway, creating spectacular optical effects on their screens, of the inside of the vortex, making light distort in twisted forms, like shaping beams of light with matter.

  The entire story had been released to the media after the loss of the astronauts, and for the science world to know that they had created and had a laboratory black hole.

  Only parts of what had occurred had been appearing all over the media for weeks, and the media, science world, and public wanted more information about it, and they had received little, and they had all been invited to Mars to see the black hole phenomenon, and they were there in the laboratory seeing it for the first time.

  It looked like a rupture in space, and the scientists were playing with it, gathering as much as they could on it, and the media continued over and over to question them on the astronauts that had been involved in an accident there, and what had occurred and where they were, and the scientists could give them little information on what had happened.

  They were answering what they could about the incident, and many other leading scientists, visiting there from the Earth, were being allowed to carry out numerous basic and complex experiments all around it, using their own equipment and theirs, and others were recording various things about it, and great amounts of detailed information were finally being given to the media, to analyze, in a far greater degree than ever before.

  Most of the media never seemed to grasp what they meant by gateway, and there was much confusion, and some kept trying to get answers and asked questions in different forms on the information received from the probes and they finished by telling them they were still advancing them and carrying out examinations of the highly complex information they got.

  Many gasped as they studied its shape hovering about, and its deadly appearance, and they consider it dangerous.

  The abnormal antics of many of the scientists at times captivated them, mystifying them with the depth of their nervousness and fear of something! Some still repetitively studied the readings from their equipment, and with alarm, preparing themselves for something, and eventually the media and other scientists started using information about the dangers of it and the deadly occurrences that had happened!

  It was then Commander Cronenberg escaped from the black hole, and rushed out of the black bubble in his spacesuit, and stood dazzled, at the laboratory, mass of scientists and media, vast amounts of equipment, and noise, and the extraordinary scene that developed about him, and the other astronauts rushed out.

  A mass of shuffling, activities, and flickering lights erupted everywhere about them, and they ignored their shouts and activity, as they asked them questions.

  They swiftly shifted out the radius of the black hole’s confines, and tried to grasp what was happening there, all around
them, drawing their attention away from the leading scientists, and they removed their faceplates and the scientists all gasped, and many stood dazzled by them, and many thought of questions they wanted answered, about where they had been, and what existed outside the universe.

  Chapter 27

  The Treasure Map

  Cronenberg, sitting next to Anders, reluctantly dragged himself away from all the files they had been studying for hours, in the Mars base library, and for over a week, and he watched Orwell stroll into the outer library, for the first time since their return to Mars, and he seemed amazed at the sight of the place now, after all they had been through and seen.

  “Come over here ...!” he called out to Orwell, and Orwell shifted over to him, at the end of the table, and looked amazed at the piles of files.

  “What are they of?”

  “They’re recently declassified documents that were dumped here, since we were last here! I was even able to get other stuff to! They wanted to help us research the alien artifact and get more information on it! I’ve put together everything with the information I want here, and all the files about Robertson, the scientist with Anders here, and things associated with Robertson and the diamonds, and his search with the satellite for them, and I’m going through it all searching for the slightest clues, and with Anders help …”

  “What’s the point? We’ve searched through the main stuff though!”

  “I gave him some new information and clues, which will help us get it!” Anders announced, searching through some old documents, astonished at them, and the age of them now.

  Orwell was fascinated and fascinated that he was still searching for the diamonds on Mars.

  They were amazed that they were now actually sitting next to the guy that they had been studying in the documents and they still had not found the location!