The Antarctic Discovery (Novelette) Read online

  “Space may be full of them?” the scientist continued, giving his opinion. “We have to investigate! The future of this world could be at stake?”

  “So there could be more searching for where it came from? Do you think it was damaged landing?”

  “We have to get anything that we can on it! We have to get as much details of it and its origins no matter what!”

  “The technology could very well make it worthwhile!” Weaver sighed, thinking of how much it could be worth.

  “Have they been able to make contact with it?” Weaver asked.

  “As far as I know they have not!”

  “Have they entered it yet?”

  “As far as I know they have not! What it is made of is either indestructible or virtually indestructible! They have been trying everything that they have to get into to it!”

  “Incredible!” He replied. “I never thought I would live to see one! Never mind confront one! What information have you on it?”

  “There is little so far! It has a vague flying saucer shape and is about quarter of a mile across all around it, and about hundred and something feet high! They have uncovered most of it, except a region still under the ice! They have used everything available to check for places to enter it!”

  “Is there positive proof that nothing emerged from it before they arrived?”

  “No! But there have been no signs of it anywhere, and no encounters have been reported worldwide from it!

  “Has there been anything on getting where it originated from?”

  “They have nothing on its origins or destination, and if it had achieved its objective!”

  “Have they found anything to indicate it has intelligence or if there is anything aboard?”

  “They discovered its forces deliberately melted the ice and allowed the water to freeze over it, and that it hid itself away, and it is believed something deadly is buried away in its interior!”

  Chapter 13

  The Renegades

  The Russian scientist fascinated him now and he had to restrain himself from meeting with him again to try to get more, and to question him further on unanswered queries, and the opportunity finally arrived when another scientist was found shot, and he swiftly checked out the body with the other soldiers and found out that he had been chased by someone with a gun, who had shot him in the middle of an empty lower corridor.

  Afterwards Weaver arrived at the Russian scientist’s room and began questioning him about it.

  “I never knew him!” he replied firmly.

  “But you know who is behind the killing!”

  “It is some of the soldiers that are at the voyager spacecraft base!” he finally confessed.

  “So the normal Russian soldiers are not involved? Who is all in it?”

  “The normal soldiers and scientists just give them what they want! They kill them when they threaten to give them away! The problem is they cannot get anything from the voyager and it is stuck out there! It is eventually going to be discovered and we are not allowed to just hide it away. We have to watch it now for any activity, which may happen years later! We are stuck here, and we are lucky to have been able to remain hidden until now!”

  “So they are trapped here?”

  “Yes! And they will eventually find out about it and they do not know what to do! Can we afford to allow it to fall into the wrong hands! If it opens and the technology that is in it gets taken ...!”

  “So what has been happening? Can you clarify what is basically happening, without any details?”

  “The soldiers are trying to stop it getting heard about! There are also renegade soldiers with us here that are killing scientists, who have other reasons for not wanting the technology being taken from them! We believe that they intended to profit from it! And many of the scientists are telling things about it and do not want anything to do with them and their theft of the technology of the voyager, which could easily fall into the wrong hands! That basically is what I know!”

  “But you said before that they had not entered the voyager and that nothing had been discovered?”

  Weaver gasped at thinking of the gun battle that they had had with the renegade Russian soldiers when he had arrived there, and what it had really been about! He wondered where the hell the voyager was!

  He was stumped! Could they actually handle all their soldiers, and would he be making a great error telling Commander Craven and the intelligence agency of it at the moment?

  They were a really bad problem! Going by what the scientist had told him about them, and the actual number of deaths and the fact that they were Russian soldiers things were at a new level and they had to avoid doing anything stupid or without thinking!

  In fact the ultimate answer they would actually like was to have the whole voyager blown up!

  He now thought of the Russians soldiers as split into two groups, with one half wanting to fight for it remaining theirs and the others going by the rules and perhaps even wanting to get rid of it. The thing could be a threat to the entire world!

  He even wondered if a war could break out over such an incident, and who was the headman behind the Russians, which the Russian scientist entirely avoided saying, and he could not get if he knew. If the incident got out they would have to explain what the secret ice station was doing there, and with atomic missiles!

  Chapter 14

  The Blizzard

  The blizzard blasted out of the Antarctic night with inconceivable fury that hit and froze his face giving him sensations of collapsing into the ground snow!

  The Russian scientist looked close to being blown over or collapsing in a heap!

  How had he talked him into this, went repeatedly through his mind! He could have been sitting in front of a nice log fire in the ice station lounge, and instead he was battling to survive against what must be the coldest blizzard on the globe!

  Why had he had to agree to go to the Russian base? He had claimed that it was nearby, like a rush around some buildings!

  The time had also tricked them as it had not seemed late or dark outside, and of course as soon as they had made it out the door and too far out to return the blizzard had arrived!

  Out of nowhere high-powered blasts shook him out of his rigorous routine of shuffling on through endless deep snow! The sounds definitely were a rifle blasts and his attempt to persuade the Russian scientist into going back was dismissed! Yet if it was nearby they were better going there. Except if it was where the gunmen were, and they intended in killing them, it was stupid going there!

  He was not even sure the scientist had acknowledged what was happening! They had to go on now, and he saw that they would have a bad time trying to see them.

  It seemed far more astonishing within the mind-bending blizzard engulfing everything! Further explosions sounded so powerfully he believed they were walking straight into them, and he thought he saw powerful blasts from bullets hitting ice!

  Whoever was after them had to be crazy and out for the kill, and it was stupid entering such a blizzard and fury of cold and snow! He could not realize how the hell they knew they were there, and realized that they must have guns equipped to see in the dark, and they perhaps had trigged something on their approach to the base, which only left why they could not properly hit them!

  The place had to be located in the coldest and most remote place on the planet! Even in the summer it had deadly cold!

  The men could be heard over to his side and he realized that he could surprise them, even though they could have infrared sights, and he was willing to risk it! They were too close! Surely they could find them there! It was a mistake just remaining there and he whispered in the Russian scientist’s ear that he was going to do something and he was to keep going the way he was.

  He dived through the snow when he was sure that he was not being watched and rushed away at full speed going to an area behind him and them.

  Again he could hardly believe the situation that they had put themselve
s into! He was not use to the environment and conditions! Soldiers would normally have avoided such a confrontation in such deep snow and blizzard, and at night!

  The coldness made him cringe and not only was he not used to it he had never been in such a hellhole in his life! He was blindly rushing on through the now blinding blizzard, and realized that he could leave the Russian scientist and return to the ice station and that the gunmen would follow the Russian scientist.

  A loud explosion blasted out and thudded somewhere near where the scientist was and Weaver ran through the dark snow landscape as he knew that they were closing in on the scientist! He owed the scientist it for what he gave him! He knew the gunmen dared not use lights and he would barely see them!

  Once he fully realized that they had not noticed him breaking away from the scientist he started to enjoy being free from being attacked. He realized that the location that they had entered had been a region that nobody at the ice station went near, and he started to wonder what was there and what he was missing.

  Could there be another reason for them killing them? What could it possibly be? What else could be there in such a place?

  When he finally saw the men and realized that there were only two of them and that he could easily get them he decided to approach as close as he could and tried to sneak up on them! There was a good chance that he could miss in such conditions. For all he knew the severe wind and snow could alter the bullet’s path, and that could have been why the gunmen missed!

  He started to rush, as he saw he could get them, from behind, and he was getting near when he saw the Russian scientist’s figure appear through a region of the blizzard that had cleared and he watched one gunman raise his gun and knew he would kill him and he fired at him first before he pressed the trigger, and before he hit the ground he rushed over with his gun aimed directly at the second gunman, and shouted at him to drop his weapon.

  The soldier studied him for a second and dropped it and he rushed up to him and took his gun, and rolled the body of the other gunman over and checked he was dead, and called the Russian scientist over and they marched on with the gunman at the front, with his gun aimed at his back.

  Chapter 15

  The Secret Base

  At large empty region of flat snow the gunman stopped and they allowed him to contact someone, and Weaver wondered where he was talking to!

  There was nothing around anywhere, perhaps going out for miles everywhere, and he was communicating with someone, clearly near there, for permission to enter somewhere.

  The Russian scientist checked what he said for him!

  He was then shocked when the ground at their front burst opened with bright light exploding out, like an immense brightly lit ice cave opening out, and he saw a ramp going downwards into somewhere and that large vehicles had been driven down into it.

  It was staggering that such a large underground structure could be built there under their feet!

  The entrance closed behind them when they marched down the ramp going down into the tunnel, and he started to wonder why they had built it if the alien object was a cover up for something.

  Yet what the hell would they be doing next to the ice station? Then he recalled the missiles and telescope and gasped, and was amazed at how he had gone along with it! Was this their attempt to exterminate him?

  He decided to be on guard to the approach of anything and studied everything in front of them, and started to dismiss the gunman as being a useful hostage that would stop them killing him, and thought of ways to survive any confrontation there.

  If he could only get to see the commander of the base, and persuaded the Russian scientist into taking him to see him! And he was surprised that was where they were going!

  They marched through corridors virtually identical to the ice station, and he realized that they had attempted to make a miniature version of it.

  They were mainly temporary accommodations and recreation places for personnel there and he started to see they were more normal than he had expected, except for the gunmen and their killings. Yet he had a feeling that there was far more there and the base was far bigger somewhere than he was imagining it!

  At the base commander’s room they entered and were shown into seats and Weaver immediately realized that he spoke English and with a slight Russian accent and clearly wanted to talk to him.

  “So you have caught one of our renegades!” he spoke firmly, examining Weaver holding his gun at the man, making sure he never did anything!

  The Russian scientist spoke to the commander in Russian for a few seconds and the commander agreed with him, about something.

  Weaver realized that they had agreement and they were trying to carry out a plan, and he considered what it could be.

  “If you put down your weapon I will have him arrested! We will not do anything to you!”

  “I’ll only put down my gun once you give me a communication device to speak to Ice Station X1 to inform them that I have completed my mission!”

  The commander looked vaguely surprised and smiled and Weaver accepted that they might want to make contact with them and handle the situation, as they were trapped there, and that something was going to happen. They could not enter the alien object and they could not leave it, and they would surely be caught there, especially after everything that had occurred!

  The commander contacted someone on his phone and waited for a few minutes and some men arrived with communications equipment. Then Weaver asked them to put him through to Commander Craven, and he was surprised when their people there got Commander Craven and he started communicating with him, wondering where he was and what he was doing, and for five minutes Weaver explained everything that he could to him and that he was at the ice station base of the gunmen and what they and it were, but missed out explaining what the alien object was.

  The conversation finally ended with Weaver asking the Russian commander to allow them to bring some men there and he agreed and told them that he would have some of his men at Ice Station X1 bring them over to the base in one of the large vehicles.

  Chapter 16

  The Alien Voyager

  The colossal black alien voyager rested shining in bright light, beamed from intense spotlights all around it, with vast amounts of classified equipment of the Russian scientists surrounding it, with them monitoring and trying to explore what was there.

  Weaver and Commander Craven stood together stunned with their mouths open studying its dark form vaguely buried in the Antarctic ice, astonished at its colossal perfect symmetrical shape and its power!

  The Russian scientists there continually told them of its powers even existing beyond the universe, in outer dimensions and time zones, which they claimed they had detected.

  The Russian base commander shifted next to them, and also stood dazed as though he had not seen it in a long time.

  “Have you the technology to communicate with it?” Commander Craven finally gasped, to the Russian commander.

  “We still haven’t been able to create a proper first contact situation! We now believe that it was trying to communicate with visitations! Like the dead man in spacesuit that arrived at your dinner table, and the thing that tried to appear as an energy cloud!”

  “All that stuff was created by it! Have you entered it?”

  “We were unable to open it or even scratch its surface, especially when we attempted to create an entrance point! But one of your scientists helped us though! One of your scientists called Willis entered this cavity down here and entered it!”

  “Willis?” Weaver replied.

  The Russian commander called over one of his men and had him go and get him, and Willis soon arrived.

  “Tell them what happened!”

  “I explored the cavity and spacecraft!” Willis replied. “I fell asleep near what I believe was the front, and an entrance was opened when I awoke! I entered it and I transported into a region inside, where I became part of it and saw visions from its voyag
e!”

  “Where did it come from?” Commander Craven gasped.

  “I do not know! I was unable to realize much!”

  “What happened then?”

  “When I climbed out I was captured by some of the Russian soldiers! Who started questioning me! They believe it opened in response to my dream, where I mentally opened an entrance in it!”

  “What happened then?”

  “The soldiers were part of the same soldiers that were behind the shootings!” the Russian commander declared. “As you have been told, we were only to dig it up and investigate it, which we fully have not done! We are trapped here! We cannot leave such a dangerous object here!”

  “So the deaths and shootings were done by a Russian renegade group that you told us of? Where are they?”

  “They were after technology from it, which they were unable to get until Willis managed to enter it! They were stopping anyone for getting anything before they could get it! They managed to get something from it and have left! They left some of the soldiers working for them behind!”

  “So they copied Willis and entered it again?”

  “Yes! They copied what Willis did and sent a man into it!”

  “What did they get?” Weaver gasped, wondering why they were all gasping at the incident so much.

  “We are not fully sure what they got! They sent a man into it and we believe it tried to make contact again, but it seems to have not been able to do what it wanted! Which we do not fully know what! We believe it rewarded the man for the attempt by giving him something! We believe it could be a danger to mankind!”

  Chapter 17

  The Investigation

  What the hell had they done? Had they contacted the voyager with the telescope beneath the ice station?