The Lost Time Probe Read online

  Part II

  The Dyson Stargate

  Chapter 1

  The Black Hole Discovery

  The shuttle crew astronauts entered a laboratory in their Mars base in their spacesuits, entering its vacuum, and they stood staggered with their mouths wide open, wondering what the hell was going on, as they observed a pulsating black hole, inside a chamber, surrounded by heavy equipment.

  Commander Cronenberg was the first to spot the equipment was creating a powerful magnetic field, concentrated in the chamber, holding the black hole firmly in place, as it attempted to escape and expand, but only gave occasional swift surges and spins, and he listened to the leading scientists carrying out a series of experiments.

  The magnetic fields they had originally been using had not been powerful enough to contain explosions and the discovery of the alien energy sphere had altered their research, and their research on it had come up with new findings, and new technology to create and manipulate magnetic fields, and they had found ways to create black hole particles, in high explosion particle accelerators.

  They had been able to slow the particle size black holes disappearances with new more powerful and concentrated magnetic fields, to study, and had been able to alter and increase the magnetic fields to freeze them, keeping the miniature rips in space and time in existence, and they had found ways to create vast amounts of them, combining them, creating one large black hole, which they slowly increased in size to its current state.

  Ever since their shuttle had crashed on Mars incredible discoveries had been emerging all around him!

  When they had been drawn into the alien energy sphere blackness had engulfed Cronenberg and the five shuttle crew members as they had hurtled out the universe, into an abyss, and they had been found lying on the ramp going up to the energy sphere screen, and none of them had properly recalled what had happened later and why they had awakened there!

  Back at the base the scientists had continued to question them, and had not let it go, as they were determined to get answers, as their attempts to communicate with the alien energy sphere now failed and they were unable to send anything into it.

  They were getting desperate for answers, and other scientists were getting more and more desperate to get them from them, and they had done everything they could to bring their memories back.

  It was incredible, and it was incredible that they had been carrying out experiments in the secret laboratory they were now at, which he had not heard anything about, from anywhere before, and he realized just how secretive the place was, and that they had not even allowed it to be built on the Earth, as it would have been found out by someone at some point!

  They had been trying to create black holes and keep them in existence but had constantly been failing, and they had even used powerful particle accelerators and powerful explosions, and he believed that they had made holes in space and time but they had been unable to keep the gateways open.

  The abnormal antics of the scientists there captivated him – mystifying him with the depth of their nervousness, and fear of something! They repetitively studied everything, with alarm – preparing themselves for some unknown event!

  What were they going to do? Had something else been discovered, with their new experiments?

  Suddenly a swift flash of light exploded out and a flickering beam blasted into the black hole’s sphere – silencing everyone. It vanished into its depths and they monitored it with equipment, and checked results.

  The black hole, trapped in the middle of its chamber, was spinning swiftly, and he wondered again why there was a vacuum there, and they all had to wear spacesuits, and he recalled it was because the chamber and black hole were not covered by anything as the black hole would have sucked the atmosphere out the room.

  Scientists wheeled out a large object, with the shape of a rocket, and he followed them and the five astronauts to a white line on the floor, marking the closest region they could approach the black hole, and they watched how powerful it was there, and with its powerful vibrations blasting through the floor.

  One of the astronauts decisively asked the leading scientist there what it was and he turned and examined them, and gasped!

  “A black hole probe!” he swiftly replied. “We are going to send it into its confines, and it is designed to return out its confines and give us accurate data of what’s there – and we’ll perhaps be able to use it to examine the outer universe, and what’s there!”

  Cronenberg was surprised that they could send something into it, as it looked so dangerous and powerful, and he was sure that it could destroy anything in its confines.

  A cable was also attached to the end of the probe, to help receive information and pull it out if it never emerged outwards itself, and he watched its forces pulling it into it, and they used equipment to shift it accurately into the black hole, and it motionlessly hovered over the floor.

  The probe resembled some form of highly advanced black missile, and he examined it for damage, and for any signs of the powerful forces acting upon it as it approached the black hole.

  With a loud blast, the probe launched and shot straight into its central region and vanished, and approximately a minute later it reappeared, after the completion of its mission, with it having traveled out the universe, and he watched scientists celebrating their success, and they rushed to their equipment to start their long research of what it found.

  Cronenberg gasped at all the technology they were using and realized that they might be able to detect a hidden universe about them – and outer dimensions.

  Its lethal appearance was now astonishing, and resembled a large black bubble of pure energy of unknown origins, buzzing wildly and dangerously, ready to discharge.

  While they stood waiting for the completion of the mission, and any findings, he sensed something peculiar about the black hole and he kept his eyes there, and he listened to the five astronauts and scientists further out, with their captivating facts, through his spacesuit communicator.

  He recalled things about black holes and one old theory that space was full of black holes from events like the big bang!

  Suddenly he realized what was different about the black hole and that the vibrations from it, going through the floor, had altered, and he saw that the black hole now had a strange look, as though it was doing something, and he knew that something must be happening to it for the reaction to occur, and its shape started visibly vibrating, as if affected by a powerful pressure.

  While he carefully listened and searched everything everywhere he noticed the other astronauts noticing it, and determinedly checking it, and he tried to detect what was happening first.

  At the side of his spacesuit faceplate, while he watched and listened to them, he glimpsed its hideous black shadow expand across the floor, and horrific shape coming towards them, bursting out of its magnetic field, and he stood frigid as it exploded out, and in an instant they and the black hole vanished from the laboratory, and his last memory was of the laboratory erupting into a frenzy of activity as he hurtled into blackness, and them shooting through something, as if the entire universe shot by.

  Chapter 2

  The Extraterrestrial Force

  Blackness engulfed them as they hurtled out the universe, through an abyss, and stars and galaxies shot by!

  Startled last cries and conversations from them and the scientists swirled through Cronenberg’s mind, and tormented him!

  Had what had happened actually happened, and where were they hurtling to? He had never seen and sensed so many stars and celestial objects, and emptiness in dark regions they entered, and so many stars glowing so brightly, and for the first time in his life he realized the vast depths the universe had.

  Why had they not just left in the shuttle on another mission? Why did they have to have stayed and watched the scientists activate the black hole?

  At times he felt something there! Something none human! A form of intelligence, far different from an
y form of intelligence he had ever encountered, and even of the alien artifact energy sphere, when he had discovered it in the cavity in the Martian hill.

  It was as though it was trying to become part of them, but he could not detect it doing anything!

  He had even unsuccessfully tried to find out information about the diamonds he had been looking for on Mars, and his treasure map, and the diamond he had found above the alien artifact energy sphere in the hill, directly over it, and what it was doing there!

  He was now sure it did something, but he could not grasp what, and tried to examine it as a vast star constellation exploded across his spacesuit faceplate, dazzling him with brilliance and dangers.

  For a brief moment he had sensed that there might be diamonds somewhere else on Mars, and that their long search for them could be fulfilled, and as they were blasted through the cosmos he watched the greatest ever wonders float by and he thought through what had occurred, and his group of astronauts, and shuttle he was the commander of, and them mapping the surface of Mars, advancing and testing their new 22nd century advanced technology, and their arrival at the unexplored Martian Antarctica when something powerful and strange had been detected there.

  They had crashed at the Antarctica, after the encounter with an unidentified force, which they traced to the energy sphere and the alien artifact under it, and they had been left marooned!

  From the start they knew something was buried away on Mars, but he had originally believed someone had built something there of colossal power, with powers beyond anything else they had ever encountered.

  When rescued, and they arrived back at their Martian base, they checked out dead astronauts, which they found the bodies of, with a map, and checked why they were there, and discovered hundreds of declassified military and security service material buried away in an old library, where they answered some of their unanswered questions, and he found out about their search for diamonds there, discovered by a scientist searching for diamonds with a new highly advanced satellite, and they had returned there to look for them and he had discovered the alien energy sphere and artifact, and later a form of diamond on the hill over it.

  It was something with tremendous powers, as ancient as the universe, and he had felt it had been waiting on their arrival on Mars since the beginning of the universe.

  He tried to compare it with what he detected was there, and knew they were different and could not be connected.

  At times he thought it was only a faint consciousness, which he could not understand, which never even seemed to check what they were or anything, and he still could not fully grasp what it was or anything, and he continued to study what was there, with interest, and he detected something else existed, which was not there, and he detected great danger there.

  Explosions of radiance of powerful stars exploded about them stunning him, and they slightly spun, and a colossal whirlpool of lines magically formed around them, and he studied it for a long time and realized he had no proper bodily presence.

  He seemed to vanish out of existence and was startled and saw that he was accelerating through a form of tunnel through something at hyper speed, and realized that streaks of light shooting passed him were powerful outer suns further out, blasting their radiance through its shield!

  He fell through a gateway where there were stars everywhere, and he could not guess what the place was, and he realized that they were now moving outside the transportation field and he wondered if they could get trapped there, with decreasing oxygen supplies in their spacesuits.

  Chapter 3

  The Lost World in the Stars

  A spectacular world stretched out below, where they reentered the universe, in an explosion of streaking lights, and the astronauts stood staggered, at the world, at what they had encountered, and them being so close to death and emerging so near the edge of a gigantic cliff face, going straight down to the ground.

  For a few seconds Cronenberg clung to part of a large boulder behind him as they fully realized the rock under them was not as firm as they had thought, and what they had landed on the top of, and that it was a flat top of a massive rock pinnacle, towering over a mind-bending world, surrounded by a sky that would have startled any life form in the universe with its stars and phenomena, covering everywhere he looked, blasting their large shapes of radiance through the light blue sky.

  He glared out with the others, looking everywhere, gasping at what they were on, and staring over the edge, at the depth of it, stretching down to what must be miles below, and he realized the extraordinary low gravity of the world, which allowed it to exist.

  He was sure the world was a young one and that the pole shaped tower might have fallen down a long time ago if it had been the age of the Earth or Mars.

  They soon started searching the top of the pinnacle looking for anything, and why they were there, and they found little, and they all walked separately about it searching everything they could, baffled by the lack of anything.

  It was Rosenberg that noticed boulders with cut stone and showed them there could be actually an artificial structure below!

  Most of them liked archeology, and the thought of searching ancient structures on alien worlds, and exploring new finds, and what past races would have been like.

  The world below now looked like it had been frozen in time, as the sun was going into the horizon, and it was a fantastic surreal prehistoric times type world, and it conjured up great visions of the original primitive Earth, with its untouched environment.

  The structure below was fascinating to him and Orwell as for the most of their lives they had wondered what aliens and their civilizations were like and buried away below them there was an ancient alien structure they could investigate, and he had fantasies of them finding something valuable that he could use if he ever returned to the Earth.

  The place was fascinating, with rugged golden mountains and hills and shades of the starlight beaming everywhere, creating immense beams of colored lights streaking everywhere, and he tried to see if there were signs of life in the darkening landscape.

  The giant pinnacle was tremendous, and he kept thinking that no sane alien could have built anything on it! Anything staying in it must have been mad or determined to avoid something immensely deadly on the world below!

  It was also beyond comprehension how it could have stayed up and not crashed down below long ago, and he gasped at how they must have built it.

  It looked dangerous and incapable of supporting itself, and looked impossible to climb. There were no paths visible that could have been used to climb it. It was so high up that he was sure that they would not be able to breathe properly when the atmosphere altered, and that they would have to put on their spacesuit helmets, and he made sure all their spacesuits were full of air, and that they filled their oxygen tanks from the atmosphere.

  It was strange being surrounded by air, as they had been on Mars with their spacesuit helmets on outdoors for so long it felt like a like mistake being out in the open without their helmets on, and he watched how the men reacted, and some surely missed being on the Earth.

  While he rested against the flat edge of a massive boulder next to Orwell and Rosenberg he examined the boulder in the vanishing sunlight and saw it was actually a meteorite and he realized the dangers of a world with so many stars, and being located in such a place, which he was sure was near the central part of a galaxy, and he examined the stone and debris on the ground like an archeologists, sifting through it, looking for anything of interest, and anything artificial, and he examined the sky in places that he had not examined before, and wondered what existed there and what other strange worlds there were to explore, and he started to realize he and the others were starting to like it there, and if they returned to the Earth that he would miss it, and the stars would never be the same again, and they would be empty.

  In the distance he spotted an incredible immense meteorite crater with a strange mist cloud hovering over it, only filling
its dent in the surface of the world, fitting itself into its shape.

  The atmosphere grew slightly thinner as it grew darker and he watched their faces alter and their breathing grow heavier.

  When the night emerged, and the blue sky covering the stars vanished, they all stood staggered, examining stars covering the whole sky everywhere with their eyes wide open, from the immensity and colossal dangers facing them, and in the end they sat back in their spacesuits staring up at the incredible sky and stars everywhere, which would have had every astronomer on the Earth going crazy examining and documenting for the rest of their lives, and he wondered what the hell the most highly advanced telescopes back on the Earth would show existed in its depths, and what all the undiscovered things would be, and how it would alter the way they thought of the universe!

  The sky was truly unbelievable and he spotted one of the astronauts in the distance now standing filming a section of the sky, and their eyes went on the region trying to see what he was filming, and Cronenberg spotted it, and it was tremendous, and worth being there for, and it had to be the biggest galaxy he had ever seen, and he was astonished that he could see it with his eyes.

  Suddenly he heard someone shouting in the distance from a hidden area, and they recognized it was Stanley, the main shuttle pilot, calling them over to him, to what he had discovered, and they all leapt onto their feet and rushed over to him, wondering what it was, and what else could be so fascinating.

  They approached him at the same time, with their mouths open, seeing all the stars blazing out everywhere around them, and some racing across the sky, and lights shifting about everywhere, and occasionally making them shudder at the power and immensity of them, and the dangers there were there.