Many human worlds had collaborated in its creation, and it had been launched when nobody thought it could be improved further.
People from all over known space had tried to take part in the first voyage, and the first visit to the galaxies, and the people aboard it numbered close to a hundred thousand. The majority were scientists and explorers that were needed to make it a proper exploration of the universe. The rest were military and people to run everything.
The first voyage had taken them to the immense void, which had only been discovered decades before, as its strangeness had warranted it to be the first place for the DX1 to explore, and as it was located in the direction they wanted to explore.
The answers to many unanswered queries of the creation of the universe were thought to exist there!
Kruger considered himself lucky to be on the voyage, even though he had been chosen because of him being one of the most experienced in aliens (in knowledge and experience).
The confrontation with an identical twin on the world had left both the passengers on vehicle four bewildered, especially when they had realized they had lost their entire memories of who had been aboard the GX1, as well as in the other vehicles, and their communications to the GX1 had been lost, so the only thing they could do was continue with their mission and return to the GX1.
While the vehicle automatically carried out its programming, floating over the surface of the world at hundreds of miles an hour, still mapping and checking for anything of interest, and any abnormalities, Kruger watched Dan, examining him for anything unusual, but he never saw more, accept that he was more secretive than he had noticed, and that he was hiding something, and tried to question him every time he could, but he was good at avoiding giving anything out.
He was starting to think he was part of scheme to carry out some illegal activity aboard the GX1. But what could it be?
He recalled his own little scheme to find anything of value, and take it back with him. Though all the findings brought aboard must be declared and checked, with invaluable items usually being allowed to be kept, due to lack of interest and them not wanting to end up with heaps of useless items, and returning with ninety percent of their specimens from the galaxies as junk.
He was sure they would even discard most of the stuff before returning to the base, near the Earth, and he was sure that something could be found. He knew many of the explorers, who were to make explorations outside the ship, including Major Ripley, had an agreement to search for such items. Yet he was unsure how far they would go, but he did see the point, as he was not sure he knew how valuable an item he would keep, or if he could tell the value of some items found in space.
There had been valuable alien life forms that had been traded, and he knew that they would be very keen to stop anything getting aboard, and he did see the point there, and never wanted anything from out here running around the ship creating unknown dangers.
If anything seriously dangerous were to get on the habited worlds, like Earth, they would have serious problems. Such creatures could inhabit entire worlds!
“Do think there is anything of value out here?” he asked Dan, trying to get his views.
Dan laughed again, over some hidden joke, either about him or something that he could not quite grasp.
“I have checked a few times,” Major Ripley replied. “None of the instruments indicate anything! What do you think Dan? Could there be anything of value about here?”
Dan looked over at Kruger, still slightly amused, with his amused expression, and replied, “Out here! I don’t think so!”
His reaction to him confused him. If he was what he claimed, why did he not act like he was his twin? It was more like a joke to him! It had him searching his memories searching for long lost relatives that could easily have hid away aboard to play something on him.
Yet how the hell did he get out here? He would have to have captured a vehicle without them knowing it, and sneaked out of the ship, which was just about impossible. Moreover, he would also have to have left his vehicle away out here, which would have cost a great deal, for nothing other than a stupid joke on an unknown relative.
Or he could have found some alternative means of transportation. He could have been hidden in the back of the vehicle all along – where they kept the supplies, and had sneaked out after the crash.
But what would he have done if they had not crashed and stopped? And what the hell did he want?
He decided to try to solve how the crash took place, and why they all went unconscious, with their memory loss. Then he decided to leave it to the engineers back at the ship to work out. They were the ones that would have all the details, and scans, and be able solve the mystery.
Suddenly, he remembered something, and that they were the only people to know fully what the main objective of their mission was, and the few officers that had ordered it.
“Dan! What is the main objective of us checking this world? And who ordered it? As my memory seems to have gone!”
“That is an easy one! It was to check it because it was out here in this void. It was Pratt that ordered it.”
“And where were you when he ordered it?” Major Ripley asked.
“I was near both of you!”
They all went silent again. Again neither Major Ripley nor Kruger could fully recall what happened, nor prove that he had not been there, and they continued to search for clues.
It was clear to Kruger that Major Ripley intended to catch him out somewhere, and was waiting for his moment, and he was sure Dan also knew it. Yet he could not get why he was so amused, confident, and waiting for something to occur.
Kruger then saw the immense shape of the GX1 in front of them, and saw Dan’s pupils widen, as if he had been waiting on some event to occur, and it was now finally going to occur.
Chapter 4
The Voyager
The lighted GX1 voyager was colossal, and stretched out across their entire vision into both horizons as they had approached it miles off, and it still fascinated them.
It looked of alien origins, from a far superior race, and Kruger felt prouder than he had ever felt, and thought of all the races in the universe that would see their golden achievement.
Golden and white lights shone down from all over its ten-mile high top making it glow like an immense alien flying saucer, resting on the desolate world, in the deepest reaches of space.
It was golden in areas, and lights on it were like golden stars, sparkling in the depths of some immense strange star cluster – tightly packed together in areas.
The sight entirely took their attention away from Dan, and he sat watching them, and occasionally looked at it, as though he had seen it far more than them.
Kruger sensed something mysterious existed about him, and especially about what he intended to do. It fascinated him that if he had a twin that he could forget all about him, and all the things that they might have done together. And to make matters worse he seemed to have forgotten him, which could be embarrassing when they returned home, and they met people that they knew.
They could even consider them both to be imposters! What if they had forgotten everyone that they had known? The entire GX1 could be full of people with memory loss, which would cause incredible chaos. All the identity problems would be incredible!
What would happen if the entire Earth suffered from the problem, from an alien attack? It would throw the world into total chaos?
It made him gasp out loud, and the others thought he had reacted to the GX1 structure.
Major Ripley was proud of the DX1, and it was a symbol of the workmanship of his race, and the best.
Chips of rock mingled with dust clouds from below the vehicle, as they approached the base of the GX1, and the vehicle automatically slowed and stopped, and came to rest on the surface of the world, just in front of the energy shield.
The sight now covered their entire sight – and had the look of not having been manufactured by any normal means –
and looked as if it were made from technologies far beyond comprehension, and though he had hardly any proper knowledge of the entire workings and technology of it, he still knew it could be grasped if he had a few thousand of years of continues study.
The ground was flat below them, by the immense weight of parts of it that had rested there when it had landed.
He felt like going outside now, as it looked safe and everything was brightly visible about the area.
Layers of dirt occasionally blew up in clouds from jets of gas exploding out of regions below the voyager, and with there not being any atmosphere soon fell to the ground.
Sounds sounded hollow and strange inside the vehicle, as though magnified, from the strong sold materials that they were made of, to stop any leakage of air, and as though sounds were being reflected from the outer world as it could not allow sounds to travel, with there being no atmosphere to carry it.
A silent whistle came from an instrument and he saw that they had spotted them aboard the GX1, and someone was dealing with their arrival there.
Out in the distance he spotted vehicle three, with Mendez, and wondered what they were doing, and if they had any problems that they had not foreseen, and wondered what they would be doing, and if they had problems with their memory loss.
“How long will it be before they get us through the energy screen?” Major Ripley announced, mainly to himself, out loud. “We should be inside, and getting into it by now!”
The dazzling massive shape still kept grasping his sight, and of it covering their front sky.
“They must have started on getting us in,” Dan replied.
“If they want us to wait,” Kruger continued, “we will be stuck here!” And he searched its vastness, like the depths of space from outer space, looking for the point where they would be, their control center, for the incoming vehicles.
Strange controls about his sides vaguely captured his attention, making him consider if he had lost his memory of what they were.
It was strange that they could only lose memories of things about people, and it sounded like something the military and intelligence agencies did, and he considered if they had the capability to do such a thing to them aboard the GX1, and he wondered if they had done it to cover something that they would not even suspect existed, or if someone else aboard had used it to carry out something deadly.
He had listened to Major Ripley theorizing about it, as he had reported everything to the military, and he realized that it could take warfare to a new level!
Chapter 5
The Control Center
The world below the GX1 control center glowed in shades of gold and white like sunlight, like a ghost world. Pale golden shades swept through rock structures, leaving deep shadows, probing towards the skyline, and the deep black abyss beyond.
Colonel Pratt unscrewed the cap off a bottle of fruit juice that he held in his palm. Distant voices from the other side of the control room absurdly mingled in a mass of regular waves through his silence, almost engulfing him, and the buzz of his communications device disturbed him until he answered it.
“General Chisholm here,” a deep voice uttered, from somewhere at the other side of the spacecraft. “I want you to personally handle the problem with vehicles with the spaceship’s Lieutenant Weber. I have enough things to do here!”
“Alright. I’ll get on it right now!”
Chisholm hung up, and left to do something that needed his entire attention.
Colonel Pratt was happy to be the military head of the military presence with the landing vehicles, even though it was going to be a difficult job, but interesting, as they were up against the unknown, and he had to be prepared for just about anything out here in the depths of the universe.
Lieutenant Weber was great, and head of that control center, for Captain Powell, who was the captain of the spacecraft, and ran the spacecraft itself.
He had a hard time understanding what the problem was! The entire vehicle crews had experienced losses of memories, and the claims were that they were not normal memory losses, and that they had experienced only memory losses in the regions of their brains that were used for identifying people, which he never thought was even possible. But with the right equipment why not! They had mapped everything in the human brain, and could read and alter anything in the mind, so why could they not have had particular memories erased?
It was a strange affair. There was no motive! Why would anyone want them to lose their memories? What possible reasons could be behind it?
He did believe his men, and they gave detailed accounts of what had occurred, and that they had all crashed and woke up with the problem.
Whoever was behind it, if it was not an accident that is, had to want something hidden? Was there something out here somebody wanted, and wanted it hidden? What could be on this hellhole?
He sat and read the rest of the detailed accounts, and sat dazed, partially staggered, considering what the outcome of the affair would be.
There was a discovery of another vehicle! Five vehicles had left to scan the world in a detailed surveillance mission, and six vehicles had returned!
Moreover, to confuse things further, two of the vehicles were identical. Someone would have to have sneaked an identical vehicle off the ship, and driven it out there, and returned with it, which had to be impossible, unless they had people working for them in the control room, and they had hidden what was occurring, and someone screwed up somewhere, and they got caught, with the extra vehicle carrying out the illegal mission to get hold of whatever it was, which must have great value to have so many people, going out to such lengths, behind it.
Some valuable rare mineral or similar that could have been detected from the ship, and the information about it hidden away from them. It could be for military use, and be exceedingly rare?
Therefore instead of ignoring the situation, as an insignificant crime gone wrong, the situation should be investigated, and he started to consider what action should be taken.
They had the upper hand on this – whatever it was about – and they had the vehicles and occupants sitting outside.
The merchandise had to be there, and surely it had to be in the copied vehicle, which was vehicle four, with Carl Kruger and Major Ripley inside.
He knew Major Ripley, and he knew he was not involved, and that he could use him, if needed.
He wondered who was in the sixth vehicle, and looked out the window, miles below, and checked one of the screens nearby, and examined the vehicles until he came to the sixth vehicle.
The vehicle was identical to the fourth vehicle, though slightly aged, which could mean that it was an old version that they got hold of to use, from somewhere.
Looking about he started to go over everything, in case he had missed anything, and considered if there could be something on the world that did not want them to know of its presence.
Chapter 6
Something Gone Wrong
The situation seemed to get worse as they sat there over hours, waiting for some form of announcement that they would soon be able to go aboard, and Kruger began to come up with new worries, and that the oxygen supply could be lower than the vehicle had announced it to be.
He had a headache and his breathing was slow, and the air was weak, and he wondered what had happened. He could not think of any reason that could properly account for it and gave up.
Distant voices from the communicators absurdly mingled in a mass of complaining sounds, as the other vehicle occupants tried to get information and brought aboard and were continually let down or not answered, and he drearily dozed, in his silence, with his ear crammed against things to stop him hearing it, more and more, almost engulfing him in the monotony, and a buzz from the communicator to the GX1 control center brought him awake.
“Colonel Pratt here,” a heavy voice announced, as Major Ripley turned the sound up. “I am handling everything!”
Colonel Pratt was happy to be the military head o
f the military presence, and with the landing vehicles, which was going to be a difficult job, but interesting for him, as he was up against the unknown, and he was prepared for just about anything there in the depths of the universe.
To Kruger he sounded as if he had been given a hard time, and hard time understanding the problem. He confirmed that the entire vehicle crews had experienced losses of memories, but not just normal ones, and that they had experienced only memory losses in the regions of their brains that were used for identifying people, which he never thought was possible, especially not wired up to a machine. There were also people aboard that had experienced it too, but only about people aboard the vehicles, and much of the information had been erased from their records on them too, and that they were investigating everyone and everything involved.
It was a strange situation to him, as they had not come up with any information on what the motives of the people behind it were.
Kruger also could not get any proper motive to explain things, and how they had carried it out.
He sat and listened to the detailed accounts, and sat dazed, partially staggered, considering what the outcome was going to be.
Then there was a discovery of another vehicle, which seemed to stagger Major Ripley and Kruger simultaneously, while Dan sat silently observing them, not moving, examining everything.
Five vehicles had left to scan the world in a detailed surveillance mission and six vehicles had returned!
Moreover, things were confused further by two of the vehicles being identical, and by the fact that they had to have brought an identical vehicle aboard the GX1, and sneaked it out with them, and returned with them, which seemed impossible with the technology and surveillance of everything they had – unless they had people working for them as leading engineers and in the control room – and they hide what was occurring – and they believed someone had screwed up somewhere, and they got caught – with the extra vehicle carrying out the illegal mission.
The Thing: from the Depths of Hell Page 2