Now that Weaver knew the situation he realized that it was worse! The technology, power, and size of the voyager was far greater than anything he thought mankind could ever create, and he could not even explain its existence!
All the scientists from the ice station were there and staggered, and some looked as though they were making plans to abandon the Antarctic! The thing was a danger and indestructible, and had not been properly checked, and they had only been able to check a few of its basic functions from the two people who had entered it, and nobody had really shown any proper awareness of the function of it as far as he was concerned!
They had not found a way to activate its entrance into opening again and making contact with it, and that was the only final way of finding out what it was for. Yet they had Willis who was confident in doing it again, but totally refused to contact it unless there was a good reason!
He stayed with Willis and kept him near, and he knew if something was going to happen that he would be there, as he was sure it had chosen him for something and that they would need to use him for anything!
“We haven’t found a way to communicate with it!” a scientist with the scientists from the ice station underground telescope announced, as he walked over to him and Willis, as they stood next to where the entrance had opened on the voyager.
“What have you been trying?” Weaver asked curiously, amazed at all of the scientists crammed around the voyager, and into the massive cavity.
It was incredible the way the scientists from the ice station had all burst into life when they all had seen it, and he and most of them were astonished at the experience and knowledge the Russians had on the things to do with the voyager!
It was as though the scientists had been waiting all their lives for the opportunity, and that they never knew the deadliness of it!
“It has not replied to anything we have done!” the scientist continued, showing all the equipment that they had brought over from the ice station. “We used the telescope and the telescope equipment over there to communicate with it! We have finally got a chance to test out stuff and it is not replying!”
“Incredible!” Weaver gasped.
“We have also gone by all the instructions given in the Alien Source Code – which is a combination of old and updated procedure put together for basic first contact situations!”
“So we are still trying to find a way to talk to it!”
“Correct!” he replied firmly, hoping for an answer from Willis.
“Well!” Willis answered. “I’ll add what I think! I believe that what’s active is equivalent to our subconscious mind, while it is in a type of sleep or suspended animation, which carries out various functions for it. I think it is either part of the voyager or attached to it! And for some reason it wanted us here, especially by crashing into this world and at this exact site! And I think it was unable to do something when it made physical contact with me!”
Weaver was left confused, as he started to see the problem in more depth and that they could be stuck with it.
“I think we should find another way to enter it!” a scientist from another nearby group announced, to their amazement.
“How will we go about doing that?” Weaver asked. “The thing is indestructible! They could not even scratch it!”
“We found the place where the entrance opened and found some faint markings near it, which we believe is sensitive to reactions from something, and we believe that it could be another way to open it!”
“We could try using different things on it!” Weaver replied, and the scientists returned to working on finding a way to open it.
A scientist suddenly moved over and whispered in a nearby Russian scientist’s ear, and he suddenly looked aware of something and agreed with the scientist and left to do something.
The scientist returned with other scientists and set up equipment at the region of the entrance with the markings and they activated equipment, and laser beams blasted at the region where the markings were near, and started firing thousands of laser blast sequences at it.
“What’s it doing?” Weaver asked, wondering if they had found something somewhere, and wondered what would happen if they forced entrance to its voyager!
Chapter 18
The Helicopters
The massive helicopters lifted up and rushed off into the distance and Weaver rested into a seat at the back of one, with the other soldiers, preparing himself for what could be his last day alive!
They were Russian military helicopters and they had been hidden away in one of the Russian base’s underground chambers.
They had discovered where the renegade Russian soldiers had gone! By using recorded satellite information they had been able to trace their path to a distant secret Russian ice station, where they were going to hide out and wait for a plane to arrive to take them away.
If they had a plane there already or it had just arrived they would have escaped, and he was sure that they would never see them again! They could easily make it to some part of the world where they would not be able to find them, or be able to do anything to stop them.
He wondered if they had not shot the people that they had if they could take what they had taken from the voyager back off them? Who owned an alien artifact?
The scientists that had been near them had claimed that they had called the artifact that they had taken an alien sphere and that they had claimed it was some form of ultimate weapon, and the Russian base commander had given them the use of the helicopters and information about the secret ice station and the arrival of the airplane there.
If the mission was successful they would get it off the gunmen, and he wondered if they could destroy it or what they would do with it! Would it cause immense future problems?
He had realized that the scientists mainly wanted the voyager to leave as it was a great danger to the world. There could be many future problems with it being there!
The voyager seemed unwilling to let them aboard, but they were still working on opening it and he wondered if it was the scientists themselves that were the danger! It was them that invented atomic bombs and had them introduced! Perhaps the scientists were secretively worried of what other scientists might do if they got the technology!
Chapter 19
The Russian Ice Station
The massive helicopters rested behind them, below small hills, and they watched the light from the sun vanishing as the early night engulfed the region and the soldiers rushed on faster, to avoid being caught in the dark.
It was lucky that it was not night and there were no signs of airplanes having landed there, and Weaver wondered if they would land in the dark and studied his surroundings repeatedly trying to explain why such an occurrence could happen! The entire mission had been planned down to the smallest detail!
What was it that they had taken from the voyager? How had they persuaded what was there to give it to them?
He had tried questioning Willis about what he had come into contact with and he had been unsure, and never saw anything of it, and it only replied to some of his responses with things like mental images of things. It had originally been activated and opened by his dreams and thoughts!
The Russian ice station was further ahead and small and looked ancient and from a century ago, and he imagined figures like Captain Scott arriving there.
When they finally got near enough to see it properly they started to see buildings had been burnt down, and some smoke and steam still coming off them, and being blown around in gusts of cold polar winds, while gusts of snow blew around them.
Some form of battle had clearly taken place there! There were bodies lying around everywhere! The snow around Weaver was too deep and the terrain virtually impossible to get quickly across!
It was incredible that they had actually not landed later than when the sun was going down.
What had happened? It looked like the seen of a small battle!
They approached slowly and they saw t
hat many of the Russian renegade gunmen had been killed there! It proved that they were more maniacs than he had predicted! They could easily have met and held up the inhabitants of the ice station with guns. Instead they had a battle with them!
He was also sure that they had not been able to do what they had intended! He was sure that someone had warned them about their arrival!
He believed the pilot and airplane that was to land was with them, and would see them if it appeared and landed.
They swiftly shifted about the small ancient building structures, searching for signs of them, and found that they had all gone into one building, which was the largest there, and they searched all the other structures and about the base and surrounded the building.
He thought of the incredible operation the Russians must have carried out getting the voyager at the other ice station and wished that he had been part of it, and the digging up of the black object beneath the ice, and them digging out the cavity.
The amount of equipment and men they must have used must have been tremendous, and they must have gone to incredible lengths to get people into the ice station, and to monitor it and prevent them discovering what they had been doing.
He wondered how long they had been there trying to enter or make contact with it, and then a stray scientist from the ice station entered the cavity and simultaneously made it into the voyager.
He recalled when one of the Russian scientists had told him and that Willis had entered it and it had shown him its flight in space!
He was sure that it had wanted something, and perhaps it wanted someone to pilot it, and he was sure he never gave it what it had wanted.
He went over and over it through his mind trying to grasp some clue that would show him what it wanted.
He examined the soldiers ahead of him moving in closer, preparing themselves for action and were ready.
A loud blast of a gun exploded out and he saw one of the front soldiers beside Commander Craven was hit and Weaver swiftly moved behind a wall, preparing for the gunmen to attack.
The bullet had instantly killed the man and he was heaped over the snow and he realized that someone had blown their cover and they had given away their element of surprise, and he realized it was one of the Russian soldiers from the Russian base that had given them away! He then realized that they could very well be in it with them! The Russian soldiers with them had not been checked out and had even been with them!
It was lucky there was cover for all the soldiers and they rushed into position and he watched the Russian soldiers and what they did and wondered what he was missing about them.
Suddenly soldiers rushed forward fast shouting at them to throw down their guns and started blasting at them with everything, and bullets flew out everywhere hitting the snow all about them, and the gun battle stopped and they shouted to them the gun battle was over and they all moved in.
He rushed in the building and realized that there were only six of them left, and two were dead on the floor!
A Russian soldier with them translated what the Russian gunmen said and they started questioning them, and Weaver noticed that he was holding a hidden conversation with them as he asked their questions and gave their replies.
“Where and when will the airplane land?” Commander Craven asked them, and the Russian translated what he said and replied.
“It is not going to land until they ask it to! They cancelled it landing until the alien sphere was found!”
“What does he mean by that?” Commander Craven replied.
“After their battle with the people at this ice station the person that had it was killed and someone took it, and nobody saw who or what he did with it!”
Weaver listened confused! How can someone lose an alien artifact? Then he considered what size it was!
“How what size was it?” Commander Craven asked, amazed, wondering what the hell it was.
“He does not know!”
“How did you see anyone carrying it?”
“No! It was in one of the dead men’s pockets!”
It was clear that the people that saw it were now all dead, except the person that took it!
Commander Craven was staggered, and clearly wondered how they could they possibly have an ultimate weapon capable of destroying the world in someone’s pocket?
Someone there took it so they searched all their pockets and belongings, including the bodies, and they found nothing and decided to stay the night!
Chapter 20
The Battle
They had been at the Russian ice station two days searching everything and had not found the slightest clue to its whereabouts, while they curiously watched the Russian soldiers with them!
There clearly were soldiers amongst them that thought they could get hold of the alien sphere and sell it!
Their mission was a disaster, even though they had killed or captured the remaining renegades!
The ice station, huts, and buildings were small and cold and he had never slept in anywhere so cold, which was exaggerated by the coming winter! He could see now why the people that stayed in such places and conditions were rugged and hardy.
The Russian food supplies were feeble and left them longing to get out of the place, and to find the alien sphere!
Who the hell took it? What had they done with it? Where had it ended up? And what the hell was it? Its size made everyone gasp! What if they got its technology and increased its size?
People were now investigating each other, and he had been watched by just about everyone, and he himself had listened in on others and followed their movements!
He noticed some of the places in the structures were dirtier and in many he had to sweep away webs and he realized that the place was not being searched as much as they were making out, and he eventually put it down to them concentrating in the main areas! So he started looking in the areas that they missed and looked for signs that someone had visited there and hid it.
Reeves joined him searching an old hut with a rusted discarded snow vehicle in it, and they rummage through the junk!
“Well,” Reeves announced, breaking his silence with him. “We now know that the guy that took it has not been here!”
The place looked as though it had been untouched for decades and he examined different things to see what they were, and their uses, and if they had been recently used.
“Look at this monster!” Reeves announced, jumping into the worn seat of the vehicle.
“Any fuel?” he replied, wondering if it could be used.
“What’s that!” he spoke, looking closely at the controls. “Someone has recently checked it! The fuel meter has been cleaned recently!”
Weaver checked it to see the petrol in it and saw it had been checked, and realized the person had been planning to use the thing and checked it and the mess that it was in! There was so much rust and dirt over it that it looked unusable.
It was like being at an ice station on another world with the strange sun and snow, and appalling coldness. He recalled a story that he had once read of Artic explorers all being found frozen to death! Which made him consider if there was such a condition that could instantly freeze people and everything at the one time? He had seen things there that had suggested it! There were immense waves that were entirely frozen! How could you freeze an entire large falling fast moving wave without instantly freezing it! There were cases of large amounts of animals and humans being found frozen at the same time!
The place was like it was haunted at times; creaking and rustling from huts, ice shifting, and strange whistling breezes.
He thought of all the years of people living there and it interested him. What kind of life did they have? Why did they stay in such places?
The place must be one of the most empty and empty of life places that there could be on the planet! He wondered what it was like at its worst, freezing in drifts of heavy snow, silent and empty of life as was possible. Even indoors with the lights on at night there wer
e strange haunting dark shadows and glows that held secrets and dangers!
They finished searching the rubbish and structure and moved out together and wandered about before joining the others having their meal.
Most of the people around the dinner table looked startled and tired and looked as if they wanted to leave the place, and he realized again the difference there was at the proper ice station.
Even the Russian base looked as though it had things wrong with it and that many of them would have preferred going home, when their mission was complete.
He noticed that Commander Craven looked happier, but still depressed, as though he had achieved something, but he could tell that it was not enough. Yet he still looked the happiest there!
“Anything new?” one of the soldiers finally asked, smiling.
“We think we may have who was behind taking the alien sphere!”
Everyone looked up, and Weaver gasped at the attention that it got from them, and especially from the Russians there and he sensed how desperate they had become!
“Where is he?”
“He was one of the dead! We searched him and everywhere he was seen!”
“Have you anything on what he was like?” another soldier asked curiously, looking at the Russians for reactions, jokingly.
“I got some information about him from the X1 Ice Station, and from the Russian base, and from civilization!”
He showed them a sheet of printed paper, and when the others had finished looking at it blankly Weaver managed to get a look at what was on it and realized there was little there. Yet as he was handing it back he realized it said that he had an interest in vehicles and rebuilding them and he wondered if he had been the one that had cleaned the petrol meter on the vehicle, as he surely would have been the most likely person for wanting to leave there!
They had other vehicles there and he wondered if he might have hidden it on one with other things, which he intended to take if he left there in it. Would they actually look there?
The Antarctic Discovery (Novelette) Page 7