The Black Hole Experiments Quadrilogy (2017)

by V Bertolaccini

  Once inside the spaceship, he stood at the edge of the machine, and he examined the faint rays coming through, out of the blackness; then something distorted them, and Basinger’s figure magically appeared from its blackness, with his eyes bulging out, as he tried to see about him. He then moved himself about, as he felt the lighter artificial gravity.

  Once the others had entered, they stayed silent, and listened to a distant hum. Then Dexter took them to the window, where they stood glaring out at the stars of the universe.

  Basinger’s thirst for knowledge was increasing, and he insisted in checking the other locations, while Dexter watched; and the others went to get food. Dexter saw the same type of places randomly appear, and he no longer thought that the machine would have any more good destinations. He could not understand why it had a spaceship as one of its destinations, and it was not on the other machine. However, he was sure that they had mainly used it for transporting goods, to the island.

  “Why are we trying this machine ...?” he finally asked Basinger.

  “We have checked the other one ...!”

  “Yes, but that other one was for transporting goods, and this one was probably used by the inhabitants of the island.”

  “Of course, it would be better to try the machine on the spaceship!”

  “Think of the destinations that it would have ...!”

  As he stepped into it, he noticed again that the air in the spaceship was weak.

  The first destinations were disappointedly similar to the other machines, but a surreal sight lit up, and he saw that it was another world.

  “Where is that ...?” Basinger gasped, as he saw it.

  “I would say it was another world!” he answered, into the confines of the dark spaceship.

  “They visited other worlds! This thing actually traveled to other worlds!”

  “You might already have visited one of them – when you first entered that machine – that swamp you told us about.”

  “My god!”

  A yellow cloud of gas floated by the screen, with a surreal motion, and a creature like a jellyfish drifted through it. The air and world looked too deadly, and they avoided making any statements about going to it.

  The Dexter activated control after control, and strange landscapes appeared. Their colors and shapes were unpredictable, and they did not move as he pressed a new one.

  By the amount of worlds that he had seen, he knew that the aliens must have traveled incredible distances. At any moment, he expected an alien civilization to appear on it, but there were no traces of any civilizations on the machine. They seemed to be exploration places, or places that they had chose to go to for other reasons. He was beginning to believe that mankind might have been one of the few civilizations that they had found. Yet had they found the remains of mankind, years after its extinction?

  There were hundreds, and they were speechless by the time they got to the last. Basinger looked as though he was getting ready to argue with him, if he suggested going to any of them. Yet Dexter was sure that most of the worlds were so deadly that they would not be able to survive on them without spacesuits and weapons, and that they needed time to consider them.

  As he was thinking of how many other worlds there were on the other Star Chambers, an unusual view appeared on the screen. It remained there, and they moved their heads about at different angles trying to see what it was. Eventually Dexter went close to it, and he took a proper look at it. It seemed to be in some type of structure. Basinger put out his hand to press another button, and Dexter grabbed it, tightly holding him away from it.

  “What is it ...?”

  “There are lights on in it!”

  “It will be some type of machine that has remained running on solar power, or something!”

  Dexter disagreed, and he moved his head from side to side.

  He sensed something, and he knew that he had to check it.

  “I am going into it!”

  “You better take a weapon with you?”

  “I’ll not need one!”

  “What do you mean ...? Why do you not need it? Anything could be hiding there?”

  “I want to do this the right way!”

  As he leapt through, a place like a tomb became visible about him, and he watched the machine, making sure that Basinger was not following him.

  As his eyes adjusted, he saw yellow globes of light dimly lighting a narrow corridor, like dull candle flames.

  At a distant region of it, it abruptly darkened, where the lights did not go any further, and he saw that it was the corridor of something, with the machine at the end of it.

  The gravity felt the same as the spaceship, which meant that the aliens had built it.

  A low buzz sound emerged, from somewhere in front of him, and he realized that he was in another spaceship. He temporally doubted his senses; but a spaceship would have enough power to keep its lights going – the lights on the controls in the other spaceship proved it. The size of this one seemed immense, with its corridor going on endlessly into it.

  The lights vanished, and he walked into the darkness.

  An open entrance finally appeared in it.

  He went through it, not seeing where he was going, and, with a thud, his side hit something. In amazement, he then saw that he was not just in darkness – a large translucent dome surrounded him, and his entire sight was full of stars.

  It obviously was an observation point of a starship. The black floor was a barely visible line below him, and he felt what he had hit – its shape suggested that it was a type of seat.

  After he had finished feeling its rough texture, he rested on it, and he stared out into space.

  Suddenly, a clang came from behind him, giving him a fright – making him instinctively jerk forward – and he realized that he was not alone. He was positive that it had been an unintended noise, and he gently lifted himself up, making faint brushing sounds. And as he moved towards it, he started to sweat.

  In the dim starlight, he saw a closed entrance, on a wall, beside the entrance that he had come in, which had a material on it that almost hid it. He carefully removed a stick out of his pocket, and gently inserted it into a hole at its side, and it silently opened, revealing a dark interior – with the dark figure of a being. Yet, as his sight adjusted, he recognized its shape.

  Basinger virtually jumped into the air, when he heard him.

  “What are you doing here?” he cried out.

  “This is where I arrived – through that entrance! You have to see the observation room that’s in there!”

  “Show me!” he grumbled, while calming himself, as he closely examined him.

  “I’ll show you!”

  “Where in the hell is this?” he gasped, as he walked through to the observation room. “Why are there two of the machines?”

  “They might have been transporting it to another world!”

  They stood silently, watching a light streak by, across the stars.

  “How fast do you think this thing is traveling at?” Dexter asked.

  “It is fast enough to get quickly to other worlds! What I want to know is where in the heck it is! If this thing has been traveling through space since the aliens of the civilization existed, it may be many galaxies away, in the distant depths of the universe, traveling forever into infinity!”

  “How do you think they got their food?”

  “I am going back to the others!”

  “Do you want to check the rest of the destinations first?”

  “Okay!”

  When Dexter got to the machine, he activated a control, and a moon appeared.

  “Why is that there? All the others were worlds!” Basinger spoke, from behind him.

  “Could have had something that they had an interest in – perhaps for mining?”

  Another world lit up, and he was sure that he now knew why some of the worlds were on it – they had to have things on them that they had needed – they were not colony worlds.<
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  Basinger started to get ready to leave, as they approached the last controls, and Dexter suddenly saw surreal blue shades wavering about, in patterns of whiteness. Their colors gave away their identities – as the reflections of water. In the brightness, he saw a flat shape, which was obviously an artificial floor.

  He stared intensely at it, and Basinger shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, what is it then?”

  “I don’t know, but its color is identical to the sea, back on the world!”

  “So what?”

  “It may be useful – if it’s a structure – if it’s on the world?”

  “If you want to check it, please proceed ...!”

  Dexter just stared, and he walked towards it.

  The darkness swiftly turned to blinding light, and a type of dome, made of a translucent material, became visible over him, which had brightly lit water over it, sending reflections all about him. The distorted shapes of the sun seemed magnified.

  He was in a globular bulge of transparent material, connected to a translucent tunnel, which went on and on into the distance.

  Stars shone below him, as he clumsily rested, and he realized that he had been mistaken – he was not on the world – he was over the world. Its sphere was shining in space, at the side of him. It was completely different, and he could barely believe that it was the world.

  He was on some form of space station, with a tremendous size, stretching out for miles all about him, in networks of translucent tunnels, with large round and square bulges.

  After a long time, of observing it, he returned to the machine, and made his way back to the spaceship.

  Basinger was gone, and he blindly searched for him. He wondered why he had left. Then he saw the entrance to the control room at a different position than it had been.

  At his approach to it, he saw something strange in its blueness, but the intense brightness to blackness was still affecting his sight.

  Yet, amidst the blur, he saw a large sphere rotating at the center of the room, and Basinger’s head was faintly visible behind a machine. He was at a machine that he had not noticed before, at the opposite wall, in the darkness that was there. He was sure it was an information machine.

  “You have an early view of the world there!” Dexter explained, looking at the hologram image of the world, floating in air. “I just saw a recent view of it from space!”

  “No, you never ...!” he called out, frantically shaking his head from side to side, as he lifted a head device from his head.

  “What ...?”

  “This is not the Earth! I should have realized it ...!”

  “What have you realized?”

  “We have been on another world!”

  “What ...?”

  “From this machine’s star charts, I gather that the Earth is in another universe!”

  The spaceship’s technology was incredible, and it had the most advanced and last records of the super-species who had eventually completely replaced the aliens. Their territory had spanned galaxies, and then universes ...

  Their knowledge was immense, and his mind could barely understand most of their information. They used the Star Chambers to keep their civilization connected, over the immense expanses of space.

  Dexter sat, in its blue glow, with his head facing a patterned screen, listening to its silent hum. He took the head device away from his head, and he placed it into darkness, at the side of the machine.

  Basinger sat thinking, probably about how to use the newly found knowledge.

  “Did you get any information about why the black hole put us at the island?” Dexter asked him, watching his head glow, in the surrounding dimness.

  “From the information that I have taken, I would say that the black hole connected to the nearest open black hole, from the damaged Star Chamber. With it being damaged, especially when it entered the laboratory, and we were pulled into it, it would not have been able to connect properly with the other Star Chambers, and we might have ended up in a natural black hole, somewhere. Perhaps at the center of a galaxy!”

  “Or we might have traveled on endlessly into infinity! The last of the aliens might have deliberately left the black hole at the island, over the water there, to prevent such occurrences happening!

  “Is there anyway to link a Star Chamber to that black hole back on Earth?”

  Basinger’s eyes glared for a second, as though he had just been thinking about it.

  “I do not know ...!”

  “How did the aliens connect them to each other?”

  “I only know that they connected some on this world, and took them to their destinations.”

  “At least, we have a transporter, which can take us all over that world, and to other worlds, if we become tired of this one. There must be thousands – or millions, in other universes – with valuable locations. On all the machines! We could be searching them for the rest of our lives!”

  Dexter rested against a wall, on the badly shaped seat, and he placed a head device over his head, and activated it.

  Basinger leisurely switched on a lever.

  A projection beamed out of the machine, and the hologram world lit up in the air, at his front, and a vivid green diagram appeared over it, marking regions on it. Dexter tried to see where the island was, on it.

  Basinger finally left, and Dexter decided to continue his search of the destinations, and he chose to check the other machine, at the end of the corridor.

  He began by automatically pressing controls, and ignoring views of soil, searching for any signs of structures. His speed gradually increased, and his hand rhythmically went from control to control, as images swiftly appeared and vanished.

  An image on the screen stuck in his mind, and he once again activated it. In a murky view of some location, he made out a perfect shape, and he was about to forget the meaningless sight, but he saw that there were no signs of soil, and he then caught a glimpse of a faint square shape, shifting wildly about. It was dark, but he was positive that he had found a destination with a damaged Star Chamber, with a black hole formed in it.

  The familiar pattern of movements fascinated him!

  Dexter was tired, and left it, realizing that it was night at the location, and that he might be able to see something on it when it was daylight at the location.

  When he returned the next morning, to continue his search, he instantly observed that the location on the screen was now brightly lit, and vibrating furiously, in a blur of many images.

  Yet though it was bright, it was not daylight – artificial lights beamed over it – and, to his great delight, he saw an image of the laboratory, spin through the frenzy of images.

  Chapter 13

  Destination: Earth

  An extraordinary scene developed before Dexter, as he landed on the floor of the chamber. A mass of shuffling, activities, and flickering lights erupted about him, and he ignored cries of shouting and mumbling voices.

  Dexter leapt over to his side, and the others came through, behind him, drawing away the attention of the crowd, from him, and he was able to see them properly.

  How could he have been so unlucky? The entire laboratory was full of reporters and television crews. Had they actually expected their arrival? He had expected the opposite!

  The laboratory looked the same, except for the screen, which was a more dense material. The crowd, behind it, watched them, with profound amusement, unable to believe what was in front of them. They occasionally cracked jokes, and loudly laughed, while they desperately filmed them.

  Basinger observed himself and them, at different angles, and he shrugged. Selina held her ears, to ignore the racket.

  Dexter imagined the media, and public, remembering them, the way they were, forever – as the scientific expedition that returned from the famous black hole as savages – dressed in bits of alien animal skins, and covered in muck, sand, and bits of creatures.

  He felt as though he were Robinson Crusoe returnin
g to civilization. He barely understood their reactions to things. How had he changed so quickly? Their cleanliness was unbelievable! Would they actually accept what had taken place – and that they had come from another world – and that they had stayed in the remains of a futuristic alien civilization, in another universe?

  Professor Bergman finally appeared, and he pushed his way through the crowd. Then he stood glaring, in utter amazement, and confusion, at them, and Basinger repeatedly shrugged his shoulders, with embarrassment.

  Professor Bergman rushed back through the crowd, and he ordered his assistants about.

  They gradually drew the crowd away, and they started setting up equipment, to check the black hole. They finally opened an entrance to the chamber, at the side of the screen, and anxiously ushered them out.

  “What happened ...?” Professor Bergman cried out.

  Basinger lifted his hands up, exasperated, and he let them fall to his side. Burrell and Selina laughed, and Dexter laughed more uncontrollably than he could remember doing, and he decided that he was going to let someone else explain.

  “Why was the media here ...?” Selina asked.

  Professor Bergman observed her, for a few seconds.

  “We thought that the black hole might disperse, after its appearance had altered – and the media had a fascination in it. What information have you discovered about it?”

  “You will not need a protection screen around it anymore!” Burrell muttered. “It will not pull anything into it anymore ...!”

  Professor Bergman looked at him, as though he were mad, and he touched a piece of animal fur on his shoulder.

  “What in the blazes is that?”

  A technician, at the door, came over, and he examined it.

  “May we take this ...?”

  “You can have all of it – once I have put on some proper clothes!”

  “Do you want these as well ...?” Dexter asked, taking out a handful of bits of vegetation.

  “What are they?” the technician muttered, examining their peculiar features.

  “They are seeds!” Dexter replied, handing him the seeds, from the jungle. “Can you have them grown, and, if possible, tell me why some of them shift about?”