The Black Hole Experiments Quadrilogy (2017)

by V Bertolaccini

  “What’s the distance to vehicle sixty from us?”

  “It’s just over three miles from you! Why?”

  “Do me a favor! Was Larsen there?”

  “Yes! But we have not had any reply to our communications to it!”

  “That’s because something has attacked and killed all the crew, except Larsen! Who is in here ...”

  “My God! So there is something out here! I will check for anything from the vehicle! We’ll have to warn everyone about it! I don’t think they will cancel this mission, especially if that alien is here, and impersonating someone, and is trying get aboard again. In fact, I think I would rather stay out here than be stuck aboard with that thing!”

  Chapter 4

  The New Alien/Entity

  From nowhere, with an inconceivable speed, a concentrated sphere of energy had appeared, vaguely even being detected by its senses due its formation. Except its acceleration left it staggered!

  The new alien had remained dormant and as the rest of the GX1 spacecraft as altered energy shifting through what was beyond space and time, taking a few scans and recordings of its surroundings by its automatic senses, but when it had entered the new universe its senses had detected what was there, and it had partially come to life to investigate what was there, while keeping itself as an energy coating around the spacecraft’s energy shield.

  It had sensed that the humans inside the spacecraft had also been staggered by the outer universe, and analyzed its surrounds with amazement, and even thanked the humans for giving it a chance to study such phenomena.

  Everything about it had been beyond its knowledge and incredible, and it considered if it was another like itself that had created it all, with inconceivable dimensions and powers, far beyond it, and its knowledge and powers, like it compared itself to its original self billions of years ago.

  The void was nothing compared with it! It had all the relevant information that the entity had, and it had been built to handle what it possibly could, and was a compressed version of it, which it had created with the help of the knowledge that it had taken from the spacecraft, and its compressed size.

  The black hole was incredible, and its voyage through it, and it had allowed it to travel a great distance, and it wondered if it could get information on how the spacecraft had entered it.

  It had observed that the spacecraft had clearly come from such a place, and that its technology was surely greater in many ways to what existed in the new universe. Yet its size was so small that it had still confused it! Could it itself recreate such a thing in a larger size? Should it capture it if possible, or get enough information to recreate it?

  Its mission was clearly defined, and it was only able to alter it to achieve its goal. But if it could not return it would have to remove its programming, and mission, and continue as a replacement of the entity.

  Thus it soon set itself the task of exploring everything that it could, to gain all the knowledge that it could.

  A surge of energy forces that it had never conceived existed had hit its probing forces from the stars, shocking it and fascinating it at the same time. It had been unbelievable and glorious, and it admired it greatly, but had sensed some danger from it, as with its encounter with destruction on its creation.

  Through its thoughts a blur of radiation had swirled out of the blackness. Strange energies without any meanings had sent sensations through its structure.

  Amidst its awesome powers it had detected the core of the GX1 spacecraft, and it supplying its propulsion forces and energy protection shield, and considered if there was a way to stop its powers reaching the propulsion forces and energy protection shield. At the speed that it was traveling at it should it how powerful it was, and that it could not affect it.

  It had sensed that the humans could not use the spacecraft’s higher speeds, at hundreds of times the speed of light, because of the short distances between the stars there, with the immense amount of worlds, moons, asteroids – and that they had a problem.

  The entity had always thought of things in size, and small had always been powerless and about useless, and it had realized that far greater powers could exist in it and it being concentrated.

  It had visualized the appearance of the stars at a close range, and considered how it could use such forces, and it imagined using such forces, and using the technology of the spacecraft with them, and it hurtling through the universe to anywhere.

  The entire energy surrounding it and exploding from stars blanketing out any darkness had overwhelmed it, and even worried it, and what could exist in its depths, and it had detected incredible things there, and considered if it could leave there if it had to, and if it could get back to the void to the entity, which surely could do something with the knowledge it would give it, and if it could get back there.

  Its body had absorbed the power with enchantment, as it could not recall having taken in such forces since its creation.

  After many probes, and unsuccessful probing of the spacecraft, including through multidimensional sensors, it had accumulated everything that it could and had started to examine what it had accumulated.

  The unique energy shield of the spacecraft had stayed a great interest to it, and it had consistently considered if it could recreate it, as a defense.

  All its knowledge of the spacecraft had been little, and from what it had gained would take it a long time to find what it wanted, if it actually had enough to find what it wanted – unless it got aboard, and it had realized again why its main mission was to get aboard, and study it, with the possible chance of capture.

  If it let it go it would be a mistake, as it had realized that it could be the only time it would come across such a phenomenon.

  The vastness and powers of what it had become so vivid, and it had realized that it would have transform into something new, and it had thought of its original thoughts of the object’s discovery, and of the finding of the things in it, and at the same time it had detected with amazement it was decelerating, and it had detected its surveillance of a world ahead, and it had been sure that it intended to make contact with it.

  When it had gone into orbit around it, it had probed the world with fascination, and even lost interest in what was happening to study what it found. It had never seen anything like it before, and it had been fascinated at what could exist there, without it knowing that it could exist, even with it being outside its normal reaches. It marveled at what it had been missing while drifting and constructing itself in the void.

  What strange things existed there? It was always interested in new discoveries, science, and inventions, and had it marveled at the years ahead of it! What other wonders would it find? Where would it end up?

  It had left the voyager to carry out its mission, and explored the world the best that it could in its present state, as it had been still evolving itself into the entity/life form that it had been programmed to alter into.

  It had been surrounded with mind-bending wonders and visions as it had explored what it could, seeking answers, and it had returned to surveying the GX1 when it had landed, and later on it had detected some of the humans leaving it, and going outside the energy screen again, and it had examined their free thinking states and realized that it could reproduce one of them easily, as it had been programmed to do, and it had made them all unconscious and had replaced one of them with an identical copy, which it could control and exist in, to enter the energy shield of the GX1.

  Chapter 5

  The Second Crash

  The vehicle was racing along when there was a firm shudder, making them jerk up and down, and it when crashing down into a pool of water below, thumping into the edge of an area of mud, splashing mud and water everywhere, over the windows, blinding their view, and Kruger turned and hit the side of the vehicle, hurting his elbow.

  Though Major Ripley seemed to be the only real one to get hit by the impact, and grasped his leg and held it for a few minutes, from the pain of it bei
ng bashed against the controls at his front.

  “What the hell was that?” he moaned, trying to see out the vehicle, while checking the instruments confused, trying to get what was happening. “This place will be the end of me ...”

  “It seems to have happened over again!” Larsen stated, still believing they were doomed to death, as if they were only temporally avoiding death.

  “But why are we not unconscious this time?” Major Ripley replied swiftly, trying to get what he had missed. “We’ve barely made an hour of our journey from the spacecraft, and have crashed again ...”

  “Perhaps this world is different from the other world in the void, and there is something else here that is causing it ...”

  “What something else ...” he moaned, lifting his knee, examining it, and placing it back down. “I don’t know whether to be glad with that thought ... If this thing is the original alien, then we have had it. But if it is something new, are we better off ...?”

  “The others were killed ...!”

  “Great! So now it is down to how bad a death we may receive!”

  “Exactly!”

  “So how quickly and painfully did that thing in the other vehicle kill them then ...?”

  “I would say they were about the same ...”

  “Great! Absolutely great!”

  Kruger tried checking the instruments from where he was, and gave up, as they never showed anything.

  “What condition is the vehicle in then?” he finally asked.

  “It is not working, and it does not have anything on what the cause of it ...”

  “We’d better contact the others then!”

  Major Ripley started using the communications equipment to contact his old friend Major Douglas, and told him, “Our vehicle is down! We have crashed into a pool ...”

  Major Ripley tried seeing through areas of the windows that had thinner mud over them.

  “Your vehicle has crashed!” Major Douglas spluttered out, staggered at what he had told him. “You’d better get out of there now!”

  “Why?”

  “Just get the hell away from the vehicle ...!”

  “How will we get transport to move on ...?”

  “There have been reports of other crashes since all the vehicles crashed earlier, and the occupants have been killed ...”

  “What direction will we go in ...”

  “We have your location! Go to your right, and I’ll have a vehicle pick you up as soon as possible! But get as far away from there as possible!”

  Major Ripley shuddered, and switched off the communications equipment, and yanked a switch and the vehicle doors all opened up, and water and muck came pouring in, flooding the vehicle, making it sink, and they looked around for an area to get out to.

  Kruger pointed at an area near him that was the nearest to solid ground, and he rushed through the outside bog, of thick black chemical stinking muck, going up to his knees, and the others followed.

  They were lucky they wore waterproof spacesuits or they would have been soaked in it, and they reached the land and rested their legs, and looked around them.

  “We have to go right of the vehicle!” Major Ripley announced, and started leading them in that direction, marching firmly.

  Kruger marched after him, and watched Don and Larsen walking together behind him, talking about the crashed vehicle, and examining the damage to the front of the vehicle where it had crashed, and they watched it until a strange vapor cloud shifted about it, like it had some form of intelligence, and the vehicle vanished out of sight.

  Chapter 6

  The Time Being

  A miniature white explosion magically hovered inertly in mid-air, frozen in time, in front of the time being as it concluded its experiments on the newly acquired explosive.

  It allowed the explosion to progress at a slow rate, as it walked up to it and studied in every detail, which it had planned to do.

  The room was at the top of a high tower of a structure that was not an advanced structure but a building that resembled an ancient fairy-tale/horror film castle, made of square stones barely stuck together, centuries old, which had crumbled away in large regions, and rested high in the air, above any human structure, on a massive rock pinnacle, towering over the mind-bending world, surrounded by a sky that would have startled any alien in the universe with its stars and phenomena, covering almost every square inch, resting on the opposite side of the world from where the GX1 was positioned.

  The time being came from an ancient race that had advanced science to incredible lengths, and had colonized an entire galaxy at one time, and after many genetic alterations had turned themselves into a master race, with abilities unheard of before, but had eventually altered themselves into a more warlike race, which had eventually killed itself off in wars, and which had been remembered throughout galaxies for thousands of years.

  The few survivors of the race were condemned by other races all over space, as well as being condemned by their own race, and they never attempted to rebuild their empire, which had eventually turned into new types of entities/time beings, who were immortal, and used time travel.

  The time being had made a mistake when it had been younger and had been captured and imprisoned on the world, and had made itself the ruler of the world, with its powers, which had grown progressively, over centuries.

  Its powers were now colossal, especially in the central galaxy, and it did incredible things, and worked away in its mountain castle carrying out its experiments and explorations, separated from the outside universe.

  It created bright flashes of light with its mind, and a loud whirling sounds appeared, similar to a whirlwind, growing from a whisper to a loud mechanical whirl, and it became mingled with a crackling, like a crackling fire, from within it.

  The room vibrated around the being as it exploded with power that shuddered through the whole tower!

  The room looked like a medieval laboratory, but was full of highly advanced scientific objects, with the being’s other things, which included pieces of strange creatures.

  A diagram was sketched across the center of the floor, with symbols around it, and above it the being turned into a bright white light floating and spinning through the air.

  It whirled fast, and sparks of colored light went around its fringes, and thousands emerged and spread out across the whole of the room, while the sparks of energy created flashes of light over the damp stone walls, and sounds from it became deafening.

  The center of where the time being was turned bright like a sun, and it continued to become brighter, and the whirling increased louder, shaking everything furiously, including the whole stone tower, until it looked as though it would go crashing down and over the cliff, to the fantastic world below.

  An explosion of light and sounds blasted out and it suddenly vanished, and the time being traveled away into the past.

  Within seconds it made a reappearance, and reformed into what it had been before it had left, reforming into its original self.

  The air from it blew everything light around, and a whispering came from somewhere, and its long shape formed, and sounds vanished and altered to a voice from it, chanting strange sounds.

  The being screamed as it formed back into a being, and the tower blocks stopped shaking under it, and the energy turned to a whirling light buzzing around its shape!

  Shapes and colors formed within it, and an upright almost human-like form appeared, and glowed within the light. The being was over eight feet tall and at least four feet wide at the top, and flickers of its unusual skeleton became visible inside it.

  A blast of brightness exploded out with beams of colored light, and vanished away into a cloud of smoke, and the noises stopped, and its massive shape stepped out of the white smoke.

  It wore a large black medieval-type cloak, covered in stars and strange symbols, sketched over it, and where its eyes once must have been there were glowing red lights.

  The time being had tr
aveled back in time and had carried out its mission, and had reappeared seconds after it had left, and it continued with its experiments on the miniature white explosion, and made it magically hover inertly in mid-air.

  Chapter 7

  The Lost World

  A deep intensely cold haze edged its way over the wonderland world that surrounded them, as Kruger stood examining some vegetation near where they had stopped to rest. It was nothing like anything that he had seen on any of the other worlds that he had visited or seen elsewhere.

  He could not get if it was the strange environment about him or all the strange stars blanketing the sky, or something strange existing there, or the universe that they were in, or a combination of them that created different reactions.

  Strange vapor clouds shifted about their sides, always following, shadowing them, at a distance – probing them, and analyzing them for some purpose.

  He had stopped wondering if they had intelligence a few miles back, when he had proved they had, he had seen Major Ripley realize it too, and he vaguely watched it linger over deep meteorite craters in the mind-bending landscape.

  He watched it now to find out what form of life it was. What did it use to exist? What was it doing?

  He felt like getting some samples from it, but decided to wait until he was with the others, and they could check if it was dangerous.

  A peculiar whisper of something came from an unknown place far away, and he considered if it was from the clouds or something else, and what else it could be.

  Major Ripley moved in close to him, with interest.

  “How the hell did that happen? The sun rose just before we left the GX1!”

  The sun was sinking deeper into the skyline, and areas of fog illuminated like the luminary rays of bright alien moonshine – from the rays beaming from powerful stars.