The events of the past days haunted him and he kept wondering where things were going, and it was incredible as he had not done anything like it in years, and even then it was nothing like it!
Lights twinkled through thick areas of mist on the horizon. A bright light suddenly appeared, deep in the vapor. It oscillated and intensified.
He tried imagining the astronaut who had chased him as he tried to realize something that he could not grasp about him and he was surprised that he appeared and how authentic he was, and he studied the perfect copy in detail, with the strange light there glowing over him.
He resembled someone! He could not grasp! He realized no face features had been visible, and the person was somehow different, and he nearly grasped it when a strange loud gurgle came from somewhere. He sensed the presence of something mysterious somewhere nearby, or existing about him, and he felt danger existed and he swiftly opened his eyes and was surprised to see a light in the cavity, and he rapidly searched the tunnel where he had come in and saw there was nothing there, and turned to where he had been facing while dreaming and adjusted his blurred eyes, and sat upright staring at it trying to see what it was, and realized it was there and was not projected there, and he wondered if it was some form of volcanic disturbance, and a crack into some form of volcano, where there was molten rock, and realized it was Mars and things were different and that molten rock might not explode out, as the lava flow was nothing like on the Earth
It was not there before he went to sleep, as he would have seen a crack there, and the crack was too new looking, and he realized that it must have appeared about when he started dreaming, and he tried to work out why and he decided that him being there, and his weight and frantic rush into the cavity might have altered the weakened rock and allowed it to break, and he realized that if it got worse it could breakthrough.
A deep thud appeared within the rock and he heard a familiar sound and realized it was the annoying whispering sound in his dream that he kept listening to, from some unseen place, which had sounded artificial, and he listened to it with his ear against the rock and he heard it was a powerful vibration from something, and when he firmly listened he was sure something was breaking through, and he checked his watch and wondered if the astronaut with the gun was still about outside, hunting him down, and he examined the crack in the rock and was surprised when he checked it lower down and his eyes adjusted and he saw a cave there and the powerful light was coming from something strange in the distance.
What amazed him was before he checked he knew he could enter the cave, and he grabbed the edge of the crack and started pulling chunks of crumbling rock away, opening the gap wider and wider, until he had a hole large enough to enter, and he stood blinded by the bright light beaming out into the dark night, and surrounding cavity, and prepared to enter it, and was surprised at the formation of the cavity and it looked almost artificial made.
As he swiftly entered the hole he was surprised that it was a very long tunnel and he cautiously marched along it, going deep into the hill.
Mind-bending sounds and echoes from what he was sure was volcanic activity increased and came through the shaft with fury and left him stunned at the dangers, and no matter how he tried to shake it off and contemplate its full identity he never formed stable recognitions of what was occurring there, and why the light was so powerful, and almost like laser light or light from the sun!
The vibration going through the rock reminded him of a fault line and he accepted it had to be some form of volcanic activity, and he slowed down and prepared himself to run if he anything came towards him, and he probed his way through the large hole in the hill, and as he went along he realized that there was some form of breeze blowing from ahead and he realized the dangers he could be in and that there could be highly explosive volcanic gases, and that if he never caused a spark it could be ignited by the volcanic activity, and he checked the walls and ground around him searching for signs of it having occurred before, and if the lava had been through there, and he saw nothing, and there was no sign of scorch marks or anything, other than it was as if something had blasted its way through it.
Chapter 20
The Alien Sphere
A loud screech ripped through him and he nearly leapt off the floor, and he stood dazzled by the bright light blasting into his eyes, and he had to recall what had just occurred, and that he had sleepily just staggered straight into the blinding light, in an immense cavity, situated at the center of the bottom of the hill, and he tried to grasp what was in front him!
The thing resembled a magical sphere, and he tried to grasp what was really there, and why it was there!
In the blinding light he could not grasp if it was just energy or what, and he saw a blast of stars exploding by him, as though he was shooting through space in some strange galaxy, and he gasped again, and wondered if it was causing him to imagine things.
Its formation seemed to constantly change, as though unstable, and he watched it shift around a central region, of the cavity, as though trapped in something, and some force field, and for a moment something seemed to form in it that seemed alive, and its formation kept altering, as though its energy was constantly altering and trying to control itself, and altered and whirled within occasional hideous energy surges – while it kept consistently stopping itself from vanishing.
It looked like something had been caught in some energy field there and had altered itself to survive, and he was staggered at the power the field had and what was caught in it!
It surely had to be artificial, but he could not prove it, and nothing was normal or familiar, and the cavity looked natural, but unusual, and he tried to establish if it had alien origins but could not, and he believed if it was it was of a highly advanced species of some sort.
For a few seconds he was sure something formed in it and looked out at him, and into to his very soul, and for a second recognized something, and he tried to place it and realized that it had reminded him of what had landed their shuttle, and had made them crash, and for some reason he felt it had not deliberately caused them to crash and he wondered if it was trying to communicate with him or state information like a computer.
Surely the sphere could not create such a thing!
But he was sure it was something artificial and decided to leave it until he had slept and he considered staying in the cavity, and he realized that there was air around, which could be breathed, and for some reason he unlocked his faceplate and opened it and breathed air there, which was fresh and he wondered where it had come from, but could not find anything anywhere, and he decided to leave and closed his faceplate and went back into the tunnel, and back to where he had been sleeping, considering if it was sort of entity/life form combination, trapped there, and he wondered what the scientists at the base, and the Earth, would think of it, and he realized he would be famous and remembered in history books for the discovery, and the biggest discovery ever find in outer space, and he wondered what would happen to the energy bubble – and if they could remove it what would happen? Surely they would fully check the energy bubble before it was taken to an inhabited region of the Earth!
Chapter 21
The Scientists
The cavity was full of scientists, technicians, and archeologists going in a circle around the energy sphere, crowded around it, in groups loudly and excitedly discussing hundreds of scientific details, not going passed a white painted line circle going around its sphere, where alterations to things had occurred, and Cronenberg went behind them and took a seat at a table beside some scientists, and with the astronauts of his shuttle, and he watched the astronauts startled faces, still recalling his arrival back at the base, and his description of it, and they had immediately sensed that it was something immense of alien origins, of a highly advanced civilization, and had only been slightly surprised that he had gone to the hill.
Who had the gunman astronaut been? Who had wanted to kill him? He even wondered if someone had know
n of the alien sphere, and had tried to stop them finding it for some reason!
What had astonished him was that none of the astronauts had actually left the shuttles, and they were positive of it, and he had even proven nobody had sneaked away by recordings of them on the shuttle recordings, and it had left him bewildered.
He had been told confidentially that there had been occurrences at that region of the Antarctica before their shuttles had been brought down, and they had been highly classified occurrences, and Anders crash had been recorded, but they had not found their remains and wreckage.
The events of that week were incredible and he saw the whole base react to the alien discovery, and the information had appeared all over the media there, and it had finally reached the Earth, and he had even become famous there for finding the discovery, and had returned to see it with the other astronauts, and they had told them of the occurrences that had taken the shuttles down, which the scientists believed it had been responsible for the occurrences, and they believed that the sphere had something wrong with it, which nobody fully understood, and that it had not been able to take the shuttles where it had wanted and had landed them where it was safe to land, and that the rocket vehicle Anders and the scientist had been in had been too hard to land properly, leading to its crash.
They believed it had tried to take them to where it was to have them find it, and he was positive of it now, and also going by the accounts the scientists there gave of things that had happened since they had entered the cavity, and it later enlarged the tunnel into the hill, and the appearance of strange things!
They believed it was trying to make contact with them, but nothing had been established, though it had communicated with many of them, as he had done, but they had been confused by it and had not achieved much and it revealed little, but he was surprised that the astronaut with the gun had been seen the night before and he had questioned the scientists that had seen him and they gave him a photograph of him and he had identified it as the astronaut, and they were sure it had used the generated astronaut copy to get him to go to the cavity to the discovery, which he surely would not have gone to if he had not been chased!
But he also thought it generated it to do things and they were there for some other reason, and nobody had given a full and proper explanation of why, and they never fully got the alien sphere’s actual function, or if it was just an advanced life form and what it was really like, and what it was doing there and what environment had it originated from, and what it really wanted, other than the fact it had wanted to be discovered!
The scientists were mainly involved in trying to monitor and analyze everything they could about the sphere!
Chapter 22
The Cavity
A panoramic spectacle view of the Martian landscape stretched out all the way around Cronenberg as he rested on the top of the hill, almost over the cavity, and he watched the fascinating rugged golden shapes of the world beaming in bright sunlight everywhere, and in the thin blue sky he studied stars, and where all the vehicles and shuttles were below, and below where the archaeologists were working away, checking if there was anything in the ground everywhere, and he heard their excited conversations, talking of the discovery, which had to their ultimate find, and perhaps the best find in centuries.
He liked archeology, especially there, and liked exploring the past and the occurrences that had taken place.
The world below now looked like it had been frozen in time, and was a fantastic surreal prehistoric times world, and he recalled why he had even wanted to be a paleontologist. It conjured up great visions of the original primitive worlds of the universe, with its astounding untouched magnitude.
While he moved over and rested against a large boulder he occasionally examined clouds of dust from the stone and debris, the archeologists sifted through, and he still listened for anything of interest to him, and he watched the sky in a place 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 was starting to like the world more than his own, and that he would miss being there if he left, and the stars on the Earth would not be the same.
The cavity had fascinated everyone there and he watched them dig away the hill, enlarging the tunnel out, more and more, to allow them to get proper large equipment in.
An image was still in his mind! Something about the astronaut with the gun fascinated him, as if it had tried to kill him, and he wondered if it meant the alien sphere was a killer life form, and was it waiting for its chance to do something?
He could not grasp why it had not shown it intended to do harm, but he was sure it used the astronaut to get him there!
What had eaten Campbell and the other people at the base though, and yet the alien sphere could not reach the distance of the base and he began to suspect there was something else!
The entire outside of the cavity and the boulders there were destroyed and their remains removed, and everything there and further out was being checked by archeologists, as they searched for the remains of anything that could give them the slightest clue to the energy sphere’s origins or anything else.
It was incredible that with the entire incident he had forgotten about the map and the diamonds, and he was amazed that he was actually sitting on the spot where he had intended to look for them, and he still had not done it!
He looked over to where the other hill was, where he had climbed up when they had crashed there, and looked over at where the shuttles had been, where Eagle’s shuttle had crashed, and the shuttles had landed, and examined all the mess it had left.
Eagle and the other astronauts had now entirely lost interest in the treasure map, and that made him happy, and he recalled Rosenberg knowing of the map, when he saw Cronenberg taking it out Anders pocket, and he was sure it was him that had told them of it, but he had not gone near Eagle anywhere.
He spotted where Anders’s rocket vehicle had come down, and where their shuttle had been over at its side.
He removed the treasure map and studied it, and the entire region about him, sure that it had to be out there or about him somewhere, and he was surprised at how bright the map was there and how details on it became visible, which were not visible before, and he studied it with some surprise, and in an entirely new light, seeing the entire area and map properly, and as not the vague jumbled muddled scrap of paper as it had been, but as the scientist had made it, as he knew what he was like now, now that he had all the information of the scientist, and how he did things!
To his surprise he spotted a mark, like a vague small hill with a cross marked on it, and it was surely the hill he was on, and he started searching about the hill for the place, and for anything that looked like it, and went to a slightly higher point behind him and he measured the hill and mark on the map and saw the place close to him, to his surprise, and he searched where it was marked at, and spotted a bright gleam nearby and rushed over to it.
Chapter 23
The Awakening
Cronenberg stopped dead, confused, bewildered, and he rushed down the hill, gasping hysterically for air, thinking of the diamond in his spacesuit pocket, and in the deep silence of his spacesuit it sank in that something else was occurring simultaneously with his incredible discovery, and the discovery of the first diamond on Mars and with an immense size he had never seen before!
Saliva poured down his mouth, and he had to calm himself, and rest, to see what he was missing!
When he had rested he examined everything over at the cavity entrance and watched scientists rushing out, and falling about, and technicians and archeologists swiftly removing expensive equipment, as though something deadly of immense proportions was occurring, and he tried to recall what they had been doing.
He stood baffled with his mouth open, as he had not even seen them react anything like it before!
What the hell was going on? He did not know what to do? Would he lose what he had found?
/> The diamond had astounded him! It was just lying out in the open, shining in the sunlight, embedded in a strange form of Martian rock, which he used a tool to hack out.
He sat down, still exhausted, thinking of all the things he could use the cash on back on the Earth and slowly started realizing the ground was vibrating and dust and stones were shifting about him, and the intensity of it was increasing, and he started to see something unbelievably dangerous was going to happen, and large boulders at his side started rolling about the hill, and as he stood he started falling about as though in an immense earthquake, and saw and heard boulders rolling down and smashing into things on the ground, and he ran down at full speed as he saw the ground starting slide down and form a landslide.
The bottom of the hill was now being smashed with more and more large boulders, and everything was collapsing about him, and he searched everywhere until he saw a place that was free from the destruction and he swiftly took the safest route across to there, and fell over, over and over, and kept immediately rushing back on his feet.
Once on the ground he used the last of his energy to escape from the hill, but he collapsed against a pile of boulders, with his eyes still on the hill, and he grasped what the incredible force behind it was like.
To his shock he spotted all the scientists and others still running and escaping for their lives – and they were further out than him – and he rushed away on his weakened limbs and ran away from the site as fast as he had ever tried to run, and he even thought of removing the lower part of his spacesuit to get away!
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