The Alien Artifact 8

by V Bertolaccini

  Orwell observed the peculiar shape of the structure, and the tunnel not being perfectly square but with other shapes, and considered if had been designed for looks or there was another reason for it and noticed there were signs that something a long time ago had been there and had left vague prints buried under deep dust on the ground, and he marched downwards.

  It was strange, as none of them thought anything had been there and yet they were prepared for an encounter with something else below and he wondered if it had been the energy sphere and alien artifact in the hill, what they encountered in the gateway, or was it the strangeness of the place and why they had been put there, as it was like they were put there for a reason and he sensed there was something.

  After they had checked an area of rock, which looked different from any natural rock that they had seen, they marched on, and jerked when a heavy thud shook the whole pinnacle around, from another deep meteorite impact, and he continued at a slow pace considering how the thing had managed to stay up in such a place, and he recalled the meteorites on its above structure and wondered what it would be like living on such a place, and how many deaths and injuries people would have.

  After a few more minutes he realized their enthusiasm had increased in discovering what was there, and it was now as though it was an ultimate treasure, and some form of treasure they were going to find, which was buried away there.

  What was strange was that he had watched things moving over the surface of the stone, and had just dismissed them as insects, but he realized that they were not just insects but were alien insects on an alien world and he suddenly stopped and examined a few with Orwell, and they stood speechless, as the insects there were unknown to them, with characteristics that they had not seen anywhere. A yellow piece of flying gel hung in the air by some means they could recognize, hanging in the air, even after many close examinations they could not pinpoint how it remained in the air, and he believed it had thousands of miniature wings or something similar that allowed it to hover and propel it forward that could not be seen by them.

  A distant wind occasionally howled strangely around through the top of the tunnel behind them, as it was caught by gusts.

  Eventually the stone tunnel finished and they entered an artificial structure and they examined it trying to find what it was made of and found it was too hard to even scrape a sample off, and were unable to realize what it was.

  The inside of the structure was incredible and it at first looked like they were encountering something from Earth’s early past, and the inside of some form of ancient pyramid and an earlier version of what the aliens had, but its look altered the further in they went and he realized that it was far more advanced, even though they had not come across any of their technology and only forms of advanced corridors and forms of rooms, and yet they had not seen anything of the aliens themselves and what they had.

  For a swift instant he felt a strange feeling that something had detected them there from some further in region, where he was sure there was some highly advanced structure and technology, and he was amazed that Orwell and the others behind him had also picked it up, and were reacting simultaneously with him, and he even saw them discussing it and something, and he wondered what the hell it was, and if they should have turned back earlier, and he wondered how they could profit from such an encounter, and he spotted Orwell holding a weapon, from his spacesuit.

  Chapter 5

  The Astronaut

  As they entered a large chamber Cronenberg felt shudders and deep vibrations going through the floor and walls and his eyes fell upon a large sphere object spinning with tremendous force, trapped in a form of cage, clearly using tremendous forces to keep it there, and they got to a point near it, staggered at the dangers it had, and watched the power of it, like it could destroy anything put against it, and he watched the other astronauts and started to notice their reactions to the dangers and that they were going to keep away from it, and it looked as if it had recently altered in some way, and he wondered if it had been there the amount of time he thought it had been, and where it was getting its power from, and considered if it was a new source of immense power and what it would be worth!

  Gusts of wind occasionally howled about in the chamber in front of them, as air was caught by its forces, and he kept wondering if it created power, which was used by its creators as a power source, and he considered if it could be the reason it was there, and that it was so dangerous it was put there on top of the pinnacle, and had connections going below.

  Yet he could sense it was more, and that they could have been put there for a reason!

  The antics of the astronauts captivated him more and more – mystifying him with the depth of their unsaid thoughts! Orwell wondered around the chamber examining everything he found, repetitively looking for controls to it or something else, and he realized he might be intending to do something, at some point!

  Suddenly, the reactions of the sphere altered, and he sensed something had happened and he felt a shiver run through him as he felt massive shudders of energy blasting through it, and he turned and realized that Orwell had activated something, and he slowly backed away from it, as it looked more and more deadly and pulsated with violent energy surges, and looked and sounded on the brink of something, or exploding!

  None of them spoke and he considered what it really was and how it was formed and he believed that they should start leaving the chamber, but he never knew what direction to go in. Should they go back up to the top of the pinnacle or continue going down, and maybe get trapped below if there was an explosion.

  He saw how big it really was, as it expanded out. Its size was huge and like a massive ball of different energies.

  Suddenly Rosenberg called out, “What’s that?”

  Cronenberg spotted what looked like the shape of something inside it, as though a life form was there, and after a long time of carefully examinations he realized he and the others were unable to properly see it and identify it.

  It looked powerful and deadly! It also looked like some form of freak of nature!

  He offered the others to give vague explanations, even if fantasies, and they occasionally gave detailed explanations of what could be occurring and Stanley finally explained that particle accelerators experiments on the Earth had now had forces that were able to accelerate particles to velocities beyond anything before, but he was unable to connect the occurrences, and Orwell finally claimed it could be a form of time warp, and could have forces like intense magnetic fields holding it.

  Cronenberg realized that they never had anything like it, unless it was kept secret, and he compared it to the energy sphere and the artifact back on Mars.

  At one point the thing looked entirely deadly and was pulsating with energy blasts, which looked and sounded on the brink of doing something.

  At times they spotted it looked like it turned vaguely translucent and they saw the shape of something inside it, and after along time of carefully examinations and discussions they believed they saw a life form inside it, in some suspended state, in some form of rest, and they stood confused, wondering if they could be on the brink of making a proper first contact situation.

  It looked powerful, and deadly! But he could recognize what it was or what it could do, and kept glaring at it trying to get a clue.

  At one point Stanley moaned loudly, “What are we doing here? If this thing is as dangerous as it looks …”

  His reply surprised him, and he wondered what their reply would be to it, and he allowed them to reply.

  “It could be of great value to us!” Orwell replied, firmly. “We were surely put on this pinnacle for a reason … And this is all there is here! It has fascinating properties, and I believe it is not as dangerous as it seems! There would be signs of something having happened before if it had …”

  Cronenberg just agreed with him, and examined it in a glance, and replied, “We have been investigating it with everything we have …!”

 
“The artifact may exist in other dimensions?” Mitchell, the shuttle flight engineer, replied, surprising Orwell, and Cronenberg recalled recent stuff about investigations into other dimensions on the Earth, and he tried to recall what the outcome had been, and realized it had mainly been theories about things.

  They all sat down and rested against an area of the chamber wall, at a more distant position, and they started trying to get some rest and sleep, and when Cronenberg finally fell asleep he was soon awakened by Rosenberg giving a loud gasp, making him swiftly awake, and he looked into the sphere and saw a man standing near the center of the sphere and he also gave a loud gasp himself, and he kept trying to see properly what was there, and he finally went silent, and was sure it was a humanoid alien.

  The being was in a central denser region, and the whole sphere was turning brighter and louder, and it started shaking everything about them, and it even started knocking them furiously about, and they fell over, and while he was considering evacuating the chamber a sudden shockwave blasted out from it and through the whole structure, throwing them over dangerously, and he heard a distant rumble of rocks falling off the outside pinnacle.

  Suddenly everything turned silent and the bright light vanished, and they started to recover, and check the damage, and he noticed Orwell dramatically talking to Mitchell and Cronenberg checked where they were looking and realized that the energy bubble had returned to normal and that a being had appeared from inside it and was standing in front of them, wearing a human spacesuit, and he immediately recognized it, to his horror, and it was the astronaut that he had seen on Mars, which had chased him into the cavity in the hill with a gun, where he had found the alien energy sphere and alien artifact.

  Chapter 6

  Anders

  One of the biggest surprises, after seeing the astronaut emerging, had been when the astronaut removed the spacesuit faceplate, and revealed his true identity, and Cronenberg had been staggered and stumped, as the astronaut was Anders, one of the two astronauts who had crashed and died on Mars, trying to get the diamonds!

  He had seen Anders’s skeleton, lying on Mars, staring up at the stars, and when he had seen him standing in front of him he had been totally staggered and had just stood staring, and Orwell had been baffled, and Rosenberg had been dumbfound too, as he had only seen Anders’s skeleton!

  For a few minutes they actually stood considering the unthinkable and that they were standing in front of a ghost!

  How had he managed to appear in the places he had seen him as an astronaut in a spacesuit, and why was he the same age as he had been, and he would have been dead a long time ago, going by what year he had crashed in.

  Anders finally examined them confused, and examined everything about him surprised, and finally asked them what he was doing there, and they just stood staring at him dumbfound, and considering all the possible explanations.

  The whole affair seemed to be building up to it – with their space shuttle being brought down by a mysterious force, the discovery of Anders in the crashed space vehicle, right next to where they had crashed, the astronaut that had been haunting him, and the discovery of the alien energy sphere, and the eventual discovery of the alien artifact buried below, under the ground below the hill, the explosion of the whole hill, and their trip through the universe, and being found below it not knowing how they got there, and the mysterious discovery of the laboratory black hole and it exploding out and taking them there.

  They were positive the black hole had connected to someone’s gateway, and that they were deliberately taken to the incredible world, and now they had found Anders there, alive and in the same state as he had been on Mars.

  The place startled Anders and he had never seen anything like it, and he could recall nothing other than what he was sure was him dieing on Mars, watching the Earth in the sky, and he recalled encountered something alien and it taking him away, and he had no recollection of meeting Cronenberg or shooting at him.

  Cronenberg watched him in partial horror and amazement! Astonished that he was alive! Something he had not even thought of! He had thought of him and his map many times over since finding his skeleton, and especially when he had been in the Mars base library, investigating him and where the diamonds were, and he could only watch him, examining him.

  He looked slightly different, from his skeleton and photos, but he knew it was him, and he wondered if Anders could help him!

  He noticed Rosenberg could hardly believe it was him and kept examining him and trying to fit things together, to explain something he could not grasp, and it surprised Anders that the scientist with him, who had found the diamonds with the satellite, was not there, and Cronenberg realized that he looked more disappointed in that fact than anything else.

  Cronenberg could not grasp what had taken him away on Mars, as his descriptions of it were fascinating, and he realized it had to have been the force that had landed them and he had encountered within the energy sphere, and he realized that they had not fully contacted it, and that it could have two identities, as it had to have put Anders on Mars as a form of ghost as the astronaut with the gun, which had shot at him and nearly killed him.

  He was unsure how dangerous it was, as it had done many dangerous things to them.

  Anders started believing that he had been transported there through a vortex and had religious beliefs of what had occurred, to their surprise! He surely had thought he had gone into his own place in the afterlife but was unsure where the hell he was, in heaven or hell, and they watched him praying to be saved.

  Yet after what they had been through there, and all that had happened everywhere, some of the crew even looked like copying him, but he thought better of it.

  One of the problems that faced them now was there was hardly any food, and the stuff they had was running out, which was mainly emergency rations in special pockets in their spacesuits, and they were tired and had not slept properly!

  So after they had all slept they carried out a great deal of examinations of the structure they were in, but found little, and seemed mainly to be some sort of base, and they investigated the sphere of energy as far as they could, but still found little!

  None of them could explain much, as it never even fitted into any of their fantasies! They were more confused than he had ever been, as he no longer just ignored all the mysteries and he just could not explain things, with anything that he could now accept, and why they had gone through the vortex and black hole in the laboratory, which was an incredible piece of luck, and Anders did not explain anything for them either!

  His secretive questioning of Anders about the map, when the others were away searching under the structure, gave little other than the fact he had believed the diamonds had been there, and had partially suspected they were elsewhere when the scientist with him kept suggesting it, which he was unsure of, but he was sure that he had been hiding things and that he had not been fully positive that they existed, and had been confused about many things! He must have been the only person in the history to have such an occurrence occur to him and find himself in such a place and have no way to return to the world after such a long time!

  Anders never recognized anything there and kept wondering where the structure was, and why they all acted strangely to the outside world, and why they kept talking of the lower world, and he even surprised them by claiming he had been put there to start over again and repent, in another attempt at entering an afterlife.

  Anders spent most of his time studying everything that he met with in fascination, and they confused him by their reactions and that they might be going to encounter aliens visiting there.

  Their investigations of finding a way down to the ground and world below were useless, and they were convinced that they had used another means to get there and they tried finding it, but it proved useless, and they only had the energy sphere, where Anders had appeared from, and most of them believed something was there, and had put them there for a reason.


  Chapter 7

  The Exit

  Golden radiances of the morning beamed straight across the top of the pinnacle, and created an immense shadow of the pinnacle’s shape stretch across the landscape below for many miles, pointing to the opposite horizon, where the nighttime darkness vanished.

  The top of the pinnacle was the same except a sphere of blackness was floating in midair over the central region, which had just been found there by them, and all the shuttle crew and Anders were there, and Anders was the most curious, and strolled around it examining its shape, confused, and was staggered at the outside world he had not seen, and regularly stood with his mouth wide open watching stars of colossal size doing strange things.

  The sphere had clearly recently appeared there and nobody there could account for it being there, and Rosenberg, who had found it, had thought the sphere had some form of intelligence, which they still had not proven to be not, or anything.

  Cronenberg watched Anders, still amazed at him, and with horrific thoughts, realizing what was there could pull virtually anything out on them, and he was amazed that there definitely were diamonds on Mars, and Anders had confirmed it, and the diamond or crystal he had was not it, and he was now sure that the scientist, with Anders, had been going to check it, and he wondered again why Anders had been put below in the structure, and thought over what Anders had said about it.