It was then that he spotted another vehicle moving around and moved as fast as he could go over to some hills to hide, and moved faster when he spotted missiles on the vehicle.
A high-powered rifle blasted a rock in front of him, with no sound, and he saw the impact and the danger, as it smashed it to pieces, and he saw a rifle sticking out the vehicle.
The surprise was it had more velocity and impact there as there was no air or proper gravity, and he wondered how far the bullet could actually travel.
He dived across mounds of moondust trying to accelerate away, with the spacesuit and low gravity muddling his perspective of movement, and he wondered if the spacesuit could be made to stop a bullet. The strength of its materials was great!
He just managed to get behind a hill as the next bullet arrived.
Whoever was there had to be crazy and determined to kill him!
Surely it had to be someone from the moonbase itself?
He did not recognize the vehicle and never knew there were any missiles there, and wondered what use they would be there!
Once he got behind other hills he started finding different ways to use the low gravity and vast leaps to move fast away.
The moonbase had to be located in the most desolate place! Other countries had barely even put satellites in orbit!
He realized the deadly environment surrounding him again as he studied it. The deadly cold was far lower than anything on the Earth! It made him cringe and blindly rush on through the mind-bending landscape, almost lost, still trying to get back, even though he had to move behind hills to avoid being seen.
He looked around a hill of rocks and saw that they were moving away from him! But he knew that once they never found him and any footprints that they would return to where he had been and trace his movements in the moondust. So he deliberately made it harder for them to trace him by rushing over rock areas and changing his direction.
He knew he had finally hit the ultimate deadly scenario! He never had enough air and was using up more and more, and making it take longer to arrive at the moonbase! And surely they would know where he was heading, and even find some place to wait on him!
He could not even imagine having found a way out of getting out of such a predicament! If he had remained in the vehicle he would have ran out of air.
He increased the brightness of his spacesuit light, avoiding the larger bright light, to see what there was about him, and saw little that he never saw before!
What did these people want? Should he hand himself over to them? Surely they might just keep him as a prisoner? He could offer to give information about the confidential moonbase!
Away behind him he saw some form of explosion blast out from a missile, and knew that they had started following his trail, and he decided to do a form of leaping and jogging to accelerate him forward, as it was all he could do!
Once he started to get tired he started to see the mistake in it, and thought of surrendering, and he suddenly had an idea!
Why could he not attack their vehicle? He knew where they would go and could ambush them! Yet he never had any weapons or anything to do anything.
Yet he was sure he could get on the vehicle without being seen, and there was no sound there!
He recalled a place further back where he had seen two large hills with a small lane between them where he could hide and make it onto the back of the vehicle. So he rushed away over to his side where the other side of the hills was, where he could rush there, and they would not see his prints returning there.
Just carrying it out and thinking of handling the problem sent adrenalin rushing through his veins and he increased his speed, and he was soon rushing along behind the hills, over small rocks on the ground, and he started to examine the rocks on the ground and realized that he had not left any prints that showed where he was going there, and he entered the canyon considering finding a hiding place on the hills.
As he rushed through the canyon he started to examine the rocks and realized that the small rocks on the ground had been cut and that they looked artificially cut and he wondered who would want to do anything there, and what had they had been doing there? What could they be possibly have been doing away out there? Unless it was mining! Or it had been done before the moonbase had been built!
His mind raced through what had occurred and he tried to discover why! For some reason he only realized that the location that he drove into had been a region that nobody at the moonbase went in, and he started to wonder what was there! Was there something hidden away there? And why had they not just found a way to stop him? Instead of destroying an expensive space vehicle, which had a limited quantity!
Why would they go to such lengths to kill him? What could possibly be there? What could be there in such a desolate place?
When he finally ignored it all and left it until later when he found something buried away under rocks in an area at his side, and removed rocks and revealed a metal grid cover, where he saw some moondust starting to be blown up, and he grabbed a handful of dust and threw it over it and was surprised at the power of the flow and the dust blowing away up above him.
He was sure it was air and that something below was blasting vast amounts of it up, and he stood pondering what could be there!
He eventually lifted the metal cover and found a vast tunnel going straight down deep into the moon below, which had clearly been hollowed out with some large powerful machine, which he had not seen there before. Yet he had not checked everything at the moonbase, or how it had been constructed!
He started to see away out of being caught by the vehicle, and having to attack it and at the most stopping it from following him, as they surely had weapons aboard to handle being attacked and he was positive that he now never had enough oxygen to make it back to the moonbase.
Yet who had dug such a tunnel? He then wondered if it belonged to a foreign country that intended to monitor and perhaps destroy the secret research/military station in a distant future war!
With his light turned up he grabbed at its metal ladder going down into the metal pipe tunnel and he rushed into it and swiftly covered the lid over the top, with a pile of rocks and stones that he put over the top, and he slightly shook it and made sure it was covered over above him.
He realized that he could easily climb down, and he started to investigate it, while avoiding being killed! He was sure it had been put there for a reason and that something was just below him! If he could stay there long enough without using up anymore air.
He was positive that the men could not trace him there as he never left footprints leading there, as well as before he had entered the canyon going through the hills, and they would not find him.
Surely they would guard the area around the moonbase for a long time until they knew he definitely had no air supply left and consider him dead!
He swiftly aimed his light downwards and started climbing downwards, as he considered what would be below.
Sounds and echoes mingled through the hollow metal tunnel, going through the blowing air, which grew denser the lower he climbed, and he realized how he missed outer sounds.
The wind below gave haunting whistles and he eventually realized that there was enough air around him to remove his spacesuit helmet and he removed it slowly testing the air and seeing if it was alright and dense enough for him to breathe, with him ready to shove the helmet back on, and he finally with satisfaction turned off the air in his spacesuit and rested.
The air smelt strange and he could not recognize what it was, and he wondered why they had so much of it and were allowing it to blow out, and he pondered what could be below. The depth had to be great as he could not even see the bottom and he had shifted down a large distance.
He was stunned at the dangers that he had been through and realized that he would have to leave the moon and return home, and if they never found the men in the vehicle or proved that they existed they would know that he knew about them and would surely still
want him killed, and he wondered what was there that they wanted him dead for!
He had to warn the others about the danger! They were too deadly! They had destroyed an entire space vehicle with a powerful military missile! How would they handle them back at the moonbase if they heard about it and discovered where they were? Would they even be able to handle them? He was not sure the moonbase was designed and had the weapons to carry out anything against them!
No matter how he tried to shake it off and contemplate their identities his thoughts never formed stable recognitions as he had not seen them! And he had little on what was below him and he continued downwards wondering if he had enough air to return to the moonbase and if there was somewhere below where he could increase his air supply!
An area of the tunnel had cracked from something! Perhaps from moonquakes? And he stopped to examine the area where part of the metal tunnel had fallen downwards and left the rock behind it visible, and he examined it with interest, and was amazed at it being different from Earth stone. He pondered what people who knew him would think of it and him being on the moon! None of them even knew of the secret moonbase!
Dust fell down and blew upwards and swirled up and through the beams from his light and his shadow and he continued to climb down, edging down to some unknown destination and future, seeking to discover what was below and how to survive.
He realized that he had avoided being killed after all and wondered if he was going to be killed later, especially when he climbed back out and went outside.
He moved down fast, realizing the mistake he could be making and what could be below, and thought of the trouble he could have getting back to the surface and trying to find the moonbase on the dark strange surface.
He examined how the tunnel had been built with some interest, while glimpsing parts of the shaft above, and was surprised again at how long and expensive what was there must be.
He had always wanted to investigate some great mystery and it had even been one of the reasons he had been in the moon vehicle and was exploring the unexplored region! It had helped lead him into becoming a scientist and to go to such far out desolate locations, and he wanted to explore more. He had wanted to explore and discover new things of value and greatness, and perhaps even be remembered!
What interested him the most was why they had gone to such lengths to kill him, and what the tunnel was doing out there!
What treasures could be hidden away in such regions of the moon, with it being so not properly explored?
What was he dealing with though? Why were they trying to kill him? Were they protecting something that they had hidden?
Something of unfathomable unidentifiable nature was there and he could not grasp it no matter how hard he tried! As nothing he knew was good enough to explain it!
As he lowered himself progressively down he started to realize the depth of it and wondered what the hell he was letting himself in for! He had hardly been out of the moonbase, and had been only fulfilling his fantasy of being on the moon and exploring it, and going by what all the other scientists said and what he saw nobody really went outside! There was no real need, and no real work was required there.
Being on other worlds fascinated him and he wondered what mysteries were hidden out there! They had hardly explored any of the moon and they acted like the whole lot had been checked! His arrival there had been incredible as he had watched the space vehicle landing and the moon surface stretching out.
He was fascinated in its interior and wondered if hollow regions existed in its interior, as he was sure the actual gravity being so low would allow it, and he was sure that they had actually mentioned that the moon’s gravity was lower than it should have been and that it had not been properly checked until it had been landed on, and he believed the only thing that could properly account for it was a large hollow region or regions in it!
There was something not right! Something secretively had been built there and he could not realize why, and why it was being covered up, and he considered if it was the Russian scientists there and the people in the vehicle.
He realized the implications of the discovery and if he was trapped there, and wondered what was below. He had to check what was there, no matter what! He could not let it go, and he had to survive and give the information.
The temperature of the warm air rising increased as he got lower and he wondered what could produce it and how much fuel would be wasted generating it, and how little they used at the moonbase, and wondered how much fuel they would have to bring in to supply it! But they would probably use atomic fuel to power it! But why did they need so much?
The tunnel was incredibly and uniquely drilled and fitted with a metal pipe and made with incredible precision and he knew it had to belong something advanced. What he could not work out was what could be built out there!
He realized again that Moonbase X1 might use underground volcanic activity for a power supply, and heat and air supply, which would explain the vast amounts of warm air below him.
He had not been able to properly explore the moonbase and lower regions because much of it needed a higher confidential clearance, and he had only a lower confidential clearance!
If there was underground volcanic activity there it was an ultimate idea for permanently living there! It would supply everything that they needed! In fact all they needed was water to do that anyway!
He gripped the metal ladder hard and rested and fixed his boot and looked up to the top of the tunnel and saw darkness there now, and looked and listened to what was there, and wondered what would happen if he was caught there.
He considered taking off his spacesuit so he could climb down better, but he would then have to carry it down, and he considered throwing it down the tunnel in a large ball and getting it at the bottom but he could not risk damaging it or allowing it to give him away until he found who or what was there.
A silent thud echoed up from below and eventually he looked down trying to grasp something, and considered putting his light out, but he saw that it was a freak air gust moving something below and tried to guess the distance to where if had come.
When the bottom appeared he stopped and stared in wonder and considered what was in the deep blackness, and considered the incredible trouble he would have climbing out.
He was mainly confused at what would be there and wondered how long his light would last! Its radiance was about the same and he realized how tired his legs had become, with climbing down and running from being killed above!
What would the outcome of it be? Would he even find anything? What could be there? It could have belonged to earlier scientists, checking for something? The moonbase was old and a great deal of research had originally been done on the moon there!
Hazy echoes off his deep breathing broke the extraordinary silence and he examined below as he shifted downwards, and he started to find the warm air getting warmer and he frequently stopped to gasp for air, while dangling about with hideous expectations of plunging into danger!
A distant upper rumble of something blowing air out became hearable and he realized how dangerous the place might become if he met anyone below, and he was left confused!
When he reached the bottom he was too busy focusing on getting there fast to see anything other than the metal floor, and he only looked around when he had got off the metal ladder!
All around him metal tunnels were moving air about, as part of an air system for some sort of underground moonbase and he heard something nearby powerfully blowing out air in one of the tunnels, and he wondered if the ventilation system of Moonbase X1 was the same!
He started crawling along the tunnel, where he had heard something nearby powerfully blowing out air, and he came to a ventilation opening where he saw a room through and he looked for people but never saw anyone or anything!
He continued searching the tunnel and eventually came to an immense place where the air was being produced from a water supply and he realized that they
had an underground water supply after all, and boiling water from underground volcanic activity.
He realized that they could be heating ice below and extracting the hot water! But he was sure hot magma was heating the water and they were pumping it out, and he realized why they might have chosen there for a moonbase.
He moved along and entered another tunnel and came to a very large ventilation opening supplying an immense dim structure that he was sure had something, and after seeing that there was nobody about and that it looked like they had not been there for a long time he decided investigate it and carefully removed the cover and climbed out.
In the dim light he saw an immense hall and finally saw a large artificial black object resting in the center, which vanished in the distance, into darkness, and he gasped and examined what he could properly see, and tried to see the roof a hundred feet overhead, and it going higher further in, and he gasped again and wondered what hell he was looking at!
How had they managed to get such a large object and large expensive equipment onto the moon and down to the structure?
They had to have another way into the chamber to bring it in and he realized that he could get out there more easily!
He explored and discovered immense amounts of highly advanced equipment and he examined controls and realized how new most of it was, and he traced cables from it to more equipment and massive lights!
It all seemed centered around and monitoring the immense strange black object at the center of it all. He activated lights and when they brightened the place he was staggered and nearly fell!
The cavity was immense and went into darkness in the distance, but what really staggered him was the immensity of the black object at its center and that it resembled an immense black submarine and he was sure it was a weapon! It was strange as it had no openings and was solid! Yet he believed it was some form of spacecraft or space weapon!
He was staggered and exhausted and could not fully understand what it was as there was not enough proof! They surely could not have put it there? They had to have vast amounts of men and vehicles to build it!
The Black Hole Accelerator (Part I) Page 2