Eventually he returned to finish the last of his research in the library, and searching through the last of the documents.
What was peculiar was he somehow sensed that there was something missed out in the documents! So he was not surprised when he found it, and it was hidden away in the last of the documents, and it was a document about security services watching Anders’s wife and he was sure they believed he intended to meet her at some point, and it never happened, and he found a photographed letter from her to him, which was her last letter to him from the Earth to him on Mars, which mentioned his search for something, which he was sure was the diamonds, and that he intended to return to the Earth for good, and it mentioned the map and Anders’s belief that the scientist, who actually was the astronaut with him, had recorded the location wrongly.
Cronenberg discovered suggestions that the map, which had been made by the scientist, had more information hidden on it, and Anders thought he was up to something!
Chapter 13
The New Mission
For an instant Cronenberg thought he could die a hideous death, and he even considered what it would be like being a ghost trapped out there on the desolate world.
They had to land! Soon! Surely they should not take the risk continuing to fly to their destination at night! The shuttles were still new and the repairs on theirs was only recently completed and they were trying it out for the first time, and testing it for the first time over Mars, and he was sure they had hardly even tested the thing out before they had given them it back!
Loud explosions and flashes had suddenly appeared from somewhere out in the dark Martian night sky, and had sent the whole shuttle shaking about, and he realized it had to be some form of storm, created by the weak Martian atmosphere, and he heard the other astronauts talking about it and announce it was, from the information from their equipment.
The entire crew was the same except for Campbell who was replaced by Deputy Commander James Mitchell as the new head flight engineer, and who incredibly resembled Campbell, and had the same experience and was an astrophysicist/planetary geologist, and was being helped by Rosenberg the other flight engineer, and they were all basically checking the performance of the shuttle and findings the new detection equipment aboard gathered, especially in the unexplored regions they were entering.
He realized the shuttle might not be designed for the storm and it could be far different from Earth storms, and have incredible wind speeds, and he realized the shuttle could go down and again crash on the surface of Mars.
Though he could not imagine the empty atmosphere coming out with a powerful wind, even though a high speed wind could be generated, and he considered what had actually taken them down the last time.
The sky outside, over the space vehicle, was so peculiar and strangely colored that he was sure that it was no longer in the universe, and at the outer limits of the universe, floating outside it somewhere.
The problem with the mission was that they were ordered to stick to the route they were given no matter what, and he realized that if they were confronted by a storm ahead that they would go straight through it.
He recalled the shuttles were now shielded to stop anything, after being taken down at the Antarctica the last time, and they thought it would stop anything taking control of the shuttles, and he thought it might help protect them from the powerful energy disturbances in the outer storm.
He switched on a small powerful light over him, to properly see the booklet he was given with his orders and the mission described on it, and he stared out one of the windows at the surrounding darkness, and into visible stars there, and started properly examining the details in the booklet to see if he was missing anything he should know.
It was the perfect time of the year for the mission, for it to be light enough in the Artic and Antarctica, and the mission was for all twenty shuttles to go to and assemble at the Martian Antarctica, going there at their different sections, and the first sections to leave would cover the current daylight region of the world, would do their first scan, and a practice scan of Mars from the Artic to the Antarctica – as all the shuttles were to scan a section of Mars from the top to the bottom, over many months, and they would all scan an equal amount of Mars, and map it in more detail than had ever been done before, giving people the ability to study anything on the surface of the world back on the Earth, and someday people on the Earth would completely explore the whole of Mars!
They had to properly check all the shuttles were working and giving them the exact information they needed, and satellites would make sure they followed the exact routes and control them.
If successful it could be used to explore many worlds and moons, and in other solar systems, and he wondered if someday they would replace them with computers, and create the ultimate probe voyager that would scan entire worlds.
It was an incredible piece of luck for them as they were getting to scan every square foot of the world and they could use it to find the diamonds there, at whatever location they were at.
He was positive it was located at the southern pole though and he was starting to believe it could be at the pole itself, and Orwell had agreed and they had eagerly joined the new mission.
The world that they were exploring was like it had no sun, and it was like there were billions of light years of space between them and the nearest stars.
Chapter 14
The South Pole
Something startled Cronenberg, when he stepped out the shuttle and stepped onto the south pole, and he struggled to grasp what as he focused on the bright sun, over the Martian horizon at the side of the shuttle, and he gasped as he watched the glowing landscape.
Other shuttles were resting behind the shuttle and he saw that five were still landing, making it all twenty being there.
Something staggered him about the mission and he sensed something was going to occur, and he shivered, and examined the ice around him, and that it was hard and had been there a long time, and he realized how ancient the world was.
He saw the sun edge its way along the horizon, and he realized he could not avoid whatever he was going to encounter! He had to go through with everything! He believed he could survive if he did everything he could and avoided making any deadly mistakes!
The world about them was a flat stretch, with occasional large asteroid dents.
“What a place?” Orwell finally moaned, and tried laughing, and moved close to him, and Cronenberg watched him, wondering what he was talking about.
“There’s something not right about this mission!” Cronenberg confessed, considering if he could give him anything that he might have missed.
He realized it could be just Mars affecting them! It was the new things and hidden dangers there! It was exploring where nobody had been before, and the great deadly environment and mistakes they could make being somewhere with such an environment for so long! The region they were in was the least explored!
It was the legendary Martian Antarctica, and he still sensed there was something strange there! Something he had not encountered before! Something that could only exist in such a place, and in the depths of space, and it gave him chilling and weird sensations, but he could not grasp what, and he wondered if he was destined to die on the remote world.
As the shuttles completely turned silent he watched the rest of the crew rush about observing the whole south pole, and he increasingly felt a presence of something, somewhere, in the chilling distance of the alien world, and it was clear that the five other members of the crew said anything about it.
A silent vibration went through the ground and he expected to hear a sudden explosion sound in the distance, and he knew it was only a tremor, but it gave the world a feeling of being unstable.
All the crew slowly vanished behind the shuttle, over where the main shuttles were, and Orwell walked around its edge to see what was happening, and stood with his mouth open and Cronenberg wondered what it could be and if it was his reaction to nothing, and he
went over to him, and he then stood with his mouth open.
All the astronauts from the shuttles, a hundred astronauts, were standing in a group discussing something and he suddenly realized, from their communications from their spacesuit communicators, that it was a search for the diamonds and he wondered how the hell they had heard of them and started watching Orwell and he realized he had to have been behind it.
But he then knew he had not by his reactions! But he had to have unknowingly done it!
He was surprised when two of the other shuttle commanders looked directly at him and started discussing something, and he gasped and realized his luck was vanishing.
Cronenberg marched in close and observed all their spacesuits standing about a central area, where there was a large meteorite boulder, and he anxiously started listening into their communications.
After a few minutes he showed a glint of humor, followed by some sadness, as he realized that they never had any real information about the diamonds he then realized that they could gain knowledge of what they had.
“Are you saying that you think that there’s treasure here too?” one astronaut that had not properly heard them asked with amusement and astonishment, wondering what they were really talking about.
Everyone listened, and some stopped doing things.
“There’s a page missing from this,” one of the astronauts broke in the conversation with, and Cronenberg watched him with astonishment holding a diary.
“Yes, and I found it,” one of the other shuttle commanders, called Tom Eagle, forced himself to reply, walking out of the crowd of astronauts, and he stood in front of them all, and they formed into a crowd in front of him, and Cronenberg and Orwell rushed over and stood at the side of them.
Eagle took the diary and held in up and took the missing page out of his pocket, and continued, “It was on the bottom of the bookshelf, where it was found!”
Cronenberg wondered what the hell he was talking about as he had not heard anything until then and he knew that they had something, and he could sense something was coming, and Eagle even seemed to warn him of it.
Eagle took the page and spread it out in front of him, and all their eyes seemed to go on it at once, and he muttered, “It refers to a clue that the scientist with Anders gave! It says it is on a map that Anders managed to get from him!”
Chapter 15
The Treasure Hunt
Now Cronenberg entirely apprehended how complicated and messed up things had really become, and that things had gone far further than before, which he had originally not been able to accept, and he started disbelieving what he had thought as fact and what was fantasy.
He did not know if he believed there were diamonds as when he read all his notes and checked documents looking for the mention of a diary by the scientist he found nothing and there was even a suggestion there was none and he started to realize that all the information showed little of if the diamonds existed, as there was barely a proven fact in them, and the scientist could easily have been wrong or up to something else, like many of the documents claimed that they wanted the rocket vehicle.
Commander Eagle seemed to have talked every astronaut there into seeking the treasure, even though most were unsure what they were going to find or were even doing, and most seemed to think he was going to take them for himself at some point.
All the shuttles in their sectors had left as the day went on, carrying out their first scan of Mars, as the sun moved over their sectors of Mars, and Cronenberg had finally left to do his, and had sat confused in his seat, examining facts over and over, and realized that Orwell had to have let out the information about the diamonds and the map out, and he could not fully realize what he had intended to do and if he had even deliberately told them to carry out some elaborate plan, but if he had was he crazy doing it or had he made a mistake in depending on Commander Eagle?
He was surprised when Orwell approached him, when the rest of the crew were occupied, and started apologizing for his mistake, and for what Eagle had done, and Cronenberg realized that he had known the shuttle commander before they had gone to Mars, and he recalled it and that they were both connected to other influential people, and at the base.
“What was your agreement?” he asked, confused at what the situation was.
“Well, he is a distant relative of mine!” he replied, surprising Cronenberg, and he watched his face and saw his resemblance.
Orwell rested against a wall, and looked at him.
“I told him only about there being diamonds and we were searching for them! I figured we would have a better chance of finding it, as for starters we only cover one small sector of the area of Mars being checked.”
“You’re correct there! We will have to search through all the stuff recorded …”
“Exactly!” he swiftly replied. “And if we’re not able to find it on the recorded stuff we’ll not get it! But now all of them are searching with their detection equipment, which can’t be used on the map, and could very well spot something …”
He realized that it was a good point and that they could all together detect something, and their chances of finding them alone were low, and he was sure the method the scientist that originally found them had used to get them with the satellite were unknown.
He thought of how long it would take to map the entire world and rested back into his seat, and he wondered what would happen, and if he had really blown it, giving the information Orwell and to every astronaut there, and he realized that Orwell could have made a mistake and that he should have had them looking for something else, and he realized that it was Eagle that had ruined it and he was sure he never realized what he was doing.
He thought over what he had said and realized that Eagle had only known the diamonds were there, and could be found, but he had found the scientist’s diary, and Cronenberg recalled that there had been other libraries at the base, but small ones and were not for the public, and he recalled what he had said and that the diary said it was on the map and he wondered what information was in the diary and wondered if it gave how the scientist had located the diamonds on the satellite.
Cronenberg had searched the map repeatedly for the clue, after he had read a mention of it on Anders’s wife’s letter and he decided to try to find it later and started searching for information on the scientist and other scientists of that time, on his computer, and how they might have hidden it away.
Chapter 16
The Missing Shuttle
Cronenberg was almost asleep when an urgent communication was received and he partially grasped one of the pilot’s urgent voices and he rapidly realized it was something important and started to comprehend what it was to do with!
“Our mission has been cancelled!” Lyndon, the pilot, called out.
“What?” he moaned.
“For the moment! One of the shuttles has just vanished, and they’re starting to search for it!”
“Whose shuttle?” he called back.
“Wait a minute! I’ll ask! Whose shuttle? It’s Commander Eagle’s shuttle!”
Cronenberg gasped and jumped up and saw all their faces lit up, after Eagle’s name was mentioned, and he watched Orwell slowly move over to him, and he considered what to do.
“Tell them we’ll search for it too!” he announced, and he asked them to go to the location where the shuttle was last seen.
He was amazed when he replied, “They’re at the location we went down at!”
“What at the exact location?” he gasped, considering changing the order, considering them crashing down again.
It was a dangerous mission and he just had to go there and investigate what was happening, and he wondered why the hell Eagle had chosen that route, and he realized that the diamonds could be there and hidden at some place he had not noticed.
“It’s not the exact location!” Lyndon replied, looking over at him, and searching his face. “It’s further south!”
After a few minutes consideri
ng it he noticed he knew something else, and asked, “Is there any other information, and anything unusual you can find?”
He announced, “We’ve detected the shuttle! I cannot discover if it is damaged but there is no communications from it, and no information from anyone aboard! It seems dead!”
“If you detect anything trying to take control of this shuttle turn back! We cannot afford to crash again! We can go there later!”
“They want to explore what’s there – if nothing happens – and check what’s happened!”
Chapter 17
The Second Occurrence
In the distance he spotted the crashed shuttle, and it rapidly expand in size, and Cronenberg saw their crash site over at their side, and watched the hill he had stood on, where Campbell had died, and he sensed something, even though there was no sign of what had brought them down, as well as Eagle’s shuttle.
When they reached Eagle’s shuttle their acceleration automatically decreased and they flew in a circle around the shuttle, and he spotted damage to the shuttle, and signs that a fire had damaged it, and he saw there were no signs of anyone, or anyone leaving it.
It looked as though it had been brought down the same way as them but had sustained more damage, and he asked Lyndon to try to contact them again, and was immediately replied with there was nothing there to contact.
He struggled to grasp what was there and saw that the whole area was just a flat area of ground, similar to a desert region, with the hill he had stood on behind them and another hill at the same distance in the opposite direction, towards the Antarctica, and where Eagle’s shuttle had come form, and he focused on the deformed sun below the window, as it went along just above the horizon, and he gasped when the pilots announced the other shuttles in their group were arriving, in the distance, and he ordered them to land!
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