The Alien Artifact 8 (7 page)

Still nothing about it made
sense
–
and
neither did anything else there
–
it was obvious it could have attacked all of
them.

From the looks that he caught from the police
he knew that the incident had affected them! The police were now
aggressive! And he was sure that they had not found any other
clues.

His killer, whatever it was, had to be
ruthless and carefree to have done it in the way that it had been
done it.

He wondered if
something was on the southern pole that did not need proper
supplies of oxygen, and had been there from when Mars had an
atmosphere and water, and had adapted to survive in the harsh
climate!

Fish survived
with barely any oxygen in water, and lived off miniature life
forms, he wondered if it had tried what they had been like as a
food supply, and he wondered if it liked it!

Yet that was
fantasy, and they had not found anything like it, and why had they
not found anything like it and what would it have normally have
consumed? Yet was a big planet and they had hardly explored the
surface and there was water and life forms that froze and dried out
and returned to life, including plants ...

He and Orwell marched along a corridor to the
library, for their regular visit and they occasionally looked into
rooms with their doors open, as it interested them what people were
like there.

“
It’s also incredible,” Orwell
muttered, “that most of the people that investigated the body
thought it was some form of animal!”

They then entered the library, and he asked
Cronenberg, “Have you found anything else?”

“
I found a photo of a newspaper article
of Anders, found in his apartment, about a scientist that found
something, which I’m sure was the diamonds … I’ve been trying to
trace information about him and what he was doing.”

Chapter 11

The Deaths

It was almost a week later when he saw Orwell
again and he thought he had lost interest and was glad to see him
and was surprised that he had been searching elsewhere in his spare
time, and had arrived with some news.

Cronenberg
search in the library had just about become exhausted when he saw
him enter the outer library, marching over to him, and he studied
him trying to see what he was up to.

“
What you got?” he swiftly
asked.

“
There’s been another death!” Orwell
replied, making
Cronenberg
gasp.

“
What happened?”

“
The person was found in the same
condition as Campbell! Large regions of the body were eaten! And
they’ve found Campbell was definitely eaten in the same
way.”

Cronenberg was confused, and wondered what
was going on about, as the day earlier he had found declassified
material in the library showing similar attacks and deaths at the
base and that they had covered it up.

“
I’ve also found stuff on deaths here!”
he replied, and flicked through a pile of documents he had at the
end of the table, and handed him over two documents about it, which
were of deaths occurring there over a decade, five years from
then.

Orwell searched through it in surprise, and
stood confused, staring a section of one document.

“
In one case they were unable to find
out if it was an animal or human!” he finally replied, and put the
document down.

“
We could have been followed there, by
someone?”

“
Or there are things of Mars that kill?
They might have been covered up? They might not have declassified
the stuff!”

Cronenberg nodded his head, and agreed it
could be the answer and he wondered why they had not been warned by
some means about there be a possibility of them being there, and he
gasped when he realized that they could enter the base.

“
Found anything new about the diamonds
then?” Orwell finally asked, after a few minutes of stunned
silence, with Cronenberg realizing he could have been the
one.

“
Yes!” he replied, firmly, searching
through another pile of documents, and pulling documents
out.

“
What you go there?”

“
I found stuff on the scientist that
found the diamonds! It seems he was working with a new satellite,
at the time, that could magnify into areas of the Earth and Mars
far greater and clearer than before, and he was the first to use it
on Mars! I think he found the diamonds with it!”

“
From up in orbit! I never knew that
could be done!”

“
I reckon he knew where to look for
diamonds and that he discovered them!”

“
So if we managed to get the use of it
we could explore the area where the shuttle went down for them
…”

“
Or where the diamonds may be under the
ground …”

“
I’ve not heard of any diamonds being
found on Mars yet!”

“
Exactly! And their value would be
great!”

Chapter 12

The Satellite

Cronenberg could not believe the length
Orwell went to find and get the use of the satellite, and he was
sure they were now being watched by security agents, and was sure
the satellite was still highly classified, even after decades, and
perhaps vastly improved and used for some military purposes.

He was sure that he only gained use of it for
them to get what he was up to, and he realized why they had started
watching Anders, and he had also highly illegally taken an
expensive classified space vehicle.

Orwell had updated himself on where to look
for diamonds, and techniques used to locate them, and he searched
the region where the shuttle had gone down.

Cronenberg was invited to join them and
welcomed it and he became sure they had little on them other than
they were trying to use the satellite for a project, and if they
found the diamonds, they were an interest to science and their
missions there anyhow.

They used it to search everywhere they could
on and around the hill, searching there in such incredible detail
that he was sure he would never think he was not being watched
outside again. It was incredible and he managed to examine where
the shuttle had come down, and the massive amount of footstep and
vehicles marks left there, and where the shuttle had been and had
been repaired and taken away, and he studied where Anders had been,
and the remains of the rocket, which had been dug up and examined,
with its interior searched.

He realized it was the ultimate way of
searching for it, as he could search everything there, hill by
hill, but realized that where the diamonds had been may now be
buried deep beneath the sand, but the area looked unchanged to him,
and the sand was not as deep as it seemed, and he proved that they
could not be properly hidden away.

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!