The Alien Artifact 8 (6 page)

“
You’re correct! What’s the connection
though? Why do you think he was there, anyway?”

Cronenberg just shrugged back.

The furniture
about him held his attention, and amused him, and was clearly used
to make it look like an original Earth library, to give it
authenticity, like many of the rooms and objects about the station,
to give it the look of a normal place, as the astronauts had to
live there for a long time, and stay indoors, without seeing a
normal world.

The vast size
of Base One was incredible now, and had been slowly built up over
decades, with many countries helping build sections, and them
wanting to increase the inhabitants on Mars, and explorations there
and in space. It was as though they were on the Earth most of the
time, even after being there for years! The military and police had
recently been increased to compensate for increases in the
inhabitants!

It was now like
a small town, in a strange place, and Cronenberg kept realizing how
little he knew of the inhabitants, as many he had never seen, and
many left and many were new there, and he realized how little of it
he had actually seen.

He still
regularly returned to the Earth and visited places like where he
had been born and the people he knew back there!

The library now
had the look of an ancient study, and he started examining
bookshelves, and he even wondered if the books were mostly all too
old.

The furniture
there grasped his attention as it looked expensive, and he realized
that they had lowered the production costs and amount of materials
used in the furniture about the base, and he was surprised at the
quality of it and how far they had lowered the quality and he
realized the seats and other furniture there were also far more
comfortable and usable. It gave the whole room an atmosphere that
was not elsewhere and he considered trying to use it in his
apartment at the base and considered where he could get it and if
it was still available there.

He soon started
examining bookshelves searching for anything on Anders, astronauts,
things of that era he was in, and he and Orwell worked away for
hours searching, and started speeding their search up and he soon
realized that there was nothing there, and he slowly grew depressed
and started trying to consider other methods of getting what he
wanted.

It was then he
spotted a closed door at a hidden part of the library, which had
ignored as it had looked like another entrance into the outer
corridors or just a locked storeroom.

On his close
approach he realized it was something else and grabbed at its stiff
brass handle, and felt it had been that way for a long time, and he
realized how long the place had gone unused and how aged it was,
and he gave the door a hard jerk to make it budge, and it creaked
open, and a black switch became faintly visible on an interior
white wall and he activated the lights, which flickered and grew
bright.

It took a few
seconds for the sight before him to sink in, and he stood steady,
glaring at shelves of books there, covering its walls, realizing
that they were far more different and what he was looking for.

It was clear it
was a small room of information about Mars and its history, and
detailed information that was not available elsewhere and on the
computers, and he found official documents about the base and
bases, findings about Mars, explorations, and astronauts, and he
started searching for information about Anders and Orwell joined
him, and he was surprised at how interested in it Orwell became
after reading it.

They started to
realize most of the stuff had been classified stuff that they would
not have been allowed to read, due to their low classified status,
as their line of work never warranted it, and the stuff had
declassified stamped on most of it and that the rest had been
declassified without stamps, and they sat for hours at a table
there examining the fascinating stuff they never knew existed and
had occurred.

They were even
to astonished at some of it to mention it to each other, and they
realized the mistake they had made in leaving the material there
for anyone to read, as they clearly had not fully read through it
all, and it mentioned things that were still classified, and about
their introduction, with them only missing out things of what their
current state was, and some of it gave away stuff that had been
highly illegal and deadly, of a military nature, which they surely
had been breaking laws creating, and it gave away the nature of
their current classified material.

He searched for
anything at the region that they had crashed at and anything they
worked on or had found that could have caused what had happened,
and of what Anders had been doing there, as he suspected he had
been doing something there.

He even
thought, after reading one paper on some military research, that
they had created something there!

He jolted when
Orwell called out that he had found something and he dropped what
he had and rushed over!

If an answer to what existed actually existed
he knew that it could well be there! Even though most of it seemed
to be only outdated.

What he found was about Anders and his
disappearance and he collected all the material he could find on it
to read afterwards, and they searched everything that they could,
and
he scribbled down
notes about what he found, and added any interesting facts that he
noticed, and he grew determined to do something and carry out his
mission. If he could find out more about Anders, and what subjects
he had been interested in and had been doing, and doing there, he
might be able to discover what he had been like and what he had
been doing when they crashed.

He started to
consider that they might have something over there, at the southern
pole, and that it was still highly classified, and that they might
find suggestions of something from before it was created, and
perhaps what had led to its introduction.

Chapter 9

The Lost
Treasure

Cronenberg reluctantly dragged himself away
from all the files he was studying, which he had been going through
for many hours, for over a week, and he watched Orwell march in the
library, for the first time in days.

Orwell was still fascinated at why he was so
obsessed with searching the information, and only seemed to turn up
occasionally answer it, and seemed be trying to answer other
unanswered questions, and he believed that he wished to know what
had nearly killed them and took control of the shuttle, and why,
and perhaps why they survived. What had the whole episode been
about? Nothing seemed to add up!

“
Come over here ...!
”
he called out to Orwell,
and Cronenberg moved over to the end of the table and removed a
pile of files, and returned to where he was and dumped
there.

“
What are they of?”

“
I’ve put together everything with the
information I want on the table, and all the files about Anders and
things associated with him and that site, and I’m going through it
all searching for the slightest clues …”

“
What’s the point? You’ve searched
through the main stuff though!”

Cronenberg had realized that he would have to
let someone else in on what he was doing, as he could not do
everything himself, and was sure that he could answer stuff he
could not, and he had checked him out everywhere, and he knew him
more than anyone else there.

A glance into the main library showed it was
empty, and he listened to the deep silence, and he listened into
the deepest depths of the base, and outer corridor, once again, and
it showed him that there were still only workmen building a new
ceiling in a nearby apartment, replacing an original ceiling, with
modern materials.

The wires from the electrics had rot and webs
over them, and had been easily broken, and were in bits on the
floor, and he had studied the room and people.

He had been surprised that spiders actually
existed at the base years before, and must have been in things
brought to Mars.

“
So what is it?
”
he asked Cronenberg,
sitting at his side.
“
If you find something you’ll have to let it
out eventually!
”

“
I think Anders was looking for
valuable diamonds!”

Orwell gasped and his face showed he was
startled by the final reply, and he sat thinking it over, and then
looked confused, and finally asked, “What makes you think he was
looking for them?”

“
I’ve found various things … I still
have not proven anything though! But I believe that was why he was
there! And it made him the only person in history to steal a rocket
vehicle, with such an expense, right under their noses!”

“
Ah! He stole that vehicle, with
another astronaut …”

“
Who, according to this, they both
managed to cover up where they went, but crashed in the end, and
they even thought he got away with it, which was why they never
searched here for him! They believe he could have been working for
another government and had taken it and its highly advanced
technology for them – as they might have not been able to get hold
of anything on it!”

Cronenberg removed a document that he had
marked and handed it over to him, and he started looking for
another.

Orwell read it swiftly, examining things, and
put it down over the table, thinking about the stuff in it, and
Cronenberg handed part of an old newspaper with part of the story
in it, showing where they believed the vehicle had been taken.

“
What he was after must have been
incredibly valuable?” he silently moaned to himself. “Are you sure
it was diamonds?”

For a moment he never seemed to accept
the space vehicle had been taken
–
not believing such a fact. But the
official documents confirmed what had occurred, and he had not seen
such documents and information being wrong.

“
There is
still a small chance i
t could have been something else
though?
”
he
finally confessed.

Cronenberg just nodded in agreement.

“
Are you saying the diamonds are at
where they crashed?”

“
That’s what I’m searching for! If only
we can find something on it! We need a location!”

Cronenberg never said anything of the map he
had found in Anders pocket, and a mention of diamonds on it, and
though he had not found the location on it he decided to try and
keep it that way, if he could.

“
So you think we should start looking
for it?
”

“
If we find a more accurate
location!
”

Chapter 10

The
Investigation

Cronenberg
could not believe the police investigation into
Campbell’s death! The strange way they had approached it was
unbelievable and surreal! And it left him gasping at what would
happen, as they insisted he was killed, and they believed there
were no animals outside the base.

How could an
animal or anything live there? He and Rosenberg had a hard time
explaining what had happed to them!

There had been
barely a killing in space or there, and the crime was low, and it
was mainly made up of scientists and other professionals working
there.

He was baffled!
What the hell had killed the flight engineer, and how had it made
it into his spacesuit?

There was only
one explanation and it was what had taken them to the destination!
Yet what the hell could be that advanced and that savage? And why
had it only attacked him?

Orwell soon
started asking questions, after he told him of what occurred, and
he wanted his thoughts on it.

His first
question was, “
Who found him dead?
”

“
I
did!”

“
He managed to stay alive until the
morning?”

“
We were with him up until the morning!
And I’m sure nothing happened while we slept …”

“
When was the last response or movement
you saw from him?”

“
It was at night when we went to sleep!
We hardly moved while sleeping in the spacesuits!”

Cronenberg avoided telling him and them about
the ghost astronaut he had seen, as it was not linked to the
incident, and he was now unsure if he had imagined it.

“
How did he die?”

“
He looked as if he had been eaten by
something!
”

If it had been one of the others in the
shuttle, who had followed them there, and how could the person have
done it? They had been in a group!

And it could only have been done while
Rosenberg was away investigating the other side of the hill! He
believed there was something out there, which had to be with what
had taken them there or it was it itself, which he had explained to
the police, and he had told Orwell and he agreed it could have
been, as what had happened to the shuttle was far stranger and
difficult to occur.

He realized that he only needed to explain
what it had been, and he realized it might have taken samples of
Campbell’s body for some reason, and he wondered why.

Had this infernal place a killer alien or
not? Yet why would it want anything from him?