“Come on Phil that’s a chance we ‘ave to take, granted you could be right.”
“Right let’s put us device into its casing, so as no accidents can ‘appen.”
“Good idea Phil, I got it over ‘ere somewhere, ah ‘ere it is.” Gavin slides the circuit board and other components into place then sets about screwing them in. He puts the top on, then removes it again as he has noticed that the display and keyboard have slipped.”
“Don’t forget us batteries!”
“Give us a chance mate, I’m still fiddling about with the top, blast! Darned fing moved again.”
“Good job you’ve got patience for those fiddly bits.”
“Why don’t you make us a cuppa Phil, I could do with one.”
“Ey ‘appen as how I will, I’m spitting feathers me sen.”
~~0~~0~~0~~
The ride has been rather uncomfortable; I just wish this place had roads rather than bumpy sandy soil. I have lost count of the number of times I have nearly fallen off of this machine.
Our goal has been clearly in sight for some time, an odd shaped craft, that looks more like a castle that has fallen on bad times and is sinking into the sandy soil. There are several pointed turret like structures pointing towards the sky at differing heights, but all at the same, roughly 45 degree angle. There are several appendages sticking out of the turret like structures, globe like, but at differing positions and different sizes. As we get closer, I can see that several of the globes have what look like port holes in them, some with faint flickering lights coming from within.
As we get ever nearer, the vastness of the craft, becomes more evident, which raises my fears, ever more that the Alien is not alone. Perhaps our machines had not searched the craft, but had merely retrieved the one Alien, which they had found outside the craft.
I can now make out, what look like small dark protrusions sticking out of some of the spheres, they remind me of the gun turrets of world war two bombers.
For a moment I thought I had caught sight of one of the globes and it’s protrusion moving, as if it were tracking us. But when I look more closely, I am not sure now, all looks peaceful and still.
There are faint sing song noises, like equipment communicating its status, or like radios carrying some sort of random barely understandable chatter.
Silence again.
We are close enough now, to see that the craft is quite damaged. What is more, the bottom segment is buried in the sand and the whole craft is at an angle. At the base of one of the turrets there is quite a high hill of sand and at its peak, I can see a gaping dark hole in the wall. The hole is quite regular though, like a door opening. I am glad that the machine I am riding on, is heading straight for the hill and the opening. Presumably it too, has seen this opportunity to enter the craft and to explore it.
We hit some rough ground and my attention is turned back to hanging onto the machine that I am riding. I come quite close at times to falling off. I am really relieved as the machine comes to a halt. Although its announcement is not so welcome. “I can not go weiter Ihren Schutz zu gewährleisten.”
I climb down and reply, “Sorry I do not understand exactly what you are saying, but I gather this is as far as you can go. Thank you for bringing me here.”
I set about climbing the sandy hill. Heading towards the opening, which I can now see is a doorway. It is very dark beyond the opening. I wish I had brought some form of weapon with me now, I feel really vulnerable. Nervously I look above me at the dome like protrusions, in-case there is any sign of life or activity. It takes me quite a while to scan all in sight.
So far so good, all I have spotted are the familiar tracks of Rachel’s and the alien’s foot prints. If footprints you can call the alien’s tracks. At least I am assured that they have come here.
This sandy hill is quite steep and exhausting. I can quite understand now why my machine had given up, it obviously estimated well the effort required and risks of tipping over. Apart from the fact that I have to get Rachel back, feeling as exhausted as I am I would be tempted to either take a long rest or give up, but instead onwards and frustratingly slowly I continue to rise.
~~0~~0~~0~~
Phil, quite distraught now says, “What the ‘ell! Five bloody hours now, we’ve been tryin’! I reckon you was right about them not turning on us communicator, or the thing didn’t make it to t’other side.”
Gavin asks, “How long now ‘til the new power supply arrives?”
“Who knows for sure? Probably another 23 or 24 hours. I just hope nowt un-towards has ‘appened to ‘em. As they are on their own still for another day, poor beggers!”
“I know what you mean Phil, it makes you want to scream.”
“Let’s just leave us communicator on, we got plenty of batteries, you never know they might be ‘aving such an interesting time that they just haven’t got back as yet. At least this way, if they want to get in-touch, provided this thing works, we’ll be listening when they do give us a call.”
“OK Phil, mind if I take a nap for a bit, we can take it in turns to listen out for them?”
“Eye Gavin that’s OK wid me. I couldn’t sleep right now anyway.”
~~0~~0~~0~~
The entrance as dark now that I can peer directly into it, as it appeared from the bottom of the hill. I have a strong feeling of foreboding, do I enter running the risk that whoever or whatever is waiting inside has a better view of me that I of it, or do I wait longer, hoping that my eyes become even more adapted to the pitch black beyond the entrance?
I have stood here for what seems like an eternity already, listening, hoping to catch the least hint of any sounds of movement or breathing, but nothing, apart from the occasional “sing song” activity that I could hear earlier.
Bravely, but carefully, I step forward, committing myself to the action of entering this craft. My heart racing, my breathing unsteady, ready to dive back through the entrance any moment, should the need arise.
I advance ever forward, cautiously going deeper into this craft, head scanning from side to side, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything. All that greets my eyes is the uninterrupted black. No relief at all, ears straining to hear any noise except my softly placed footsteps and the gentle scrunching of sand as it falls from my shoes and joins the previously deposited samples of sand brought in by Rachel and the alien.
My arms flail around in front of me as I feel around for any potential hazards. I just cannot believe how dark and black it is in this place. Normally you would expect there to penetration of some light from outside, but here nothing, as if I had entered a light vacuum.
Slowly I advance, getting ever further away from the entrance.
I leap out of my skin when I hear the echoy voice command me to “Turn left there is a wall in front of you.”
I turn and look back at the doorway where I estimated that the voice was coming from and there, silhouetted against the opening is my machine, it had made the climb after all!
~~0~~0~~0~~
Chapter 18 – It feels like progress
It feels like we are deep into this craft now, having emerged from the chamber of black, my machine had found the doorway and activated its opening mechanism, the next room was flooded with light, panels and panels of displays all back lit and actively displaying some form of information, but the symbols and graphs meant absolutely nothing to either me or my machine. We have travelled along many a corridor and through various rooms, with similar displays to the first collection that we had found. We had not dared to touch anything, for fear that either we may do ourselves some damage or further alert whoever is in this craft that we are here.
Apart from the displays and the occasional “sign song” activity, there are no signs of life.
We have long lost the trail of Rachel’s and the Alien’s movements and are simply relying on luck now, hoping that we will stumble upon them. There are so many doors leading to cham
bers and corridors that it feels like it would take a very long time to carry out a methodical search. I am just hoping that they have gone to the top of this craft and that soon I stumble across some means of rising to the upper levels, but thus far no such luck.
Suddenly as the door ahead of us opens, we see something on the floor, it is biological not machine like. The staring eyes, immediately put me into a state of unease. I stop, but my machine continues to advance, heading straight for the doorway, it has no fear.
I observe the eyes closely, trying to discern whether they are tracking us. It is difficult to tell at first the stare is so alarming. My eyes drift slowly beyond the eyes that are staring back at me, the head has the grey green but wrinkled skin, there is no nose that I can discern and the mouth small, round forming the ‘o’ of surprise or pain. The rest of the creature is behind some sort of column. There is an arm outstretched the three fingers pointing towards me as if appealing or reaching out for help.
Having ascertained that the eyes are not moving I cautiously walk towards it, catching up with my machine. The machine comments, “There are no lebenszeichen, this iol is dead.”
As we round the column, the horrific nature of this poor creature’s demise is obvious, there are no signs of the lower parts of the creature, instead a lake of dark green, that at some time would have been a fluid but is clearly all dried up now. Where the lower part of the creature would have been, there is a mass of contorted metal, where the wall beside the creature had been ripped through and had caused the creatures injuries.
Despite this being an alien, I just hope that its death had been quick. I know from its face that it was not painless but I can at least hope it was not prolonged.
My machine seems more fascinated than me to linger and take in more detail of the injuries incurred. I am keen now to move on in pursuit of the living. I head towards the next exit, forgetting that I need my machine to open it.
I wait patiently not daring to look back at the horrific scene. The thought of the staring eyes is enough for me, without dwelling further on the detail of the injuries.
~~0~~0~~0~~
Phil picks up the communicator and turns up the volume, he strains to hear the faint sing song sounds that are being emitted from it. Struggling really hard to try and make some sort of sense out of what he is hearing. He dashes over to his laptop and sets it to record the sounds being emitted. Whilst initially appearing to be quite random, Phil notices small patterns in the traces appearing on the screen. Could this be some sort of music broadcast coming from the city that the team had gone to explore? Whilst it has some musical qualities about it, there is something underlying that Phil’s intuition tells him that it is not music, more like a communication.
After a few minutes the sound breaks off as quickly and mysteriously as it had begun.
Phil sets about hurriedly carrying out further analysis of the sounds he has recorded.
Finally something to do, something to keep him busy.
~~0~~0~~0~~
An opening in the wall, which when I cautiously glance down into it appears to be tube like, leading both down and up. On the wall there are two squares, vertically aligned with each other, each having a symbol etched into it, they appear to be buttons, possibly this is some form of lift. At last a means of getting to the upper floors.
I cautiously stab at the upper square and immediately hear a faint sound. I slowly push one hand into the opening and I can feel my hand being pushed upwards. I turn and address my machine, “This looks like it is a lift that can take us up to the higher levels.”
“Sorry I do not understand.”
I carry out a mime of someone being raised on a platform and walking off of it at a higher height.
My machine responds, “I understand, lift.”
I launch myself into the tube and just hope that I will not end up smashed against the roof. I scan the tube’s interior, but can see no sign of any buttons to enable me to select the level that I want to stop at. I am thinking now that I may have been foolish in attempting this without some experimentation first.
When I reach the next opening, I feel myself drift to a stop. I look up and can see that there are several openings above me. So I reach out of the gap and stab the upper square and feel myself rising again.
I look down and I can see that my machine is likewise rising below me.
I continue the reaching through the gaps and stabbing the upper square, until I reach the uppermost floor. I am convinced that this is where the Alien would have brought Rachel.
As I rise up the top level, I cautiously scan the area in front of me, watching for any activity, as I had done on all the floors below, but even this one seems devoid of any activity.
Soon the machine and I are re-united. I am surprised that it makes no comment about the journey or my reason for wanting to come up here, instead it seems quite content to follow my lead.
We are in a corridor that heads off to left and right. I pause momentarily, then head off to the left. The machine then says, “The iols are this weise.”
“OK.” I turn and follow the machine at the same time wonder how it has suddenly acquired the ability to detect biological species through walls. It is then that I notice the dark green stain on the wall ahead of us.
The sound sudden and ear shattering, the vibration and shaking quickly follows.
What the hell?
It feels like all hell is let loose!
No way to tell where the noise is coming from or come to that what it is.
The thought hits me like a rock, ‘This bloody thing is taking off, but how? It is buried and so damaged, if we actually make it out to space all the air is likely to be sucked out of the craft and if it does not explode beforehand we will suffocate.’
Then the thought beyond all others hits me even harder ‘Rachel!’
~~0~~0~~0~~
Chapter 19 – All is lost
The roar, the floor and wall shaking continues relentlessly. I am unable to concentrate, let alone move. Yet I have this overwhelming feeling that I must do something, but in doing something will I put myself at greater risk?
I force myself to progress on down the corridor. Maybe, just maybe, I can stop this insanity.
The roaring sound grows in intensity as does the shaking. I press on.
Then I am aware that the pitch of the sound and ferocity of the shaking are changing, dulling down somewhat now. What does this indicate? Is the base of this craft, so deeply buried that the engines cannot overcome the anchoring effect? I hope on hope that this is the case.
Then, the awful truth, hits me like a large rock! It isn’t the whole craft that is taking off, but merely a part of it!
My thoughts of wishing failure, quickly swing to hopes of success, the last thing I want for Rachel is her death, caused by explosion or a crash of the escaping craft.
The despair of the situation strikes me, if Rachel survives this, what will she be going to?
I push on, hoping that I can find the place where the craft has launched from, maybe there is another.
As I round the corner, I can see a door with a window, it has black and brown streaks running diagonally across it. The walls and floor, just mildly shaking now, I am able to dart across to the window and can see the flames high above us now, not a hint of the shape or size of the craft that they are coming from, as the angle is too steep and it is too high.
I stand there helplessly watching, hoping.
~~0~~0~~0~~
Phil asks Gavin, “What does thee think, ambient noise, or coming from planet?”
Gavin is silent for a bit, then replies, “Sorry Phil, but who knows, this technology is unproven, we could be picking up the signals from anywhere, they may even be some form of harmonics caused by the tunnel itself, or come to that the circuitry that generates the tunnel. It does seem though to have some sort of ‘intelligence’ within the patterns, but we can’t afford to get carried away
with such theories. The one thing we can say for sure, these are not signals generated by our team, we would probably be best focussing in on that fact rather than making wild guesses.”
“Ey, you’re right there Gavin, it were an interesting diversion while it lasted though. Hey thought just come to us, could be an alien vending machine placing order for replacement stocks.”
They both laugh at the irony of the situation, if it were true.
~~0~~0~~0~~
Two hours and it has been a fruitless search, not another escape craft in sight.
At the lower levels we found some more dead aliens, luckily, nothing as shocking as the first that we had come across.
I have given up the search for another escape craft. I marvel at how faithfully my machine has followed me, not questioning my decisions or motives, but just blindly following me.
Our search now, is focused on finding our way out of here.
Corridor after corridor, chamber after chamber, each chamber being subtly different from the last, but none-the-less another that stands in our path.
Then suddenly I recognise the latest that we have entered and sure enough the exit on the other side leads to that dark, oh so dark room. I cannot see but merely feel my way through it.
Then shock as my hands touch something slightly warm, wrinkly, like soft leather. My hand springs back and I feel my whole body recoil. I wait in the silence, listening, prepared to run if needs be.
Again I jump, as my machine announces, “The iol will not harm, it is dead.”
My fingers feel sticky and as I emerge back into the light, I am shocked to find my hand covered in dark green fluid.
I ask my machine, “This iol was not here when we arrived here was it?”
The machine simply replies, “I did not see it.”
I am glad now to emerge fully from the craft, I bend down and wipe the fluid off my hands in the sand, the gritty feeling is not nice, but preferable to having the alien blood on my hand. I now wipe the final remnants off on the seat of my trousers.
As I glance around I suddenly spot footprints heading back towards the city. My heart skips a beat.
Rachel!
~~0~~0~~0~~