The Thing: from the Depths of Hell (14 page)

He searched for the light switch while
straining his eyes to see further down to the bottom and thought he
saw something there, but there were no particular features.

When he had turned the dim light on the
tunnel vanished into the darkness at the bottom, and when he
arrived there the light was so faint that he was too busy focusing
on the ice ground to properly see anything, and he only vaguely saw
an immense dark cavity open out!

He hit the ground with a thud and in the
turmoil he slipped over sideways into something heavy!

In the dim light he then saw a large
artificial black object resting in the central region of the
cavity, which went out and vanished in the distance, into darkness,
and he examined what he could properly see, and tried to see the
cavity roof fifty feet above, and it going higher further in, and
he gasped and wondered what hell he was looking at!

He wondered how they had managed to get the
equipment down to build such a structure and if it was safe!

They clearly had another way into the cavity
to bring it in and he realized that he could get out more easily
than he had entered!

He explored over to his side and discovered
equipment and small vehicles and a colossal generator and examined
the controls and realized how new it was, and he traced cables from
it to more equipment and massive lights!

He activated the generator and it swiftly
started, and when the lights brightened he gasped, slipped, and
collapsed onto the slippery icy ground!

The cavity was immense and went into the
distance, but what really staggered him was the black object at its
center! It was immense and bigger than any manmade object that he
had seen! It was circular and he estimated it went out for at least
quarter of a mile in every direction!

He was staggered and exhausted and could not
understand any of it! They surely could not have put it there? The
construction of it there would have taken vast resources! They
would have had to have vast amounts of men and vehicles being
brought in!

How could anyone have been able to hide and
carry out such an operation without being noticed?

Even if they had worked on it at night
lights and sounds would be visible, and vehicles and airplanes
taking in supplies would have left signs of activity
everywhere.

The ice cavity above and around him also
looked like the ice in the tunnel and as though it was different
from regular ice! It seemed to him to have been formed from water
that had melted and had been frozen quickly afterwards!

He realized that it could have been built
when the large ice station had been constructed and that it could
well have been a hidden part of it! Whatever it was it had to have
been even more secretive than it!

What the hell was it? It staggered him when
he thought of the nature of the ice station! The place had been
built for atomic warfare!

Could it be an ultimate atomic weapon and
doomsday device?

He realized the danger that he was in and he
had to get out, and realized he would have to leave the ice
station! It was far too dangerous and he considered if he should
have it investigated!

While he started wandering up to the deadly
black object he wondered how the thing could even lift off! The
power behind it had to be colossal and new and highly
confidential!

He quickly returned to where he had been and
did his best to remove all signs that he had been there. Except the
rope was still attached at the top of the tunnel and he had to
ignore it and left! He would have to go into hiding for a month or
two and hope that it might be forgotten!

He soon found a vehicle and sat in it and
got ready to drive away. He was staggered at his original thoughts
of what was there! It did not add up! What the hell was it doing
there?

He barely even grasped why the ice station
was situated there! The Antarctic was not near anything! Surely
America had enough land and hidden places where it could be hidden
away? It was located away out there where anything could
happen!

He shifted the vehicle away slowly getting
use to using it while examining the black object and its immense
shape, but never saw anything on or in it, or marks of anything,
which would had shown that it had been welded or parts had been
somehow fitted together!

When he stopped to feel its surface he was
surprised that it was not a type of metal and was some new unknown
substance.

There had to be a way into it or something,
and he raced along its side gasping at the immensity of it. Now
amazed that there had been only two gunmen looking after it! How
could it have been so hidden away?

The structure was circular and flat at the
top and bottom, and he when he reached the furthest region he
realized that it was a least quarter of a mile long all around it,
and he was staggered!

Eventually he found an opening tunnel in the
ice cavity where large vehicles had entered and left, and he
followed a road slightly going upwards to the surface and
discovered a vast metal door further up, and he failed to discover
a way of opening the lock, and he realized that he was trapped in
the cavity!

Once at the bottom again he continued going
around the black object searching for anything strange, and slowly
started falling asleep, still trying to find a solution to finding
a way out and what he had discovered, and finally he allowed the
vehicle to come to a standstill against a slightly different
flattish region of the black object, which looked like the front of
it, where he went to sleep and had strange dreams!

When he awoke a few hours later he had a
throbbing head from the cold and he was dazed from his dreams, and
he jumped out the vehicle and spotted and stared over at a hole in
the black object, wondering where it came from!

It confused him and he even wondered if he
was imagining it being there and that it was something else!

Where had it come from? He searched around
looking to see if anyone had been there or was about!

How recently had the opening in it
formed?

He tried to recall if there had been any
marks on it or anything there, and again he wondered how long ago
it had appeared? Were there people inside? And how dangerous was it
being there?

He moved directly below it and listened into
it. It was only a few feet above his head and was a perfect circle
at the same size as his height!

It still confused him greatly as he did not
have a clue what he was dealing with and he realized that he had to
investigate it as he would not forgive himself for letting go a
chance of explaining it or getting some information! He was a keen
scientist and had also investigated everything of the slightest
interest.

He shifted the vehicle correctly below it
and stood on the highest part of the vehicle and hoisted himself up
into it, fascinated at the dangers and the impact of such a
discovery! He had been waiting his entire life to see something
like it! Even though the dangers were tremendous!

Light dimly beamed through the hole only
lighting a small empty area and he looked about and moved into the
darkness further in, where dim black shapes became vaguely
visible.

He could not recognize if it was a room or
large hall and he strolled slowly and blindly into it, wearily
resting, and got ready to escape if he heard or seen anyone and
stayed observing what the black shapes were, while he let his eyes
adapt to the darkness.

He was sure what was confusing him and
stopping him grasping small details was what the whole object
actually was! The material it was made of was clearly unknown and
capable of withstanding tremendous forces, and nothing was familiar
to him, which he had not done in a long time and in such a way!

He felt strangely shaped black things
about his front in the blackness, and smelled a musty synthetic
scent in the air.
His eye pupils slightly adjusted, to
the blackness, and he stared at places covered in lines and
curves.

H
e moaned thinking his tiredness and
disappointment at not receiving any answers to what was going on!
Surely it was something? They gunmen were willing to kill for it!
The size and cost was tremendous, as well as their bringing in such
equipment and building such an immense structure there!

It startled him and he could not grasp the
purpose of such a thing! A curved part of a wall had shapes on it
and he tried touching them and seeing if they did anything, but
there was no response.

He moved further along to another area and
observed a dark shape and had a feeling of something being there,
like he was being watched!

Something lifted him and he gasped, and it
shifted him away, with nothing visible holding him, and he felt
some force moving him away into the interior of the black object,
and he realized slowly that it could kill him easily!

He tried to theorize about it but there was
nothing he could grasp! All he saw was strange dark shapes!

Was it of military origins? It could be to
camouflage the technology and confuse any observers? Whatever it
was the cost and time behind it proved that it could take warfare
to a new level!

Blackness covered his vision and he felt a
strange sensation like he was floating through space, and something
opened at his front like an energy curtain, and he felt as though
he had entered something strange!

A strange blue radiance shone out so dimly
that he could not properly see what was there. It shone like a
faint blue star.

It swiftly shifted away and his emotions ran
amok when he started seeing spectacular views of space, and he
could no longer feel any floor beneath his feet or see any of the
black shapes.

An eerie sensation gripped him! Something
was not right! He sensed a weird presence of something, which he
never recognized!

Nothing but space formed around him in
stages as though he were standing out in deep space, and he stood
staggered trying get how it was implanted within his mind, and he
watched a sphere of light floating through the darkness and passed
him, and he realized that it had to be telepathically transmitted
into his mind, covering his entire sight with vivid visions.

Strange displays of visions and sounds
altered and vanished about him, and they reformed into other
things, and visions of space appeared and vanished like something
was searching through memories for something, and he was sure
something was trying to adapt it to him, so that he could
understand it. Some of the strange sounds and lights gave him
artificial sensations, which he could not grasp the nature of!

He was sure he was picking up knowledge of
things but he could not understand what they were, and he then
watched infinitely streaking stars, of solar systems, flickering
by.

Suddenly he realized the black object he was
in was a voyager spacecraft, which had a new form of propulsion,
with mind-boggling technology and powers, and an accuracy and
capacity inconceivable, and was built to travel into deep space,
and he watched its voyage across star quadrants and through
clusters of stars, exploring vast unexplored stars.

He wondered
what it had been designed to do! Had they built it to make contact
with something that they had detected? Perhaps the radio signals
from it had been detected?

He wondered if
it was in a probe of immense proportions, as there was no mention
of any humans!

There were sights of it exploring
worlds, but he could not grasp its mission
. He knew that it had to be more than for doing
what normal probes did and that alien contact and deep space
exploration had to be part of it! Had something made contact with
them? Did they have a real Star War program hidden away?

Why
did this voyager end up there, embedded in
ice in the Antarctic? Was it there as it would not be detected by
the rest of the world? It surely would be detected coming down even
at the Artic! Yet he could not even imagine such a large object not
being detected coming down anywhere!

Willis gasped as new visions appeared
and he saw nothing but a vision of blackness, and
it
hurtled through
the outer limits of space and time, racing
into this universe, and he watched,
staggered, realizing that it had traveled beyond the universe, and
he realized it had a way of making vast leaps through space with
it, but it was inaccurate, and that star traveling was needed to
carry out the majority of its voyage!

For some
reason its form was a mass of energy and it became unstable and it
created vast unstable energy explosions across space and time,
which he realized were so powerful that they ripped at the fabric
of space and time and made regions temporary unbalanced and warp,
with only its protective energy shield holding it from the
effects.

S
tar formations flashed by, as it continued
its pursuit of something, with
its
sphere of white glowing energy floating by
like a colossal ghost. Voyaging through billions of stars, while
transforming its energy states further from their original
states.

Willis watched the visions vanish and the
normal surroundings there emerge, and felt himself being moved away
and was left standing at the entrance hole, where he gasped and saw
the two gunmen standing below at his vehicle, who aimed their guns
at him and ordered him to climb down!

Chapter 2

The Secret Military
Operation

Once the
military aircraft neared Ice Station X1 the soldiers aboard swiftly
fitted on their parachutes and adjusted their gear, while receiving
updates for the mission from Commander Craven.