The Thing: from the Depths of Hell (21 page)

The conversation finally ended with Weaver
asking the Russian commander to allow them to bring some men there
and he agreed and told them that he would have some of his men at
Ice Station X1 bring them over to the base in one of the large
vehicles.

Chapter 16

The Alien
Voyager

The colossal
black alien voyager rested shining in bright light, beamed from
intense spotlights all around it, with vast amounts of classified
equipment of the Russian scientists surrounding it, with them
monitoring and trying to explore what was there.

Weaver and
Commander Craven stood together stunned with their mouths open
studying its dark form vaguely buried in the Antarctic ice,
astonished at its colossal perfect symmetrical shape and its
power!

The Russian
scientists there continually told them of its powers even existing
beyond the universe, in outer dimensions and time zones, which they
claimed they had detected.

The Russian
base commander shifted next to them, and also stood dazed as though
he had not seen it in a long time.

“
Have
you the technology to communicate with it?” Commander Craven
finally gasped, to the Russian commander.

“
We
still haven’t been able to create a proper first contact situation!
We now believe that it was trying to communicate with visitations!
Like the dead man in spacesuit that arrived at your dinner table,
and the thing that tried to appear as an energy cloud!”

“
All
that stuff was created by it! Have you entered it?”

“
We were
unable to open it or even scratch its surface, especially when we
attempted to create an entrance point! But one of your scientists
helped us though! One of your scientists called Willis entered this
cavity down here and entered it!”

“
Willis?” Weaver replied.

The Russian
commander called over one of his men and had him go and get him,
and Willis soon arrived.

“
Tell
them what happened!”

“
I
explored the cavity and spacecraft!” Willis replied. “I fell asleep
near what I believe was the front, and an entrance was opened when
I awoke! I entered it and I transported into a region inside, where
I became part of it and saw visions from its voyage!”

“
Where
did it come from?” Commander Craven gasped.

“
I do
not know! I was unable to realize much!”

“
What
happened then?”

“
When I
climbed out I was captured by some of the Russian soldiers! Who
started questioning me! They believe it opened in response to my
dream, where I mentally opened an entrance in it!”

“
What
happened then?”

“
The
soldiers were part of the same soldiers that were behind the
shootings!” the Russian commander declared. “As you have been told,
we were only to dig it up and investigate it, which we fully have
not done! We are trapped here! We cannot leave such a dangerous
object here!”

“
So the
deaths and shootings were done by a Russian renegade group that you
told us of? Where are they?”

“
They
were after technology from it, which they were unable to get until
Willis managed to enter it! They were stopping anyone for getting
anything before they could get it! They managed to get something
from it and have left! They left some of the soldiers working for
them behind!”

“
So they
copied Willis and entered it again?”

“
Yes!
They copied what Willis did and sent a man into it!”

“
What
did they get?” Weaver gasped, wondering why they were all gasping
at the incident so much.

“
We are
not fully sure what they got! They sent a man into it and we
believe it tried to make contact again, but it seems to have not
been able to do what it wanted! Which we do not fully know what! We
believe it rewarded the man for the attempt by giving him
something! We believe it could be a danger to mankind!”

Chapter 17

The
Investigation

What the hell
had they done? Had they contacted the voyager with the telescope
beneath the ice station?

Now that
Weaver knew the situation he realized that it was worse! The
technology, power, and size of the voyager was far greater than
anything he thought mankind could ever create, and he could not
even explain its existence!

All the
scientists from the ice station were there and staggered, and some
looked as though they were making plans to abandon the Antarctic!
The thing was a danger and indestructible, and had not been
properly checked, and they had only been able to check a few of its
basic functions from the two people who had entered it, and nobody
had really shown any proper awareness of the function of it as far
as he was concerned!

They had not
found a way to activate its entrance into opening again and making
contact with it, and that was the only final way of finding out
what it was for. Yet they had Willis who was confident in doing it
again, but totally refused to contact it unless there was a good
reason!

He stayed with
Willis and kept him near, and he knew if something was going to
happen that he would be there, as he was sure it had chosen him for
something and that they would need to use him for anything!

“
We
haven’t found a way to communicate with it!” a scientist with the
scientists from the ice station underground telescope announced, as
he walked over to him and Willis, as they stood next to where the
entrance had opened on the voyager.

“
What
have you been trying?” Weaver asked curiously, amazed at all of the
scientists crammed around the voyager, and into the massive
cavity.

It was
incredible the way the scientists from the ice station had all
burst into life when they all had seen it, and he and most of them
were astonished at the experience and knowledge the Russians had on
the things to do with the voyager!

It was as
though the scientists had been waiting all their lives for the
opportunity, and that they never knew the deadliness of it!

“
It has
not replied to anything we have done!” the scientist continued,
showing all the equipment that they had brought over from the ice
station. “We used the telescope and the telescope equipment over
there to communicate with it! We have finally got a chance to test
out stuff and it is not replying!”

“
Incredible!” Weaver gasped.

“
We have
also gone by all the instructions given in the Alien Source Code –
which is a combination of old and updated procedure put together
for basic first contact situations!”

“
So we
are still trying to find a way to talk to it!”

“
Correct!” he replied firmly, hoping for an answer from
Willis.

“
Well!”
Willis answered. “I’ll add what I think! I believe that what’s
active is equivalent to our subconscious mind, while it is in a
type of sleep or suspended animation, which carries out various
functions for it. I think it is either part of the voyager or
attached to it! And for some reason it wanted us here, especially
by crashing into this world and at this exact site! And I think it
was unable to do something when it made physical contact with
me!”

Weaver was
left confused, as he started to see the problem in more depth and
that they could be stuck with it.

“
I think
we should find another way to enter it!” a scientist from another
nearby group announced, to their amazement.

“
How
will we go about doing that?” Weaver asked. “The thing is
indestructible! They could not even scratch it!”

“
We
found the place where the entrance opened and found some faint
markings near it, which we believe is sensitive to reactions from
something, and we believe that it could be another way to open
it!”

“
We
could try using different things on it!” Weaver replied, and the
scientists returned to working on finding a way to open
it.

A scientist
suddenly moved over and whispered in a nearby Russian scientist’s
ear, and he suddenly looked aware of something and agreed with the
scientist and left to do something.

The scientist
returned with other scientists and set up equipment at the region
of the entrance with the markings and they activated equipment, and
laser beams blasted at the region where the markings were near, and
started firing thousands of laser blast sequences at it.

“
What’s
it doing?” Weaver asked, wondering if they had found something
somewhere, and wondered what would happen if they
forced
entrance to its
voyager!

Chapter 18

The Helicopters

The massive
helicopters lifted up and rushed off into the distance and Weaver
rested into a seat at the back of one, with the other soldiers,
preparing himself for what could be his last day alive!

They were
Russian military helicopters and they had been hidden away in one
of the Russian base’s underground chambers.

They had
discovered where the renegade Russian soldiers had gone! By using
recorded satellite information they had been able to trace their
path to a distant secret Russian ice station, where they were going
to hide out and wait for a plane to arrive to take them away.

If they had a
plane there already or it had just arrived they would have escaped,
and he was sure that they would never see them again! They could
easily make it to some part of the world where they would not be
able to find them, or be able to do anything to stop them.

He wondered if
they had not shot the people that they had if they could take what
they had taken from the voyager back off them? Who owned an alien
artifact?

The scientists
that had been near them had claimed that they had called the
artifact that they had taken an alien sphere and that they had
claimed it was some form of ultimate weapon, and the Russian base
commander had given them the use of the helicopters and information
about the secret ice station and the arrival of the airplane
there.

If the mission
was successful they would get it off the gunmen, and he wondered if
they could destroy it or what they would do with it! Would it cause
immense future problems?

He had
realized that the scientists mainly wanted the voyager to leave as
it was a great danger to the world. There could be many future
problems with it being there!

The voyager
seemed unwilling to let them aboard, but they were still working on
opening it and he wondered if it was the scientists themselves that
were the danger! It was them that invented atomic bombs and had
them introduced! Perhaps the scientists were secretively worried of
what other scientists might do if they got the technology!

Chapter 19

The Russian Ice
Station

The massive
helicopters rested behind them, below small hills, and they watched
the light from the sun vanishing as the early night engulfed the
region and the soldiers rushed on faster, to avoid being caught in
the dark.

It was lucky
that it was not night and there were no signs of airplanes having
landed there, and Weaver wondered if they would land in the dark
and studied his surroundings repeatedly trying to explain why such
an occurrence could happen! The entire mission had been planned
down to the smallest detail!

What was it
that they had taken from the voyager? How had they persuaded what
was there to give it to them?

He had tried
questioning Willis about what he had come into contact with and he
had been unsure, and never saw anything of it, and it only replied
to some of his responses with things like mental images of things.
It had originally been activated and opened by his dreams and
thoughts!

The Russian
ice station was further ahead and small and looked ancient and from
a century ago, and he imagined figures like Captain Scott arriving
there.

When they
finally got near enough to see it properly they started to see
buildings had been burnt down, and some smoke and steam still
coming off them, and being blown around in gusts of cold polar
winds, while gusts of snow blew around them.

Some form of
battle had clearly taken place there! There were bodies lying
around everywhere! The snow around Weaver was too deep and the
terrain virtually impossible to get quickly across!

It was
incredible that they had actually not landed later than when the
sun was going down.

What had
happened? It looked like the seen of a small battle!

They
approached slowly and they saw that many of the Russian renegade
gunmen had been killed there! It proved that they were more maniacs
than he had predicted! They could easily have met and held up the
inhabitants of the ice station with guns. Instead they had a battle
with them!

He was also
sure that they had not been able to do what they had intended! He
was sure that someone had warned them about their arrival!

He believed
the pilot and airplane that was to land was with them, and would
see them if it appeared and landed.

They swiftly
shifted about the small ancient building structures, searching for
signs of them, and found that they had all gone into one building,
which was the largest there, and they searched all the other
structures and about the base and surrounded the building.