The Thing: from the Depths of Hell (6 page)

After examinations of the new life form it
had decided to alter its creation of the human to the stranger in
the sixth vehicle, as it had been the only one in a vehicle on its
own, but when it had completed it, the life form had activated an
energy shield similar to the one that protected the ship, and it
could not enter the vehicle or replace the human, and brought the
human to vehicle four.

The next problem that it had discovered had
been that the humans could recognize a stranger, after it had
examined their minds further, and it found a way to alter their
memories so that they would not recognize the stranger, and had
caused the vehicles to crash to cover what it had been done, and it
had altered the records in the vehicles, and, even though its
powers were weak and limited through the energy shield of the GX1,
it had just managed to use its powers to alter the records and
memories of the life forms aboard about the life forms in the
vehicles.

Through all that had happened it managed to
explore the strange life forms, and their existence, and had been
delighted to make it aboard the GX1, but though it got aboard it
had little control of itself aboard, and the life form it had
created had even taken control of itself as a human, and it had had
a hard time controlling it, and it had realized its next problem,
and that they had discovered that there were three humans that were
identical, and that there was an extra vehicle.

Its human having some control of itself had
helped, with its will to survive, and it had managed to avoid being
caught in interrogations on it, but the other human in vehicle six
called Don, which it got its name from, but as Dan, did not believe
it was human, and it had realized it somehow knew what it was, and
the entity could not destroy it without being discovered.

It had learned more about the energy shield,
but it never found a way to deactivate it without being caught and
destroyed, and its confrontation with Don at the bar, with a
powerful weapon capable of damaging it, had made it alter itself
into another form, but had ended up in a confused state of life
form/entity to avoid destruction, and it had revealed part of its
identity, and its further formation had been faulty, as it never
had any proper life forms to alter to, and it had chosen what it
had found in their records.

Chapter 12

The President

Max
Mason
was
the president
of
the
GX1
and the GSO
(Galactic Space Organization), and Kruger knew that he could do
just about anything on the spacecraft, if it could be done.
Everyone insisted in carrying out his slightest notion to the
letter. So he was the most interesting person to meet if you ever
had the chance.

Kruger knew
little about him except for a few appearances on their media, and
was surprised to meet him in person and have him question him on
what had occurred, and tactically query what was happening, and
what it was that they were now up against.

The entire
ship’s media had been pushing stories on it for an hour, because it
was the only real occurrence that had happened since they had
started the voyage. Stories like it, even on the colony worlds,
never had anything like it either, and everyone aboard was taking
an interest in it, and their safety. Most wondered if they had
found some new form of life out there in the depths of the
void.

President
Mason could scarcely grasp what was there, or happening, and
perhaps, for the first time, had less or the same information. The
descriptions everyone at the bar had given were vague and confused,
and had no real detail. People had not realized what it was, or if
it was even a life form, or what shape, characteristics, features,
or identity it had. It had altered, and had given nothing but a
confused mess of details.

What sort of
powers did it have? Should they be happy with the discovery? Should
the ship head home? What kind of science and creations did it have?
Could the voyage and GSO profit greatly from it?

Kruger also,
when he never thought of the danger, wondered what it could be, and
what it could teach him.

He was a
scientist, and he had not just entered the voyage to expand his
career and fame. He was interested in science, space, alien life
forms, and anything else that existed out there.

He was one of
the most experienced people in alien life forms there, and he
continually thought of the glory of the discovery!

Before he had
been up against memory loss, and some crime against them. Now he
knew that it was a new life form, and had surely entered the ship
to escape from the hellhole that it had existed in. It had been
attacked and threatened with death by Don, and had escaped for its
life.

He wondered if
they could now capture and study it!

He was
startled at it being Dan, and how they had met him, as an unknown
member of the crew, who had appeared out of the darkness of the
desolate world, in a spacesuit, and that they had brought it
back.

The power of
it was tremendous and it could have killed them all easily, even
with Major Ripley holding the weapon on it.

Kruger gave
descriptions of its figure as he had first seen it to the president
on the media – shown to just about everyone aboard – seeking the
truth about what had taken place – and seeking adventure, which
they had mostly joined the voyage for.

Major Ripley
was then brought in, and helped him out with vivid details, from
the location of his quarters.

It was
incredible that he had finally given his thoughts on what he had
suspected back there, and that it was a new form of alien.

He expressed
his confused thoughts at what it had wanted, and about what it had
been up to and what it was capable of.

He had clearly
even gone to the bar to see the mess that it had created, and to
question the people there about the incident and what it had looked
like, in its true form.

The
president questioned him intensely about it, to find out what he
wanted.
He had
to take the responsibility
for such
an incident and
occurrences, and
he
reassured everyone aboard that he and they would do everything that
could to capture it, and perhaps study it, and at that moment they
were building up a special task force to seek it out, and it was to
be lead by Colonel Pratt, of the Military and Space Forces, and it
would be based at the Military and Space Forces control center, and
that he was the second highest military authority there, under
General Chisholm, head of the Military and Space Forces, and the
security of the entire spacecraft.

General
Chisholm made an appearance and warned everyone aboard of the
dangers of the alien intruder, and gave the location that was below
the bar to avoid, and told everyone to remain out of its path, and
to stay in groups and to kill it if they had to, and he then
introduced Colonel Pratt, who was at the Military and Space Forces
control center, located at the center of the spacecraft.

He gave as
much information as he could, and showed everyone his task force,
and that they were all busy at work organizing men, and the
information people were giving them.

It was then
that Kruger started to realize that the thing was actually a great
danger. He had known it as Dan, and in its unnatural state. Yet he
had never properly communicated with it! It had been a human, or
copying a human, and had not shown anything of its true identity,
and he could not realize just how much danger it was, and what it
intended to do.

People had
been clearly startled by it, and he could not decide if it was to
do with its extraordinary form that it had taken, or if it had
started to defend itself from attacks against it, or was the thing
a deadly menace, and intended to capture them and the
spacecraft.

They just did
not fully know what its motives were. They had caught it and forced
it to reveal its identity, and Don had threatened it with a
powerful weapon, and perhaps destruction.

The issue of
Don was brought up by the president, who could not understand his
identity, and he asked Colonel Pratt to identify him, and about his
mysterious appearance there in the sixth vehicle, which he had
remembered had been told earlier, when it had been discovered.

Colonel Pratt
recalled his discovery and admitted not being able to get any
proper explanation, due to the records and people’s memories being
tampered with.

The whole
affair was a muddled mess, and Don was contacted at his quarters,
for them to query him.

Don was his
normal calm self, even after, and throughout, the incident, and was
just out of his shower, with towels on, and was willing answer all
their questions, and asked Colonel Pratt if he would put him on his
task team to locate the alien, as they needed him, and he had
information about it, and he assured them that he knew more about
it than anyone, and Colonel Pratt assured him that he and Kruger
would be on the team, as consultants, and they would help identify
it, with descriptions – and that they would be needed as all the
descriptions so far were confused, and that all the different
people there had given different accounts.

The president
asked him to use them, and asked to talk to Don, and asked him
where the sixth vehicle had actually come from, and Don answered
that he had woke up after his vehicle had crashed like the others,
with memory loss, and that he had lost his memory of his
identity.

The president
was left confused, and never proceeded further, and Colonel Pratt
continued by asking him why he had been so sure the alien had been
an alien and not just Dan, suffering from memory loss like everyone
else, and why he had confronted the alien with the powerful weapon,
which he had to have been unauthorized to take, as they would not
have authorized it, and if they had authorized it that it would
have been the military that would have handled the problem in the
proper way, and he asked what he had intended to do, and if he had
realized what its reactions to the weapon would be, and if he had
been surprised by its true identity when it had been revealed in
the bar.

Dan answered
swiftly without thinking, explaining it was an alien and it had
acted like one, and he had known that it had to be dangerous, and
for starters it would have revealed its identity to them and would
not have gone to such lengths to get aboard the spacecraft, and
enter through their only defense the energy shield, and that he had
known that it was powerful and a danger to them by the way that it
had made them crash, wipe away their memories and records, and that
had been capable of changing its appearance to what it wanted,
including altering its speech and thoughts.

It had
ruthlessly done everything it could to get aboard the spacecraft
undetected, and he had known he could not have proven it enough –
for them to have captured and kept it imprisoned or to have thrown
it out of the spacecraft – and with his experience of where the
weapons were, and how they kept them secure, he had managed to find
a way to get the weapon, and had used it to force the alien into
revealing its identity, and that he had done it in the bar in front
of as many witnesses as possible, but had underestimated its
capabilities.

Chapter 13

The Monster

The monster
that appeared at the library below the bar had been hideous beyond
anything anyone had seen. Not only had it been an entity/monster,
altering from one appearance to another, it had been mad, and ready
to kill anything to survive. Its entire plan had been
instantaneously ruined, and it could detect the crew of the
spacecraft starting to build a defense against it and to
exterminate it, and it sensed how far they intended to go.

It had lost
touch with the outer entity, while it had been altering itself, and
it had lost memories, and it had turned into a new life form
completely, and had separated itself from the outer entity, and
even believed it would no longer consider it as part of it, unless
it could lower the energy shield and give it what it wanted, and
make proper contact with it. It had to do it now or it would be
killed, even if it had to kill everyone aboard to do it.

What it and
the outer entity had not realized was through it being a human, and
for so long, it had altered itself to being one of them so much
that its way of thinking had altered, and it was what it considered
close to madness, with nothing left to do but survive, and kill the
puny life forms, who were taking away its dreams of leaving the
void and entering the outer universe.

After it had
seen all that existed beyond, and the truth about itself, it now
considered itself trapped in the void, and the void as its prison,
and that it would be trapped there for all eternity, wondering what
it would have been like to be in the outer universe, where it
should have been.

From
being a life form that was seeing the humans as a species that
should be examined and used to educate itself, it had turned
into
their most
repulsive menace
from
the deepest depths of space.

Some people
were still in the massive library, which was a replica of a massive
ancient twentieth-century library, and it had only left them
because of their distance, and to finish its work of altering
itself and planning its future as fast as possible, and it
considered them as not worth its time as they were separate people,
and it was hidden from them, as they were from each other, behind
large bookshelves, and could be heard making occasional silent
whispers, and it knew that they would not appear, and if they did,
it would kill them, swiftly and silently.