They eventually all started resting and went to sleep to conserve energy supplies, and left everything for the morning.
Cronenberg woke early, after sleeping too long, and examined the outside world lighten up as the sun rose above the horizon, and he watched the other astronauts slowly awaken, eat, and start work checking the damage.
“There’s some form of powerful energy influence,” Rosenberg announced, after checking things, “and it’s still stopping us scanning what’s out there!”
“Just as it was on the airplane?” he replied.
“Well, it seems to have altered – and we could have found another encounter – and it’s tremendous!”
“What could it be?” he moaned, confused, and wondered if he had known something of it before the shuttle had come down.
“It could be that on the shuttle we were not able to properly check anything as it was so far away and there was too much disturbances! Now that we have landed we are detecting it and it is also more powerful this close ...”
“Is it near us?”
“I don’t have a clue where it is! It could be anywhere! I will try to get the information on it!”
He handed him some readouts and Cronenberg stared at them with amazement, gasping, and muttered, “What the hell could create such power? It’s colossal!”
“It’s also like someone is playing around with something out here! Has anyone got any science or military establishments or anything at all out here?”
He considered it for some time and was amazed that someone could build something like it there, but he could not grasp what or why it would be put there.
“Nobody has been near here as far as I’ve heard!”
“But it could be confidential?”
“Yes! But why would it be built out here? Why would they be using anything or experimenting on anything?”
“Perhaps they are using or creating something too dangerous to be activated in an inhabited zone!” he replied firmly.
“That would explain it being so secretive and at an uncharted region but it does not explain anything of its use!”
He kept going, curious in what the scientists would make of things if he pushed them further.
“How did they manage to hide something of its size and power though?” he moaned. “Nothing seems to add up here!”
“They surely would have to have technology beyond anything we’ve heard of!”
Cronenberg stood still, staring out at the Martian landscape through the front shuttle window, unable to grasp it!
“What could create such power and what is its use?”
“It could be someone using a natural phenomenon or something? Like someone harnessing and manipulating energy in the planet’s core or something?”
Nothing added up though, as it was only used to control the shuttle and take it there, and they could easily have hidden away, and never be found, and they would be found out eventually.
He could not realize what it was and realized that the real solution to what it was would be far more unbelievable and crazy than what they would come out with, and he wondered if he could get what it was, and it could be far too ridicules for them even to assume existed.
The night before when it had taken control of the shuttle he had detected something of unknown origins, and it had been like that when it had made a full appearance.
Yet there clearly was no evidence of anything and only someone making a ridicules mistake would add anything to what had been said, and he filled in his account of what had occurred on the flight, and going by what all the crew about him indicated it was a crazy occurrence and they never had any proper facts anything was there.
“To discover whatever is here we’ll need more reasonable and solid clues!” he finally announced, especially to Rosenberg, who seemed to be the most interested and knowledgeable on it.
They eventually left the shuttle through the airlock wearing their suits with extra oxygen tanks on them, and they started to go further out from the shuttle to a nearby small hill with a view of the surrounding view, where they blankly viewed the surrounding area, and Cronenberg looked back and down at the shuttle, which resembled an airplane brought down in a desert region like the Sahara, surrounded by bright reddish sand and rocks in bright sunlight, in a cloudless white blue sky.
The surprising thing was his spacesuit’s high temperature and the surrounding view combined to give the impression of it being incredibly hot, instead of incredible cold and at the Antarctica of the world, and he even considered if any of them were capable of making some form of mistake because of it.
The adrenalin of the crew was visibly rushing through their veins, overwhelming them, as they checked their new surroundings, and most realized where they were, and he thought he saw the Earth in the sky.
All around them they examined things like they were strange new phenomena, and he wondered what they thought they were discovering.
Even though they had been exploring areas of Mars, especially about the base, they had not been to an unexplored area like it, and they moved over to an area where it looked like a cold region like the Antarctica, and they looked for ice and water.
“Look at all this!” Campbell explained, picking up a strange rock, and none of them could recall seeing it before, and he then looked as if he recognized it.
“What do you think brought us down now?” he asked, curiously. “There’s nothing out here! Nothing can grow!”
They all discussed it and it was apparent none of them properly knew, and they started examining the landscape and giving facts and their thoughts of it, and Cronenberg and Rosenberg examined the best map they had of the region and discussed it, and they all then discussed what to do.
Rosenberg pointed at the highest hill, buried away in the landscape, in a southerly direction, in the direction of the southern pole, where they had been traveling to, and he examined why most of it was covered up and saw small sand hills in front of it, covering up most of it, and what was below.
“There’s a better chance of finding water there!” Rosenberg announced.
The more Cronenberg examined what was there the more he thought it was a good place to go and he announced that he would like to go and check there.
It looked familiar to him, as a place with something, and he was sure it was where the shuttle had been going.
“It’s as though it has formed differently, by some means, by something else ...” Campbell mumbled, looking at it through his binoculars.
“Could be a fault line?” Rosenberg replied.
They all examined it and avoided replying, and Cronenberg wondered if they agreed or disagreed!
Chapter 4
The Haunted Hill
Cronenberg leapt onto his feet when a strange explosion shattered his sleep and he stared out into dark Martian night!
They had wrongly calculated the distance and time it took to get to the hill, and they had only been able to leave late in the evening, and it had become dark on the way and they had rested and had fallen asleep below the hill. The long day and march over small hills in the thick heavy spacesuits, marching through deep regions of sand carrying large amounts of equipment, including oxygen tanks and supplies, had tired them, and they were unable to do anything but sleep anyway.
Cronenberg was staggered when he considered what the noise was, as it had sounded like an artificial explosion, and he stood trying to explain how it could be there, and he wondered how the atmosphere could even carry the sound through it, and he realized Mars was different, and it might even be some form of volcanic disturbance from below, blasting up through a vent.
The other two astronauts, Rosenberg and Campbell, who had accompanied him either ignored it, or were asleep, or had not heard it, and he examined them through their dark helmet faceplates but could not see what they were doing.
When a second explosion blasted out he stood shocked, as he had just started to ignore the first and had considered it to be his imagin
ation, and the powered rifle blast exploded into the empty silence staggering him, and the explosion sounded so powerful he believed it had some form of powerful explosive in the bullets!
The other two astronauts at first never reacted or even moved and he finally spotted Rosenberg opening his eyes, and watched him looking startled and realized he had also heard it and had been trying to ignore it.
“What the hell was that?” he finally asked, as he stood.
“It sounded like a gun!”
“We don’t have any guns on Mars though?”
“There’s nobody out here either!”
Rosenberg yawned, and replied, “It has to be something else!”
Rosenberg went back to where he was sleeping and tried to go back to sleep.
Whoever was there had to be crazy or up to something and he realized he might even get the answer to what had brought them down there and decided to investigate it.
He silently crept away, and tried to creep up on whoever it was to observe them and realized that if there was someone there that they surely had to have left traces of themselves, as there was sand everywhere and there had to be footprints or something.
It felt silly looking for someone there, in such a desolate place, where nobody should be! He could not realize who was there and just accepted that they might be trying to do something! Perhaps it was the shuttle they wanted, as it was priceless and its technology highly confidential on the Earth.
It had to be located in the coldest and most remote place on Mars, and its southern pole! Even in the summer the place was deadly cold without the spacesuits!
As far as he was concerned there was nothing to be there for! The hidden coldness around him at times made him cringe, and he, almost blindly, rushed on to where the sound came from, and for some reason when he reached a specific region he realized it had to be where the noise came from.
Suddenly a loud explosion blasted out and a bullet thudded somewhere nearby and he automatically switched off his light and ran through the darkness for his life!
He dared not use his light now and he could barely see, and regularly tripped up and continued!
He realized that he could have an infrared filter on is faceplate, to see in the dark, and he searched for the switch to activate it, and realized it was a different version that had it, and he just dived into a pile of sand behind some rocks, and hid himself. Surely he would not be found there, and he had not left any footprints nearby and had changed direction a few times!
Once he realized that nothing was happening he started to enjoy the rest and being free from being attacked, and he considered how to get back to the others, and if it was actually safe there. His mind raced through what had occurred! Yet he only realized that the location that he strolled into had to have something, and he started to wonder what was there.
Who would go to such lengths to kill him? What could possibly be there? What could be there in such a desolate place? Was there another space vehicle there?
Suddenly he saw something buried in a region of the darkness to his side, and he shifted behind a large boulder at his side and hid from there, and his heart leapt as he studied the dark spacesuit figure shifting lifelessly forward, and it shifted out from the darkness into where some starlight was beaming down, and he studied the figure not realizing what would happen!
He felt like moving away from the figure but he would be spotted for one, and he studied the gun and it looked like an old one, and he wondered who the hell was there and where he had got the spacesuit and gun, and noticed that the spacesuit was an old version.
There was something strange there that he could not grasp and he studied everything over and over trying to grasp something, going over everything he could think of, and it was like there was something there that should not be there, but it was there!
He studied the spacesuit faceplate and could not see through the dark shiny material, and the figure never reacted, and he wondered what would happen if he rushed towards it
He sensed he could do something stupid and he studied the faceplate of the spacesuit more and more, and stood back shocked!
He thought he saw a skeleton, and it moved away, and realized that there usually was a name on most spacesuits, even the old ones, and he tried to see it and though saw it he could not see the letters properly, and as it vanished into the darkness he thought he saw it said Anderson.
He was confused, trying to work out what they should do, and what it might do, and what could happen!
When he finally returned to where the others were he soon found the other two astronauts at exactly where they had been, but noticed that their positions had altered as though they had done something and returned to where they had been.
While he rested over the ground he wondered what the hell an astronaut, or even a ghost astronaut, was trying to shoot him, or what he was actually doing, and realized again that the shuttle was unbelievably valuable and worth it, but why had they not just taken it, as they never had guns, and he realized they might be just after its technology and he considered if they could take it without them suspecting it.
Chapter 5
The First Death
Once the sun rose above the horizon Cronenberg went out and explored where the other astronaut had been and was surprised that there were no marks anywhere, and found where he himself had been there and where he had been behind the boulders and found his own footsteps in the sand.
He searched everywhere and started to think he had imagined it, and he examined the hill over at his side in the sunlight and realized it would be quick to climb and decided to go up and explore the region from the top, as he had intended.
If he needed the others he would return and go back up, and he quickly climbed up and at the top stood staring at the fascinating view, with Mars stretching out into the horizon all about him, and he spotted the shuttle, and spotted a large short message beside it, written in the sand and with boulders, with a SOS message, showing their destination and they had crashed, and he was sure the satellites would spot it, and most could spot any changes in the landscape and environment and detect anything unusual and take close up photos, which would be sent back to the base – and they would be looking for it after the communications stopped!
He examined everywhere with powerful binoculars, including where the southern pole was, for anything unusual and for water if they got trapped there but never saw anything and realized they would have to be saved by the others shortly or they would die of oxygen starvation.
Yet as he was about to move away he wondered where the hell the thing that had taken them there was, if it actually existed, and he removed a device he had brought and checked for any traces of it and found nothing and wondered what the hell the outcome of it would be, if they survived, and if he would always wonder what they had encountered there.
When he arrived back where the other two astronauts were he discovered Campbell still asleep and Rosenberg gone, and he began watching Campbell strangely, and his lifeless unmoving figure, and realized that he had not moved since he had left, and he considered if it was just his spacesuit that made him not move, and he started to wonder if there was something wrong and rushed over and showed himself to him, moved up close, and examined his unmoving face and gasped when he saw his hidden mouth expression, as if he was screaming at something.
He firmly shook him, still not believing anything was wrong, and shook him hard, and he unzipped and removed his glove and felt his cold hand and arm for a pulse, and saw his cold lifeless complexion, and was amazed that there was no pulse, and that he had been dead and had not noticed anything.
He searched his spacesuit for any rips or holes, and wondered if it had been a fault in his spacesuit, and he realized that he had best record a message on their camera of the incident and gave a record of the occurrence, and checked the various functions of the spacesuit, and had its computer check him further and was surprised his death had not been oxygen starvation.
&
nbsp; In the end he removed his helmet and whole spacesuit and sat back staggered, as large sections of his body were gone, as though something had removed them viciously, as though a wild animal had attacked him.
Suddenly he spotted marks on the ground where something had obviously happened.
Rosenberg suddenly rushed out from behind him and gasped, and crouched over the body, and he observed him examining the body, and fall back with blood covering his gloves.
Chapter 6
Anders
What astounded him was how deadly and vicious whatever it had been was! If it was what had taken them there!
What the hell was it? How could it be so advanced and vicious? Was it some form of alien animal that got its prey with special powers? Yet how did it manage force an entire shuttle into going there and what form of prey did it live on? The planet was virtually empty of life!
In the end he realized he could not believe it without more evidence, and whatever it was it would have to be left until they could check it out.
What also surprised him was that Rosenberg had been away, and looking about like him, since he woke up!
He was also surprised that he had found something hidden away in the distance, which he never knew the identity of, and Rosenberg took him over to a region at the other side of the hill, from where he had gone, and he showed it to him and they examined it with their binoculars, and he realized it was artificial, and that it had been there some time and partially buried in sand, and was hidden behind a small hill from where the shuttle was, and from it being observed from where he had been at the other side of the hill, and on the above hill there.
After examining it he was surprised that it was at about the same distance away as the shuttle and virtual in a straight line with it from there, and just hidden away from it, and he wondered how the hell it could have ended up so close to it. The planet had hardly anything on it and the south pole even more so.
The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition) Page 34
