Though they could not find any entrance and they started examining regions of the ground below it, as there could have been an area below it that was covered over, by the ground building up along its sides over decades, and they kept searching until they found the entrance was above, and it was lowered by forms of ropes, so it was better protected.
They rested below, when the sun of the world was down, even though there was far more light there from the stars blazing out.
They rested staring up at the immense wonders that existed in the sky, and he realized the speed the world was actually traveling at, and the pull of the black hole was incredible, and he was sure the world had far less time left than he had imagined and he watched the debris of old worlds come shooting through the sky faster than he had ever seen meteorites. Some appeared and hit there so fast that he never saw them and all he saw was their impact, and now and then he saw them approach in deep space.
He was sure the structure was a castle they were under, and an alien castle.
Some form of alien race had to have built it there to defend it, and perhaps had been at war!
What surprised him was the way it had been built and that it was far more different from the last structure, and he was sure the builders of it had been far different, as he could not imagine the other being that they had found the skeleton of actually building it, and it seemed a far more advanced species that built it.
It also amazed him how close to a human castle it was in places, and he realized he really wanted to get inside it, and he thought through everything he had seen there for something and recalled an old rope nearby, and rushed away and got.
He tied a loop in it and swung it around his head and threw it at where there were entrance ropes lying in a pile over the flat castle roof bricks, and kept throwing it at it and retrying, trying to throw it around it, until he got lucky and he managed to pull it down, and realized it was not the advanced way up he had imagined, and it was just a form of rope ladder.
At the top he immediately thought no sane life form could have built it, and the castle bricks were not even cemented together, and the roof, buried under layers of stardust and debris, was made of unstable planks and wood that he was sure could not properly hold his weight, and looked as though they had started rotting through!
Rosenberg and then Orwell joined him when they saw him and they climbed up, listening to all his scrabbling around sounds at the top, watching what they did on the badly made rope ladder.
Anything staying in it must have been mad or extremely determined to avoid something deadly there!
After examinations of it and the immense cliff at the other side it amazed them how it could have stayed up and not crashed down below long ago! All its giant boulder were chunks of rocks fixed together, and barely straight, and stayed up with its weight, and Cronenberg realized that there were no major earthquakes, but he was sure immense stellar objects could destroy it, especially at the velocities they traveled at.
They carefully examined around its thick gray stone walls examining it in detail, over the edges of the roof, and still they found no real way into it, even after carefully examining the whole floor. They spotted small gaps in the roof, for breathing inside, which suggested there was not enough air inside, but going by them not being human they could live on very low amounts of air.
He waded his feet through thick mud covering an area, while trying to see if there was anything below, and he stopped to view the unbelievable sky, which was tremendous there now, and he was sure the immense black hole had actually increased in size, because of the world’s incredible velocity, and it had to be one of the biggest object he had ever seen, and stretched across space like a colossal black galaxy devouring space! Its stars in its confines were all over the outer regions going straight towards it everywhere, and the whole of space seemed to being pulled into it.
He stood at the edge of the structure, over the cliff face, like he was standing on the top of the world, as though on the highest area on the world below, and he wondered if the aliens that had built it had been or were the main race of the world. Yet nothing showed their civilization and technology, and it was like the remains of a last civilization that never advanced, and he gasped again at the height that it was over the world, under his feet, and the sheer drop of it astounded him, going off into the distance.
Rosenberg stamped on the surface of the roof to check its safety, and show what his thoughts about it, and Orwell joined in but used it to try and find the entrance under the areas covered in muck, and he stopped and brushed it away and revealed a thick stone slab below, and they watched him brush it away and reveal a slab over the center of the roof.
The hinges on it were made of some unknown metal and held it in place, and there was no indication on how to open it, and they stood examining all its edges for a noticeable way, and Rosenberg began smashing them in at one side where they were corroded and it fell down at the side he hit it, and the whole heavy stone crashed into the structure, throwing up a cloud of dust into the air, and they were glad it was dry inside.
Layers of dust hung in the air as Cronenberg marched down its stone ramp first and they followed him down into it, and he considered what could possibly be there and if he was going to make a mistake, and he thought about the scientific viewpoint of what they were doing, as he turned on his spacesuit light.
He jerked backwards, when a loud thud came through the floor and whole castle, from the lower world, from a massive meteorite impacting nearby, which sounded close, and against the cliff, and again he wondered what the inhabitants of the world had like.
They walked into its darkness almost in a straight line going downwards and explored the first floor, full of large empty rooms, and realized the holes in the walls were not just for air but to let light into the rooms, and he observed the rooms with interest.
He watched the dust in their lights fly about as they marched down the stone ramp going deeper into it, and further down the dampness of the outer stone walls increased and gave a stale scent through the air, and they went down all the floors, after examining the empty rooms, and at the bottom they found a hidden entrance that entered the ground below, and he continued walking deeper into the stone corridor, searching the floor for any damage to it and for anything that they could fall through, and go crashing down below.
At one place he found something made of metal embedded within layers of mud in the wall of the corridor and he gripped a metal bar attached to it and gave it a sharp pull, and yanked it hard, and a sheet of corroded metal came loose out of the wall, where it had been stuck on with two rotted hinges, and he lifted it up and over, and placed it against the side of a wall, and stood mesmerized by a beam of starlight from a giant single star brightly beaming through a window hole into the dark confined space, like a laser beam, and he explored the room and found that they were deep in the cliff and in caves, which had been hollowed out, and they realized that the occupants had lived there for a long time, and had gone to great lengths to build it, and he thought the lower part in the cliff was there in case the above castle was attacked and entered, and there were other hidden lower caves.
When they reached the bottom of a corridor Orwell, who was at the front suddenly stopped, startled by something, and Cronenberg felt vibrations blast through the stone walls and thought it was an earthquake, and when he moved in front of Orwell he gasped loudly as he heard it far louder, from something whirling away, and realized that someone had to be there, and realized that they could be about to meet an alien below, and he stood considering if they should, and they agreed to continue on to see what was there, and stay at a distance, and if there was anything there to silently approach it and observe it.
It grasped their imagination and he approached it in confusion, as the sounds not only increased in volume, not only because they were getting near, but because something was increasing them, and flashes of light started appearing along the cave roof, from an area below, and s
hapes and colors formed, and he finally saw a humanoid form, which glowed and created the lights and sounds, and he measured the alien at over eight feet tall and at least four feet wide, and as he shifted silently forward he saw its skeleton through its body, and realized it had a translucent body, and he wondered what the hell it was.
A blast of brightness exploded out from its center, with beams of colored light, and he saw its skeleton more clearly, with surprise, and he was surprised at how identical it was to a human!
For a few seconds he stood stunned, wondering what the hell it was doing there, and he sensed it was a form of human, and he sensed the existence from the energy sphere, and the other deadly existence, and their surroundings vanished into blackness, and they shot through an infinity of gateways, going back in lines everywhere, and he continued to wonder what it was, as well as where they were going, and he realized the thing had been watching him when he had vanished, and though it was different he thought it was human, and he saw all of shuttle crew with him, and they were shooting through galaxies, and gateways.
Chapter 23
The Edge of the Universe
The peculiar black empty sky of the destination instantly grabbed his attention, as it was empty of stars almost everywhere, and he barely saw anything, and it was the complete opposite of the other world, and he was left confused, as he had not seen space so empty of anything.
He suddenly realized the world had to be at the outer limits of the universe, and he sensed it was the most distant world, and he considered what could exist there in such an empty region.
A red glow soared out, as the sun raced up the horizon, and he sat with the other astronauts on flat rocks watching a beam of light blast out as the sun swiftly came over the horizon in front of them, beaming across the small rocky world, creating long dark shadows from mountains and hills going straight across the desert world towards them, and he had sensations of balancing over the world, on a spectacular bridge of rock, which they were on.
The world looked lifeless but he knew something had to exist there, and that it was early in the morning, and he wondered if there would be a difference in them.
The atmosphere was warm, evening for so early in the morning, and the ground had warm rock, and he gasped at how hot it might be in the day, and there were desert sand regions nearby that were identical to the hottest deserts on the Earth, and he smelt odors in the air from what had to be volcanic gases, and going by the reactions of the others he was sure it could be toxic gases.
He realized that his spacesuit had the capacity to analyze it and determine what it was, and he quickly checked and was surprised that it was marked as unknown, and they just breathed it anyway, as it was weak and their oxygen supplies would run out if they never, and he realized the distance they traveled, and why it had taken so long, and that they had traveled from the direct center of the universe to the most distant, and he wondered if it was possible to guess the distance, and size of the universe.
The sun rose swiftly, and he was surprised at how fast the sky changed color and a crimson sky engulfed them, and he realized that they were on another world, and at a point nobody on the Earth would ever see, and they had gone far further than anyone would, and he had originally believed that nobody would even see another solar system or step on another world.
Orwell was fascinated in the worlds, as well as the other astronauts, as he was the science officer, and as a scientist, seemed to examine the world, and he was sure he was thinking of a way to escape from their voyage through the universe, and its dangers increasing, as they were surely going to get it soon, if everything went the way it was going, and if there was no chance of returning to the Earth why not find the best place, and even though it was so barn, and empty of life, it had air and surely water, and he also spotted rain type clouds behind him.
Was this world good enough to live on? It was better than the vast dangers of the last worlds, and again he wondered why they had been put there, and he realized that there had to be something buried away there!
He lurched forward, and moved over to where there was a cliff edge, and instantly saw a panoramic view of an area of landscape, with a mass of gray stone stretching out, and he moved further along where loose rocks went down in a slope, and he considered going down to the lower ground below and he balanced on the edge of it.
A cold breeze blew across his face, and the rustle of dry dirt came from beside him, and as the sun rose he looked back at the last region of space vanishing into a blue sky, and he wondered what existed beyond the universe, which he was sure was there, and he could not imagine anything for some reason, and he wondered if it just vanished into no existence.
The figures of the other astronauts shifted over to him, after talking about it, and where they should go, and Orwell moved over to his side.
They studied the contours of the rocky hills and mountains, and in parts of it where sand stretched out, with them looking for signs of life and plants.
“Well, it looks like water over there!” Orwell announced, to his great surprise, calmly scanning the shapes in the land.
“Where?” he gasped, searching for where it was.
Orwell pointed over to the side, where he had not really looked, and he saw water shinning, which had looked like flat shiny rock or something.
“That’s water! What makes you think it’s water?”
“I can tell! And I can see the sky around it …”
They decided to go down the hill, across it, and their feet rhythmically crunched into stones, and they breathed fast.
A light gray rock plane mostly filled up the landscape directly below, and they went to it, and he saw pockets of what looked like water and vague splashes of red in places, which looked like water and vegetation.
When they reached the ground at the bottom, where the light gray rock plane went out at their fronts, he examined chunks of stone that covered the ground of the world.
The planet had large areas of its surface smashed into pieces of shrapnel. The rocks were scattered through the lengthy rock plane zones, and round holes perforated the stone in the form of large potholes.
In the silence of the cool morning he felt the sun and heat start to increase, and he watched the land stretch out across their front, and the gray shingle rocks become thinner at their front.
The large holes surrounded their front, going deep into the ground, which looked strange, and they kept examining them wondering what the hell they were, and when they ignored them, and started to look for other things, a distant low pitch tone of something came from some distant place, like some inhabitant of the world had been watching them and had reacted.
They rushed through the last of the shingle and arrived at the flat rock of the rock plane, and they walked there properly, unimpeded in their spacesuits, where their heads darted about, looking for traces in the landscape of any signs of life – and anything that would indicate the presence of anything that they would encounter.
The strangeness of the place bewildered him, as it never actually had much, and he wondered if there was something missing from the place, with it being located so far away from the rest of the universe.
Their figures cast deep shadows against the rocky background, as the sun accelerated up into the sky, and their glances looked for nearby water.
His gaze went out across the rock plane, which went away out to faraway mountains, near the skyline, and he examined a small nearby red patch, out in the rock plane, for a long time, and he realized that it was not as far from there as he had thought.
He sniffed the air as the wind blew from where he was looking, and out from the rock plane, and he thought he saw the shape of something moving, and he stared in disbelief, and tried to explain the confounded shapes of the smashed rocks about it.
Orwell showed him some large holes in the ground nearby, hidden behind a small hill, and they rushed over to them, and as they approached them they all saw the holes had the same unusual shapes, and
up close they saw that they went deep into the world below, and he was unable to see the bottom of them.
He automatically lowered his head to the ground, over a hole, and listened for sounds, and any sound, even a crackle of stone, and stood up and thought about it, and realized it was not as new looking as it looked!
What could make such a hole? Was there something on this world they should see, and should they avoid direct confrontation with it? Could it even be watching him there?
While he moved away, Orwell stopped at the edge of a nearby rock pile, and he went over and found him standing examining a blob of reddish slime, and they watched its veins take blood through its slimy shape, and they allowed it to slither down into a crack in the ground, and they watched its organs vibrating as it vanished out of sight, and went into the ground and rock.
While they walked away, going across the rock plane, a loud shriek came from there, and in the thin crack in the rock he saw its shape, and wondered what the hell it was.
They cautiously shifted on, across the hot plane of rock, to a red patch, and their vague view of it increased in clarity, and a waterhole became visible at its center and to their surprise the red color was miniature red forms of thin plants, like cactus, growing like grass around its perimeter.
They sat and rested at the small waterhole, and watched a gust of wind whirl a cloud of sand up and into strange shapes.
To Cronenberg’s surprise he saw the horizon was altering and darkening and the sun was quickly going below distant mountains, and he realized it was turning dark already, and they were away out there, and he had wanted to return before it got dark, and he wondered if it was dangerous there.
In the end they decided to stay, as there was water, and they could see everything about them, and it had to be safer, and it turned dark fast, and darker than he had imagined, and the night sky was totally empty of stars!
The Lost Treasure Map Deluxe Book Collection (2017 Edition) Page 46
