The Lost Time Probe

by V Bertolaccini

  Yet after what they had been through there, and all that had happened everywhere, some of the crew even looked like copying him, but he thought better of it.

  One of the problems that faced them now was there was hardly any food, and the stuff they had was running out, which was mainly emergency rations in special pockets in their spacesuits, and they were tired and had not slept properly!

  So after they had all slept they carried out a great deal of examinations of the structure they were in, but found little, and seemed mainly to be some sort of base, and they investigated the sphere of energy as far as they could, but still found little!

  None of them could explain much, as it never even fitted into any of their fantasies! They were more confused than he had ever been, as he no longer just ignored all the mysteries and he just could not explain things, with anything that he could now accept, and why they had gone through the vortex and black hole in the laboratory, which was an incredible piece of luck, and Anders did not explain anything for them either!

  His secretive questioning of Anders about the map, when the others were away searching under the structure, gave little other than the fact he had believed the diamonds had been there, and had partially suspected they were elsewhere when the scientist with him kept suggesting it, which he was unsure of, but he was sure that he had been hiding things and that he had not been fully positive that they existed, and had been confused about many things! He must have been the only person in the history to have such an occurrence occur to him and find himself in such a place and have no way to return to the world after such a long time!

  Anders never recognized anything there and kept wondering where the structure was, and why they all acted strangely to the outside world, and why they kept talking of the lower world, and he even surprised them by claiming he had been put there to start over again and repent, in another attempt at entering an afterlife.

  Anders spent most of his time studying everything that he met with in fascination, and they confused him by their reactions and that they might be going to encounter aliens visiting there.

  Their investigations of finding a way down to the ground and world below were useless, and they were convinced that they had used another means to get there and they tried finding it, but it proved useless, and they only had the energy sphere, where Anders had appeared from, and most of them believed something was there, and had put them there for a reason.

  Chapter 7

  The Exit

  Golden radiances of the morning beamed straight across the top of the pinnacle, and created an immense shadow of the pinnacle’s shape stretch across the landscape below for many miles, pointing to the opposite horizon, where the nighttime darkness vanished.

  The top of the pinnacle was the same except a sphere of blackness was floating in midair over the central region, which had just been found there by them, and all the shuttle crew and Anders were there, and Anders was the most curious, and strolled around it examining its shape, confused, and was staggered at the outside world he had not seen, and regularly stood with his mouth wide open watching stars of colossal size doing strange things.

  The sphere had clearly recently appeared there and nobody there could account for it being there, and Rosenberg, who had found it, had thought the sphere had some form of intelligence, which they still had not proven to be not, or anything.

  Cronenberg watched Anders, still amazed at him, and with horrific thoughts, realizing what was there could pull virtually anything out on them, and he was amazed that there definitely were diamonds on Mars, and Anders had confirmed it, and the diamond or crystal he had was not it, and he was now sure that the scientist, with Anders, had been going to check it, and he wondered again why Anders had been put below in the structure, and thought over what Anders had said about it.

  They never knew where they were but at least they had Anders, and lots of information he had about the scientist’s discovery of them, and he wondered if they could return.

  Looking at the top of the pinnacle it was clear that something had flattened it with its incredible weight, and he could not grasp if it was deliberately created or something had happened there!

  Had something of immense weight, like a large solid meteorite, smashed into it?

  Their search of the structure below was useless, and the sphere there did little, and they were unable to activate it again, and he was sure there were actually objects inside the pinnacle keeping the pinnacle up and stopping it falling.

  Had something smashed a region off the top of the pinnacle away and had whatever was there held the rest of the tower and structure from being damaged and smashed away.

  The hideous condition of the world below was now even more obvious and astounding, and had been subjected to incredible damage. He even liked being on the tower and finding its wonders, and he knew they would even miss being there, if they escaped from there, and he wondered if there was a way to create a gateway there – and some day sell holidays to there, to see the amazing world!

  They were all now positive the sphere there was not from there and had appeared there for a reason, and they waited for something to happen, and when it did it surprised them with its swiftness and unexpectedness and he glided away, with the others, out of the universe, and they shot through blackness, as they left the universe, and stars shot by in streaks as they blasted through the gateway, voyaging away.

  Chapter 8

  The Circle of Mirrors

  All the Astronauts gasped, when they came to, lying across the ground, looking around them, and at a circle of mirrors surrounding them.

  Cronenberg leapt onto his feet first, staggered at missing what had happened, trying to recall losing consciousness, and he joined some of the others, and cleaned dust away from his spacesuit faceplate, and examined what the circular region they were in, and the mirrors evenly going around its radius, and he saw the circular ground was made of some strange alien material, and covered over in dust, and it seemed to connect the mirrors.

  He examined what the strange mirrors were, from the central region, watching them go around him in a perfect circle, and felt like he was being watched, and not just from through the mirrors themselves, which he sensed and knew were far more, and he eventually moved behind the mirrors and saw that the mirrors were not visible there, and there was nothing there, and he stood considering what they were, as the entire circle was like some highly advanced device, and he even considered if magic existed and that they were magical.

  Further out from the circle of mirrors he realized it was another pinnacle, and walked around its edge, and it was identical to the last one, but the colossal pinnacle was on top of a colossal mountain, and there was no way to get down, and they were trapped again.

  The surrounding world and sky was also staggering and Cronenberg stood with his mouth open staring at a vast world like Saturn, with massive rings, stretching into the atmosphere of the world they were on, and the Saturn world dangerously covered most of the southern horizon and its rings went across the eastern and western horizons.

  The world was either doomed to destruction or had some phenomenon holding the worlds apart!

  The astronauts lifted their faceplates when they realized there was air there and Cronenberg gasped at the smell of peculiar gases, and some of the astronauts filmed the world with their spacesuit cameras, and examined the strange mirrors up close, and walked through them from behind, proving they were not there from behind, and at a close distance from the front saw they were not mirrors but something else reflecting light.

  The sun of the world was the only normal thing there, except the world’s orbit of it was far faster, and it was racing into the horizon, and the sky was swiftly turning darker!

  As the night sky emerged, and blue sky vanished, they watched large meteorites blasting out of space everywhere in the distance, in the southern horizon, scattering beams of bright light, and he saw that it was in fact the merging of two solar systems, being pulled t
ogether, and the world’s solar system had been damaged by it, and one of its major planets, the Saturn world, was being pulled into it, and on one of the horizons he discovered the cause, and that they were at the center of a galaxy and were being pulled into a black hole, and he started spotting more and more of the destruction it had done, and he saw the whole sky full of debris from destroyed worlds and suns.

  Chapter 9

  The Haunted World

  At night the mirrors of the circle of mirrors altered into different and altering views of clusters of gateways, going back into them in lines into what looked like infinity.

  In the end they chose to enter one, which left them staggered, as they walked through and shot through an infinity of gateways, going back in lines everywhere, and they were all entirely different, and they had never seen anything like it.

  They entered one with more and shot into a colossal dome, the size of a solar system, full of gateways everywhere, with views of incredible places and things, and they were able to randomly choose the most interesting.

  Once they emerged into it they immediately became trapped there, in a dark strange wood, with altered trees, freezing in deep snow, where they spotted strange dark figures hiding behind trees, examining them, while mysterious lights startled them, and they heard them occasionally violently smash things about them, but they had weapons in their spacesuits.

  What staggered Cronenberg the most was that they never knew how to return, and as they rushed away, they held their belief that they would be saved once again and that there would be an eventual conclusion, but the snow grew thick and shrouded everything everywhere, creating a mind-bending landscape, while a massive moon swiftly emerged above, swiftly orbiting the world, and they soon became too exhausted to recognize anything.

  It was shocking how lost they were, but the moonshine showed them the strange mind-bending landscape ahead!

  The sounds of the life forms and other strange things hidden away there became dangerous and astonishing, and at times they came screaming out of the dark endless alien wood, and also through what sounded like shafts in the ground somewhere, and with a dangerous fury that stunned Cronenberg, and no matter how much they tried their thoughts never seemed to properly achieve stable recognitions.

  For some reason he began to believe there were supernatural regions in the universe, and that they had entered one version, and he was surprised that the others in the shuttle crew mentioned it openly, as if they knew he had known it, and he tried to grasp what the place and places were for, and considered all the gateways and their destinations, trying to grasp what the place was doing there. He was sure that they had discovered far more than they realized and that it could prove the existence of colossal magical abilities and energies and he analyzed everything in a far greater degree, searching for an answer.

  Out of nowhere a colossal light emerged from the undergrowth, and pulsated like a living thing, magically illuminating the deep lifeless snow and trees everywhere they looked, and seemed to silence the noises and life forms surrounding them.

  The light allowed them to see everything across their front more, and they spotted what was a structure buried away in the trees, and Cronenberg realized that it was an alien form of castle, buried and hidden deep away in the landscape and wood, and he examined it astounded at its immense size and how it could be built there, and he wondered if the whole world was covered by the trees and wood and if the builders normally built their structures there, and he had a sensation that the structure had colossal power, which would eventually leave him staggered!

  The deep snow and cold turned to a nightmare, and their legs sank into stinking vegetation and muck that started to resemble quicksand, and another light emerged deep in the undergrowth and pulsated like a living form, magically illuminating the snow and trees going everywhere, and they increased their speed.

  The castle became the most blissful thing he could think of as he saw the dangers there and it radiating through the wood like a spellbinding castle, and they forced themselves on.

  Its appearance, amidst the hell there, was staggering! It was like a dream phantom castle glowing in shining moonlight, like it was magically glowing.

  Behind them the shifting lights of glowing life forms became vicious and darted about everywhere in the blackness and landscape, and Cronenberg thought he saw ghost images of intelligent humanoids doing hideous things.

  Chapter 10

  The Lost Castle

  At the front of the colossal extraterrestrial castle structure, when there were no more trees, and they were about to reach its large entrance, the whole structure lit and radiated through the whole region, mass of trees and foliage, silencing what was there to their astonishment, with its colossal powers, and they examined its colossal size going out into the distance all around them and its height going away high over the trees, where a thin fog slowly got thicker and engulfed it.

  Vivid streaks of colored lightning exploded all over the top cloud region, and they saw the peculiar sky surrounding the fog, surrounding the castle, and it altered like a form of atomic explosion had blasted out, and massive blinding colossal stars further out blasted out their bright light.

  Entering a veil of mist, forming at its entrance, created sensations that they were being summoned there, for some hideous purpose, and they blindly entered the ghost oasis, out on the edge of reality, on the bounds of what lay beyond the universe, bordering death, near the depths of hell, with them seeking sanctuary and reality.

  On their entrance, and exit from the hideous jungle, the entrance closed behind them, trapping then there, and the interior illuminated it dim light, and Cronenberg heard vicious heavy beast sounds furiously exploding out outside, clearly making last attempts at threatening to destroy them.

  Somewhere over to the side of structure they heard powerful movements rapidly taking something near them, and they wondered what was protecting them, and had stopped them doing anything to them, and Cronenberg gasped and saw a faint colossal ghost shape in an area of deep blackness inside the structure, further along a corridor, and it altered to demon shape floating through the darkness, snapping massive jaws, before it vanished.

  The situation was bad and Cronenberg wondered what the hell the place was doing there, and why such a place should and could even exist, without destroying itself!

  What the hell had built such a place? Should they leave the place until the morning, and they had rested, before exploring anything? Was there even a morning there, as there was no sign that daylight existed? There could be great dangers there, but they could move to a region where they never existed, and survive!

  They had to survive! There was air there! There was life forms and vegetation for food, and they had shelter! Something had to be giving the world heat and light as the trees existed, and by their looks he was sure that it was winter, and that they could survive, and that someday they could find an exit gateway!

  Chapter 11

  The Ultimate Existence

  Cronenberg flicked his eyes open in an instant and wondered where the hell he was, and could not recall how he got there, and he recalled the last memories he could recall, which were of them going through the outer jungle, and he was left staggered, and for a few seconds, for some reason, he never knew what he was!

  Was he actually a normal life form of the universe, as he had always thought, or was he a strange phenomenon?

  He was sure he was being examined by one of the real inhabitants of the universe, and he gasped and jumped upwards, and checked the air supply in his spacesuit and realized it was low, and realized that he had been lying in a sort of black room with nothing else in it except a strange alien doorway and window.

  He had no recognition of what was there or where he was in the castle, or even that he was in one of the rooms in the castle, and he tried to recall more of his last memories, and he started to walk over to the window in the room to see what was there, and he was staggered again and stood uprigh
t and turned on his spacesuit light and examined the strange empty room about him, wondering how the hell he got there, and wondered if it was caused by his exhaustion the night before, or his lack of proper food, or the severe cold and snow falling outside, or was something there in the castle influencing him.

  He recalled surreal dreams, which had been incomprehensible and he wondered if they had actually been dreams! They never made sense, and one in particular had been made up of nothing but shimmering lights and freakish sounds and him being whirled about somewhere, similar to being in a colossal vortex, where he never thought or even did anything, and had been like he never existed and just experienced what was there.

  Suddenly he recalled his first dream and he realized something had been trying to make contact with him! Something strange! Something that was not physically part of the universe! Something put there, to do something he could not grasp!

  He detected it had a purpose to do something! Something he could not grasp, and he wondered if he had missed something or if it had missed out something!

  He then recalled the thing in the gateway, and the thing in the energy sphere and alien artifact, and he wondered if it was the same thing! Yet he had no proof that it was or was not, and he wondered what it wanted, and he realized that he could discover what it was all about, and he went over and over it and realized it had suggested something else existed. Did it want to contact it or was it doing something?

  Suddenly he recalled something and gasped and nearly fell over, and remained silent, and realized that it was warning them of something, and that something similar to itself was there and was checking them out, and was of great danger!