The Alien Artifact 8 (18 page)

He checked a front pocket of his spacesuit
for something to remove it. Yet it was too close to his leg for him
to use anything that would damage his spacesuit, as it would be
dangerous if it was damaged. In the end he grabbed a sharp piece of
rock on the ground and struggled to cut it off, and when it fell he
lifted his leg up and stamped down hard on it.

“
Did you see that?” Rosenberg
announced, warning him of something he seemed to notice he had
missed, as he moved up to his side, and he marched out in front of
the group, and he looked out where he pointed, but saw nothing, and
stopped and looked more firmly.

“
What?” he finally asked, wondering
what he was suggesting.

He suddenly saw a small tree that Rosenberg
was looking at and that it was moving about at the roots, as if
struggling to do something, and he examined it more, and to his
surprise saw it was attempting to move itself towards them and he
saw it carefully moving its large clump of roots over the
ground.

On the ground near him he saw a glimmer off a
rock and he picked it up and examined what it was and saw it had a
shiny stone in it, and he examined it to see if it had any value,
and he removed the shiny stone, from the chunk of crumbling rock,
and watched Rosenberg trying to remove something from his leg.

At the side of his eyes he saw Anders pick up
a similar large rock, and as he examined his rock he watched him
hurl it at the small tree, which was moving faster towards them,
and he watched it seeing what it would do, and watched the rock
smash into its tree shape, and to his surprise it jumped at another
tree close to it in Anders direction, like a life form, and the
other tree fought back as it attacked it furiously and they all
stood with their mouths open as the two tree life forms fought each
other with all their strength, and other trees and areas of
vegetation joined in, and the whole area around them seemed to
react to it, and started preparing itself for something, and a
massive a riot of tree shapes broke out between all the tree life
forms, with the bottoms of many still embedded in the ground.

Everything around them seemed to be smashing,
grabbing, and fighting in a frenzy of fighting, and fighting to the
death, and he wondered how such life forms could survive so close
to each other, and he started examining them trying to grasp
something!

The fighting life forms spread out across
their sides like a wave in a lake, with a speed they could not
understand.

All the life forms at every level going down
into the ground were attacking each other, and he kept trying to
grasp how they were so responsive to the reactions. When they moved
swiftly away to an unaffected region they felt it below them, under
their feet, they seemed to sense the tension in what was below, and
brace themselves, preparing for the silent wave of savagery to
fully reach their place, and he was sure their main level of
intelligence and brain area was below the ground.

As they attempted to move forwards all the
life forms about them grabbed at their legs.

A sudden silent rustling and whipping noise
came towards them as they rushed away.

When they looked back they saw the entire
jungle fighting, and entire trees jumping at each other at every
place visible, in an immense frenzy of activity. Even the lower
areas were now wrestling and struggling with each other.

When the ground below them started vibrating
furiously and underground plants and roots started becoming furious
they started running fast, just avoiding hitting things, and
started running at full speed for their lives, as they frantically
tried to kill them!

Chapter 16

The Dark World

The last shreds
of sunlight vanished beneath the trees behind them, swiftly going
under the horizon, and a deep black winter night engulfed them, and
Cronenberg studied his surroundings over and over trying to explain
why the jungle had entirely altered, and in a matter of a few
miles, from where they had arrived on the world, the entire jungle,
landscape, and temperature had altered incredibly, and he had a
hard time believing the life form trees were all gone, and replaced
with normal forms of trees.

Though they
were gone the place was as deadly as ever, there were deadly
tremors blasting through the ground there, and the temperature was
still furiously falling, and falling to the temperature on Mars,
and rocks from hills regularly came crashing down, smashing into
trees, and there were landslides, and tremors had even shaken them
off their feet.

Yet the trees
were vanishing, and the region Anders had seen from the treetop was
appearing, and they still plodded on to get there to get rid of the
tree life forms, which they still watched out for, and at the side
of their eyes.

The whole place
looked different, and he considered if there was something there
that the life forms were avoiding, and he wondered if it was a far
greater danger to them! Yet he was sure it was the tremors, when
they were at their worst!

He regularly
stopped and looked for miles fascinated, seeing endless miles of
damaged smashed up landscape, and he realized it was some form of
fault line, and perhaps an early Earth one, when its thickness was
not great, and starting to harden, with thin areas of crust with
vast and powerful tremors.

They were now
like an army group, after the jungle attack and vicious tremors,
who had far more experience in searching, examining, documenting,
and detecting what was there, and what others might miss.

It was bringing
them back to life after a long length of inactivity, and lack of
anything of interest, and he could not recall ever doing anything
like it before. At times he still could not believe that he was on
another world, lost in space galaxies away from the solar
system!

In a matter of
an hour the entire place was deep in snow and it shrouded all the
hills and tree formations and they could barely believe that they
had landed in a jungle, and it had been like a really hot jungle
location, and he realized the dangers, and he wondered what a world
with its climate changes would be like living on, and what the
animals would be like.

The snow
landscape was untouched by any intelligent life forms, but they had
only seen that location of the world, and at times it was empty of
sound, and like Mars, but with a deep silence that he had only
heard in thick winter snow landscapes. It reminded him of what he
thought another alien world would be like! An empty desolate world,
and lost away in the stars!

What was
shocking was they could not even get lost as they never knew what
the world or surrounding stars were like, or where anything was,
and all they could do is lose their way going to where there were
no trees at all, and he was unsure if they even knew accurately
where that would lead to. All that they had was their faith in a
gateway emerging and taking them away.

He never knew
what was actually happening and what was there was doing and what
its intention was, and what the eventual outcome would be.

There was
nothing to recognize anywhere and he watched some of the astronauts
attempt to pick up any communications with their spacesuit
equipment, and eventually give up.

They all
started getting too exhausted, wading and wading, through deep snow
areas, and not recognizing anything, and he realized it was time
they looked for shelter, and perhaps somewhere with some
significant to rest and spend the night, and while he searched
everywhere, and had the others searched too, and he started to
notice a distant and peculiar hum, similar to a distant engine
whirling, out at an unknown place, which was shadowing them, and he
started trying to grasp the source.

The altered
route they took, going to the hum and where there were hills and
rock faces, and he was disappointed to find their legs almost
becoming stuck in deep bogs of stinking vegetation, buried below
the snow there, which started to resemble a form of quicksand, as
it grew in depth, and he started to wonder if they could even find
somewhere there where they could actually be allowed to shelter, as
they were sure as hell not going to stay under the trees or
vegetation anywhere, even though they had tested it out there, as
there could be some of the life forms hidden away there. There was
a definite look of a swamp emerging around them, but the hill
became closer and closer, and the only refuge from the cold winter
environment, and the depth became deeper and deeper, just as they
were about to make it to safety!

A cold haze edged its way around them and the
undergrowth there as well, as though something saw them being
trapped there, and they started slowing and calming themselves,
preparing for the worst, and allowing themselves to rest and gain
energy.

The place and situation was nothing like
anything any of them had seen before elsewhere!

He could not get if it was a strange
environment about him, something strange existing there, or a
combination of things that created reactions.

He watched strange vapor clouds shift
within the mist, as if hiding within the mist, and perhaps a form
of intelligent mist, always shadowing them
–
as if probing them, and
analyzing them for some purpose.

Nobody said anything and they looked like
they were wondering if it had real intelligence, and he noticed
some of it around them, and them vaguely watching it linger over
deep pools of slime in the mind-bending swamp.

Could it do anything other than probe them?
How could it detect them? What did it use to exist? What was it
doing there? Did it have some form of animal food source or was it
after something else?

As a scientist, as well as many other things,
he wished he could get some samples from it, but decided to wait
until they had properly checked if it was dangerous.

Gusts of freezing wind blew and withdrew in
opposite directions, blowing and sucking, shifting the cloud about,
giving him the feeling that something else, invisible and nearby,
was breathing over them or something! Something of supernatural or
advanced alien origins, but with an animal nature, or something was
there and the environment was reacting to its presence or its
paranormal powers!

Chapter 17

The Mist
Formation

His legs became stuck in deep bogs of
freezing icy water, even through his spacesuit, and he wondered if
it could damage it, and he knew that they would have to do
something soon, and he waited and watched and noticed that the
others were mainly waiting for something.

It was then he gasped and realized what he
had missed and that the fog formed a perfect square shape right
about them, with them directly at the center, and it intensified,
and he realized that they were trapped.

“
Where are we going
...?
”
Anders spluttered, fighting for air, furious that he had been
put in such situation.

He stopped and showed how annoyed he was at
the way things were going, and started kicking the muck under his
feet up and grabbed a clump of it and threw it hard into the square
mist cloud and they all watched on with horror and curiosity, and
Cronenberg was amazed that it bounced of it, as though repelled by
some force within it, and he wondered if it could crush them if it
contracted.

“
Perhaps it’s a life form trying to
protect something over at the hill ...
”
Rosenberg moaned, giving glances
about at them and their reactions, and Cronenberg realized that he
could be right and that he had not thought of it as a normal life
form.

“
Where can we go?
”
Anders continued, wondering
what they
’
d
do next. Barely able to realize what the outcome of such a
situation would be.

They all stood and examined other areas of
the hill they could go to, and they went in a direction that was
entirely different and away from where they had been going, and the
mist there!

“
What
’
s there?
”
Anders asked, vaguely confused, not
seeing anything but the surrounding square mist cloud getting in
the way.

Everyone
watched on in horror and confusion when the square mist cloud
started altering and rearranging itself, getting ready to do
something, and the mist formation also altered at the hill, and it
started to move to a new location!

Chapter 18

The Entrance

Once they set foot on the
hill
, out of nowhere, a
light emerged in the distant mist formation, and Cronenberg stood
considering if it was going to contact them or attack them, as a
first contact situation or something else, but he never fully knew
what to do, and if it was something entirely new.

Its radiance
pulsated like a motorized life form, magically illuminating areas
of the hill, stretching shadows from formations everywhere about
their front as it intensified.

While he
silently observed loud thuds of something he thought it was the
earthquakes reoccurring but after listening to it intensely it
became clear it was like something of immense weight shifting
around, and he considered if it was still reacting to them or it
carrying out what it normally did, and he realized that he could
not tell as he had never heard anything like it.

Out of nowhere,
other lights emerged through the undergrowth nearer, with their
radiance pulsating like living things, magically illuminating
everything far more brightly, blinding their eyes with intense
beams, lighting everything about them everywhere and fully showing
them their surroundings and all its detail, and they decided to
scurry away to the most distant location.