The Alien Orb (16 page)

If only they
could just find something that had gone undetected by everyone
else, with their detection methods and equipment, and have proper
proof for the world!

He was
staggered when he considered what they had come up with, as they
had advanced far further than he had even imagined and the place
was packed solid with every form of equipment possible, and it went
beyond his imagination what they might do!

They had
managed to transport him back there from the other universe or
whatever it was, and must be the only people ever capable doing
that!

It was like an
experiment to them to see what would happen if they pushed further
than ever beyond the boundaries of natural science and out into the
supernatural.

The darkening
winter night sky through the window revealed the abyss of the
billions of light years of stars to Bryson and reminded him of the
dangers of exploration into the unknown, and he considered what
could exist in its depths, and what kind of aliens existed out
there.

“
Well,
we have now finished our work on setting some of the stuff up!”
Merton announced tiredly to Bryson, dragging himself away from his
work.

It was
incredible! He realized that he had been there for hours and that
they still had not properly notified him what they were doing, and
what it was fully for! He could not believe how long he had been
there without barely noticing it and wondered if he had been
damaged by being in the vortex and other universe, and he had seen
that the others had seen differences in him and vaguely studied him
now and then.

Merton marched
over with a smile, while rubbing his tired arm.

“
We are
here to help!” he announced. “But we do not want all our work
ruined and all our valuable stuff available everywhere before we
have properly used it!”

Bryson was
surprised by his reply and he did see their point of view, and
considered what their thoughts of him there were!

He thanked
Merton and for saving him from the tunnel.

“
You
now
must be the
most experienced on what exists out there!” Merton informed him and
the others.

Bryson
examined their scientists and the equipment carefully and tried
again at estimating what they were doing and left it until they
either told him or showed him its use, which surely was the latter
and that it would be better for them to show it.

He watched
them silently considering what to tell him!

“
When we
checked the tunnel behind that wall,” Merton stated, “we realized
that we could come up with something better to use to check what it
does ... Well, especially after hearing and monitoring those
sounds, which appeared all around this region, at specific points,
and we realized that we should!”

“
So you
can properly check it further?” Bryson replied tiredly.

“
We will
be able to check it within other dimensions ... And properly check
those sounds ...”

Chapter 7

The Dinning Room

Most of the
people at the castle were sitting in the dinning room, chatting
loudly and excitedly all around the dinner table, and Bryson walked
in fascinated at how far they had cleaned the place up since the
last time he had been there.

Bryson sat
between Pendleton and Mitchell at the center of the large ancient
circular wooden table and ate his food greedily, hungrily than he
had in a long time, and realized that he and Pendleton were both
eating and drinking crazily and were the only ones there doing it,
and some of the others occasionally watched.

Mitchell now
seemed more silent and inactive since he had left the castle and
Bryson realized how much interest he had in where Mitchell had
ended up, and he continually tried to think of a way to get him to
say something and solve the puzzle.

Yet he could
not think of anything and knew that he would avoid replying to
everything!

They all
jerked when two loud exploding crackles came off partly wet logs
burning in the fireplace, directly in front of Bryson at the other
side of the room. The heat from it could be felt warming the place
and some smoke could be seen entering the room, giving the place
burnt scent, which liked.

“
Well,
how are your two scientist friends
doing
?” Mitchell moaned, moving backwards in his seat, to see
him better.

“
They
are making progress!” he replied firmly, watching Mitchell examine
him and Pendleton and their eating habits.

Bryson
anxiously took some soup and watched him at the corner of his eye
with his chunky face examining him. For a moment, he wondered if he
had found the answer to the clue or something else.

The hunt for
the money was an exciting game to all of the men there and he
listened to their tales of their searches for it with great
interest and decided that he wished to pursue the treasure more
than anything now. Mitchell’s men now seemed far too overconfident
now, for some reason, and he could not establish why and realized
that they were deliberately avoiding saying something, and it
seemed to be Mitchell’s idea, making him wonder why. Were they on
the trail of something and were they keeping things secret? But why
worry about it! They would either find it or they would not. They
had nothing to lose.

He was happy
that they had not found it yet anyway, especially while he was not
there! As he really wanted to be at least there, and perhaps hold
some influence in its discovery.

There seemed
be little findings and activity since they had vanished into the
tunnel and he was not sure if it had been the fact that Mitchell
had not been there, and perhaps him too, and that they had not
known what to do without them being there or if it had been the
fact that they had found everything that they could and hit a dead
end, but he was sure that it had been both factors.

Why not have a
good time there! Who knows they might get something else of great
value at the place after all! There were many generations of
eccentric owners of the castle! Things in it had been there for an
immense amount of time! Perhaps some valuable antique existed
hidden away somewhere!

He quickly
phoned his friend on his pocket phone, and established contact with
him and that he would continue his search of the castle for items
and send him photos of them for him to establish if they were worth
anything, and was surprised that he was still interested and
excited, and told him the latest news about the murder at the
castle and the police investigation there had come up with little
and it was no longer appearing on the media.

Only one or
two of the police were at the castle now and there because some of
them wanted them there, because there was still great danger of
there being a reoccurrence of the killing.

It emphasized
the value of the treasure, if it still was there!

Bryson felt
the warm air in the surrounding room now and relaxed against the
back of his seat. The corridors and rooms were freezing compared to
the room now, which he felt occasionally blow in through a gap in
the door from someone further along opening an outside door.

He
intermittently lifted his glass and tasted sweet white wine.

“
Did
they not find anything else with all that equipment that arrived
here?” one of Mitchell’s men further along the table
asked.

“
They’ve
not finished!” Bryson replied. “They were working on a lot of
things! Like our return to the castle!”

“
They’ve
not finished their work?” Mitchell answered, reminding him again
with how vague he was now.

Pendleton
lifted his arm and allowed it to fall to his side, and examined a
magazine that he had with him, which one of the scientists had
given him, which he kept reading with fascination at the technology
and things that now were available.

The whole
place was mysterious to him, and Bryson also had many mysteries to
solve.

Mitchell
stretched his arms out, waking himself, and announced, “It’s time
to start work!”

“
Where
are you working now?” Bryson quickly asked.

“
We
going to lift that tomb out ... Then up through the floor from the
hidden chamber ... Then we’ll see if there’s anything else there!
So if you’re interested ...?”

Bryson nodded
in agreement, realizing Mitchell wanted him there, as well as the
two scientists being there, and realized that it would be a good
idea to start there, where they had left off, and he recalled the
words on the tomb and that he had not established what they
meant.

Chapter 8

The Clues

When they
entered the library Bryson examined the tunnel entrance, dug out
from the floor and now covered over with an ancient stone slab, and
Bryson sensed something unusual. But he only grasped that there was
snow falling outside.

Yet something
seemed different and he watched the others grouping about the table
with seats, in front of the books, and he made himself familiar
with his new surroundings. Most of the people there were Mitchell’s
men and the archaeologists.

Bryson
wondered why the books had been hidden away there anyway – in a
chamber hidden behind a false wall that opened out like a door –
and why someone had gone to such lengths to build it? He knew why
the tunnel was hidden out of view but not why they had hidden a
small castle library there.

Yet the others
that had looked through the books insisted there was nothing there
and he took their word for it!

He watched
Pendleton gasp as he saw the covered over tunnel, and quickly
acknowledge it as a different tunnel entrance from the one that he
had gone down, which they had not investigated yet.

Bryson
suddenly realized that the books were uneven and hanging out
everywhere and that when he had passed by the room earlier that the
books had been neatly placed together by the archaeologists, who
had been there last, who were the only ones interested in the
books, mainly to search for historic accounts of there, and going
by what the others had told them.

Somebody had
clearly searched through them for something, and Bryson wondered
who had been there, and what had the person been looking for? The
majority of the people at the castle had been at the dinning room
or with the scientists.

He examined
objects in the room from different perspectives trying to see if
there were anything altered, but never saw anything else and
started examining the books.

He eventually
asked the archaeologists, “Are there any books missing there?”

They examined
through them but never noticed anything so Bryson ignored it.

He wondered
where the killer had gone and if he was looking for the treasure,
and he started wondering why he had been so desperate to do
something? Why did he not wait? Was there a trail that led to it
somewhere? Had the person been trying to get something to get to
it?

The treasure
could be anything and he even wondered if it was the same one that
had been in the other castle, and that they would be spending all
their time searching for something that they had found already! The
treasure could have been there and had been taken by William
Randall to the other castle with him! It was only logical that he
would have had it near him! Why did he have two treasures
anyway?

Bryson had
never heard of people having two treasure before and he considered
if there was more than one person involved and that there was a
second person who had been at this castle who had been a friend or
relative of William Randall, and again he wondered if it had been
the person in the tomb buried in the chamber beneath the floor,
which they would soon go to and remove from the chamber.

Who the hell
had they been, and what had they been up to? He started searching
through the books with the others for information! Something had to
be there and he searched what the books were mainly about and what
they were interested in, and soon found out that the books never
belonged to them and belonged to later owners of the castle, and
the earliest had only a few books that were virtually meaningless
to him and gave little.

He was sure
that if the map of the castle found in the ring on the person in
the tomb proved the person had been with the original people and
William Randall, and that if there was information about them, it
might be there after all.

There was
something about hunting for hidden things that he did not like and
that frustrated him! There were far too many things that suggested
where things could be and that could anywhere. The mind could
almost turn anything into what looked like a clue just by staring
at things for long enough, if the person wanted something badly
enough! They could be following false clues all the time and make
major mistakes there until they left if they were not careful! He
was sure, if they had not already been doing it, that they would
start doing it as soon as they checked the main places and clues at
the castle, with there being no real ways of finding it left.

Here they were
searching books for the answer to something that could be anything,
and not even exist. The amount of things that the mind could
conjure up and associate with it was vast. He doubted if the
treasure seekers that he had seen in movies, who had chased after
clues, could have answered the clues that they had been given. Why
had he never heard of anyone chasing after treasure like it? As far
as he was now concerned the people who had found things had been
looking for them in ships with people who had found records of
there having been treasure, and which had been aboard vessels that
had sunk in specific regions that they could trace – and with them
not solving strange riddles to them! People found them with
knowledge and traced them with technology, and spent a long time
doing it, and in most cases never found anything or virtually
nothing!