The Antarctic Discovery (Novelette) (11 page)

The scene was incredible! None of them knew
what he was talking about and he avoided saying anything and blamed
him for something that he refused to say what! It was strange also
as they reacted differently at the cold desolate lost ice station!
They seemed to want the conclusion of what was going to happen
more!

To their surprise he removed the handgun and
shot the roof, spraying pieces of the ceiling over the table and
them, and stood shouting in Russian! The explosion left them
stunned and they all considered him mad and that some form of ice
station isolation madness existed!

People from other rooms rushed along to the
doorway with guns and he started shooting them or at them as they
avoided them! Then one of the younger soldiers suddenly rushed out
and shot him dead, and he fell over and hit the floor with a
thud!

“
What the hell was that about?”
Commander Craven moaned, looking at the dead Russian
innocently.

He then lost his temper and demanded that the
Russians tell him what he had spoken to them about, and demanded
again that they better tell him!

One of them finally came forward and
announced that he had something to tell them!

“
Well!” Commander Craven moaned. “Tell
us before it’s too late!”

“
I believe he knew where the alien
sphere was located and it was taken!”

“
Why did he not tell us?”

“
He did not know if he could trust
you!”

“
Well! Where the hell was
it?”

“
Only he knew where it was! One of the
six Russian renegade soldiers that survived, after your battle with
them, who was taken away as a prisoner, knew where it was and told
him where before he left!”

“
So the alien sphere does exist and we
are now looking for the person who took it!”

Chapter 22

The Conclusion

The whole place seemed to go into madness and
transform over night and many of the soldiers started to get
heavily drunk, and many arguments broke out! Everyone there was a
suspect to the crime, which could hold the fate of the human race!
Nobody came forward with the alien artifact and they now knew that
nobody would be allowed to leave the ice station until it was
handed over or special investigators arrived to find the
person.

Commander Craven had sent out messages about
what had happened and their replies had arrived! The object was far
too valuable and dangerous and the military was going to go to any
lengths to get it!

Weaver even wondered if he would be tortured
or something by them until they got it, and he wished he had stayed
with the others at the other ice station.

Everyone there seemed to be the source of all
the trouble! Even Commander Craven looked a suspect, because of the
Russian’s direct attack against him!

The final conclusion to the problem was
staggering to Weaver, and he never realized that he would be the
one with it in the end and that he would solve the problem!

While the Russians had all been silently
eating their meals Weaver had passed the dinning room and he
realized that they knew more! So he returned and they offered him a
seat beside them, and he grabbed something to eat, and he started
talking to them and asking them about what had happened!

“
Where do you think he had the object?”
he asked one them, who properly translated it to the
others.

They all discussed it and he heard some
replies in English and some Russian words but he got little.

“
They are not sure!” the Russian
replied, which interested him as it suggested that they knew
something.

“
Where did he go before he entered the
dinning room and pull out the gun?”

They all went silent and he saw one react
strangely and knew that he might get what he wanted after all, and
was surprised when he described that he had gone into a hut and
that it was the one with the vehicle that had the petrol meter
cleaned by someone!

He realized that it could have been there all
along. He tried getting more from them but they never had anything
else. He knew there was something, but just could not grasp what!
Was Reeves capable of taking it and selling it? It was worth a vast
amount of money if he found a place to sell it, which he might be
able to do through someone to the military!

He decided to tell Reeves and Commander
Craven about it and take them to the hut and the vehicle to look
for it, as perhaps the person that took it had hidden it somewhere
else there and they might find something altered and see where he
could have put it!

When they entered the hut he and Reeves saw
straightaway the place around the vehicle had been altered and that
the Russian had smashed parts of the vehicle with something!

“
Well!” Commander Craven groaned. “This
is where he had it hidden!

Reeves started examining the vehicle and
Weaver realized that the object had to have been on the vehicle and
he should have looked in other places on it.

“
For some reason he seems to have
smashed the bottom out of the petrol tank?” Reeves
stated.

Weaver gasped and stood staring at it!

“
It looks as though it was in the
petrol tank!” Commander Craven confirmed.

“
I checked there though!” Weaver
replied, and realized that it might have been in the petrol tank
all along and that someone had taken it before him or that it had
been hidden in some secret compartment area of the petrol
tank.

“
So you checked there and never found
anything at all?” Reeves continued.

“
There was an old piece of rusted metal
in the remains of a plastic bag!” he answered.

“
Where did it go?”

“
I threw it over there!” he replied,
pointing over into some rubbish.

Reeves swiftly bent over the rubbish and
searched through it until he found it, and cleaned what Weaver had
thought had been a piece of rusted metal, and showed them that it
was a sphere of some type, which he proved was the same material as
the voyager, and that it could not be damaged!

Chapter 23

The Alien Sphere

The black alien
sphere rested in his hand and he played with it! Wondering what the
hell it was! None of them had worked out what it was!

They had
earlier arrived back at Ice Station X1, and left the freezing old
Russian ice station behind, and they had just taken the alien
sphere into the cavity with voyager to show the scientists, and
they still had not solved what it was and all of them had
repeatedly examined it!

All the
scientists there were working away on various projects, and they
had clearly been making progress in many regions!

The whole
cavity seemed alive with action, with scientists and technicians
discussing things and doing research, and monitoring equipment that
was carrying out various functions.

The commander
of the Russian base took the alien sphere and examined it trying to
grasp what they had been talking about and what all the fuss had
been about. It definitely was the real alien sphere! The people
that had admitted seeing it also confirmed it! The soldiers all
were astounded with it and that it was such a deadly ultimate
object, created by the vast advanced alien technology that had
created the voyager!

How could such
a small device have such vast powers? Perhaps it used powers from
elsewhere or created something like a chain reaction that could
destroy the planet!

Many of the
scientists examined it and could not find anything, and he noticed
Willis knew something so he finally showed it to him and he
examined it.

“
What do
think of it?” Weaver asked. “You’re the one that has been in
contact with it!”

“
I think
it could function by thoughts!”

Willis
concentrated his thoughts on the object and closed his eyes, and
tried to do something! Then Weaver started to wonder about the
dangers of it! What if it was activated by the mind? That could
mean anyone there could activate the thing. And they could do it
deliberately or accidentally!

To their
surprise the alien sphere split in half, opening up, and at first
Weaver thought that it was empty but when he looked closer at it he
started to see a small piece of something, which Willis removed
carefully and they all looked at what looked like a slide for a
small slide projector, and they stared at it bewildered.

Weaver examined
the sphere shell and found nothing else, and it was only a
container for the slide!

“
The
thing is empty!” one of the scientists announced, and Weaver put it
away in his pocket, and they examined the slide.

What the hell
was a slide doing there? If it was a slide? They had become so
engrossed in finding an ultimate weapon and finding it that they
just stood staring.

“
There’s
a lens over there!” a scientist announced, and marched away to get
it, and quickly returned with it and they used it to see the
slide.

Willis examined
it first and swiftly passed it over to Weaver for him to
examine.

“
It’s
definitely a slide with something on it?”

“
It’s a
microfilm!” Weaver confirmed, but he could not see what was on it,
and started to realize that it could be more valuable than he
thought.

It surely had
to be the plans of the ultimate weapon! If they actually had the
weapon they might not have been able to construct another or even
find out how to use it! The material it was made of was
indestructible and they would not have been able to open it and
would have only had one of them, which might not have been as
deadly as they imagined anyway. If the plans were there they could
construct it and discover how it worked and use the technology for
other things! And as far as he was concerned it was worth far more
and he wondered why he was allowing all of the scientists and
Russian scientists to see it, and he started to realize how
dangerous it was becoming, and how much it actually was worth and
why the renegades had been killing so many for it!

He decided to
remain silent as they were unable to see any detail on it, and he
started trying to find a way to get it.

As he watched
the reactions of the Russian scientists and soldiers and their
sudden aggressive communications and their reactions starting to
become hostile he started to realize that they surely were going to
get hold of it and he could tell by Willis’s behavior that he was
thinking the same thing. He even thought of running away with it
and hiding it away and calling in some more intelligence agents to
help him. But that would be incredibly stupid as they had cameras
and surveillance all around there now.

The person that
looked the least interested in it was Willis who only tried to
examine it further to clarify some point, and he wondered what he
had planned. He kept showing he had more interest in the
voyager!

To their
surprise Willis looked at the Russians about him aggressively and
removed a lighter and set fire to the microfilm, and they all just
watched it burn away into nothing!

Weaver watched
in amazement and surprise as all the scientists about them started
clapping their hands, and the Russian scientists started clapping
louder and he joined in and he realized that they never wanted
anyone to have the weapon!

Chapter 24

The Final
Solution

The voyager was
tremendous and they had surrounded it with all their equipment,
even embedded through the ice below, as they attempted to study it
as far as they could. Its powers were immense and it was found to
have many other powers existing beyond the universe, in outer
dimensions and time zones.

A Russian
scientist announced to Willis and Weaver, “We have the technology
to communicate with it!”

“
I will
still have to create a first contact situation mentally with it!”
Willis answered firmly. “It is not going to easy!”

“
So
what’s happening?” Weaver asked, anxiously waiting for a reply to
what was occurring, after days of watching them at work, and Willis
preparing himself.

“
I’ll
tell you what I know!” Willis stated, wishing Weaver to know what
was happening. “It was damaged and the controller/entity crashed it
into this world and next to the ice station, mainly due to the
transmissions from the equipment and telescope that they have below
the station that has been repeatedly transmitting first contact
messages throughout the stars for many years! I believe it intended
to repair itself or have us do it for it! Even in its dormant state
it attempted to revive its voyager! Its energy was also exhausted,
and it crashed deliberately, where it believed if it was not helped
either that it would be revived someday if it remained on a world
like this! They would find a way to revive it or
something!

“
It chose
me and in its dormant state had shown me what had happened to it,
but it had been unsuccessful in what it had intended to
do.

“
It chose
to allow one of the Russians to make another contact attempt to
check if it had missed something in its dormant state and it was
unsuccessful again, and it had rewarded him with what he had wanted
and an ultimate weapon that could win world wars.