The Thing: from the Depths of Hell (2 page)

The stranger pointed over in the direction
that he had come from.

“
I woke up over there, and I never
knew how I got there, and saw your headlights and walked
back.
”

Major Ripley heard a noise from the
communication device, and jumped in beside it, and picked up the
part of the device to communicate.

“
Vehicle four here! Any information on
what happened to the communications?
”

“
Ripley! This is Douglas. Major
Douglas! Vehicle two. All the communications were down! They
returned to back to normal ten minutes ago. We have a problem! All
the people here and aboard the GX1 have lost their memories
–
relating to
identification of people. We do not know if it is permanent or if
something is causing it. All the vehicles crashed too!
They
’
re
working on the problem back at the GX1. All the vehicles are to
return there now!
”

“
This is Ripley!
What
’
s the
distance to the nearest vehicle, vehicle number three, from
us?
”

“
That
’
s Mendez! It
’
s just over three miles from
you! Why?
”

“
Do me a favor! Just tell me what was
the number of passengers in this vehicle?
”

“
Wait a minute, and
I
’
ll
check!
”

“
That
’
s strange! All the stuff on the
personnel of the GX1 has been erased!
”

“
Brilliant! Thanks!
”

“
So what
’
s your name then?
”
Kruger asked the
stranger.

“
Dan Kruger! I think you called me
Dan! I believe we
’
re twins!
”

“
How do you think you got over
there?
”

“
I don
’
t know. I just woke up
–
over
there!
”

The stranger took his entire suit off, and
they saw how identical he was, and to Kruger it was like looking at
himself in the mirror, and he saw Major Ripley checking for
differences in their features to identify them, for the future.

Chapter 2

First Contact

In the depths of its infinite surroundings a
spectacular energy surge had exploded out, with radiating beams,
mystifying the entity for the first time for an immeasurable length
of time, as it had continued its regular routines of regulating and
improving its vast existence.

From nowhere a concentrated sphere of energy
had appeared, vaguely even being detected by its senses due its
minute size. Except its acceleration soon left it staggered! It had
never known anything of the outside universe, and everything about
it was beyond its knowledge, and it considered if it was something
to do with another like itself, with even a far greater degree of
knowledge and powers.

It had observed that it had clearly traveled
a great distance, and from the distant energy fields, of the
galaxies. Its technology interested it the most, and its size was
so small that it had confused it. Was it sent by another of its
kind? Could it itself recreate such a thing to explore its
surroundings? Should it actually conceal itself or attack and
capture it?

Thus it soon set itself the task of
exploring it to gain all the knowledge that it could before it
left, or anything happened.

A surge of energy forces that it had never
conceived existed hit its probing forces, shocking it and
fascinating it at the same time. It had been unbelievable and
glorious, and it admired it greatly, but had sensed great danger,
as with its encounter with destruction on its creation.

Through its thoughts a blur of radiation had
swirled out of the blackness. Strange energies without any meanings
had sent sensations through its structure.

Amidst its awesome powers it had detected
its core, the GX1 spacecraft, surrounded by its propulsion forces
and energy protection shield, force field, which defended it
against the forces that propelled it through space, and stopped it
being damaged by anything else. At the speed that it traveled, at
hundreds of times the speed of light, even the smallest object
could cause indescribable damage.

The entity had always thought of things in
size, and small had always been powerless and useless to it, and it
had realized that far greater powers could exist in the smaller and
concentrated.

It had visualized its appearance as it had
probed its force field, as a speck appearing with spectacular beams
spraying out into the stars. Its outline emerging out of obscurity,
and it had imagined its shape hurtling on to the distant
formations.

A vast line of energy had stretched out
across space from it, left behind, and it had fascinated it in that
it could discard such great amounts of energy. Its body had
absorbed it with enchantment, as it could not recall having taken
in such forces since its creation.

After many
probes, and unsuccessful probing, including through
multidimensional sensors, it had accumulated everything that it
could as swiftly as it had done anything for a long time, and
started to examine what it had accumulated.

Its unique acceleration had allowed it to
travel the immense depths of the void, and it had been controlled
by altered forms of it. The whole object had been controlled by
parts of the object itself, but regulated by small mobile separate
forms, which had free thinking states, unlike the object
itself.

Even though it had gained knowledge, which
it would study for years to come, it had gained little on its
construction and how it and everything in it had worked, and it had
realized that it could be the only time it would come across such a
phenomenon, as it began to reach the limits of its reaches.

The deep emptiness about it had become
so vivid, and it had thought of its original thoughts of the
object
’
s
discovery, and then of the finding of the things in it, and at the
same time it had detected with amazement its sudden deceleration,
and it had considered if it detected its surveillance, and if it
intended to make contact with it.

Yet it had then gone into orbit around a
world, which it had not even known was there, over to the side of
it, and it probed the world with fascination. It had never seen a
world before, and it had been fascinated that it could have been
there without it knowing, even with it being outside its normal
reaches. It wondered if it had been missing many things while it
had been drifting and building itself.

What strange place had it come from? What
other wonders were there? Where had it been traveling to on its
voyage into the depths of space and time?

The denseness of the world had surrounded it
with mind-bending wonders and visions as it had explored it,
seeking answers, and it had returned to surveying the GX1 as it
landed, and later on it detected some of the small separate
intelligent forms had left it and were outside the energy screen,
and it had examined their free thinking states and realized that it
could reproduce them, and it had decided to make one of them from
itself, to get aboard the GX1.

Chapter 3

The GX1

The GX1 was the most advanced spacecraft that
would ever be created. Centuries of technology advances had created
it, and decades of work by millions had been used to build it.

It had been built twenty miles long by ten
miles deep with a flying saucer shape, with the sole intention of
it be used to travel to and properly explore the galaxies, and
reach the final frontiers of the universe.

It had been built with much of the
technology found centuries before in
a fifteen-mile alien artifact that had been found
buried away for millions of years in an immense crater in a lost
desolate Pacific island.

Many human worlds had collaborated in its
creation, and it had been launched when nobody thought it could be
improved further.

People from all over known space had tried
to take part in the first voyage, and the first visit to the
galaxies, and the people aboard it numbered close to a hundred
thousand. The majority were scientists and explorers that were
needed to make it a proper exploration of the universe. The rest
were military and people to run everything.

The first voyage had taken them to the
immense void, which had only been discovered decades before, as its
strangeness had warranted it to be the first place for the DX1 to
explore, and as it was located in the direction they wanted to
explore.

The answers to many unanswered queries of
the creation of the universe were thought to exist there!

Kruger considered himself lucky to be on the
voyage, even though he had been chosen because of him being one of
the most experienced in aliens (in knowledge and experience).

The confrontation with an identical twin on
the world had left both the passengers on vehicle four bewildered,
especially when they had realized they had lost their entire
memories of who had been aboard the GX1, as well as in the other
vehicles, and their communications to the GX1 had been lost, so the
only thing they could do was continue with their mission and return
to the GX1.

While the vehicle automatically carried out
its programming, floating over the surface of the world at hundreds
of miles an hour, still mapping and checking for anything of
interest, and any abnormalities, Kruger watched Dan, examining him
for anything unusual, but he never saw more, accept that he was
more secretive than he had noticed, and that he was hiding
something, and tried to question him every time he could, but he
was good at avoiding giving anything out.

He was starting to think he was part of
scheme to carry out some illegal activity aboard the GX1. But what
could it be?

He recalled his own little scheme to find
anything of value, and take it back with him. Though all the
findings brought aboard must be declared and checked, with
invaluable items usually being allowed to be kept, due to lack of
interest and them not wanting to end up with heaps of useless
items, and returning with ninety percent of their specimens from
the galaxies as junk.

He was sure they would even discard most of
the stuff before returning to the base, near the Earth, and he was
sure that something could be found. He knew many of the explorers,
who were to make explorations outside the ship, including Major
Ripley, had an agreement to search for such items. Yet he was
unsure how far they would go, but he did see the point, as he was
not sure he knew how valuable an item he would keep, or if he could
tell the value of some items found in space.

There had been valuable alien life forms
that had been traded, and he knew that they would be very keen to
stop anything getting aboard, and he did see the point there, and
never wanted anything from out here running around the ship
creating unknown dangers.

If anything seriously dangerous were to get
on the habited worlds, like Earth, they would have serious
problems. Such creatures could inhabit entire worlds!

“
Do think there is anything of value
out here?
”
he asked Dan, trying to get his views.

Dan laughed again, over some hidden joke,
either about him or something that he could not quite grasp.

“
I have checked a few
times,
”
Major Ripley replied.
“
None of the instruments indicate anything!
What do you think Dan? Could there be anything of value about
here?
”

Dan looked over at Kruger, still
slightly amused, with his amused expression, and replied,
“
Out here! I
don
’
t think
so!
”

His reaction to him confused him. If he was
what he claimed, why did he not act like he was his twin? It was
more like a joke to him! It had him searching his memories
searching for long lost relatives that could easily have hid away
aboard to play something on him.

Yet how the hell did he get out here? He
would have to have captured a vehicle without them knowing it, and
sneaked out of the ship, which was just about impossible. Moreover,
he would also have to have left his vehicle away out here, which
would have cost a great deal, for nothing other than a stupid joke
on an unknown relative.

Or he could have found some
alternative means of transportation. He could have been hidden in
the back of the vehicle all along
–
where they kept the supplies, and
had sneaked out after the crash.

But what would he have done if they had not
crashed and stopped? And what the hell did he want?

He decided to try to solve how the crash
took place, and why they all went unconscious, with their memory
loss. Then he decided to leave it to the engineers back at the ship
to work out. They were the ones that would have all the details,
and scans, and be able solve the mystery.

Suddenly, he remembered something, and that
they were the only people to know fully what the main objective of
their mission was, and the few officers that had ordered it.