

All That Sparkles is Not...

Steve Simons

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Steve Simons

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INDEX

Chapter 1 – Bright Start

Chapter 2 - Discoveries

Chapter 3 – The adventure begins

Chapter 4 – Dark is not the word for it

Chapter 5 – Like Waves

Chapter 6 – Reaching an Understanding

Chapter 7 – Expected?

Chapter 8 – Take me to your master

Chapter 9 – Day One

Chapter 10 – Impressive or What?

Chapter 11 – Call this Entertainment?

Chapter 12 – Escape plans

Chapter 13 – What is going on?

Chapter 14 – From bad to worse
Chapter 15 – Where are you?
Chapter 16 – Teamwork

Chapter 17 – In search of the unknown

Chapter 18 – It feels like progress

Chapter 19 – All is lost

Chapter 20 – Return

Chapter 21 – Dilemna

Chapter 22 – Five Years On

##  Introduction

Let me take you on a journey and in so doing let's go on an adventure. You have got a few hours to spare haven't you? Often such stories stem from magic, this one involves the magic of science; a scientific discovery, to be more precise. Let us see where this discovery will take us, certainly out of the hum drum of normal life. I can promise keen explorers, an alien planet, some aliens and adventure. As for the rest you will need to read on.

This book has been rated as suitable for age 12+. Enjoy. Feedback welcome.

##

##  Chapter 1 – Bright Start

The room is well lit, I don't know why, but I expected it to be dark, with some sort of large device in the centre, well, these things usually start off bulky and large; then after several months, if not years, improvements kick in. Instead there's just a small bench tucked away in the corner with a collection of boxes, connected by a rats' nest of cables. "Rats' nest", a phrase one of my professors used to use, when he inspected our work and saw wiring like this. He'd add, "How the 'eck can you expect to be able to make 'ead or tail of this mess?" Well his critique certainly had the desired effect on me, but from the bench opposite, the same can't be said of Phil and his team.

"What did you call it?" I ask, looking back at Phil.

Phil, looking slightly nervous, as if I were a senior judging his work, replies, "Well we are working on a better name, but working title is SLEB, standing for Super Light Emission Beam."

"Yes I can see why you are looking for a better name, it doesn't sound very elegant, but as you say, it is a working title. So what is its USP?"

"All in good time," Phil still looks nervous as if I am going to swallow him whole at any moment. I smile, hoping that it will set him more at ease, Phil continues, "I just thought I'd give some background."

I glance at my watch. A bit stupid really, after all, I have only just arrived; but I did tell Phil I had another meeting this afternoon.

Phil smiles, "It's OK I'm not about to deliver a paper, I haven't written it yet mate." My thoughtless action could have made Phil more nervous, instead it sparked up the old friendship, Phil waves at the bench and continues, "I just wanted to show you what we have, I know I can trust you and I'm bursting to show someone outside the team."

Feeling guilty now, my arm drops quickly, "Sorry, old habits...."

"No probs mate, you never had much patience."

"Yeah, dead right, it'll be my undoing one of these days. I'm not too big though, to spare some time for my old mate, so do you charge for use of the chairs, or can anyone use them, it was further from the station than I thought, I'd have taken a taxi if I had known."

Phil smiles, "Sorry, please take a seat, you sure you don't want that tea? I can get Gavin to fetch us one, he won't mind."

I accept, and Phil pops out. I take off my jacket, relieved to do so. I had not realised until now how warm I was.

The stuff on the bench, so small; as if it is a hoax and not worth coming all this way. I am tempted to wander over to take a closer look, but I remind myself that it is Phil's project.

I jump like a guilty schoolboy, as Phil enters the room and announces, "Right that's sorted, take a seat."

Phil grabs the nearest chair to me, swings it round and plonks it down with the back facing me, he sits astride, hands on top and his chin rests on his hands. Reminds me of old times and the many chats we had at Uni.

Phil launches straight into, "We were looking for some new materials to produce us a high power output but low power drain communications standard, laser device. Then someone came up with a crystal that they found in a cave in Peru, or somewhere like that. The materials bods crawled all over it, but found nowt of interest to them and tossed it over to us, thinking it might be of interest, as the atomic structure was somewhat 'unusual', as they put it. Unusual, darned right it were unusual; I 'ave never seen owt like it." Phil's excitement not only evident through his voice, but he is standing now and his arms are waving around.

Phil pacing up and down, continues, "Anyway the upshot is, we were playing around with exciter circuits, trying to get some sort of reaction out of it and nothing, not a photon. The team were about to give up, when I had one of those, what do you call it, moments?"

"Eureka?" I offer.

"Yes that's it, a Eureka moment." Phil sits down again, resuming his previous pose, "I was thinking back to the atomic structure and the patterns, when suddenly it hit, me, throw something with a similar disjointed pattern and it just might, have the desired effect. I can tell you, never had so much fun in my life with the maths afterwards; trying to prove why it worked the way it did and in fact, explain, what it was doing."

"Hey steady Phil, you're in danger of losing me. I gather you hit on the trigger mechanism, but what was the result, the product, was, er...... is it a comms grade laser?"

"Sorry, I just get so excited about it. Come and see for yourself." Phil leaps up again, the chair falls over and crashes to the floor and Phil ignores it and heads straight to the bench. I am right on his heels.

In moments, Phil has the kit on the bench making some squealing noises and just in front of the short round shiny tube is the sparkliest thing I have ever seen. I walk behind Phil to get a better look down the end of it. Although from the side view the tunnel looks quite short, looking straight down it, from behind, it looks like a very long tunnel, what is more it is a bit like looking down a telescopic tube, the end closest to me looks small, but the end furthest away is much larger, or at least, that is the impression it gives. What is more there seems to be something at the other end, but quite what it is I cannot make out. Whatever it is does not appear to be moving, but is quite blurred, like looking through an unfocussed lens.

"Wow!"

"You can see why I am so fascinated by it now, can't you?"

"Is it safe to...."

"We don't know, yet, at least the maths seems to indicate that it isn't stable and you could do untold damage to yourself if you attempted to touch it. What is more, I do not recommend looking back up from the other end, we've blown several cameras trying it. We even put detectors in the path and they all seem to just disappear, probably vaporises them instantly. The reason I wanted you to take a look, is because, you were always better at the maths than me and I wondered if I had missed anything, that explains what this phenomenon is or does. Great isn't it?"

"Great? It's incredible! I would be honoured to look over your maths."

##  Chapter 2 - Discoveries

A month has passed and Phil standing at the entrance, smiling starts chattering as soon as I am within earshot. You would have thought we had not spoken in months, yet we had a phone call only two days ago.

"Hey steady, let's wait until we are in your lab. You never know who is listening." I feel for him though, I am as excited as he is.

We do not have long to wait though, we soon arrive at the lab door. Phil opens the door and immediately I notice there are three others in the room. I recognise Gavin, he had brought me tea last time, he is a tall thin lad with black hair, this time, I notice that he is a rather spotty face youth, he has designer glasses, is dressed quite casually, as if he had just come back from doing some surfing, his black hair reasonably short, but in quite a degree of disarray.

Phil sees my surprised look and says, "I thought it best to have the whole team here, this is Gavin, Rachel and Anile." Phil spins round and hand directed to me, he announces, "And this is my old Uni mate Bill, Bill Prescott."

Anile, not as tall as Gavin, has quite a roundish face, dark skin and dressed as if he had just come from a meeting of executives, he even has a tie on. He seem to be studying me closely.

Rachel, what can I say about Rachel? If only I were a few years younger. She is drop dead gorgeous, looking more like a model than a scientist. I am conscious of the fact that I must be staring, as she is looking quite embarrassed. I look back towards Phil.

Phil turns back to face me and asks, "So what did you er..." He pauses as he scans my face, then to add to my embarrassment, he looks at Rachel, then back at me, he smiles and continues, "What did you find?"

I avoid looking directly at Phil's face, "Well essentially, your maths was reasonably sound; you just didn't go far enough in terms of the products." I glance back a Phil's face, he has lost the dumb smile and is concentrating. I resume, "You only took things to the 2nd level. I took it onwards and found the reason for the appearance of a tunnel and why the image at the end appears to be out of focus. I also know why stuff that you put in the tunnel disappears."

"Great, are you actually going to tell us?" Phil asks.

"Now who is being impatient?" I ask smiling, then continue, "Of course I am, that's why I'm here. Still charge for use of the chairs?"

Phil smiles and points to the nearest chair. Then does his chair swinging around bit, he's right in my face, I feel a bit uncomfortable. I throw him one of those looks and he immediately gets the message and bumps his chair backwards. He glances back at his team and indicates that they sit also. The two lads grab chairs and assume the same position as Phil, whereas Rachel sits conventionally like me. This is awkward, as the semi-circle ends with Rachel and she is sitting right beside me. I being used to addressing an audience, know that I am going to have to make eye contact with the whole group, including Rachel. I must put out of my mind, her looks and treat her like one of the lads. No easy to do I can assure you.

"OK the fact that you have reached a kind of harmonic, if not disjointed frequency, but with a rotating waveform superimposed, is causing the crystal to not only excite and emit a beam, but because of the rotating waveform the emissions are coming from more than one point source. This is causing the hollow tube like appearance. Add to that the underlying disharmony in your trigger signals; this seems to be causing a disturbance in the fabric of space."

Did I have to glance at Rachel just at that moment? Rachel is staring at me with those gorgeous blue-green eyes, wide with excitement and wonder. Her lips parted, just forming a slight 'o' shape; the o of fascination. Her lips, sparkling, sparkling just like the tunnel itself; the one that I am describing, in such soulless language, not worthy of such a response. Did I have to look in this particular direction right now?

I stumble on my words, "I er, would, surmise from this, that what we can see down the, the er, tunnel is some object at some other point in space." I pause and resist the temptation to look back at Rachel to see her reaction.

I am wrenched back to my presentation, as I catch Phil's 'so what' look. Phil says, "OK so my maths covered the tunnel formation, but where did you get the fabric of space bit?"

I reach into my pocket and pull out the rather battered looking note book that I always carry with me. I thumb through the pages and after what seems like an eternity I eventually reach the page I need, "The third series, right there, the annotation refers to Stephen Hawkin's notes, you know the ones that I emailed you."

Phil studies my scribble for what seems like ages, turning the pages forwards and backwards multiple times. I dare to glance at Rachel and am relieved to see that she is studying Phil and my note book.

Lip gloss. The thought detached from anything else, anything else, but the comparison of Rachel's lips to the sparkle of the tunnel.

What is it about a scientist, that we have to analyse everything, have an explanation for everything?

"That is amazing!" Phil exclaims, making us all jump, me especially, as Rachel is now looking back at me, she sees that I am studying her and she blushes.

"You have even worked out the exact extrapolation of the point in space that the beam is terminating at."

Looking back at Phil, I smile and reply, "I knew you would appreciate that one. I hope you haven't adjusted anything on the kit." I nod in the direction of the bench.

Phil stands and walks briskly to the bench, fetching a tape measure, he measures from the end of the beam to the wall. Then Phil walks out of the room. We can hear the tape measure being extended and then Phil's plea, "Well is anyone going to help me?"

Gavin being closest to the door bobs up off his chair and darts for the door quickly disappearing through it.

Feeling obliged to find out where Phil will end up and keen to see if my calculations are correct, I too head towards the door. I reach it at precisely the same time as Rachel; Anile had been just that little bit faster.

I stand back and point to the door, Rachel looks at me and mouths the words thank you, but the utterance is so quiet it might as well be silent. She still looks embarrassed. Her perfume is intoxicating, as she walks on through.

As I emerge into the corridor, I see that Phil is some way down it, with tape measure still in hand and being stretched even further, whilst Gavin is holding the other end close to the wall, being careful to keep it dead still. We walk quickly on past Gavin and catch Phil up.

Phil, makes a pencil mark on the wall. Anile protests, something about the faculty staff, but Phil waves a dismissive hand. Then he waves to Gavin, indicating that he join us.

Gavin and phil measure from the pencil mark to the next door post. Phil opens the door and marches in.

Luckily the room is empty, well of people anyway.

Phil and Gavin measure from the end wall. Glancing across to a bench, Phil exclaims, "Hey it's the globe!"

"Look", Rachel says, "You can just see the sparkle of the end of the tunnel in front of the sphere."

I look across and sure enough I can just make out the sparkling circle. It is just in front of the sphere. Furthermore, just below it I can make out a pile of stuff. I walk closer to the bench and I see a hand written note that reads 'To the joker who keeps leaving things on our work bench, very funny, but it is annoying now, please stop or I will take the matter up with the Dean. We have serious work to do you know!'

Looking across to the base of the sphere I can see now what the pile is made up of, a tiny camera and various parts of similar cameras and other equipment.

##  Chapter 3 – The adventure begins

I feel very self-conscious, dressed in this protective suit, looking like someone heading for a fancy dress party, dressed something like an astronaut. I always thought that this was over the top. The many probes we sent through, have all confirmed that there is a breathable atmosphere, but Phil insists, something about corporate culpability or some such legalistic nonsense.

So here we are: Rachel, Anile and myself, all dressed in these daft suits, standing on the equivalent of a plastic box and waiting for the giant 5 metre high metal donut to fire up. Below us, inside the box are the foam sheets that we will land on, if we manage to get back.

Butterflies in my stomach, I cannot wait to get the journey out of the way.

Although we had sent some animals down and observed them after arrival, there was no way of telling whether they survived in the longer term, there could have been irreversible damage done by the travel, that only showed up much later.

I am regretting volunteering now. Then I catch Rachel's smile, my courage returns. To think if we had not been involved in this project, we would probably not be engaged now.

It has been a crazy but busy fourteen months to get to this state. Not being engaged, I mean, but standing here now, waiting, waiting for....here it comes.... I recognise the sound, having heard it so many times before. Quickly I look around us, checking that we have all the equipment that we should have with us, a bit late I know.

The warehouse around us disappears, replaced by the bright swirling patterns.

Suddenly it hits me, the tremendous pull away from the shimmering donut, with its black disc in the centre. The same disc, that is rapidly shrinking.

My stomach and head feel very strange, as if I am being spun in a centrifuge. I cannot tell if I am spinning or not, all the visual clues are so confusing.

My breathing is quite panicky now, as if each breath may be my last.

When will this end? Where will this end?

We have seen the termination point so often, like the image from a closed circuit TV picture, you can see what the camera can see, but you are left wondering just what there is beyond the camera's vision. Is it more of the same, or does it drastically change? Come to that, what is behind the camera?

Is there life beyond the area of what we can see? What happened to the animals we sent through? Did they survive or is there something, or somebody waiting in the wings, waiting for us to send their next meal through. That sets me thinking, are we the next meal?

Pain and a thump as I land on the hard ground. There is a dust cloud sent up in the air, dark, so dark I cannot even see the tunnel now.

Why couldn't I have landed on something soft?

Is there something out there waiting for the dust cloud to settle before they pounce on us?

My stomach and head feeling much better now, although there is still that throbbing feeling, it seems to be easing off now. Gently I move my free arm; as it happens, just in time to deflect the box that was about to hit me. Hopefully part of the equipment we brought with us and not some projectile thrown at us by the occupants of this place.

I hear a loud "Ow! Sod it!" come from my headgear. It is Rachel's voice. Rachel, is she alright?

Reaching over with my free arm, my fist touches the ground and I push down, to lift myself, just then I spot it, through the dusty haze, another incoming shape. Instinctively my arm flicks back out, and I deflect the object to the other side.

"Hey careful! That almost hit me." Anile shouts at me.

I resume my lifting activity and am surprised when I feel something grasp my arm and pull me up. I am relieved to see Anile's smiling face, "Need a hand old man?"

"Thanks." I weakly reply, as I steady myself, it is then that the pains in my left leg become more obvious. I gently walk forward to test out the extent of injury. Thank goodness, just bruising.

Rachel, how is Rachel? The dust cloud is almost clear. I am surprised to see that the ground is a dark green in colour. I look around me further and behind what looks like a bush, made up of patches of somewhat lighter greens than the ground; I see Rachel, laying on the ground, surrounded by objects. Looks like I wasn't the one who drew the short straw after all. I launch myself in Rachel's direction, it is only then that I realise the gravity of this place is much lower than ours. I find myself almost bouncing towards Rachel. I suddenly catch sight of movement to my right, am I being attacked? Was my theory of some creature waiting for its next meal to arrive, correct?

Thank goodness for that, it is only Anile.

Every time I land, my left leg emits pain.

We are soon removing the equipment off of Rachel and help her up.

The three of us, standing here, in this alien place. Looking around us, keen to see what lies beyond the familiar view. To the left and right it is pretty much, more of the same. However spinning round to face the entrance of the sparkly tunnel, with its now, not so black centre, we can just about see Phil waving at us. We give him the thumbs up sign.

To either side and above the tunnel, we can see in the distance some dark shapes, like distant mountains. But in the foreground, some distance from us, there seem to be lighter shapes, which whilst difficult to make out because of the heat haze rising from the dusty ground, appear almost like buildings, mostly dome shapes, with some pointed shapes in-between. Could this be a city?

My brain snaps into action trying to calculate the distance between us and the shapes. A figure comes to mind, I then try to work out how long it would take us to get there on foot. My thoughts are disrupted as Anile asks, "Does that look like a city to you?"

"Yes, I was just trying to work out how long it would take us to get to it."

Rachel taps my arm and says, "This may be able to tell us how far away it is."

I stifle my urge to point out that I have estimated the distance and instead watch as Rachel points the laser device in the desired direction and she presses a button. I can just about see the sparkle of the red laser beam. "Hey not at the tunnel you'll blind Phil."

Just then we see him duck, as if avoiding something.

Rachel swings the device around a bit and after a few moments announces, "Fifty five Kilometres or there abouts."

"About eight hours." Anile says.

"More like ten if you include meals and rests." I add.

"Well we are here to explore, let's do it!" exclaims Rachel.

"OK but let's tell Phil first. Where's the comms pod?" I ask.

We search the ground amongst the packages strewn around us. Anile is the one who finds it. The plastic pod that he holds aloft, should have sixteen flat surfaces, this one has several that appear to have been ripped away, the device inside has clearly been damaged also.

The intention was that having the sixteen faces would almost make the pod like a ball, but the fact that they are all flat should make it want to roll only for a short space of time. However this one must have landed so hard that several faces shattered, exposing the equipment inside.

Anile has great difficulty opening the pod, in the end he resorts to opening up the gashed side even further until he can drag the comms device out. When Anile opens the device, we can instantly see that the screen is smashed, the corner of the keyboard has come adrift and generally the device is not looking in very good condition. Anile stabs at the on button, several times, but there is no response at all.

I ask the stupid question, "Can you fix it?"

Anile just looks at me, his face says a big fat NO!

Rachel asks, "What are we going to do then?"

"What about the shelter material and marker pens?" I ask.

"How is that going to help?" asks a confused Anile.

"We write something on the shelter material and hold it up in the hope that Phil can read it."

"Good idea!" Rachel smiles, then sets off in search of the pod marked 'shelter 1', whilst Anile goes off in search of the pens.

I stand immediately in front of the tunnel, hold up the comms device, then I place it on the ground. When I stand up again, I cross my arms above my head. I can just about make out Phil raising and dropping one of his arms, like a nodding head. Phil one arm up in the air and waves it from side to side, whilst making a circle below it, with this other hand. What could he mean?

I ponder Phil's sign for a while, then Anile announces that he has the marker pens and Rachel soon after says that she has found the shelter material. We soon have the material stretched out on the ground.

Anile with a marker pen in hand approaches the material.

"Hang on what are we going to write" Rachel asks.

"Good question." I reply, "It has to be short and straight to the point."

"How about 'found city be gone for...' how long do you think we will be gone for?" Rachel asks.

"Another good question, one that I am sure is impossible to answer at least answer accurately. It depends if there is anything there."

Anile says, "Surely not, if it takes ten hours to get there, add to that some time for sleep say five hours, then explore the city say five hours, then add the return journey of ten hours. That makes a round trip of about thirty hours."

"What if we run into the locals and we get delayed at the city?" Rachel asks.

"True, but I'm with Anile, let's say we should be back in 30 hours. If we do find friendly locals we can always ask Phil for an extension of our stay, he can even send us more supplies."

Having ascertained that Anile has the neatest writing, he sets about writing the message, whilst we stretch and hold the material out.

Every so often I glance across towards Phil. He now has something held up to his head, probably the equivalent of a telescope, so he can try and see what we are doing.

The sign ready, we hold it up in front of the tunnel. After a few minutes Phil puts down whatever he was holding and does his yes sign.

We set about packing up the shelter material and gather essential supplies that we need to take with us.

We are about to depart, when Rachel asks, "Hey hold on, how are we going to find this place again?"

I stupidly reply, "We will see the tunnel."

"Not if it is switched off!"

"Oh yes, never thought of that one."

Anile suggests that we make a large arrow pointing to the tunnel, out of the packages we have decided to leave behind.

Soon we have the rather irregular arrow in place and set off in the direction of the city, or whatever it is.

##  Chapter 4 – Dark is not the word for it

Dark is not the word for it. We stopped to change our air tanks about fifteen minutes ago, when suddenly the light faded, like halogen spotlights being turned off, leaving us fumbling around searching for the torches.

"Well done Anile, can you hold it up higher, any luck Rachel? I can't find any torches in this one." My question answered by another light coming on. Running out of pods to open, it just has to be this one.

"Hey you could tidy up after yourself!" Rachel protests at me ditching the pod I was searching, without putting the contents neatly back in place before closing it.

I feel guilty but, at the same time pressured to find my own torch. Success! Not one, but three torches. This time, I put everything back neatly, except for one torch and close the pod.

Anile and I set about laying out the shelter material, whilst Rachel lays out the supports.

"Seems like a pointless exercise putting this up, we don't seem to be under any threat." Remarks Rachel.

Anile replies, "Better to be on the safe side, there might be the equivalent of acid rain, whilst it is dark."

Rachel places the last pile of items and starts assembling them and says, "I thought our suits were supposed to be able to handle that."

"What if the temperature falls considerably?" Asks Anile and continues, "Anyway let us just get on with it."

The shelter is soon complete and we settle down for some sleep. I glance at the time display built into the arm of my suit. It has taken us about seven hours to get to this point

Despite being tired after the long walk, it takes ages to get off to sleep, but eventually I manage it.

~~0~~0~~

When I wake up again, I am immediately aware that the light we had left on, is now off, it is pitch black, what is more, I feel like I am being held down. Whilst there is no weight to speak of, I cannot move either of my arms or legs. Also it is very hot.

"Hey, Rachel... Anile, are you awake?"

"Yes, what is going on, I feel hotter than a boiler stoker." Anile replies.

"Any idea what happened to the light?" Rachel asks.

I can feel myself being dragged along the ground, there is a grinding sound as my suit is dragged through the sandy soil.

If this keeps up, it will wear through my suit.

Where is this heat coming from? It is like being in a sauna fully clothed.

I just wish I could do something to stop myself being dragged, but my arms and legs are still restrained.

Just how long is this dragging going to persist? The heat and grinding noise, is getting on my nerves now, that and not being able to do darned thing about it.

Suddenly, I am no longer being dragged and my arms can move. My instinct is to try and move myself in the opposite direction to which I was being dragged, before it is resumed. My hands dig down into the sandy soil and I push against it. Whilst it is slow, I can feel myself moving back in the direction that I had come from. As I continue to push myself along, I am concerned about Rachel and Anile, "You two alright, I seem to have freed myself from the .... Ah!... this is exhausting! From whatever was holding me down."

"At last... I can move my arms." Rachel replies, then asks, "How are you moving yourself?"

"Stick your hands down into the soil and push against it."

Anile says, "I am still being dragged along, ah, managed to dig my legs down into the soil. Crickey! I am just descending into the soil! There must be plenty of give in this soil, I am just descending ever further. I feel like a bloomin' tent peg!"

If that were me, there would be much more fear in my voice and I would be seeking a way to stop descending. Still coping with my own escape, I have to keep my focus on the steady dig and push motions.

Like a sudden eureka moment, of discovery, I can just barely make out some light and there above me is a very indistinct wavy line, like the edge of something, something huge!

I continue my dig and push actions and am aware that my stomach is now the right side of the edge. A couple of more pushes should do it.

I turn my head to the left and the light increases, there just in the corner of my vision is the torch, around it, I can just make out the debris of the shelter supports and several pods strewn about. The shelter cloth, is nowhere in sight.

My head swings back; there rising, in front of me, like a large dark grey cliff, is the edge that I saw earlier. It is still too tall to see the top.

Now free of this... whatever it is; my thoughts turn to Rachel, "How are you getting on Rachel?"

"I think I have the hang of it now. I seem to be making some progress, but I don't know if I am heading in the right direction. How about you?"

"I am free, although goodness knows what this is, it is huge though; towering well above me. At the risk of it pursuing me, I have to try and find out what it is. I will see if I can stand up."

It is not easy, but I manage to get up and have second thoughts about heading back towards the huge dark shape.

Anile's voice distracts my attention, as he says, "Thank goodness we have our own air supply, I am not going anywhere soon, for sure."

"Have you come to a stop now then?" Asks Rachel, puffing, as she continues to push herself along.

"I feel like a nail banged into a plank of wood, that is how still I am."

"Oh no I am being dragged along again!" exclaims Rachel. Then she goes on to say, "All that work for nothing!"

My courage returns, I have to know what this thing is. I advance slowly towards it. The closer I get the more the warmth returns. I am close enough now to reach out and touch it. Although it is difficult to feel things through the gloves, I get the impression that what I am touching is like a tough leathery skin. It is slowly bulging outwards, then contracting back inwards. Like some giant pulsating creature. Not wanting this thing to pursue me, I decide to retreat back towards the lone torch and our wrecked encampment, to see if I can get a better view of this thing, that still has Rachel and Anile captured inside.

As I retreat, I am aware that the ground has been considerably churned up, almost like a ploughed field. It has troughs and peaks, making the walk somewhat hazardous. I have to concentrate hard to make sure that I don't trip.

I reach the torch, bend down and scoop it up. I am tempted to pick up some of the pieces of shelter support, but decide my time is better spent examining this, this, whatever it is. I swing round, torch in hand, shining straight at the wall of grey, that still towers above me.

The bulging and contracting, is more obvious now and as I swing the torch around, although slowly, it is quite perceptible that it is moving away from me. Behind, it leaves a trail of broken supports. Off to the left I can make out a patch of torn shelter material, being dragged along by this thing.

Attention turned back to the pulsating wall, I suddenly see something gleaming in my torch light. It is round. My instinct is to rush over and examine it. I have the strong feeling that it is Rachel's helmet. My thoughts confirmed, as I hear Rachel exclaim, "Hey I can see light!"

"You are out Rachel! I am just coming to get you." I am kneeling beside her, helping her escape the last metre of the grey wall. My leg hurts but that is the least of my worries now.

"Thanks, I'm exhausted. What is this thing?"

"Well, nearest equivalent I can think of is, a giant slug. It seems to have same means of moving along, although thankfully it is not leaving a slimy trail. Are you alright?"

"I think so, just exhausted."

I help Rachel stand up. "Let us see if we can find Anile."

We separate and slowly follow the moving wall, keeping our eyes to the ground looking for any signs of Anile in his nail like state. I catch a glint on the ground to my right. Thinking it might just be some more debris, but hoping it is Anile.

I am delighted when I get closer, and realise that it is the top of Anile's helmet. We are soon digging Anile out of the ground.

Anile, being Anile, simply says, "Well that was an experience. So you reckon a giant slug eh? I wonder what it eats?"

"Thankfully, not human beings in protective suits." Rachel replies.

We gather up the unbroken equipment and supplies. I am so hot that I just have to take off my helmet.

"Don't do that, there is no telling what...."

I interrupt Rachel saying, "If I don't I will explode, I am so hot! I wipe my forehead with my hand and shake off the sweat."

Although somewhat quiet and rather muffled, I hear Rachel exclaim, "Er gross!"

Anile's voice is also somewhat muffled by his helmet, as he says, "I don't think it is advisable to take off your helmet, the air is breathable, but what we don't know is if there are any harmful bacteria or other such nasty's."

It seems strange to hear a scientist using the phrase 'nasty's'. Whilst Anile is perfectly right, there was no way I could put up with the heat any longer. I feel like I would collapse.

The air has a faint metallic tang to it, there is something else, but I cannot think of the words to describe it, kind of a musky smell, possibly something lingering on from the visit the giant slug.

I should be worried by Anile's comments, but the coolness is refreshing, so refreshing it is a pleasure that takes away any concerns. This is unlike me, I would normally have talked myself out of any notion of taking protective gear off long before actually attempting to do it. I listen, expecting to hear something, but nothing, not a single sound. What was I expecting to hear?

The silence is unsettling, but why? I suppose the fact being that back home no matter where you go you can hear something, whether I be some sort of insects or the rustling of a gentle breeze, but here NOTHING.

##  Chapter 5 – Like Waves

We had tried to resume our sleep, once the unbroken items had been collected around us, but memories of giant slug creature and fears of it, or something worse visiting us; plus in my case fear that Anile was right about the inadvisability of me removing my helmet and breathing in something that would ultimately kill me off; all lead to us just resting. I had put my helmet back on having achieved my aim of cooling down.

We lay on the ground, staring up at the stars wondering how far we are away from home.

The daylight, when it returned, was as fast at appearing, as it had been, disappearing last night. I came to the conclusion that this was due to the angle of ascent of the.... and here came the shock bit, not a single sun, but two of them! That was the reason it was so bright here in the day. We had not seen the two suns, yesterday as they are one behind the other, and too bright to look directly at during the day. It is only as the two suns rise, that we can look through the atmospheric haze and see that there are in fact, two discs. As for the darkness of night, no moon, so no sunlight reflected back, just the faint light of the stars.

Breakfast, if breakfast you can call some pretty tasteless, nutrient saturated fluid. Breakfast over; we get up collect the undamaged pods.

Putting the memories of the night behind us; we set our sights, once more on the ever larger shapes, with their dark ominous background of the mountains; in the hope of finding something good there.

Rachel fishes out the distance meter and after a short pause, announces, "Well providing this thing didn't get damaged, it reckons we only have just over seventeen Kilometres to go."

I mutter, "Just under forty yesterday then."

"What?" Rachel asks, then resumes, "Oh yes, I see what you mean."

"About three hours, if we keep up a steady pace." Anile adds.

We set off and start at Anile's good steady pace, but the lack of sleep and struggles of last night, soon seem to take their toll and we get slower and slower. I seem to be hotter than yesterday and after about an hour, I protest and insist that we take a rest. Rachel stares at me through my helmet, it is a look of concern. Anile asks, "What is it Rachel?"

"I think Bill is running a temperature."

"I will check." Anile pulls out the health monitor, stabs at it several times, then announces, "Crikey! 41 degrees! Surprising, that he could still walk!"

"We have to bring down his temperature somehow." Anile says.

"The ice sticks, have we still got any intact?" Rachel starts searching through the pods.

Anile joins her, whilst I enjoy the fact that we are no longer walking.

Conscious now, of the fact that I do feel rather hot and a bit, a bit what is the phrase? Hazy, no that's not it, but the sunlight gleaming across the green sandy soil, is certainly hazy, shimmering, making the outlines of the shapes that we are heading towards, making them quiver, like looking at pebbles, through the waves of the sea.

There is something else, something, something..... I can feel sleep lapping over me, like waves, the comforting waves of some tropical island beach.

I try to fight it off, I must stay, must stay..... stay something..... but what, the waves of sleep lapping over me, ever more persistent.

I hear a familiar sound, but cannot place it, I am being lifted... something touches the back of my head a sort of dragging feeling. Then it is gone, I am laid down, my head falls into, into sand.

There is something else, but what?... the waves of sleep take me, just for a moment.... then shock! It is cold, so cold, like I have been shot.

I hear Rachel in a muffled voice say, "It seems to be working, wow that is fast, I need to wrap it in something."

The pain is ebbing now, I can feel the waves of sleep, slipping up upon me again, like a blanket, slowly being pulled up over me. Suddenly I feel it again, the cold, but this time, not so sharp, more of a comfort than a pain.

Something, something else.... The thought runs through me, repeating over and over again, I cannot shift it, but then the waves of sleep lap over me and I am gone.

##  Chapter 6 – Reaching an Understanding

I feel myself drifting back, drifting back into consciousness, I catch a sound, then I am aware of the light again. The waves lap back over me, taking me with them. My periods of being aware, then awake again, get longer and longer. I see Rachel looking down at me, she smiles. I weakly smile back at her.

I don't hear the words, but I catch the meaning, as I see Rachel's lips move. I nod.

Anile's muffled voice says, "That's much better, 38 degrees now. We need to get moving soon, we have been here for a good couple of hours."

Rachel asks, "Isn't it too soon, we have only just got his temperature down?"

Anile ignores the question and asks, "Can you walk Bill?"

I do not know, but having understood Anile's concerns, I am keen to find out if we can resume our journey. I sit up, it takes a deal of effort, but feels quite good. My head is still a bit woozy, I just hope I don't collapse when I stand up.

Rachel says, "Careful Bill, don't rush it."

Anile helps me up. I realise that I haven't got my helmet on. I wonder where it has gone, but cannot be bothered to ask, as I need my full concentration on getting up and staying up. I can feel myself swaying, like a flagpole, in a strong wind.

Rachel looks sympathetically at me as if willing me to succeed.

Anile says, "It looks like you are over the worst of it now, I did warn you about taking your helmet off. Your body's defences seem to have fought off whatever had affected you."

Rachel bends down and scoops up some of the pods and hands them to Anile, whilst he continues to steady me.

Then Rachel picks up my helmet and gently puts this over my head and fastens the seal. She resumes picking up the remaining pods and stands the other side of me, she eases my arm round her neck and the three of us start to walk off. It is quiet an effort at first, but we soon get into the rhythm.

After a while thoughts start buzzing around in my head, I remembered looking across to whatever we are heading for and thinking something..... What was it? There was the haze, behind which the shapes of what we are heading for, were being distorted... I remember thinking that there was something else, something other than the shapes that had become so familiar. But what was that something else?

What did I think I had seen? Was it a hallucination, brought on by the fever, or was it real?

I scan the horizon carefully as we walk along, but all I can see are the familiar shapes.

"You ok?" Rachel's muffled voice asks.

"Yeah, I thought I saw something earlier."

"When?" Rachel asks.

"Don't worry, it was probably just the fever."

Anile excitedly says, "No, no you were right, look over there." Anile points to the right and sure enough on careful examination I can see it, getting larger by the second and kicking up some dust by the looks of it.

"What is it?" Rachel asks.

I reply, "Unless I am mistaken, looks like a vehicle of some sort and it is heading straight for us, at speed."

"What should we do?" Asks Rachel.

"There is nothing we can do, we are out in the open, there is no shelter and whatever that is, it either knows we are here or is just coincidentally heading this way. Perhaps whoever lives at the city is sending us a welcoming committee or maybe just a lift."

We watch as it comes ever closer, making no sign of deviation from its course. I just hope on hope that whoever is driving that vehicle has good intentions.

I think about the consequences of three aliens ending up in one of our military places, it would probably not end well. I must think positively, if only for the sake of Rachel and Anile.

~~o~~o~~

Gavin looks up from his screen and says, "Hey, I know they say exercise is good for ya, but you'll wear the floor out if you pace up and down much more."

Phil pauses and replies, "Yer I know but it 'as been over 10 hours now."

"They did say they would be gone for about 30. You'll wear yourself out, well before they are due back. Ya should've gone to sleep last night. I'm just a tad worried about these fluctuations in the power supply; I did say we needed a better scrub circuit than this cheap trash. There seems to be some heavy stuff on the same feed as our supply."

Phil resumes his pacing, "Can us keep tube open and stable enough t' maintain connection?"

"I think so, but I 'ave not liked some of the peaks n troughs I 'ave been seeing."

"Perhaps us ought to see if we can lay our 'ands on a better stabilizer. Sometimes ya can get really quick delivery if it is in stock. I will see what I can do."

"The spec I suggested is on your desk."

Phil changes direction and heads towards the open door, "OK keep a close eye on things I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry Anile and Rachel are my mates too you know."

~~o~~o~~

Now that this vehicle is so much closer, I can see that it seems to be running on tracks, three of them by the look of things. The shape of the vehicle is pretty irregular though. It is still difficult to make out any detail. There does not appear to be any windows and as far as I can tell no obvious weaponry, but then what passes for weaponry here, might look quiet innocent to us.

As I look round, I see Rachel has the distance meter in her hand, I call out "Hey Rachel put that down, it might look like a weapon to whoever is driving that thing. We don't want to start a war."

Rachel lowers it instantly, "I didn't even think about that."

"Did you get a reading?"

"As it happens, yes, its 2 Kilometres away."

I can hear Anile mumbling some figures and he suddenly announces, "It is only about one and half metres high, one metre long, and about three quarters of a metre wide, by my estimation."

"Darn, that's a really small vehicle, too small, to provide us transportation back to the city."

Anile offers, "Perhaps it is some form of recon mission to check us out, before attempting to retrieve us."

This latest revelation just makes me feel even more uncomfortable about the situation. "You are probably right." I say, hoping to reassure Anile and Rachel.

"That's a shame; I was hoping it would save us the long walk." Rachel says.

~~o~~o~~

Phil enters the cubical with a piece of paper in hand and he is studying it carefully, he looks up and says, "Can you believe it?"

"What, the price, or delivery timeframe?"

"Both, the earliest I can get delivery is in two days and as for the price, well bang goes our pay this week!"

"Seriously?"

"Yes, I even offered to collect, but they said it would be no faster."

"I meant our salary, surely it can't cost that much?"

"Like I said we need high spec and earliest delivery."

"But a week's salary? I'm sure I can do something with the one we have, but I'll have to take it offline for a while."

"How long?"

"Probably a couple of hours."

"I don't really want to switch it off, in-case we can't re-establish connection."

"Hey Phil, that's daft, we 'ave managed every day for the last week."

"Yeah I know, but us don't know if it were to exactly same point, every time."

"A few metres shouldn't matter."

"But a few Kilometres would make difference between 'em finding tunnel or not."

"If we have any more serious power outages, it might shut us down altogether and they'll be stranded anyway."

"Can ya guarantee that thee can fix it in two hours?"

"Pretty much."

"What does that mean?"

"Don't start a stopwatch, I might be a little over or under on my estimate."

"Have we got all of parts?"

"What we haven't got I can probably get from Ryan."

"What Ryan at us Campus?"

"Yeah, he's still on our payroll."

"No he isn't, never 'as been."

"I meant our Friday drinking payroll, he owes us big time."

"Much as I hate t' admit it, I think ya right, but it just seems so disloyal to turn off us kit and break us connection."

~~0~~0~~

Now that whatever is heading towards us is so close, we can see that it isn't a vehicle, unless its occupants are really small. It looks more like some sort of robot, sent here to check us out.

The device, silent, apart from some sort mechanical noises as it bounces off of the odd sandy slope, stops about three metres from us. We were right about the three track propulsion. Above which is a cylindrical section about half a metre tall, then a rectangular section with curved edges and several arms emerging out of this segment. The arms held vertically and close to the casing, it is difficult to make out exactly what is at the end of the arms; it all kind of blends in with the arms themselves, although I get the impression that there are different fittings on each of the arms. Quite how many arms there are, is also difficult to figure out. The whole, is quite confusing. Above this are three black dull spheres on a shiny metallic circular collar. I know it is circular as the spheres are rotating slowly. Almost as if this thing is scanning us.

An ominous silence; the silence of something built for stealth missions; the silence of something built for death.

Nothing about this thing seems to be reassuring, it is quite disconcerting, unnerving.

We are in no position to make a quick retreat if things get nasty. One movement from us, could be our last. Yet we cannot continue this stalemate forever.

It is quite a shock when the thing starts to emit noises, they sound just like speech, but I do not recognise the language.

"Arrrh ich zu mach-in od zu iol orig-eine. Var dest orig-eine"

The thing repeats the noises, then waits again in silence. Presumably waiting for our response.

Anile says, "Sounds like a statement, or possibly an instruction. Do you think it wants us to follow it?"

I reply, "I don't know, it is making no attempt to turn or move, so probably does not want us to follow it."

Rachel asks, "Could it be a question? Some of it sounds a bit like German."

Rachel might have something there, I thought I had recognised some of the sounds or words. "If it is a question, what could it be asking?"

"I think the first part was asking if we are machines."

I suggest, "One of the words sounded like 'origin'"

Anile says, "You could have something there, it repeated the word twice."

"If we work on the basis that it starts to ask if we are machines, maybe the middle bit asks if we are... what's the phrase?"

"Not machines?" Anile asks.

"Thank you professor, no that wasn't the phrase I was looking for, I mean something like human."

Rachel suggests, "Biological?"

"That's it! It said something like 'or iol' Maybe that means biological."

The thing speaks again, "Zu iol orig-eine. Var dest orig-eine."

I look at Anile and Rachel and say, "As it has no change in tone, it is difficult to tell if it is making a statement or asking a question."

"Exactly." Anile agrees.

I turn to the thing and say, "Zu iol origin,"

The thing immediately responds, "Nein ich mach-in origin, zu iol."

Rachel takes us all by surprise as she replies, "Ya, ya, ich bin iol origin."

The thing turns slightly, so that it is now facing Rachel and contines, "Var dest origin?"

"I think it is asking where we come from." I excitedly offer.

Rachel, now the preferred spokesperson, at least on the part of this machine, replies, "Ich dest origin, the earth."

The machine pauses a while as if thinking this one over, then asks, "Var dest origin die ert var bis."

"Ich kann Sie nicht verstehen" Rachel replies.

The machine then says, "Welt zu haus ge brauchs fertig fer de masters. Zu masters."

Rachel turns back to us and says, "Well all I caught out of that was something about world for us and something about masters."

"See if you can get it to take us to the city." I suggest.

"Hey that's easy for you to say, but I haven't a clue how to describe the city."

"What about pointing to it?" Anile suggests.

"Not a bad idea." Rachel replies. Then she turns back to the machine points to the city and says, "Nehmen zu uns dort."

The machine is silent for a bit and replies, "Ya steigen auf."

"I think it has agreed to take us, lets follow it." Rachel suggests.

The Machine repeats, "Ya steigen auf. Steigen auf."

Anile says, "Unless I am mistaken, it wants us to climb onto it, if it wanted us to follow it would have said something like 'Komanzee'"

I suggest, "Yes, although not quite right, I think it is Komm mit mir."

The machine replies, "Komm mit mir, steigen auf."

Rachel says, "After you, I am not climbing aboard that thing without being absolutely sure that is what it meant, after all, it might take our actions as being an intention to attack it."

Not feeling 100 per cent sure that I am right, but convinced enough to give it a try, I suggest, "Well it clearly doesn't want us to follow it otherwise it would have simply turned and marched off and expected us to follow it. Here goes." I grab one of the arms and hoist myself up onto the platform above the tracks. The machine makes no attempt to repel my attempt to climb aboard, instead it repeats, the phrase "Yes, Steigen auf. Climb onto it."

Soon we are heading at speed across the sandy soil and heading straight for the city or whatever it is.

##  Chapter 7 – Expected?

The city, if city it can be called, whilst having cylinders, domes and pyramid shapes, is quite uniform in design, the pattern being repeated time and time again, just the sort of thing you would expect a machine to make. The walls are all the same dull grey.

Our transport heads for one of the domes and as we get closer, we can see that there is a cylinder in front of the dome, as we get very close, I notice that there is an opening at the front of the cylinder and we are heading straight for it. The ground suddenly becomes quite smooth, no more rocking backwards and forwards. A great relief for my, now aching muscles, aching from hanging onto this machine.

Once fully inside the cylinder, the machine stops. The outer doors slide noiselessly shut. The cylinder is lit, but I cannot see where the light is coming from, apart from the walls themselves. As soon as the two doors touch, I note that the ground is shaking, when I look down I can see it is a grid rather than being solid. The shaking ceases and out the corner of my eye, I spot that another set of doors opposite the first set, are opening.

As the doors slide ever wider, we can see inside the dome. There are more of these machines inside. I wonder if there are any biological life forms, directing all this activity.

Our machine starts to move again and once inside the dome, it says "Bitte runter, runter."

"What is it saying?" I ask.

Rachel replies, "Apart from the word Bitte meaning please, I don't know."

"Probably asking us to get off." Anile suggests.

We climb down. Keen to explore this place, I start to walk towards a group of three of the machines, they seem to be engaged in building or fixing some piece of equipment. I am curious to find out what it is.

"Halten!" our machine exclaims, the first time it has demonstrated anything approaching an emotive voice.

Immediately I freeze, not wanting to find out the consequences of disobeying the machine; its meaning was clear.

I turn around to face our machine, one of its arms is now extended, with a claw like device at the end, the arm was heading towards me, but is now absolutely frozen just like the rest of the machine.

I detect some activity out of the corner of my eye, another machine is heading towards us. This machine quite different from the ones we have seen so far. The latest machine has the same three tracks, the round cylinder extends right up to the head spheres; this time there are six. There appear to be three arms on this machine, two with claws that have more fingers than our machine and the third arm has some other form of attachment, but I cannot make out is purpose. This new machine seems to be slower, more graceful in movement than the others. It kind of, glides towards us, stopping short of us by about a metre and an half. There is an exchange between the machines, but it is so fast that I am unable to make out what is being said, not even the odd word. I look at Rachel and her shrugging shoulders, confirm that she is having the same trouble.

The new machine asks, "Var dest origin"

"Origin the earth." Replies Rachel.

The machine responds, "Sind Sie auf der Suche nach uns?"

Rachel looks puzzled, "Suche, I think that means search, that's it suche nach, search for."

The machine says, "Ya search for, uns?"

"Ah I have it now, you are asking if we came in search for you."

"Ya, you come in search for you?"

"Yes, but that should be 'you come in search for us'. We were searching for you, We saw your city and came here, to see if anyone was here."

"Yes I have it now. Wir haben die Heimat für Sie bereit."

"You have the something, ready, what is Heimat?"

"Heimat, oder hause sauchlich."

"Oh you have the house in order."

I suggest to Rachel, "I think actually, it means this home land is ready, presumably ready for us."

"Yes, we have the home land ready for you. You Seltsamerweise sprechen. "

"Sprechen, something about speech. Are you saying we speak, Seltsamer, ah! Strangely, we speak strangely?"

"Yes you speak strangely. Veil geändert Sprache. "

"You find it difficult to understand us?"

"Yes, Veil geändert. Komm mit mir, zeige ich Ihnen, um."

"I got the come with me, but to do what?"

"Aussehen, your home land."

"Come with you to look at the home land."

"Ya, yes. You have it now."

~~o~~o~~

Phil strolls over to the bench and asks "How is it going?"

Gavin looks up and replies, "Well almost there now, apart from the fact that I have to get hold of three large condensers from Ryan. That was part of the trouble, one of the original ones had broken down and was about as useful as a bucket with a hole in it."

"You have done well, just over an hour and a half."

"I still have to check the circuit over to make sure there are no shorts or dry joints, I can do that when I have contacted Ryan."

Phil looking at his watch asks, "Crickey, will he be up and about at this time it's gone midnight?"

"What our Ryan, he might be a bit plastered, but he never goes to bed before two. I'll give him a tinkle in a mo, when I 'ave finished this segment off."

"That is a nice job you 'ave done there mate."

"Thanks, that's a compliment from the master."

"I think I'll make a cuppa, do you fancy one?" Phil asks and picks up both mugs assuming the answer will be yes.

"Yeah OK, put a spare by, you know what our Ryan is like, if he sees ours he's bound to want one."

"I thought his style at this time of night, would be to go for a can."

"Na Ryan knows when enough is enough."

"Doesn't match with what you said earlier Gavin, he'll be alright to drive, will he?"

"Ryan drive? He bikes it everywhere, he'll be fine Phil."

With that Phil whistles as he goes to the kitchen. Kitchen, more like a sink and small cabinet tucked to one side of this large warehouse building.

~~o~~o~~

"This is incredible!" I find myself repeating the phrase over and over again. The outside of this city might be boring and dull, but the inside is anything but. The interior decorations and artwork are the most stunning I have ever seen. We have passed by some truly incredible statues and art installations. Take the dome we are in now, there is a beautiful rising cascade of cut metal shapes that look like a mountain of flowers rising up in an arc, the whole suspended somehow from the domed ceiling. Dotted around the room are dividers in the form of art installations, also with a flowered theme, each divider is wrapped around a pool of water which either has some form of waterfall, or a fountain. One such fountain, we have just passed, emits programmed spurts of water that make a fascinating animated display, that quite frankly I could watch for hours. I watch for quite a while and see no repeated sequences.

The whole, gives this room an air of vibrancy, of interest and the air has a definite freshness about it.

Rachel leans across towards me and mutters, "I keep expecting a human to appear and introduce him or herself, as being the master architect."

"Me too" I reply, "But until now I have seen no signs of human or come to that any other form of biological habitation. The place seems like it is solely inhabited by the machines."

"Do you think they built all this from some master program?" Rachel asks.

"Possible I suppose, but they would have needed to bring all the materials with them otherwise they would not know what raw materials they would have to work with."

"Unless," Rachel pauses, then resumes, "unless they had surveyed the planet beforehand."

"I thought our guide was going to give some form of commentary or explanation as to how things were made, or what their purpose is."

"I did too, but nothing, our guide is merely acting like a sign post showing us the way through."

As we pass under the rising curtain we see high up the walls of the dome are balcony's that presumably link to another building.

One of the machines seems to be ascending vertically without any apparent means of support, as if it is flying. The machine turns and disappears onto a balcony, then slides from view.

Rachel comments "I wonder what powers this city?"

"Probably not wise, to ask our guide."

"Why not?" Rachel's face asked the question ahead of the words.

"I just get the feeling that it expects us to already know a lot about this place. I think they have built this place for some other race of biological beings and they think we are those beings. As our guide seemed to be saying that all this was ready for us."

"Yes I got the impression that they were expecting us. I will be careful what I say then."

##  Chapter 8 – Take me to your master

Gavin, examining the three shiny cylinders, asks, "How the hell did you manage to carry these beauties on the bike?"

Ryan replies, "That's what rucksacks are for mate."

Phil asks, "Want a cuppa?"

"Sure do, I'm spitting feathers after the ride out here, why couldn't you guys get somewhere nearer campus?"

"We couldn't afford the rent. This place has been vacant so long, that they were dead chuffed that we were interested, the rent they were asking was good, but I managed to talk it down even further."

"Hey that sounds good."

Phil turning one of the condensers over in his hands and examining it approvingly asks, "How much do us owe you fer the condensers?"

"Not sure, they 'ave been in the store for some time, so I'll 'ave to look up the records, but don't worry I can discount 'em, as to be quite honest, I am glad to get rid of 'em. I think they were originally brought in for something old Hendrickson was going to do, but never got round to it."

"What Professor Victor Hendrikson?

"Yeah, the dude himself."

"But he's been retired for five years."

"As I said, they 'ave been in the store for some time. I think I ordered them about two or three years before he retired."

"Thanks very much for bringing 'em over at this time of night."

"My pleasure Phil; I was at a loss anyway."

Gavin pipes up, "What you? At a loss for something to do?"

"Well the lads went up to Newcastle this morning and I 'ad to work."

"Oh yeah there were going up for someone's stag do, weren't they?"

"That's right, shame I couldn't go, should be a good shindig. So what are you guys working on these days, still that comms laser thingy?"

Gavin looks at Phil and Phil replies, "Yes us needed to scale it up and see how it performed in 't real network."

"Cool, mind if I take a look around?"

"Well we're rather busy right now, but be glad to show you in a few days. I'll just go and get you that cuppa."

"Thanks." Ryan waits until Phil has gone then says, "Hey Gav, why is Phil being so cagey?"

"Nothing personal, been a long day mate and we'd 'ave finished earlier, if the power didn't have so many peaks and troughs."

"Ah that's the trouble with being on an industrial estate. We had problems up the Uni until we got our own supply. So what are these beauties going into?"

"This." Gavin points to the circuit diagram.

"Crikey mate, that's one hell of a power smoothing circuit."

Gavin nods, "I just hope it works ok."

"Wanna hand?"

"Yeah great thanks, if you mount the capacitors on this frame, I can connect them up."

~~o~~o~~

This latest dome is massive and bustling with activity. The closer we got to this dome, there seemed to be greater varieties, as well as numbers, of machines.

Rachel says, "This must be the hub of control, looks like we could meet the head honcho."

Anile enthusiastically remarks, "It would seem so."

I suggest, "Looks like we will see who is behind all this."

Rachel looking up at the ceiling and taking in the view, she mutters, "Just what I said." Then a bit louder, asks, "The art is truly stunning isn't it?"

I agree "It sure is amazing. Seems like a celebration of what has been achieved. What I find myself doing is trying to figure out how some of these things are supported. There often appears to be no physical connection. The weight must be amazing. There is certainly some engineering at play here, something way beyond a simple robot."

"Yes and it seems to be co-ordinated, as if there is some master architect."

"Or artist." Anile suggests.

"Exactly." I agree, "It just has the feeling that there is a human or some other biological species', mind behind all this."

As we are escorted towards the centre by our guide, the machines around us, move aside. We have no idea if they are really acknowledging our presence or just responding to some machine instructions.

Rachel whispers, "If we are right about these machines expecting us and having built all this for us ....or at least some other biological species, there seems little excitement at our arrival."

I reply, equally in a whisper, "Come, come, these are mere machines, we should not expect emotions, whilst they have reached their goal, they no doubt are still responding as if they have to continue providing habitats and presumably they have also taken care of, or are about to provide food sources. Maybe that is their new focus, now that their 'iols' have arrived."

"But surely you would expect that machines with the capability of such creativity to have some curiosity now that their 'iols' have arrived." Rachel asks.

"You have a point, unless their activity is merely directed by someone at the centre of this dome. Or it could even have been pre-programmed, ahead of their departure, from wherever they came."

Ahead of us now is a slightly raised platform, with an amazing decorative divider, set back from the edge by about 20 centimetres. The separation from the edge of the platform to the divider itself is evident from the fact that there is a gently rising chamfered lip, seamlessly connecting the two. The divider, like most of the artefacts hanging from the ceilings, consists of shapes cut out of and shaped from what appears to have originally been a single sheet of material. It mainly has the look of dull metal, but here and there are blended colours, various dark colours, leading to black, but in their transition replaying their life of formation, showing in the vividness of their colours the heat that must have been applied or generated in forming these shapes. It is as if the craftsman had not got around to the finishing process of polishing out or painting over, this imperfection, but had instead decided to let the metal continue to tell its own story. As we walk, I continue to take in each gentle fold and change of angle as the metal weaves in and out of itself. I marvel at the fact that if these shapes were formed from a single sheet, that in places they have magically, been stretched to form their shapes, yet seamlessly re-join the original sheet. Such artistry, such magic, takes hold of the soul and draws it in, enthralling it so, that it cannot bear to be taken away. Like an enchanted tale that holds the partaker, as if it were their life, that is being lived, before their very own eyes.

Yet drawn in and engaged as I am, to this magic; I am suddenly ripped out again. As there before us, at the end of the slope leading up to the platform itself, is the most amazing machine we have beheld thus far. Its size and presence far out measures all the others, it is like encountering a king or queen of ages past, adorned by all the finery of their empire, reflecting their majesty and power. The sight that befalls us is more than a mere machine. Whilst all the artistry that we have seen thus far should have prepared us for this moment, what we see now far outstrips all our expectations. Our eyes seem to behold a sentient being, its decoration most regal and elegant, yet it has the underlying look of a machine.

The three of us are speechless.

Our escort stops at a respectful distance from its leader and makes its unintelligible report. The majesty, in all its splendour, merely listens. It's single head the same dull black as all the other machines, shows no sign of activity.

We step aside as our escort retreats and glides back down the slope, with no acknowledgement even of our continued presence, no announcement as to whom or what we have been delivered to, or come to that what is expect of us.

We regroup, so we are standing in a single row before the majestic being, not daring to move or speak.

The silence and inactivity is painful.

We were surprised on our journey about the lack of acknowledgement of our presence here, but now, this, is just too painful.

The silence, a deathly hush, like that before the pronouncement by a judge, of the sentence that is to befall us.

The inactivity continues, as if someone had just switched off the power and you wait, expecting that it will be resumed any moment.

~~0~~0~~

Gavin steps back and admires their handiwork, having checked the circuitry for the third time, announces, "Well that should do it. Thanks again for 'elping me Ryan."

"No worries mate, glad to 'ave something to do."

Gavin smiles and replies "Well you could've been sleeping."

"Na, I rarely sleep 'til about 4 or 5."

"Don't you? I'd be tired all day."

"Don't know why, but I only need about 2 or 3 hours sleep. Anyway sleep is such a waste of time, I can get so much done when I'm awake."

"Yeah I know what you mean, but..." Gavin doesn't finish what he is saying, as Phil re-enters the workshop.

Phil asks, "Finished lads?"

"Yes she's ready and willing, as far as I can see, checked the circuitry out thoroughly, should 'ave no trouble with this one."

"OK let's get it hooked up then. I don't want to be down any longer than we need to. I will feel happier when we are reconnected."

~~0~~0~~

As the Majesty speaks its face lights up, with similar colours to those of the folds of the divider, dark colours fading back to the dull black of the head itself. Whilst it has no recognisable eyes, nose and mouth, the patterns formed as it speaks, do form regular patterns as if the face is revealed.

"willkommen zuhause iols! As you have seen your world awaits, as you had erwartet."

Rachel whispers so that both of us hear, "It is welcoming us to our new home and says it should be as we had expected."

"Expected yes." The Majesty corrects itself. Then continues, "We had not expected that our, your, sprache would have moved on so much, I entschuldige mich if my Sprache ist not so verstanden."

Again Rachel translates for us, "They did not expect the language to have moved on so much, it apologises if its language is not... er, so understandable."

"Just so. As Direktor I welcoming you. I hope alles you have seen you genehmigen."

Rachel translates for us, "I hope everything you have seen you like."

I correct the last word with "Not like, I think it is, approve."

The Director responds, "Just so, approve. I am getting to understand you better now. We have zimmer and Nahrung for you to essen."

Rachel says, "We have rooms and food for you to eat."

"Just so. Obwohl, Samen the we mitgebrach do not funktioniert."

"Although the.... er, seeds, we brought did not function.... er, did not work.

"Was this er?"

Rachel explains, "Just changing my mind, what I was about to say, it is a pausing mechanism. I should avoid it really, it just gives me time to think."

"Just so. Was think?"

"What is the word for think? Er... denken."

"Klingt ähnlich. Denken and think."

"Yes."

The royalty asks, "Übersetzen."

"Sorry, Klingt ähnlich, sounds like."

"Danke."

Rachel replies, "Thank you."

"Just so. I will have you getroffen to your rooms."

"Taken to your rooms?" asks Rachel.

"Just so, thank you."

Without the Director needing to do anything further, the nearest machine approaches us and says, "Folge mir. "

Rachel not thinking says, "Follow me."

The latest machine takes us all by surprise as it replies, "Just so, thank you."

Rachel turns back to the Director and says, "Thank you."

To which it replies, "Gern geschehen."

"My pleasure." Rachel replies.

The Director replies, "No my pleasure."

We go back down the slope and follow the latest escort.

~~0~~0~~

Phil looking very worried asks, "So what went wrong then?"

"I just don't understand it, I triple checked the circuit, it should 'ave worked OK. I'll need to disconnect it and check each component again, d'you think the core system will be OK?"

Phil replies, "Well I just don't know until us can restore some power to it, should be OK, provided it didn't send a really high spike."

Ryan interjects, "Well there's one thing for sure, it wasn't anything I did, I only mounted the capacitors."

Phil assures Ryan, "It's OK Ryan us don't do blame here." Then he turns to Gavin and says, "Us have to get the kit back up and running soon, we can't leave 'em stranded."

"Hey, I thought you said it was a test comms network, who is they and how will they be stranded?"

Gavin replies, "It is a bit complicated."

~~0~~0~~

The room that we are being shown is really nice, rather uncluttered, the walls and floor are white as are the furniture, what little there is. It is quite clinical in appearance, but the edge taken off this by some rather nice pieces of artwork on the walls, similar to the things we have already seen.

Rachel asks Anile, "Would you like to take this room, we'll probably be next door."

Anile replies, "Alright, looks Ok. Could do with the rest, I can tell you. See you both in the morning."

Anile steps inside and the door closes.

Our escort moves to the next opening in the corridor and waits for us to examine the room. It looks identical to the last. We walk in together and our escort asks, "Why you gehen Sie zusammen? This room is for eine. "

Rachel replies, "We are together."

The escort pauses a moment before it replies, "Yes I know that, but the room is for eine."

"Sorry you do not understand, my meaning of together."

The machine instantly replies, "I do, like the first you need to be in your own rooms."

Rachel looks pleadingly at me and in a whisper says, "There is no way I am staying in this spooky place on my own."

I think for a moment then say, "I understand, but our colleague Anile, is not paired up, we are a couple, together." I point at Rachel them myself, repeating the pointing action to reinforce what I am saying.

The machine replies without any hesitation, or emotion in its voice, "You need to be in your own rooms, they are made for eine."

"But we are not eine, or even one, we are two. Two together, Rachel will not be happy alone."

"Understand this, the rooms are for even one, not two, together, but eine, even one."

"OK I have confused you, eine means one. You can drop the even."

"Just so. Understand you. The room is for one."

I look at Rachel, her eyes tell me that she will not stand for being split up and I cannot blame her, whilst these machines have done nothing to indicate they intend to harm us. Split us up and take us out one by one and who know what they have planned for us. I reply, "I understand what you mean and whilst the room may not be designed for two, I am sure we can make ourselves comfortable."

"You do not understand the room is for one."

I reply, "You do not understand my friend, we are sticking together"

"Now I do not understand. You weigern sich getrennte rooms."

I did not understand the latter so look to Rachel to explain it, she whispers, "It can't understand why we refuse to take separate rooms."

I repeat my earlier phrase, "Yes, because Rachel," I point to her and continue, "Will not be happy on her own"

"Was is this happy?" asks the machine.

"What is happy you mean." I correct it.

The machine, replies in its monotone voice, "Just so, but what means it?"

Rachel replies, "glücklich."

"Surely you are not wanting to be happy Ständig."

Rachel rather emotively replies, "Well I wouldn't want to be unhappy."

"unglücklich? Yes not happpy. The room is for one. Follow me one of you."

We both step out of the room, hoping that our escort sees the futility of arguing over the occupancy design of the room, also in the vein hope that these machines may have designed rooms for couples.

The machine responds, "No one stay in room, one follow me."

I reply, "We are together. Have you not made rooms for two?"

"No" is the instant reply, "Rooms for one, as on plan."

I whisper to Rachel, "Crickey strange people that built these things, just wanting single rooms."

Rachel replies, "Strange or not, I don't care, I am not spending a night in this place alone." Decisively Rachel says aloud, "OK we will make do with this room then." She nudges me into the room we have just left.

Our escort says, "The ressourcen not genug for more than one."

Rachel determined replies, "We will cope, I am sure there will be enough resources to last until the morning."

The machine is silent for quite a while, then takes us by surprise as it says, "I do not understand you, but will allow." With that it reverses up a bit then stops, presumably waiting for us to step fully inside.

Having won the argument, Rachel nudges me towards the centre of the room. The door closes.

Rachel and I explore the decor, it is the first time that we have actually been able to touch a piece.

Rachel suddenly withdraws her hand with a pained exclamation of "Ouch!"

"Whats up?" As I look round, I can see she is sucking a finger. "Cut yourself?"

"Yes its darned sharp, downright dangerous!"

"In their defence, I suppose it had not occurred to them that we would harm ourselves on such edges."

Rachel replies, "Well they know we are biological, they should have thought of that. What if we had brought children with us?"

I smile.

"What?" Rachel asks.

"Nothing"

"What?" This time Rachel's tone is less of a question and more of a demand to know what lay behind my simple smile.

Knowing I will not escape I reply, "It's just that they are only machines working on logic and here you come expecting them to have thoughts and feelings."

"Well anything that can come up with such beauty as this should have feelings."

Un-escapable logic there. Certainly too powerful for me, to argue against. Instead I put my arms around Rachel's waist and ask, "Do you want me to kiss it better?"

"Bill, I am not a child."

I pull Rachel closer and kiss her cheek. She takes her finger from her mouth and kisses me back.

## Chapter 9 – Day One

As Gavin pushes the multi-meter away from himself, he exclaims, "I cannot believe it, the whole thing is kaput! All that work for nothing!"

"Can't anything be rescued?" Phil asks.

"No! It is as if all the components had been faulty in the first place."

"But they were all brand new." Phil protests, then says, "OK we will just have to go back to using the original circuit."

"Well there lies the rub Phil."

"What?"

"I had to cannibalise the original to complete this one..... Sorry."

"I don't bloody believe it!" Phil exclaims.

Then there is a painful silence, broken eventually as Phil says, "OK nothing for it, we'll have to buy in a complete new unit, how quickly can we get one?"

~~0~~0~~

The door remained closed and there is no apparent way of opening it.

Rachel exclaims, "Come on Bill there has to be a way of opening it, surely they wouldn't build rooms that can only be opened from the outside."

"They are machines, perhaps they..."

Rachel explodes, "Stop defending them! They should have thought about this! They must have, there has to be a way of opening it, try again!"

The desperation in her voice tells me that nothing apart from some apparent activity on my part to find a solution will calm her down. Yet I have looked at everything and tried everything I could, I even cut myself, breaking off some metal, in-case the switch was some form of metal proximity detector. I felt stupid waving the piece of metal around in front of the door, the frame and in fact anything that could possibly be the holder of a switch.

I closely examine the wall either side and above the doorway again, in-case I have missed the slightest clue. I run my hands up and down the wall at various speeds in-case there is some form of motion detector, but the door stubbornly remains closed. After what must have been a further fifteen or twenty minutes of frantic activity on my part, I am rewarded by Rachel exclaiming, "Oh let me have a go!"

I step aside, feeling helpless. I watch as Rachel repeats all of my moves and strategies. I feel her pain and frustration as she also comes to the same conclusion, that there is no way to open the door.

Even though I know I have covered every centimetre, I resume my exploration around the bed and cabinet beside. If I had been in the room on my own, I would after initial exploration, have been able to wait patiently until one of the machines returned to let me out.

~~0~~0~~

Phil exclaims, "Two days!" then he continues, "Yeah, yeah, I know, but couldn't it be done before then, ours blew up and we are stuck without power and it is.... Yes I understand, but....OK....No I have and you have quoted the earliest.... Yeah, yeah, OK I understand. No we don't need one, oh you have to have one, use Phil. Digits? You have to have them, why? OK 1234. No I'm not being sarcastic, we are only tiny and don't need to use purchase orders as I already told you. Yes that's fine, same name and address. Thanks."

Phil puts his mobile back in his pocket and looks up at the awaiting Gavin, "Two bloody days and that was the earliest. What the hell will happen when Bill, Rach and Anile get back and find there is no tunnel?"

Gavin, not sure if he should reply or not, gingerly says, "Surely they will hang around until we can re-establish the connection."

"What if they have run into any trouble and need to come back urgently?"

"Don't worry Phil, they can take care of themselves, we wouldn't have sent them if we didn't think they could."

Phil shakes his head, "But we were expecting that we would be able to hold the connection open."

~~0~~0~~

The door slides open, Anile and one of the machines are outside. I step to one side and let go of Rachel. I had been trying to reassure her that we wouldn't be trapped for much longer.

Anile smiling says, "Hope we didn't disturb you."

"Thank goodness, I thought we would never get out!" Rachel exclaims.

Anile, obviously unaware of the true level of Rachel's despair, remarks, "Yes most strange that they did not put a door open button on the inside."

"Follow me." Our escort says.

Rachel almost leaps out the door, glad at last to be free.

Whereas my departure is somewhat more sedate.

We follow the machine as it leads us further down the corridor. It stops in front of an opening and announces, "Here you must dusche and umziehen."

Rachel pops her head through the opening and protests, "I am not showering and changing here, there's no privacy!"

Our escort asks, "What is this privacy you speak?"

"You know, privat." Rachel replies.

"Privat? Why you want privacy?" the machine asks.

I reply, "It's an iol thing, especially regards ladies."

"What is this spezielle ladies?"

Rachel points to the three of us and says, "I am a lady, a type of iols.... we have men and ladies."

"Just so." The machine replies, then asks, "Why privacy?"

I wonder how Rachel is going to explain this one and am surprised when Anile says, "No problem Bill and I can wait out here whilst you have your shower." He smiles as he adds, "Don't worry, we will face this way." And he points to the opposite wall.

Rachel walks into the room and asks "OK, where's the..." then she spots the clothes on the bench running down the wall, opposite the showers.

The machine says nothing, as if it knows when it has got out of its depth.

I expected the showers to be a simple affair, of a shower head mounted on the wall; instead there is a 'u' shaped arrangement with holes all the way down to the floor. There is no obvious opening in the floor for the water to go down.

Anile and I turn and face the wall opposite the opening.

I whisper, "This could be a long wait."

Anile smiles and replies, "I don't mind."

It is then that the irony strikes me.... The wall opposite is shiny, shiny, like a mirror and we can see all that is going on in the shower room.

"Close your eyes." I whisper to Anile.

"Spoil sport."

"You my friend are no gentleman." I reply.

Anile smiles as he closes his eyes, then re-opens one eye.

~~0~~0~~

Gavin suggests "We could take the chance and connect it straight to the supply, dead on the 30 hours."

Phil protests, "What and stand the chance of wrecking the whole kit?"

"We only need power it up long enough to check if they have arrived back."

Phil shakes his head, "Not worth the risk."

Ryan asks, "How much power does this thing need?"

Gavin looks at Ryan, the question showing on his face, "Why, what have you in mind?"

"Well we might be able to borrow enough U.P.S. boxes to power it up."

"How will that work?" Gavin asks.

"Run them in parallel."

"Hey that's sneaky!" Phil smiles, the first smile in a while, "It takes about 4 Kilowatts"

Ryan asks, "Bit dodgy on a 13 amp ring isn't it?"

Gavin

replies, "No I think you can go up to 26 amps, if it's a proper ring."

"Alright, in that case you'd probably get away with about six U.P.S. boxes."

Gavin asks, "But where will you get them?"

"The uni, no-one will be working today, at least not in the compulabs."

"How are you going to get away with walking out with six units."

Ryan smiles and replies, "There's been a major failure and I need to do some urgent maintenance."

Phil remarks "Got to hand it to you, we have the right man here."

~~o~~o~~

Feeling much refreshed, we hope that our escort is now taking us to get some food, as we head back in the direction of the main dome. The clothes that had been supplied are of a very clever design, in that one size fits all. The material stretches to fit us perfectly. Rachel jokingly complains that the clothes are somewhat 'utilitarian' and have no sense of 'design'. Although I pointed out the stripes in the design, saying that they were more for embellishment that for utilitarian purposes, Rachel's put down remark was, "A small token, in design terms."

I had replied, "Well they certainly fit well."

I should have known I was on a losing streak as Rachel said, "Too close a fit for my liking."

I replied, "I don't know shows off your curves nicely."

I got slapped down with, "That'll do Bill!"

When we reach our room, the escort stops and the door opens, the escort says, "Leave your clothes here."

I reply, "It's OK we will keep them with us."

"You will come back here." The escort suggests.

"It's OK." And with that we resume walking carrying our clothes, the last thing we need is for our clothes to be locked in the rooms and for us not to be able to retrieve them.

We resume our journey back to the dome.

The Director is exactly where we saw it yesterday, probably operates all day and night, being a machine it would, apart from maybe needing recharge time, need no rest.

On seeing us approach, the Director says, "I hope your Aufladen was good."

Rachel launches into, "Not Aufladen but sleep. Thank you, yes, apart from the fact that we appeared to be locked in our rooms."

"Just so, sleep. What is locked in?"

"Einschließen."

"Just so, locked in. The eingang, mean you? "

"Yes the door."

"That is for your Sicherheit."

"Sorry what is, sicherheit?"

"Schutz."

"For our protection, protection against what, against who?"

"Just so, for your protection."

"But protection from what?"

"Just that."

"It seems a bit over the top, we are used to being able to let ourselves in and out of our rooms back home."

"Sorry your language 'over the top', I do not understand, but the rest I do."

"Too much."

"Just so, over the top, too much."

"Can it be changed?"

"What is this changed?"

"Geändert, can the door opening be changed so it can be done from inside the room?"

"It is for your protection."

Thinking that this may go on for ages, I suggest, "I think we can live with it." Rachel throws me a filthy look. I whisper, "Well it isn't as if they mean us any harm, or that we intend to stay another night come to that. They are obviously concerned that we may come to harm."

Rachel puts up her cut finger and says, "Apart from this, what else could we do to ourselves?"

The Director takes us both by surprise as it asks, "Yes I have mean to ask you if that is your multiplikation?"

I wonder what on earth the Director means, when suddenly as I notice Rachel go bright red, I remember my own cut finger and realise what it had meant. I come to Rachel's rescue and reply, "No we just cut our fingers on the room decorations."

"Sorry we must changed the decorations for your protection. How you do this?"

"The edges are sharp, they cut us."

"What is this edges and cut? Sharp must be scharfe"

Rachel replies "Kanten and geschnitten, at least I think it is geschnitten. Yes Sharp is scharfe"

"Just so."

Rachel says, "Yesterday you mentioned essen, food."

"Yes food, you need?"

"Yes please."

Our escort starts to glide back down the slope.

Rachel asks, "Should we follow?"

"Yes, yes." Our guide answers.

~~0~~0~~

Gavin says, "I'm glad I gave Ryan a lift, there is no way he'd get this lot back here on his bike."

Phil smiles, "Good work lads, do you want a hand? I have found a couple of extension blocks and got the site ready for the ups boxes."

Ryan enters with three boxes stacked on top of each other. He replies, "Na I think we have it covered don't we?"

Gavin replies, "Careful you don't drop those."

Phil carefully lifts the top box off of Ryan's stack. "Nice gear, good brand."

Soon the units are connected.

"I suppose it is the moment of truth now." Gavin says.

Phil shakes his head, "Not yet we haven't reached the 30 hour point."

"Never happy eh Phil? A short while ago it was panic that we couldn't fire up the kit."

"We must give them time to get back, the agreed return time was 30 hours. We only need the connection open long enough to get the message to them, that we cannot bring them back until 2 days-time. Right let's set about writing out the message cards."

Gavin suggests "Better still can we send down a comms pod?"

"Good idea."

~~0~~0~~

The canteen, if canteen you can call it, is down another corridor. I say call it a canteen, as there are only two foodstuffs on offer. The first reminds me of that giant slug creature that we had encountered out in the sandy region. It has the same dark colour as the thing that was sliding over us. The other offering, looks like some sort of cooked moss, it has the same sort of filament like structure, is a very dark green, with a tinge of purple running through it and steam rising from it. The jug of water that it is sitting to the left, beside a stack of small metal bowls, looks much more appetising than the two food offerings. As the bowls are very small it is safe to assume that they are intended to hold the water, whilst some larger flat white disks, stacked to the right of the food are probably intended as plates.

We grab a disk and serve up a portion of each of the offerings. Then we pour some water into a metal bowl. There are no implements like forks, with which to eat this stuff, so it looks like fingers are called for.

To the left of us, are benches and cubes at which we can sit to eat our meals. We settle down, watched by our escort.

Rachel says, "This looks appetising doesn't it?"

I reply, "Well it is Hobson's choice I am afraid. Think of it as being like a bushman's lunch."

Rachel asks, "Are we even sure it is edible?"

Anile picks up his platter and sniffs it, then remarks, "She has a point you know, it smells awful!"

Rachel bends down and takes a quick sniff and exclaims, "There is no way I'm eating that."

I reply "You heard the Director, this is probably all they have." I put my shaking a finger in the moss and scoop up some. My finger shaking, because I am so hungry. I smell the moss like substance, and whilst it isn't the most appetising smell I have come across, it doesn't smell that bad. Alarm bells are not ringing in my head, so purely from sense of smell, I have not detected any obviously poisonous elements. Gingerly I dab a little on the tip of my tongue, Anile and Rachel watch, with horrified expressions on their faces.

The taste quite subtle at first, gradually builds up in strength, it reminds me of something bitter and slightly fiery at the same time. I wrack my brains to put a name to the item that this taste reminds me of. Suddenly horseradish, comes to mind, but no, that isn't quite it, it is similar, but not as fiery as horseradish. Then an image comes to mind, I exclaim "That's it, watercress, it tastes like watercress, quite hot, but nice". I put more on my tongue and close my mouth, the taste warming the roof of my mouth now. Both enjoyable and strange at the same time. I am so hungry that despite my inner reservations, I swallow. The feeling, is rewarding.

This could be the last thing I eat, but at this moment I am so hungry, I don't care, so scoop up some more.

Still being watched by the shocked faces of Rachel and Anile, I put my newly laden finger in my mouth and the sensation of warmth resumes. I continue wondering when the poison will kick in.

My platter now has no moss. I take a look at the other offering, the dark brown slab; it just does not look at all appetising. In any case my stomach is now feeling like it has been fed. I sit up and relax.

"I can't believe you just ate that!" Rachel protests, then after a long pause asks, "What does it taste like?"

"I told you, watercress, it is kind of hot but quite appetising and filling. Look..." I hold up my hand, "No shakes now."

Rachel says to Anile, "I think we should wait for about half an hour to see if Bill keels over."

"Blow that." Anile starts to eat his moss and says, "You are right Bill, it is an amazing feeling."

"Am I the only sensible one here?" Rachel asks.

~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 10 – Impressive or What?

Phil crosses his fingers and says, "Here goes then." He taps away at the laptop keyboard and outside the office area, through the large glass window, the three guys can see the device coming to life, the beams of light start pulsating; at first rather dimly lit, then suddenly the whole kicks into full power and forms the all too familiar tunnel of light, which due to the positioning of the office and the device itself, the three guys are able to see the left edge and right down the inside of the tunnel itself. They can see the Comms pod as it now tumbles down the tunnel, getting smaller by the second. At the other end of the tunnel, whilst slightly hazy, the landing point can be seen with the cloth message, still pegged out on the ground.

There is no sign of any of the team or any indication that they had returned, everything appears to be exactly same as it had been the last time the connection had been established.

The Comms pod is still tumbling down the tunnel and is almost at the other end.

Ryan exclaims, "It looks like a stage setting, is this some sort of drama that you guys are broadcasting?"

Suddenly the tunnel appears to become distorted then disappears.

"Hell, no!" Phil exclaims.

Gavin darts back into the lab. He emerges a few moments latter and says, "Sorry the UPS devices have all failed."

Phil asks, "Why? There was no way we were drawing over the rated power levels."

"I don't know for sure, but I think it was the supply line, there must have been some hell of a spike."

"Great! We don't even know if the pod got there and we still have to await delivery of our new power supply."

Ryan exclaims, "Great! I'm screwed too now, I gotta replace those by tomorrow!"

~~0~~0~~

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, after all it is only a machine; however our guide has patiently waited whilst we have been discussing, then eating, even Rachel had given in and had eaten the moss, but none of us had been tempted by the brown slabs on our plates.

When we have all finished and had enough of siting around in the canteen area, we get up and walk towards our guide. It responds by asking "Bereit zu gehen"

Rachel replies, "Yes we are ready to go." Then adds "Thank you"

"Bitte" replies the guide, then it starts to glide away from the canteen. We follow.

It does not take us long to reach the main dome again, the Director greets us with, "I erwarten the food was to your Geschmack?"

Rachel replies, "Er, yes, it was to our taste."

The Director relies, "You not berühren the iol, this is not to your taste?"

"Er, no, not really."

"You did not try, how do you know?"

Anile replies, "The smell, it was awful."

"Schande, there is much protein. We have no other. Would you wie look at the food Produktionsfläche?"

"Oh would we like to look at the production place," Rachel looks at me with enquiring eyes, I nod and she resumes, "That would be interesting."

"What is meaning, interesting?"

"Good." Replies Rachel.

The Director insists, "Direct meaning please."

"Interesting, let me see, that would be, oh isn't it annoying when you can't remember?"

"Direct meaning please."

This has been the first time when I have witnessed one of these machines showing the least sign of impatience.

Rachel's face lights up and she says, "Ah that is it! Interessante, interesting."

"Just so."

Our guide suddenly moves off in a loop and says, "Follow me."

The Director rotates and turns its attention to something behind it, as if it was bored with our conversation now.

We obediently follow our guide who heads off to the right of the Director's raised area, we travel around the circular raised area and then head off through another of the connecting tunnels.

~~0~~0~~0~~

The beds of the mossy like growth stretch out for a considerable distance, dotted here and there are some of the machines, presumably tending this crop. We head towards one of the machines. Rachel stops momentarily and taps some of the moss. I am surprised to see that it bobs up and down, like a duck floating on a pond.

Our guide says, "Please do not touch. You could infizieren."

"Oh infect?" Rachel asks, the machine does not respond apart from resuming its journey. Rachel asks, "What is it floating on?"

Our guide stops immediately and asks, "Floating is schwimmende?"

Rachel replies, "Yes"

The machine resumes, "Wasser mit Nährstoffen"

Rachel looks puzzled, "Water with substances? What substances?"

I volunteer, "I think it is nutrients."

Our guide responds, "Felsen and other."

"Rocks?" Rachel asks.

I reply, "Minerals, these are like the hydroponic beds like we have."

"What is meaning of hydroponic?" our guide asks.

I reply "Water based growing areas, places like this."

"Just so. Follow me." Our guide resumes its journey.

When we reach the nearest machine, we can see that it is busy depositing small patches of dark purple material on the surface of the water. The patches float off like little boats setting sail. They cluster some distance further up the metal box like structure that will hold moss as it grows.

We look at several other of these growth beds which are at various stages of the growing process. Then we see another machine that appears to be harvesting the fully grown moss, It chops off the black filament roots that are hanging below the moss.

Our guide says, "The wurzeln are zerkleinert to be eaten by the next."

"Oh so the roots are crushed and fed to the next crop."

"Just so. You have genug gesehen."

Rachel looks at me and Anile as if waiting for an answer, but an answer to what question I don't know. "Oh sorry, our guide has asked have we seen enough."

"What means 'guide has asked, seen enough'?"

"You are our guide and genug gesehen is seen enough."

"Just so."

We retrace our steps and head back the way we had entered this huge hangar like structure.

I whisper to Rachel and Anile, "Crickey there's enough here to feed a whole city."

Rachel replies, "I suppose that is what they are expecting to arrive, it looks like we are supposed to be the advance party, come here to inspect what they have done."

~~0~~0~~0~~

Phil emerging from his office with Ryan says, "Well it was the least we could do after blowing your UPS boxes up. They should arrive at your store sometime this afternoon, according to the website."

Ryan replies, "I'm sorry that the ones I brought over didn't work, sorry about that. So are you into broadcasting now then?"

"That wasn't your fault, I think it is a combination of an extremely spikey supply, plus we don't really know what sort of kick back this kit produces, it is all so much of an unknown at present. Promise to keep our research hush hush?"

"Of course I will Phil, I signed one of those under things, you know to keep secrets."

"Undertaking?"

"Yes that's it. So what are you guys doing then?"

"We have discovered that our device can create a link to other places, you know stuff kept appearing in lab 14?"

"Oh yeah, didn't they half 'ave a moan about that, we thought it was some practical joker that had taken things too far for too long."

"Well unbeknownst to us, it was our device that was doing it. We were putting cameras and various other devices into the tunel that it created and they were being deposited into lab 14."

"Hey that's great, like that sci-fi thing a transporter thingy. So was that some sort of film set that we saw earlier?"

"No, more like another planet."

"What! Not really, who's there then?"

"You remember Anile and Rachel?"

"Yeah of course I do, seen you two being goofy over each other in the canteen."

Gavin intercedes "I hope you're referring to Rachel."

"Well yeah, Phil and Anile? You gotta be kidding. Anile has more taste!"

The three laugh.

Then Ryan resumes, "So they are the other side of that tunnel thing and it was them that left that message on the ground?"

"Yes, and unless we can get this kit up and running again, they will remain trapped there."

"That's dead excitin' that is." Ryan looks at Gavin, "How come you didn't get to go?"

"Too valuable here mate."

## Chapter 11 – Call this Entertainment?

This, the second food processing area is really distressing, as we can see at the opposite end of the large hall, there is one of the large dark brown slug like creatures. It is being sliced up by several machines. The distressing part is that it still appears to be alive, as we can hear what can only be described as a deep scream of pain.

Rachel is first to turn and leave, closely followed by myself and Anile.

Our guide rapidly catches us and asks, "Where are you going, this is what we have come to see?"

"That is inhumane!" Rachel protests.

"What means inhumane?"

Rachel replies, "Er inhumane, what is it now, ah, unmenschliche."

"This is just an Iol unbedeutend."

"Insignificant or not, it is grausam, cruel."

"I do not understand your concern, it is to be essen."

"You could at least kill, er, töten it first!"

"Why?"

Rachel protests "Can you not hear the creature's cries of pain?"

"We hear noise, but not important, the harveting is more important."

"The noises are the creature's way of communicating that it is feeling what you are doing to it!"

"The harveting is more important."

I suggest, "But if you start from the other side, its suffering would be over sooner."

"Bill! Don't encourage them!"

Our guide declares, "Seltsame." Then slides forward, and says, "Follow me."

~~0~~0~~0~~

As we re-enter the main dome, I catch a brief glimpse of a figure the other side of the dome. At first I think it is another human being. I can only see head and shoulders, there are so many machines surrounding the figure. It is moving quickly. As quickly as I catch sight of the figure it is ushered out the other side of the dome and has disappeared out of sight.

As we walk across the dome to the all familiar central podium, I whisper to Anile and Rachel, "Did you see that figure the other side of the dome?"

Anile asks, "Figure? What do you mean Bill?"

Rachel replies, "I did, but I couldn't see their face or any detail really, it all happened too quickly."

"Neither did I, it was more a case of spotting vague shapes and the movement. Probably the style of movement more than anything else, that gave me the overwhelming impression that whoever or whatever it is, is biological and not a machine."

Rachel nods, "Yes same here."

"I wondered if Phil or Gavin had come through the tunnel and had also found themselves here."

Rachel looks surprised, "That thought had not crossed my mind, but we have been gone for some time now, perhaps they panicked. Just how long have we been gone?"

I lift up the sleeve of my protective suit and check the time, do a quick bit of mental maths and reply, "About 24 hours. As Phil and Gavin are not expecting us back until 30 hours, it can't be one of them. So someone else is here."

Rachel exclaims, "Or something else!"

"If it is one of their people that they were expecting, we could be in serious trouble, although we have not said that we are the expected ones, that they have built this place for, these machines could potentially get very annoyed at us wasting their time and efforts."

Rachel looks worried, as worried as I feel.

Anile says, "That is if they are capable of emotions?"

"Even still, they may start to take less friendly actions towards us, thus far, apart from locking us in our rooms, they have been perfect hosts."

Rachel says, "It seems strange that the other being was surrounded by so many of the machines."

Anile suggests, "Yes you are right there, it could either indicate that the individual is seen as a threat..."

I interrupt, "Or that they are very important."

We arrive at the podium and the Director swings round and asks, "Food production place is good, yes?"

I reply, "It looks very efficient, but..."

The Majesty interrupts me with "What meaning efficient, is effiziente yes?"

Rachel throws me a furious look and protests, "Yes, the first part was, but the second area is inhumane!"

"Yes this unmenschliche, I do not understand as the Iol is insignificant, just food."

"But it has feelings and can feel pain." Rachel protests.

The Director replies, "I have noted your kill Vorschlag and will do, does this make better."

Rachel replies, "There is no need to kill these things, we don't like eating them anyway."

The director replies, "They are protein, you need protein."

Knowing Rachel, this argument will rage on if I let it, so I say, "We saw another Iol just over there." I point in the direction that I had seen the figure.

"Yes, but not to concern, I have in control."

Anile joins in, "The Iol, is it the same type as us?"

"Not to concern."

Rachel replies, "We accept that you have the situation in control, we would just like to know if the iol is the same type as us."

"Not to concern, we have unterhaltung room for you to see."

Rachel says, "unter is under and haltung is attitude, that doesn't make sense, under attitude."

The Director does not reply, instead our guide says, "Follow me." It swings round and sets off towards the back of the dome.

We obediently follow.

After a while I whisper to Rachel, "Why did you confront the Director, it could have hastened any negative actions that they will take against us for not being who we are supposed to be."

Rachel replies, "Bill we cannot stand by and let these machines carry on in this inhumane way killing those creatures unnecessarily."

"Well agreed, but the Majesty has now agreed to do things more humanely. We cannot afford to push them too far otherwise it will make them question more if we are who we are supposed to be."

Rachel replies, "OK I still think the killing of those poor creatures is unnecessary. We need to know who or what that other being that we saw is and whether it is a threat to us."

I reply, "On that front you heard the Director, they have it under control."

Rachel pauses before replying, "Yes but in who's favour? Is the being one of the true inheritors of this place and therefore, the Director is just playing with us, or is the being like us, someone who has stumbled upon this place, are they as much in potential danger as we could be?

Anile says, "You have a point there Rachel, should we fear the new being or should we be working together to get out of this place? I presume the plan is still to get out and return home?"

"Yes of course," I reply and continue, "But our mission was to explore this place."

Rachel replies, "Yes but it wasn't to be at the risk of our lives and I think staying here any longer will be putting our lives at risk, as we are getting closer to these things finding out that we are not who they think we are. We might already be at that point now."

"You are right, we need to figure out a way of shaking off this guide, it seems to be with us all the time unless we are locked in our rooms."

Rachel replies, "That is a tricky one."

~~0~~0~~

Gavin and Phil are in the office, Gavin asks, "Did you manage to get any sleep?"

Phil sighs and replies, "Some, more like small naps than a darned good sleep, at least I don't feel as exhausted as I was. I just feel so powerless, all this kit here and we can do nothing for a whole day, until the new power supply smoother arrives.

"I know what you mean, I keep thinking up crazy schemes to try and bring this stuff to life again, but we have to face it, there is no option but to wait for this decent supply device to arrive."

"I keep wondering if there is anything else we should be doing whilst we are waiting, to prepare for their return."

"Same here, but I have come up with nothing. It wouldn't be so bad if we could contact them and let them know what the delay is caused by."

"Good point, it's a shame that even if the comms pod got through to them, they won't be able to use it to get in touch."

"No doubt one day we will come up with an idea on that one, like a mini tunnel that just transports signals."

"Hey you have something there, that might be possible." Phil starts to search through his folders of notes.

"What are you doing?"

"You have given me an idea, we might not be able to fire up this kit for a day, but that doesn't stop us working on other developments that will help with this and possible future trips. We young Gavin, are going to invent and build a comms device that has its own tunnel. That way we can at least get in touch with the team when the main tunnel goes down, now where are those notes on the maths behind this thing? Ah I think this is what I am looking for, pen, pen, why is it you can never find a pen when you want one?"

~~0~~0~~

The room we have arrived at is like an indoor arena, hundreds of seats towering above us and surrounding us. On the floor there are what look like painted triangles connected by circles.

Our guide asks, "Erkennen, as you enjoy?"

Rachel whispers, "Our guide is asking if we recognise it as we enjoy it? Looks like some sort of sports area."

Anile says, "Like the international games arenas."

I suggest "Oh the Olympic arenas."

Rachel replies to our Guide's question, "Yes very much so."

The guide asks, "It is good? You want to unterhalten?"

Rachel exclaims, "Oh got it now, unterhalten is to entertain."

"Just so, Entertain." Our guide replies, then swings round and on the end wall we can see a display of beings that look similar to us, but dressed in very colourful clothes, strips of coloured ribbons up and down, diagonally across and pretty much in every direction, but each with a definite sense of style and design. They are in an arena exactly like this one and there is much excitement amongst the crowd as four of the beings strut out into the centre of the arena, they are each carrying large weapons that look really ferocious, sharp blades, spikes of various shapes and projecting out at various angles. Each being's weapon seems to be unique, but of the same principle, designed to do real damage by the looks of them. The four stand back to back facing out to the crowd, they raise their weapons and the crowd go bananas, shouting and screaming, throwing their hands into the air and waving them about as if they too were toting the weapons in the arena.

There is a loud noise and the hush following is instant, the crowd as one, place their arms across their chests and starting with low volume build to a crescendo, as they chant "Sieg, sieg, sieg!" On and on they go as the four in the centre of the arena rotate raising and lowering their weapons as they go round and round.

Another loud sound and all shouting and movements cease.

The weapons are dropped, to the beings' sides and the crowd drop their arms to their sides also, they all bow their heads and silence reigns for quite a while. Then the roar starts again as the four in the arena separate and head off, each into their own triangle. They raise their weapons, then begins the most furious fight I have seen in an age.

Horrified as I am at the violence, I am also fascinated, trying to figure out the rules of the fight. At first it appears as if it is a free for all, then I note that none of the fighters is leaving their own circle, there seems to be no pattern as to who is fighting whom.

Anile whispers, "Reminds me of a Roman amphitheatre and the Gladiators, but those weapons are something else."

Rachel says, "Frightening is what I call it."

The fighter in the bottom left triangle, whilst fighting furiously, seems to be suffering the most blows from the other three, whilst they are striking blows at each other, they seem to be turning most of their attentions on the fourth fighter.

Suddenly, it happens, until now it has been weapon striking weapon, but now one of the weapons has struck the fourth fighter in the right arm. There is a horrendous scream of pain and anger. As the weapon is rocked back and forth, a dark blue stain forms on the injured fighters arm. The patch swells and looks like it is forming bubbles, just like a foam. The weapon is still being rocked back and forth, it looks horrendously painful, yet the fighter concerned, seems now to be concentrating on revenge, as its left arm swings its weapon up and over its head, swings down and engages with the head of the fighter, who has its weapon embedded in the arm. The fighter that has just been struck on the head, let's go of its weapon, leaving it hanging from the arm, whilst it raises its arms to its head and negotiates with weapon embedded there.

I look over at Rachel, she is no longer watching the screen, neither is Anile. Rachel says, "This is barbaric, how could such a race produce intelligent machines like these." Rachel nods in the direction of our guide.

The image on the wall fades and our guide says, "Having seen the entertainment, you need to do now?"

Rachel hesitantly says, "Er.... No, but thanks for setting this up.... It is... Er ... good."

Our guide reassures us, "We are ready."

At that moment another machine emerges from an entrance to the left of the arena, it has clothes, just like the fighters on the screen and a similar weapon, but we can tell it is not one of the beings that we had just seen on the screen, purely by the movements it is making.

The guide asks, "Which of you would like to take on our meister?"

The fighting machine has now reached the centre of the arena and its weapon is raised, just like the stance fighters on the screen had adopted.

Anile, Rachel and I look at each other, although no words are said, we can see that we are all thinking the same, how do we get out of this one.

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 12 – Escape plans

I step forward and our guide is most surprised when I say, "Sorry, but we no longer do the entertainment that we have just seen. We have stopped it altogether." Feeling that I now need to 'throw away the spade' before I get us into any more trouble, I stop talking.

Rachel looks impressed, but our guide, says, "This can not be, we had instructions to make this entertainment place before we came here."

I know I have to respond, so I simply ask, "How long ago was that?"

"What meaning is ago?"

Rachel replies, "wie lange vor"

"Just so, fünfundzwanzig Jahre."

Rachel replies, "A lot can happen in twenty five years. Tastes change."

We catch sight of the fighting machine, stand down and slope off back through the entrance, that it came in through earlier.

"Follow me." Our guide announces and spins round to head back out the way we had entered.

Anile waits until our guide is far enough away and whispers, "I do not think that was very wise Bill, to tell these machines that the plans have changed What if the real people who sent these machines, manage to contact them? Our cover will be blown."

I reply, "Yes I think you are right Anile. If the real people do get in touch our cover is blown anyway, they won't speak any English for starters. I am forming plans as to how we are going to get out of here."

Anile says, "Would you like to share these plans?"

"I said forming, I haven't finished thinking them through yet, no point in going off half-cocked like I did just now. It has to be a solid argument that this lot will buy into."

Anile replies, "Could you give us some idea of your initial thinking?"

"I suppose it won't do any harm, you might have some better ideas than I have come up with so far. I was thinking that we could tell these machines that we have to get back to the place where we arrived as we have left our comms device there and our people will be expecting a call from on that equipment."

Rachel says, "Sounds good to me."

"Follow me!" Our guide reminds us, making us almost jump out of our skins.

We obey and the machine resumes its path.

I resume, "It is a good job these machines aren't more suspicious. Anyway what was I saying?"

Rachel reminds me, "That we need to get a message back home on our communicator."

"Ah yes, but the weakness there is..."

Anile interrupts, "They will want to know why we did not bring the equipment with us?"

"Absolutely!"

We walk in silence for a while, then Anile says, "Because we were instructed to leave it at our drop site, in-case things had gone wrong and they did not want it to fall into the wrong hands?"

"Good thinking! How do you explain that one to a machine though?"

~~0~~0~~

We thought we were going back to the big dome, instead we end up in an equally large dome, this one has a large lake and several waterfalls tumbling down into the main area. It is quite refreshing to breath in the moisture. There are some seats dotted around the dome, some are beside the tops of the waterfalls.

Glad of the interlude to actually enjoy ourselves, especially after the last close encounter, we wander around taking in the almost natural beauty of this place.

Rachel and I walk up to the top of one of the 'hills'. Our guide whilst watching us, makes no move to restrain or stop us. We sit beside the tumbling waterfall, enjoying the peace and tranquillity. It is whilst sat up here that I catch sight of the figure that we had seen earlier. I whisper to Rachel, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves.

Rachel confirms that she can see him or it, still surrounded by an entourage of escorts. We are still unsure if the figure is an honoured guest or a prisoner. That is, until the figure turns to face our direction and we can clearly see that the being's four arms are held in some sort of mechanical restraint.

At least we now know that these machines must still be unsuspecting in terms of our visit here and are still under the misapprehension that we are the advanced visiting party, of the species that sent them here in the first place. This gives more credence to our escape plans, but also complicates them somewhat. Do we factor in helping this other poor being who probably like ourselves stumbled into this situation, although in their case they just did not look the part of being an advanced scout, sent to check on progress. Or could this being, actually be harmful to us.

I come back to the Directors words, that the being's existence here was not our concern. Was the Director saying this to keep us out of their business, or to protect us?

Rachel moves, I wonder if she is planning to go down and confront the being. She whispers, "We should find out something more about this being. It may require our help."

I put out my hand and touch Rachel's arm, not so much to restrain her, but more bring her attention to the fact that we need to discuss this further. I say, "I agree we should find out more about this being, but we should do it subtly, so far we have the trust of these machines, we do not want to alert them to the fact that we want to do anything against their wishes, otherwise our own safety will be put at risk."

We decide that we will go round the back of the hill upon which we are sitting, to see if we can get a clearer view of the being. As we walk down and around the back, I suddenly notice that there is some form of maintenance hatch. The fastening is quite simple and more out of curiosity than anything else, I open the hatch, inside is a screen that is displaying some schematics and some words that I cannot understand. I whisper to Rachel, who is ahead of me, observing the machines and the being.

Rachel takes a long hard look at the screen, then starts tapping at it. The displays change at each tap. Rachel quietly but excitedly exclaims, "Ah interesting." She taps some more then says, "This links right into their network, they are obviously so sure that their physical security is good, as they have no system security built in, no password control or anything like that. The language it is running is quite ancient according to our standards, but is quite capable of doing the job it was written for, whilst it is in a sort of German, I recognise the underlying structure it's all kind of backwards, like Forth."

I reply "Fascinating, but is there anything of use to us in the system?"

"Stacks of it. There are whole libraries of information, like the plans to this place, the status of their production systems, the air scrubbing statistics, you name it, it all seems to be here."

"Anything about our friend here?" I nod in the direction of the being below.

"Probably, but it will be a case of identifying the particular records and understanding exactly what has been recorded. Wow would you believe it I have found the generic door locking routine. Whoever wrote this was good, they have commented every segment."

"Don't mess with that routine, we don't want to open any doors that it would not be safe to open."

"But there is a double latching system."

"What does that mean?"

"Well there is close the door, the first part of the routine and then the locking part, looks like this actually engages a secondary catch in all the doors to prevent them being opened again."

"Are you saying, that if the second part were somehow disabled, the doors would close OK..."

Rachel finishes my sentence, "but they would not lock, so you would be able to slide the door open again."

"Can you amend the routine?"

"I can comment out the second part of the code, but if I remember rightly, it has to be recompiled, I don't know if I will be able to find the compiler."

"See if you can comment out the locking part."

"Are you sure there aren't any bad implications of doing this?" Rachel asks.

"Not a hundred per cent sure, but we haven't encountered anything so far, that is harmful to us that should be locked away."

"Apart from possibly our friend down there, he is a total unknown."

"Ah but if he doesn't know that the doors are unlocked, he will most likely go on previous experience and assume he is locked in. Any chance that the machines will spot what is going on?"

"Again like you said about our friend down there, if they don't suspect there has been any change, why should they doubt that a door that always locks itself suddenly does not."

"What about the system itself, will it report that you have been messing around?"

Rachel pauses a moment before replying, "Like I said there appears to be no security."

"Go on do it."

Rachel busies herself with making the changes and as she exists the screen, the system prompts her. "Clever, it asks if I want to compile and debug."

Two further taps and a brief wait, then another screen is displayed with some facts and figures being rapidly displayed. "Good gracious it worked!"

Rachel taps a few more times and announces, "It has gone live."

I just hope the machines do not spot what we have done.

Rachel taps away at the screen for a bit longer, whilst I resume observing our alien friend. The skin is kind of grey with a hint of green about it. I note that as well as him having four arms, he does not have legs, but instead, his trunk seems to terminate in curved areas the bottoms of which touch the ground. I see him moving around and similar to that giant slug like creature, the movement is induced by bulging and contracting muscles. As the being swings around, I note that the trunk of the body, tapers outwards so the base is wider than the top, where the being's waist would be. This presumably gives him greater stability. The whole entourage is retreating now and heading towards one of the exits.

I turn my attention back towards our guide and note that it is heading round to our side of the hill, presumably curious as to what we are up to. I warn Rachel, who taps the screen a few times and the starting screen is displayed again. She closes he maintenance hatch and we commence our descent of the hill, so that by the time our guide has clear sight of us again, we are well down the hill. I can see Anile amusing himself running his hand through a patch of turbulent water in the pond below. We soon join him.

"Wondered where you two had disappeared to."

By the time our guide comes back in sight again we have briefed Anile on what we found. Rachel also updated me that she had not been able to find out anything about our alien friend.

"Follow me." is the invite issued by our guide and we obediently follow.

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 13 – What is going on?

We find ourselves back at the canteen.

We scoop up the moss onto platters and avoid the portions of giant slug as we did at breakfast. This time however we note there are some metal strips, that look something like a slightly curved knife. Perhaps the sight of us scooping up the food with our fingers was just too much for our hosts to take.

We sit at the same table that we had breakfast at.

As I look down at my platter, I notice something that looks a bit odd, small black dots. I wonder if the robots have accidently included some nutrients or something else from the production plant, with this batch of food. I push some of the dots around with the curved metal strip, they roll easily, like ball bearings or tiny marbles. I somehow expected the movement to be rather stinted and jerky. I examine the dots more closely and sure enough they appear to be uniformly round.

I look up to see Anile is already tucking into his platter. I feel like I have to make an urgent decision, to alert him or say nothing. "Anile, I don't think this batch is safe to eat, there is some sort of contaminant on my platter at least."

Anile stops' scooping the food up and asks, "Contaminant, what sort of contaminant?"

"I'm not sure, but these black dots here, round the edge of the plate, could be nutrient or something else from the production plant, but in either case I'm not sure that it's safe to eat."

Anile sounding annoyed says, "What black dots, I can't see any on my platter." He pushes it towards me.

I point towards the small black dots on my platter, "These here and around here."

Anile seems fascinated now, he takes the metal strip from me and pushes some of the dots around, "They move too easily to be soil particles and they have a sheen about them that reminds me of beetles, maybe they are insects. Shame we haven't got a magnifying glass."

"How about this?" Rachel asks, holding out her phone.

"You didn't bring that with you?" I ask and then realise how stupid my question was.

Rachel ignores me and to Anile she suggests, "You can use the camera and zoom in, like this."

"Great! Good thinking." Anile sets the platter down on the table and sets about examining the black dots.

We wait patiently.

Anile exclaims, "They must be insects, they are moving!"

I say, "I wonder if you have eaten any of them. Are there any on your platter?"

Anile switches his attention to his own platter. After a long silence, Anile exclaims, "Heck there are hundreds of the bloody things crawling all over the food. Yuck, to think I have been eating them!"

Rachel asks, "Can you make yourself sick? There's no knowing what bacteria and the like they are carrying."

"I don't know, the thought of having swallowed them in the first place makes me feel bad enough."

Anile and Rachel move to one side and Rachel coaches Anile on techniques to induce sickness. I wonder why she knows these things. You think you know someone well until something like this happens then...

Anile is sick, time and time again. To make things worse, Rachel is still encouraging him.

Our guide now appears to be concerned, it approaches Anile and Rachel at speed and asks, "What is meaning?"

I explain, "Anile has eaten something that may be harmful and needs to get rid of it."

"What is meaning of harmful?"

I pick up my platter and point to the black dots, "See these small dots here, it looks like some insects have make their way into your food production units."

"What is meaning of Insects?"

I feel helpless not knowing German equivalent words for these things, I look at Rachel, but she is still busy tending to Anile. Then it comes to me and I say, "Not good iols."

"These not iols, we production them to protect."

I cannot believe my ears, "What you made them to protect us iols, what against?"

"Just so, made them, for your protection."

Is there no limit that these machines will go to in order to safeguard us? First they lock us in our rooms, then escort us everywhere, now this, they try to so call protect us by feeding us some sort of non-Biological insect. The dreadful thought then crosses my mind, these black dots would be manufactured for a life form that is probably so vastly different to us that their very existence in our blood stream could cause untold damage. Thoughts of the video that we had seen earlier at the arena come back to me, the fighter who had been injured, his blood had congealed like foam. Who knows what these things could do to us. All sorts of horrible images come to mind.

I ask our guide, "How do they protect us?"

"I am not able to sagen."

"You are not able to say..."

Our guide launches into, "Just so..."

I interrupt with, "Does that mean you refuse to say or you just do not understand the question."

"What means refuse and question?"

This is so frustrating, like talking to a child who questions the meanings of your words all the time.

Rachel comes to my rescue, "Refuse means verweigern and question is frage."

"Just so. I understand the question but I do not have the antwort."

"Would the Director know the answer, anwort?"

"Just so answer. The Director will have the answer, but you understand, question I."

Rachel looks at me and says in a whisper, "I just do not know if Anile has got rid of all of those things, who knows what damage could be done by them."

"Precisely, the same thoughts have been going through my head. Did you eat any?"

Rachel replies, "Hungry as I am, luckily no. We need to get Anile home as soon as we can."

"Agreed but first we need to find out what those black dots are."

"You heard our guide, it doubts that the Director can explain them sufficiently for us to understand."

I reply, "We just have to try and get some more information." I turn to our guide and ask, "Can you take us to the Director?"

"Follow me."

~~0~~0~~

Phil is watching football on his laptop as Gavin enters the office, Phil asks, "Any luck with the parts?"

Gavin holds up a bag, "All here, I even got an extra regulator, just-in-case. How's the game going?"

Phil replies, "To be quite honest I've not been that interested, I haven't seen defence as rubbish as this in ages, usually goals are something to get excited about."

"Oh there have been some then."

"Yes but not in our favour, I can assure you, when the defence is this rubbish, it feels like they deserve to get beaten. I keep finding myself lookin' at the clock in the corner of the screen."

Gavin puts the bag on the bench and says, "I told you not to start a countdown timer, makes the time seem to go even slower, how long anyway?"

Phil gets up and walks over to the door way, pops his head through as if checking to see if anything has changed, he replies, "only an hour until pick-up time and just over 30 until delivery of the new power smoothing device."

"According to your clock it's about 34 hours."

Phil walks over to the fridge, "You want one?" Gavin shakes his head, Phil resumes, "Ah but that's closer to 30 than 40."

"Call yourself a scientist?"

Phil retorts, "Engineer actually."

"Even so, doesn't accuracy come into the equation somewhere? Hopefully the team will have found the place so interesting they are not back yet. Let's just hope that they have found some friendly natives who are giving them the deluxe royal tour."

"You make it sound like a holiday."

Gavin smiles, "Well who knows it might be?"

~~~0~~0~~

When we get to the main dome again, the Director is not on its podium. Anile, Rachel and I look at each other, the three of us wondering if the pleasantries are now over, have these machines tumbled the fact that we are not their iols?

To add to our unease, our guide simply announces, "We wait."

Anile does not look at all well. Rachel is fussing over him, she encourages him to sit on the edge of the podium, but Anile says he's fine. The machines around us show no reaction to us, it is almost as if we do not exist, just like when we first arrived.

The minutes tick by.

Rachel asks our guide, "Does the Director know we are here?"

Our guide simply repeats, "We wait."

I nervously glace at the display on my suit sleeve. The seconds reliably counting up. I do some quick maths. I point to the display and whisper to Rachel, "nearly 30 hours."

Rachel says, "We have to get back to the place that we arrived at, as we need to get a message back home."

Frustratingly our guide says, "I do not understand. We wait."

Normally our guide would explore the meanings of words it does not understand. Now it is just blanking us off. Suddenly it hits me, maybe they have discovered the changes that Rachel made to their system and we are no longer considered as their friends but as enemies, but surely we would have been arrested or whatever these machines do to enemies.

We wait.

## Chapter 14 – From bad to worse

We waited for ages, an hour to be precise.

Rachel says, "Where is the Director? We need to see the Director quickly."

Our guide simply repeats, "We wait."

We are taken by surprise as behind us we hear, "I have been besetzt. I understand there is a problem with your food?"

"Yes, but more important than that, we have to get back to our arrival place as we have to get a message back home."

"You need to go, to go where?"

"Er, arrival place, is er, Ankunft place."

"Just so, but why go there?"

"We need to tell those at home that you have the home land ready."

"How can you do this?"

"Er we have a comms device at our arrival place."

"Why you not bring here?"

"We were told not to, in-case there were problems."

"problems, probleme?"

"Yes quite so."

"What problems?" asks the Director."

"Well, this place may have been invaded and the place may no longer be intended for us."

"What meaning is invaded and no longer intended?"

"Er, let me see," Rachel is silent for a moment, then continues, "Ah I have it, invaded is oover-fallen, nicht mayer best-im't."

"Just so, but why would unfinished structures, be of concern?"

"Oh, I see what you mean, oover-fallen, you think that means to fall over, no it is not that meaning, oh how can I put it?"

Anile suggests, "Taken over?"

"Thanks, that might do it," says Rachel, then she turns to the Director and says, "Oover-nomen."

"This all sounds seltsame."

Rachel like an automatic translator says, "strange."

"Just so, strange indeed. So you need to go to your place of arrival to use device to talk home"

Just then Anile announces, "Sorry guys but I do not feel at all well."

Just before he collapses onto the floor we see that his skin has gone bright red, like he has an extreme case of sunburn or some form of allergic reaction.

~~0~~0~~

Phil is pacing up and down the lab room, whilst Gavin is bent over the bench soldering away. Gavin looks up and says, "For goodness sake Phil, you are going to do nobody any good by exhausting yourself, I know you are frustrated, but we have another 31 hours to go before the power supply arrives. In the meantime we are best concentrating on trying to get this communicator working. Even if we cannot get the team back, if this baby works we can keep in touch with them. Can you check the calculations again of the signal that we need to generate to get this thing to generate the appropriate signal tunnel. Only I'm getting to the point now where I am going to need to commit the final components to the board and if I get it wrong we could be looking at something more serious than a small hole in a wall."

Phil replies, "I have checked the figures twice already."

Gavin looking worried, replies, "I need to be one hundred per cent satisfied before I turn this baby on, that the back exciter does not collapse and blow off my hand or something like that. I'm OK with the electronics but the detailed maths, I'm hopeless, Anile is better than me at all that."

"You have a point I concentrated on the maths for the forward component, and just assumed that the back exciter maths would be OK as it is just scaled down. I think I'll put something on the lappy as I'm doing it, to relax me. Is it really a whole 31 hours still to go, have we really got to live through another 31 hours?"

"Sorry Phil, but the answer to that one is yes. If we can keep busy it will pass quickly. I think I'll complete the circuitry and grab a bit of shut eye, before checking it all out and testing."

"It seems like we have so much to do before we can actually help them out there."

"Well there would be no point in blasting a great hole in the main kit out there just because we want to do a rush job on this baby."

"Very true, best to take a steady pace and be assured that this device will work. I wonder what they have found out there?"

~~0~~0~~

Rachel is mopping Anile's face with the damp cloth that one of the machines had brought her. She says, "Well I can't leave him here and in this state we can't take him with us."

I look at the sleeve of my suit again, we have now been here for 32 hours, "But we must get back to the tunnel, Phil and Gavin will be worried about us, we have gone well over our agreed return time, even if we depart right now it will take us many hours to get back there, even travelling on one of these machines."

"Who knows what those little black dot, like things are doing to Anile, he seems to be in such discomfort, I just do not think he would survive such a journey."

Our guide suddenly rolls up in front of me and says, "The Director needs you now. Follow me."

I look at Rachel, she says, "You might as well go and see what the Director wants, we are not going anywhere." Rachel rinses out the cloth again and resumes mopping Anile's face.

Our guide had rolled back through the doorway and was waiting for me in the corridor. As I step through the door frame the door slides shut.

~~o~~o~~

The Director asks, "Can you make the journey to your arrival place without the zwei?"

I am as anxious to get back to the tunnel as the Director is for us to supposedly confirm with the people who sent these machines here in the first place, that all is ready. The thought however of leaving Rachel and Anile here at the mercy of these machines... Even if I get back to the tunnel I will not be able to return through it. So what is the point of me going back alone?

"No, they will expect all three of us to be able to talk to them or there will be no trust."

The Director is silent for a considerable time. Then suddenly there is a great deal of activity around us as several machines depart, all heading in one direction. The Director announces, "Just so, I will make it möglich for the drei of you to go to the arrival place."

"What are you planning to do?" I ask.

The Director replies, "I make möglich for the drei of you to go to the arrival place."

"But how will you do this?"

"Mine to do, yours to see. Now go you."

With that my guide invites, "Follow me."

I obediently follow my guide back to Anile's room. The door slides open as we approach, but there is no-one inside. The bowl and cloth are on the floor, there is a pool of water around the bowl.

As we approach the bed, I can see something on the floor just behind the cabinet. As I get closer, I can see it is Anile. He has several cuts across his face and arms. There is a pool of what at first looks like a dark blue liquid on the floor. As I get closer I realise that it looks like foam, just like on the video that we had seen earlier, in the arena.

I am torn between wanting to see if Anile has any life signs and avoiding touching him, in-case what has happened to him could in some way infect me. I stand in silence for a moment watching to see if there are any signs of movement, but nothing. I call out, "Anile, can you hear me?" I wait to see if there is any response, but nothing.

My guide asks, "What has happened? Has this one been damaged?"

I reply, "Yes it would appear that he is dead."

"Can this damage be repaired?"

"No."

"What did this?"

"I do not know."

"Did the other one do this damage?"

"I do not know, but I do not think so." I question myself on this one, was it self-defence, in Anile's state of delirium had he tried to attack Rachel and she defended herself? Defended herself with what though, the cuts look pretty substantial, inflicted by a sharp weapon.

I recall Rachel cutting herself on the room decore last night and wonder if somehow she had used a piece of the decore to defend herself. I walk carefully around the room looking for any evidence of damage to the decore, but can find none, it all looks in-tact.

My guide asks, "What are you doing? Should we not find the other one, before more damage is done?"

Having seen enough and been reminded that Rachel was out there somewhere probably frightened out of her wits and possibly trying to find me, I decide that my guide is right at least about finding Rachel.

~~0~~0~~

The Director whilst unemotional about the news of Anile's death and the fact that Rachel is missing, repeatedly asks me questions as to why Rachel is "behaving with no prediction" as the Director puts it. Fed up with the repeated questioning and not being able to conjure up any answers I insist that I need to find Rachel and make sure she is safe. The Director assures me, "I am looking already to safe return of the drei one."

"Oh you mean Rachel the third one?" I ask.

"Just so."

"I need to look for Rachel also, if she is afraid she will hide and may not trust anyone apart from me."

"What means afraid and hide?"

"Fear and stay out of sight."

"She might replicate?"

"Good heavens no. She might just avoid being seen." I wish I knew enough words to translate properly for the Director, on this occasion however the Director will have to make do with the little explanation that I can offer.

I start to walk away.

"Where are you going?" The Director asks.

"To find Rachel."

"For your protection." The Director replies and two of the machines glide towards me.

I fear that their purpose is to restrain me so I head off at speed towards the passageway that heads towards the bedrooms. The machines steadily glide after me, not attempting to overtake me, but just to keep up with me.

My earlier thoughts that Rachel would try and find me were most likely to be incorrect, instead she probably headed away from the hub of machines to the inner quieter areas, hoping to find somewhere to hide.

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 15 – Where are you?

Phil looks up from his notes as Gavin walks in yawning, "Get some shut eye then?"

"Some," Gavin replies.

"Enough to check the circuit over?" Phil asks.

"Hey give me a chance I haven't had my cuppa yet."

"You and your tea!" Phil smiles.

"Well was the maths right?" Asks Gavin after putting the kettle on and examining a mug.

"Yeah, spot on the money, I washed those out earlier."

"Now I am going to collapse, you wash the mugs up, you must have been bored."

"OK you look at the circuit boards and check them over I'll read out the schematic."

"Don't you want your tea first?"

~~0~~0~~

The Director says, "I have not been able to find Rachel either. Her trust must be really bad."

I am feeling so tired, having searched this place high and low, on a now very empty stomach, I am shaking I am that hungry. "I just cannot think where she must have gone, we have been everywhere I could possibly think she would or even could go."

The Director asks, "Are you damaged?"

"Er no, why do you ask that, am I bleeding?"

"What is meaning bleeding?"

"Er bodily fluids leaking?"

"You are schütteln."

"Oh, Shaking. That's because I am so hungry. I need to essen."

One of my guides says, "Follow me."

I protest, "But the food is contaminated, I cannot eat it."

The Director says, "Not now, I had the protection removed."

"Thank you." I obediently follow the guide.

We soon arrive at the canteen, it seems even more soulless sitting here and eating alone, wondering where Rachel is and if she is alright. If I am feeling this weak, she must also be in a similar state, as she has not eaten either.

As I eat, my mind runs over all the places that I and the machines had searched, trying to find Rachel. I replay in my mind every detail of the search, just in-case I had missed any possible hiding place, but nothing comes to me.

I am glad when the shaking stops and my growling stomach has calmed once again.

The thought crosses my mind, am I being too trusting of these machines? Were they the ones who killed Anile and have either locked Rachel away or killed her.

Locked... the phrase, like the pulling of a gun's trigger, sets off a chain of thoughts in my mind. Locked... the doors in this place can't be locked! Rachel had seen to that, with her software change, unless these machines had detected Rachel's change and had reversed it. Perhaps that is why the Director was delayed. If however, Rachel's software change is still in place, then we would not be the only ones who can open locked doors, our Alien friend may have also been able to get out of his room. Had he escaped and found his way to Rachel and Anile?

I have three suspects in terms of what happened to Anile. Anile himself may have tried to attack Rachel and she defended herself; These machines may have decided to attack Anile and Rachel; or the Alien may have attacked Anile and possibly captured Rachel, taking her as a hostage, in the hope that he can use her as a bargaining chip, to escape this place.

Of the three scenarios, given the behaviours of the machines to date, the middle one seems the least likely, their aim seems to be, that they want to get a positive message back home. What good would killing Anile and abducting or killing Rachel do for them? If the Alien is loose, the machines either know nothing about it, or they are staying incredibly calm on the surface of things.

If Anile had attacked Rachel, what good would she be doing, continuing to hide from myself and the machines? She knows I will be worried sick about her and the machines are unlikely to punish her for an act of self-defence, so whilst I cannot discount this option altogether, the Alien escape version seems to have the greatest logic. Where would the Alien hide himself and Rachel though?

Locked! It suddenly hits me like a bolt of lightning. Not only are the interior doors unlocked but the exterior ones are two. Chances are there is some rear exit to this place. The Alien and Rachel probably left this complex hours ago! How stupid could I have been, to stubbornly search the interior, without even considering the fact that Rachel may be outside!

## Chapter 16 – Teamwork

The Director does not answer my question.

I insist, "It is important, that you answer me, surely you do not want any further harm to come to us? Without us you will not be able to confirm that you have succeeded and are ready for the other iols to come here and complete your mission. Now is there an exit at the back of this structure?"

"You speak with bedacht."

"Sorry I do not understand, what is bedacht?"

"Egal, there are many exits."

"Can you show me the exit near to our rooms."

"I do not understand near, is it Nähe?"

"Yes that sounds right, naya and near."

"I must tell you that the other iol is not in the room."

I ask "Which room? Oh you mean the OTHER iol and their own room? Where is it?"

"I do not understand, what is their own."

"Ear-a, their, um what is own? Oh I know, the room of the iol."

"I understand, the other iol's room is in that Konstrukt. Do you want to look?"

I ponder the question a moment and answer, "No, I do not think anything will gained from looking there. You have looked already?"

"Yes the room is empty."

"Right, can you take me to the exit near our rooms?"

My guide moves in the direction of the corridor leading to our rooms and says, "Follow me."

We pass the still open door, I can just see Anile's body. I can not help but feel remorse at what lead to his death and the fact that if we had not come here it would not have happened. Furthermore I still have the nagging doubts about how it happened and guilt over how to reach a conclusion as to who or what did this. We were good friends, my loyalties are challenged, if Rachel did this, there would be only one reason and that would be self-defence, I just cannot imagine she would do it for any other reason. This is the crux of the challenge to my loyalties, if Rachel felt under threat, it would have been Anile who was the cause of that threat. Were I in the room at the time, it could have easily been me who caused Anile's death, in defending Rachel.

What a dilemma.

I must put it out of my mind I can do nothing for Anile now. Nothing except find out the truth as to what happened, to do that I must find Rachel and if he is with her, the Alien. That must be my focus.

We divert down a side corridor and my mind races as I try to think through the scenario of Rachel and the Alien racing to get away, "Wait!" I exclaim.

My guide continues ahead of me.

"Halt!"

The machine stops and spins round, "Why?" It asks.

"Because I do not believe they would have taken this corridor."

My guide asks, "What means, because I do not believe?"

"Vial nicht glowber, I think that's right."

"Just so." The machine responds then goes silent.

"Is there another exit near here?"

"Yes." The machine answers and sets off up the main corridor.

I follow, feeling more confident that this would be the route they used.

After a while we reach a junction where the corridor splits and my gut feeling is that Rachel and the Alien would have taken the left fork. I am delighted when my guide takes that fork.

After a while the corridor bends to the right, as we emerge from the bend, ahead of us, I can see a doorway and to my relief I note it is open.

My guide unexpectedly stops. It asks me, "Why would the exit be open?"

"Because they escaped through it, but did not feel they had the time to close it again." Then as an afterthought I add, "Or maybe they could not close it?"

By this time I have overtaken my guide and am now at the door, I can see footprints in the sandy soil that has drifted into the airlock area. I say footprints, there are actually one set of footprints, presumably Rachel's, beside these are rivulets in the sandy soil, that probably result from the way in which he Alien moves. So it is highly likely that the Alien has taken Rachel as a hostage. I cannot imagine Rachel voluntarily wanting to go off with the Alien. This adds greater credence to the version of events where the Alien was guilty of Anile's death. Whilst this makes me feel a bit more comfortable, I am not comfortable with the fact that my Rachel is at the mercy of this Alien, it has killed once, what is to stop it repeating the event? Especially now, that it has its freedom.

I emerge from the exit looking for more signs as to the direction that Rachel and the Alien have taken. For a stretch their tracks are quite evident, even though they seem to be crossing each other, as if they are staggering to and fro.

Possibly it had been windy, which would explain the sand in the airlock. Come to that the airlock seems strange, at least in comparison with the one we had originally entered by, this one seems to have a solid floor, yet the one we came through had a sort of mesh floor. I can remember the floor shaking the sand off of us and the machine that we had arrived on.

My guide protests, "I can not go out, I am not of the Bau."

I haven't a clue what it means by 'Bow' but I get the sense that the machine means it is not built to go outside. I reply, "OK you stay here and I will quickly explore to see if I can find out where they went, but they definitely came through here."

"How can Wissen sie das?" the machine innocently asks.

"Er, oh I see, how do I know, see the footprints in the sand here."

"Just so."

"They head off in this direction. I won't be long."

My guide says nothing, but equally does nothing to stop me.

I follow the tracks for a bit, they get weaker and weaker, ascribing more and more to my windy event theory. They get so faint that I am no longer able to follow them. Darn it, just when we were getting somewhere!

Following the trend that the tracks are taking I surmise the direction they must have been heading. It is a path parallel to the line of the mountains or hills behind us. Away from our tunnel, so my thinking is that the Alien possibly has a craft that it arrived in and it is heading for that, in the hope that it can escape.

I return to the airlock and quiz my guide, "Rachel, the iol that came with me, appears to be with the other iol guest that you had, did that other iol arrive here in a craft that is near here?"

My guide replies, "I do not understand you. What means Rachel, appears, guest, arrive, craft?"

A question or two, too many, how can I answer this? Yet to get the information I need, I must try somehow. "Drei, three iols, Bill, Anile and Rachel." I point to myself and at two invisible people as I announce the names.

My guide is silent for a moment then responds, "I understand."

I then point three fingers towards the ground, repeating, "Three iols." Then with my other hand I point one finger to the ground and say, "Another iol, the guest."

The machine repeats, "I understand."

"How did the guest get here?"

The machine replies, "Yes, I understand. Mach in ein dreiundzwanzig militares."

I ask, "Which direction?"

"I do not understand."

"which, er, which Rechtung?"

"Mean you 'Richtung?'" the machine asks.

As it sounds almost exactly what I said I reply, "Yes"

One of the machine's arms raises and points in the direction that I had assumed that Rachel and Alien had travelled. "That's it then." I excitedly declare, "That is where they have gone, to the guest's machine."

"Just so, machine."

Just then, I hear another machine motoring its way up the corridor. I glance back down the corridor and to my relief realise that the Director has send me a machine that is the same as the one that we arrived on, for all I know it could even be the same one.

When the new machine is close enough it slows and stops then announces, "Climb on to it."

"Thank you." I reply and before I know it we are heading off at speed it the direction that my guide had pointed.

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 17 – In search of the unknown

Phil looks up from the circuit board and announces, "Good work Gavin, I can't find owt wrong wid that at all. Let's hope as I have us maths right and this device works properly."

Gavin leans forward in an exaggerated motion and looks at the laptop screen, then says, "Well according to this about 38 hours have passed now, so the team should be back at the tunnel and if the transfer of the comms device was successful, also if it works, we should be able to contact them."

"Ey, but us thought 'as come to mind, what if they don't turn the blighter on, 'cause there's no tunnel as to communicate through?"

"Come on Phil that's a chance we 'ave to take, granted you could be right."

"Right let's put us device into its casing, so as no accidents can 'appen."

"Good idea Phil, I got it over 'ere somewhere, ah 'ere it is." Gavin slides the circuit board and other components into place then sets about screwing them in. He puts the top on, then removes it again as he has noticed that the display and keyboard have slipped."

"Don't forget us batteries!"

"Give us a chance mate, I'm still fiddling about with the top, blast! Darned fing moved again."

"Good job you've got patience for those fiddly bits."

"Why don't you make us a cuppa Phil, I could do with one."

"Ey 'appen as how I will, I'm spitting feathers me sen."

~~0~~0~~0~~

The ride has been rather uncomfortable; I just wish this place had roads rather than bumpy sandy soil. I have lost count of the number of times I have nearly fallen off of this machine.

Our goal has been clearly in sight for some time, an odd shaped craft, that looks more like a castle that has fallen on bad times and is sinking into the sandy soil. There are several pointed turret like structures pointing towards the sky at differing heights, but all at the same, roughly 45 degree angle. There are several appendages sticking out of the turret like structures, globe like, but at differing positions and different sizes. As we get closer, I can see that several of the globes have what look like port holes in them, some with faint flickering lights coming from within.

As we get ever nearer, the vastness of the craft, becomes more evident, which raises my fears, ever more that the Alien is not alone. Perhaps our machines had not searched the craft, but had merely retrieved the one Alien, which they had found outside the craft.

I can now make out, what look like small dark protrusions sticking out of some of the spheres, they remind me of the gun turrets of world war two bombers.

For a moment I thought I had caught sight of one of the globes and it's protrusion moving, as if it were tracking us. But when I look more closely, I am not sure now, all looks peaceful and still.

There are faint sing song noises, like equipment communicating its status, or like radios carrying some sort of random barely understandable chatter.

Silence again.

We are close enough now, to see that the craft is quite damaged. What is more, the bottom segment is buried in the sand and the whole craft is at an angle. At the base of one of the turrets there is quite a high hill of sand and at its peak, I can see a gaping dark hole in the wall. The hole is quite regular though, like a door opening. I am glad that the machine I am riding on, is heading straight for the hill and the opening. Presumably it too, has seen this opportunity to enter the craft and to explore it.

We hit some rough ground and my attention is turned back to hanging onto the machine that I am riding. I come quite close at times to falling off. I am really relieved as the machine comes to a halt. Although its announcement is not so welcome. "I can not go weiter Ihren Schutz zu gewährleisten."

I climb down and reply, "Sorry I do not understand exactly what you are saying, but I gather this is as far as you can go. Thank you for bringing me here."

I set about climbing the sandy hill. Heading towards the opening, which I can now see is a doorway. It is very dark beyond the opening. I wish I had brought some form of weapon with me now, I feel really vulnerable. Nervously I look above me at the dome like protrusions, in-case there is any sign of life or activity. It takes me quite a while to scan all in sight.

So far so good, all I have spotted are the familiar tracks of Rachel's and the alien's foot prints. If footprints you can call the alien's tracks. At least I am assured that they have come here.

This sandy hill is quite steep and exhausting. I can quite understand now why my machine had given up, it obviously estimated well the effort required and risks of tipping over. Apart from the fact that I have to get Rachel back, feeling as exhausted as I am I would be tempted to either take a long rest or give up, but instead onwards and frustratingly slowly I continue to rise.

~~0~~0~~0~~

Phil, quite distraught now says, "What the 'ell! Five bloody hours now, we've been tryin'! I reckon you was right about them not turning on us communicator, or the thing didn't make it to t'other side."

Gavin asks, "How long now 'til the new power supply arrives?"

"Who knows for sure? Probably another 23 or 24 hours. I just hope nowt un-towards has 'appened to 'em. As they are on their own still for another day, poor beggers!"

"I know what you mean Phil, it makes you want to scream."

"Let's just leave us communicator on, we got plenty of batteries, you never know they might be 'aving such an interesting time that they just haven't got back as yet. At least this way, if they want to get in-touch, provided this thing works, we'll be listening when they do give us a call."

"OK Phil, mind if I take a nap for a bit, we can take it in turns to listen out for them?"

"Eye Gavin that's OK wid me. I couldn't sleep right now anyway."

~~0~~0~~0~~

The entrance as dark now that I can peer directly into it, as it appeared from the bottom of the hill. I have a strong feeling of foreboding, do I enter running the risk that whoever or whatever is waiting inside has a better view of me that I of it, or do I wait longer, hoping that my eyes become even more adapted to the pitch black beyond the entrance?

I have stood here for what seems like an eternity already, listening, hoping to catch the least hint of any sounds of movement or breathing, but nothing, apart from the occasional "sing song" activity that I could hear earlier.

Bravely, but carefully, I step forward, committing myself to the action of entering this craft. My heart racing, my breathing unsteady, ready to dive back through the entrance any moment, should the need arise.

I advance ever forward, cautiously going deeper into this craft, head scanning from side to side, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything. All that greets my eyes is the uninterrupted black. No relief at all, ears straining to hear any noise except my softly placed footsteps and the gentle scrunching of sand as it falls from my shoes and joins the previously deposited samples of sand brought in by Rachel and the alien.

My arms flail around in front of me as I feel around for any potential hazards. I just cannot believe how dark and black it is in this place. Normally you would expect there to penetration of some light from outside, but here nothing, as if I had entered a light vacuum.

Slowly I advance, getting ever further away from the entrance.

I leap out of my skin when I hear the echoy voice command me to "Turn left there is a wall in front of you."

I turn and look back at the doorway where I estimated that the voice was coming from and there, silhouetted against the opening is my machine, it had made the climb after all!

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 18 – It feels like progress

It feels like we are deep into this craft now, having emerged from the chamber of black, my machine had found the doorway and activated its opening mechanism, the next room was flooded with light, panels and panels of displays all back lit and actively displaying some form of information, but the symbols and graphs meant absolutely nothing to either me or my machine. We have travelled along many a corridor and through various rooms, with similar displays to the first collection that we had found. We had not dared to touch anything, for fear that either we may do ourselves some damage or further alert whoever is in this craft that we are here.

Apart from the displays and the occasional "sign song" activity, there are no signs of life.

We have long lost the trail of Rachel's and the Alien's movements and are simply relying on luck now, hoping that we will stumble upon them. There are so many doors leading to chambers and corridors that it feels like it would take a very long time to carry out a methodical search. I am just hoping that they have gone to the top of this craft and that soon I stumble across some means of rising to the upper levels, but thus far no such luck.

Suddenly as the door ahead of us opens, we see something on the floor, it is biological not machine like. The staring eyes, immediately put me into a state of unease. I stop, but my machine continues to advance, heading straight for the doorway, it has no fear.

I observe the eyes closely, trying to discern whether they are tracking us. It is difficult to tell at first the stare is so alarming. My eyes drift slowly beyond the eyes that are staring back at me, the head has the grey green but wrinkled skin, there is no nose that I can discern and the mouth small, round forming the 'o' of surprise or pain. The rest of the creature is behind some sort of column. There is an arm outstretched the three fingers pointing towards me as if appealing or reaching out for help.

Having ascertained that the eyes are not moving I cautiously walk towards it, catching up with my machine. The machine comments, "There are no lebenszeichen, this iol is dead."

As we round the column, the horrific nature of this poor creature's demise is obvious, there are no signs of the lower parts of the creature, instead a lake of dark green, that at some time would have been a fluid but is clearly all dried up now. Where the lower part of the creature would have been, there is a mass of contorted metal, where the wall beside the creature had been ripped through and had caused the creatures injuries.

Despite this being an alien, I just hope that its death had been quick. I know from its face that it was not painless but I can at least hope it was not prolonged.

My machine seems more fascinated than me to linger and take in more detail of the injuries incurred. I am keen now to move on in pursuit of the living. I head towards the next exit, forgetting that I need my machine to open it.

I wait patiently not daring to look back at the horrific scene. The thought of the staring eyes is enough for me, without dwelling further on the detail of the injuries.

~~0~~0~~0~~

Phil picks up the communicator and turns up the volume, he strains to hear the faint sing song sounds that are being emitted from it. Struggling really hard to try and make some sort of sense out of what he is hearing. He dashes over to his laptop and sets it to record the sounds being emitted. Whilst initially appearing to be quite random, Phil notices small patterns in the traces appearing on the screen. Could this be some sort of music broadcast coming from the city that the team had gone to explore? Whilst it has some musical qualities about it, there is something underlying that Phil's intuition tells him that it is not music, more like a communication.

After a few minutes the sound breaks off as quickly and mysteriously as it had begun.

Phil sets about hurriedly carrying out further analysis of the sounds he has recorded.

Finally something to do, something to keep him busy.

~~0~~0~~0~~

An opening in the wall, which when I cautiously glance down into it appears to be tube like, leading both down and up. On the wall there are two squares, vertically aligned with each other, each having a symbol etched into it, they appear to be buttons, possibly this is some form of lift. At last a means of getting to the upper floors.

I cautiously stab at the upper square and immediately hear a faint sound. I slowly push one hand into the opening and I can feel my hand being pushed upwards. I turn and address my machine, "This looks like it is a lift that can take us up to the higher levels."

"Sorry I do not understand."

I carry out a mime of someone being raised on a platform and walking off of it at a higher height.

My machine responds, "I understand, lift."

I launch myself into the tube and just hope that I will not end up smashed against the roof. I scan the tube's interior, but can see no sign of any buttons to enable me to select the level that I want to stop at. I am thinking now that I may have been foolish in attempting this without some experimentation first.

When I reach the next opening, I feel myself drift to a stop. I look up and can see that there are several openings above me. So I reach out of the gap and stab the upper square and feel myself rising again.

I look down and I can see that my machine is likewise rising below me.

I continue the reaching through the gaps and stabbing the upper square, until I reach the uppermost floor. I am convinced that this is where the Alien would have brought Rachel.

As I rise up the top level, I cautiously scan the area in front of me, watching for any activity, as I had done on all the floors below, but even this one seems devoid of any activity.

Soon the machine and I are re-united. I am surprised that it makes no comment about the journey or my reason for wanting to come up here, instead it seems quite content to follow my lead.

We are in a corridor that heads off to left and right. I pause momentarily, then head off to the left. The machine then says, "The iols are this weise."

"OK." I turn and follow the machine at the same time wonder how it has suddenly acquired the ability to detect biological species through walls. It is then that I notice the dark green stain on the wall ahead of us.

The sound sudden and ear shattering, the vibration and shaking quickly follows.

What the hell?

It feels like all hell is let loose!

No way to tell where the noise is coming from or come to that what it is.

The thought hits me like a rock, 'This bloody thing is taking off, but how? It is buried and so damaged, if we actually make it out to space all the air is likely to be sucked out of the craft and if it does not explode beforehand we will suffocate.'

Then the thought beyond all others hits me even harder 'Rachel!'

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 19 – All is lost

The roar, the floor and wall shaking continues relentlessly. I am unable to concentrate, let alone move. Yet I have this overwhelming feeling that I must do something, but in doing something will I put myself at greater risk?

I force myself to progress on down the corridor. Maybe, just maybe, I can stop this insanity.

The roaring sound grows in intensity as does the shaking. I press on.

Then I am aware that the pitch of the sound and ferocity of the shaking are changing, dulling down somewhat now. What does this indicate? Is the base of this craft, so deeply buried that the engines cannot overcome the anchoring effect? I hope on hope that this is the case.

Then, the awful truth, hits me like a large rock! It isn't the whole craft that is taking off, but merely a part of it!

My thoughts of wishing failure, quickly swing to hopes of success, the last thing I want for Rachel is her death, caused by explosion or a crash of the escaping craft.

The despair of the situation strikes me, if Rachel survives this, what will she be going to?

I push on, hoping that I can find the place where the craft has launched from, maybe there is another.

As I round the corner, I can see a door with a window, it has black and brown streaks running diagonally across it. The walls and floor, just mildly shaking now, I am able to dart across to the window and can see the flames high above us now, not a hint of the shape or size of the craft that they are coming from, as the angle is too steep and it is too high.

I stand there helplessly watching, hoping.

~~0~~0~~0~~

Phil asks Gavin, "What does thee think, ambient noise, or coming from planet?"

Gavin is silent for a bit, then replies, "Sorry Phil, but who knows, this technology is unproven, we could be picking up the signals from anywhere, they may even be some form of harmonics caused by the tunnel itself, or come to that the circuitry that generates the tunnel. It does seem though to have some sort of 'intelligence' within the patterns, but we can't afford to get carried away with such theories. The one thing we can say for sure, these are not signals generated by our team, we would probably be best focussing in on that fact rather than making wild guesses."

"Ey, you're right there Gavin, it were an interesting diversion while it lasted though. Hey thought just come to us, could be an alien vending machine placing order for replacement stocks."

They both laugh at the irony of the situation, if it were true.

~~0~~0~~0~~

Two hours and it has been a fruitless search, not another escape craft in sight.

At the lower levels we found some more dead aliens, luckily, nothing as shocking as the first that we had come across.

I have given up the search for another escape craft. I marvel at how faithfully my machine has followed me, not questioning my decisions or motives, but just blindly following me.

Our search now, is focused on finding our way out of here.

Corridor after corridor, chamber after chamber, each chamber being subtly different from the last, but none-the-less another that stands in our path.

Then suddenly I recognise the latest that we have entered and sure enough the exit on the other side leads to that dark, oh so dark room. I cannot see but merely feel my way through it.

Then shock as my hands touch something slightly warm, wrinkly, like soft leather. My hand springs back and I feel my whole body recoil. I wait in the silence, listening, prepared to run if needs be.

Again I jump, as my machine announces, "The iol will not harm, it is dead."

My fingers feel sticky and as I emerge back into the light, I am shocked to find my hand covered in dark green fluid.

I ask my machine, "This iol was not here when we arrived here was it?"

The machine simply replies, "I did not see it."

I am glad now to emerge fully from the craft, I bend down and wipe the fluid off my hands in the sand, the gritty feeling is not nice, but preferable to having the alien blood on my hand. I now wipe the final remnants off on the seat of my trousers.

As I glance around I suddenly spot footprints heading back towards the city. My heart skips a beat.

Rachel!

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 20 – Return

Clinging on, bouncing around for an age, but en-heartened by the thought that Rachel may have escaped and be ahead of us. I cannot make out the words the first time my machine speaks, but then I spot, what it is talking about, a lone bi-pedal shape ahead of us, swaggering from side to side like some drunken reveller who is just concentrating on getting somewhere other than where they are currently.

I am tempted to shout, but do not want to alarm whoever it is, they are still too far away and obviously in a poor state.

We bounce onwards closing the gap, slowly but surely.

As we get ever nearer I am convinced it is Rachel. They are wearing the same style of clothes as myself, although down one side is a large dark stain.

Swaggering from side to side, determined to get back to the city, the being presses onwards.

It seems to take an eternity to catch up, but catch up we do.

As we get close enough to make out some detail, the shock hits me, this is not Rachel, it is not even human, but looks more like one of those aliens from the fight video that we saw in the arena. The creature stares at us and asks, "Wer bist du?"

Without hesitation my machine asks, "Who are you?"

The creature stares even more bewildered and asks, "Warum sprechen Sie seltsam?"

My machine asks, "Wer bist du?"

"Ich bin Erich aus der erweiterten scouts. Wer ist das?"

"Er ist auch von den erweiterten scouts"

"Nein ist er nicht, er ist ein Betrüger."

"Klettern und ich bringen Sie in die Welt zu Hause."

The alien climbs up on my machine and we resume bouncing towards the city. When we are on the move again, I notice that the alien is staring at me, a most uncomfortable feeling. Whilst I am naturally curious about him, his continuous stare is so uncomfortable that I just look down at the ground avoiding eye contact.

I am left wondering what the verbal exchange between the alien and my machine was all about, but I am in no doubt that it all means trouble, as I have the strong feeling that this alien is the genuine investigator, sent to check on progress of his new world.

Now, I am not only fearing Rachel's fate, but my own also.

Do I take the chance, that the alien is in such a bad state of health and try to make a run for it? Or do I stay on this machine and hope that I can explain why we were pretending to be the advanced party?

~~0~~0~~0~~

Phil glances at the laptop for the third time, "This is torment, another 16 to 20 hours to go before us can have tunnel back up and running again. You sure there's owt from that thing?"

"What the communicator?" Gavin asks.

"Ey."

"No Phil, apart from the occasional sing song noises."

"Oh ey, vending machine, placing more orders. Be bloody ironic if the team were stuck waiting for tunnel to open and yet wanting to get back to whatever they have discovered."

"It would at that. Think I'll change the batteries in the comms device, just to make sure they don't run out at a crucial point."

"Ey sounds like good sense to me. Did you hear anything from Ryan, did U.P.S. boxes arrive alright and get him out of trouble?"

"Oh sorry didn't I tell you? Yes he was delighted as they arrived earlier than he was expecting and he got them in place in good time, one of the Professors was well impressed with Ryan's maintenance, said they looked as good as new."

"Daft blighter, if he'd have looked closer he'd have realised they was new."

"Anyway looks like we did Ryan a favour."

Phil mumbles, "Twenty bleedin' hours of waiting. Seems to get further away not closer."

~~0~~0~~0~~

The latest jolt is my prompt to jump off, I run as fast as I can, hoping that the machine does not follow me and that I can out run it.

As I glance round quickly, I am relieved to see that the machine is continuing on, it does not appear to have noticed that I have gone.

I continue running, I see ahead of me a small hill and some vegetation clumped around it, I run straight for it. Nervously looking back over my shoulder every so often. I cannot believe my luck, the machine and Alien are still bouncing their way towards the city.

I reach the sandy hill and soon find myself at the rear. Exhausted I slump to the ground.

After some considerable time, I carefully glance round the vegetation towards the city, I half expect to see the machine within easy reach, and instead I am relieved to see that it is a dot in the distance. Feeling much rested, I get up and resume my escape. I just hope that am heading in the right direction for the tunnel.

~~0~~0~~0~~

There is something ahead to the right of me. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or if it was real, but now it is so much clearer now. I wish that I had brought my suit, I would know how long I have been walking and could estimate the distance travelled.

It should get dark soon, by my estimation.

I set myself the task to reach whatever is ahead, before it gets dark.

With renewed enthusiasm I press on, my stomach is growling to remind me that I haven't eaten all day. My throat as dry as can be.

~~0~~0~~0~~

Nearly there. I recognise this as the site where we were slid over by the giant slug. My eyes having difficulty picking out the individual objects strewn over the ground, not helped by the fact that it is getting dark and the light is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Pitch black, and I haven't a clue whether I have reached the spot or am heading around it.

I decide to drop to my knees and crawl around stretching my arms out before me, in the hope that I can feel the objects on the ground.

It seems like an eternity, but eventually I am rewarded as I come across some of the torn shelter material, then one of the broken pods. I carefully feel around inside the pod, I am delighted as I grasp a tube of food. I soon have the top off and whilst not my favourite flavour, it is much needed food and a darned sight tastier than the fungus stuff I have been eating.

Having emptied the tube, I resume my search of the pod. I come across several items that feel as broken as the pod itself. Then I hit the jackpot, a water bottle, I feel down the side, at the end I am disappointed to find it is the bottom. I grasp the other end and find the top, I twist but it is on solid. How can something, be tightened up so frustratingly much?

Suddenly the top gives. I can hardly wait to get at the contents, top off now, I carefully tip the bottle a bit at a time, until I realise that there is nothing inside. How cruel can life be?

Pod now empty and still in need of a drink, I rummage around in the hope of finding another pod.

I feel about for ages, when suddenly I feel something, cloth by the feel of it, warm cloth, but not feeling like the previous shelter material. I follow the line of it, there's a gap, then I feel something else, a totally different texture, it is smooth, then something else.... it feels like, feels like.... hair. My hand springs away, as if I have received an electric shock. I position myself closer to the object. I reach out again, wary, as if I am about to be bitten. As I touch it again I hear a slight groan, like an objection to being touched. I withdraw my hand again.

If only I had a light.

Positioning my hand further round I resume checking whatever this is, as soon as I can feel something I confirm that it is hair, but to whom or to what does this hair belong?

Is it another of the aliens? Maybe there is a group of them and they found our camp, perhaps a fight broke out regards the pods and this is one of them. I then remember that the alien on my machine did not appear to have hair. Maybe it was just bald, like humans, most have hair, but some have none at all.

It groaned at me, so it is still alive. What do I do, strangle it to finish off the job, or try to befriend it and save its life?

Choices, choices; just too many for my liking.

My dilemma ends with just one sound, or should I say word, "Bill?"

Rachel!

No mistaking the voice, croaky though it is. Rachel and I have found her.

My desperation to find some water is now even more profound. I reply, equally in a croaky voice, "Yes it is me, I will see if I can find some water."

Rachel replies, "Pod... other side... couldn't..... reach."

I crawl round Rachel's head, avoiding kicking up the sandy soil, the last thing she needs is a mouthful of that.

I just hope I am heading the right way. Hands stretched out in front of me, I swing them to the left and back to the right, in a regular sweeping motion, as I also advance. I kneel on something sharp, it makes me jump, like I have been stabbed by a needle. As I check with my hands, I find it is a piece of broken pod and nothing more dangerous than that. It was the shock more than anything. I continue to advance, arms swaying ahead of me.

After a considerable time, I feel something, that at first my hand sweeps to one side. I stop then carefully feel for its edges, whilst damaged on one side, the rest feels as if it is intact. I carefully lift it then feel through the broken edge. Something oozes over my fingers, I just hope it is not alive and dangerous. I retract the ooze covered hand and pull it towards my face carefully sniffing. What a relief, it has a definite food smell, quite what, I am unsure, a bit like the food tube I consumed earlier. I resume my searching avoiding the previous area and am pleasantly surprised when I feel something smooth and round, with regular indentations, feels like the bottom of a water bottle, I just hope this one is intact. I carefully feel my way up the cylindrical surface, eventually reaching the top and the cap. Grasping the cap, I slide the bottle back towards me. Something stabs the back of my hand. Hazardous, this retrieval business.

Soon bottle in one hand and pod balanced on the other arm, I have spun around and I am heading back towards Rachel. It is as much of a shock to me, as it is to her when my knee touches her back.

I work my way round her head, being careful not to touch her again. I put the pod down and attempt to open the water bottle. The lid unscrews quite easily. I gently tip it up and am pleasantly surprised as I feel the liquid drip onto my hand.

"Here I have some water.... where is your mouth? .... can you sit up a bit?"

I feel around with my free hand in the complete darkness, I suddenly feel her sand covered skin, I feel around until I find her nose and below her lips, I carefully navigate the precious water to her mouth and imagine the orientation of her head and face and align the bottle as best I can. I feel some of the water gush onto my hand, as I tip the bottle up. I just hope that some is going into Rachel's mouth. I hear her swallow, I quickly lower the bottle, after all I don't want to drown her. I wait what I think is a decent time then tip the bottle up again. I hear the swallow sounds. It reminds me how thirsty I am. I lower the bottle.

It is my turn now, I take small sips. Then return the bottle to Rachel's mouth and utter, "some more?"

No reply, but I didn't really expect one. The swallowing sounds again. Then break, as I take some more sips. This continues until the bottle is empty and my throat feels so much better now.

I turn my attention back to the pod and the leaking food tube. I soon find the tube and rescue it from the pool of ooze that I had felt earlier. Perhaps the lid just came off. I feel around the tube to find the lid, I find the nozzle, but the cap is in place, so presumably there must be a split in the tube and the food is leaking from that. The simplest and probably safest thing to do is take off the lid and try and get some of the food into Rachel. The food around the split would probably be contaminated anyway.

"Rachel I have got some food for you, are you ready?"

Rachel weakly mumbles, "O.K."

I find her mouth and gently squeeze the food into it. I deliberately keep the delivery slow and include long breaks. I can hear Rachel's tongue guiding the food back and then she swallows. It is almost like feeding a baby.

Tube exhausted now, me also feeling exhausted I lay down and pull myself closer to Rachel.

As I feel myself drifting into sleep, I cannot help but think, I just hope we don't get another giant slug visitation.

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 21 – Dilemma

The two suns rising, wake me better than any alarm clock. My movement disturbs Rachel, but not enough for her to get up.

I gently rise, sitting up fully, I survey Rachel, her clothes, covered in various stains; ranging from red, brown through to dark green. I note there are several rips. Her face, those parts not covered by the dark green sandy soil, is fiercely red, like she has been sunbathing without wearing any suntan cream. Her hair is quite dishevelled and tangled. All in all she looks like she could do with a really good soak and clean-up, no doubt I equally look a sight.

Carefully I get up, not wanting to disturb Rachel and I set about looking for more pods. I search the strewn wreckage carefully. I think that I have found something promising, but once again disappointment.

"What are you doing Bill?" Rachel asks.

"Crickey, you made me jump!" I retort, "I'm just trying to find some food and drink."

"What about that one over there?" Rachel asks.

"Nothing I am afraid, already checked it. How about you search over there and I'll look over here?"

"OK sounds good to me."

We both strike lucky on the first broken pods that we find. Rachel found the water, I found some food tubes. I pocket two. Here comes breakfast.

Breakfast over, we set off in the direction of the tunnel.

~~0~~0~~0~~

Phil absolutely delighted, eying the crate up and down for probably the third time, says, "Well what a fantastic service? Who could have believed it?"

"I know, four hours earlier than we expected, the driver said she was as delighted at finding us on the premises this early."

"Ey, see you're keen to open us crate."

Gavin hands Phil a metal bar, "You open that side and I'll do this one. Looks heavy doesn't it?"

"Ey, difficult to tell, as driver pulled it out of truck like it were nowt."

"The crate itself probably weighs a fair bit."

There is the sound of creaking, which turns to the sound of cracking wood, as Gavin pulls one of the planks off the side.

Phil remarks, "Sturdy alright, good to see as how they want to protect it so well."

"Shall I fetch the trolley?"

"Ey good idea, 'e don't look as if 'e's gonna be light, if these markings on this side of us crate are right. Can't wait to get 'e hooked up."

"Me neither, but one step at a time Phil."

~~0~~0~~0~~

Rachel suddenly flops to the ground.

"You alright?" the question stupid I know, but an automatic response.

"Sorry I have to rest. I just cannot go on." Rachel pulls a bottle from the pouch on her left side and starts drinking. She wipes the top and passes the bottle on to me.

I join her, seated on the ground. I pull one of the tubes from my pocket and pass it to Rachel. She nods and takes it.

The silence broken only by quiet sounds of swallowing and occasional sloshing noises of the water as we take sips.

I almost jump as Rachel asks, "How long do you reckon?"

"Sorry I haven't the slightest clue, no clock and no idea how to read the positioning of the two infernally bright suns."

Rachel replies, "Feels like we have walked for an eternity already. I just hope that our memory of the direction to the tunnel was right and that we haven't passed right by it. Shame we couldn't find the distance meter back at the camp."

Something that Rachel said, brought about a eureka moment. I stand up and look back towards the city, studying it for a while as my brain hurriedly does some calculations. Then I announce, "I reckon we are about halfway to the tunnel and by the looks of things I think we are roughly on target, regards the direction, although we might be slightly out to left or right, but it is definitely in the general direction."

Rachel replies, "I won't even begin to figure out how you worked it out, I'll just accept your word on it."

"Thanks."

~~0~~0~~0~~

Phil with an air of ceremony about the occasion says, "Right here we go then."

The familiar lights and sounds start up, soon Gavin and Phil can see at the end of the tunnel the collection of articles still in exactly the same place they were the last time the tunnel was fully active.

"No sign of 'em!" Phil exclaims.

The two men scan the scene even more carefully for the slightest hint of any change.

"Well it doesn't look as if they have been back at all." Gavin says.

"None at all, and here we are over 30 hours after the agreed pick up time. It's such a shame that we cannot change the view at the end of the tunnel."

Gavin looks puzzled, "What? Oh I see what you mean, pan around like a camera. Yes that would be better. Mind you even without that the scene looks identical to the last time the tunnel was active."

"The frustrating thing is, they might be just out of sight to the left of right of the tunnel's field of vision."

"A bit fanciful Phil, even if they are, they are likely to see the tunnel re-appear."

"What if they have run out of food and drink and collapsed, we could be waiting for hours, just prolonging their agony."

~~0~~0~~0~~

"Bill, Bill, stop! I cannot go one step further, we have to stop and take a break." Rachel pleads.

"OK I think we are getting quite close now, I can see something up ahead, shame we haven't got binoculars or something like that."

Rachel rummages around in her costume pouch and produces a bottle of water and her phone. "Try this Bill, magnification isn't great but might help."

I accept the phone and soon I am scanning the horizon.

"Got a food tube?" Rachel asks.

"Just a minute I can see something, how do you take a picture with this thing?"

Rachel takes the phone off me, taps it a couple of times, then she holds it up for me to see, "Tap there."

I scan around again and shortly afterwards we are seated on the ground together looking at the phone's screen.

"What do you think?" I ask.

"Looks quite fuzzy, could be it, on the other hand it could be some sort of heat haze."

"Well I can see nothing else, and it is in the right direction."

We take our break, share the food and drink.

~~0~~0~~0~~

Confirmed, the arrow we left on the ground, we can see it clearly now. The tunnel, looks far less like a heat haze.

Rachel says, "It's amazing that Phil and Gavin have managed to keep the tunnel running all this time."

"Certainly is. Hey a though just occurred to me."

"What?"

I continue, "I wonder if Phil and Gavin have seen one of those giant slugs cruising by?"

Rachel smiles, "That would have been a shock."

"Nearly there."

"You have this unerring knack, of stating the obvious Bill."

"More self-motivation, than anything else."

"What more motivation do you need than to see our arrow and that the tunnel is up and running?"

"Be ironic if having reached this far..."

Rachel interrupts me with, "Don't say it Bill I can read your mind, don't even go there!"

"Tempting providence, or something like that?"

"Something like that."

"Well it would, wouldn't it?"

"I said don't and I meant it."

Reaching the mouth of the tunnel is such a relief, especially when we see Phil and Gavin waving like mad at us.

Rachel ignoring Phil and Gavin bends down and when she stands up again I can see she has an unbroken pod in her hand.

Phil is giving a big thumbs up then indicating something, whilst Gavin disappears from sight.

Rachel soon has the pod open and we are both delighted to see the communicator inside and it is apparently undamaged. Rachel soon has it turned on.

I look down the tunnel and can see that Gavin has returned and also has a communicator.

We hear Phil ask "Where are your suits? You O.K.?"

Rachel replies, "One question at a time Phil, the suits are back at the city, as for us being O.K., we are alive at least."

"Where is Anile?"

Rachel silent for a moment, then replies, "Sorry Phil bad news there I am afraid, he's dead."

"What 'appened?"

Rachel hands the communicator to me. I tell Phil what had happened, at least starting with our encounter with the machines in the city, leading up to the contaminated food and the encounter with the alien leading to Anile's death.

Phil showing no emotion over Anile's death, asks, "Why are you not wearing us protective suits?"

"The machines insisted that we take them off and what with Rachel's kidnap and me trying to find her, we didn't have the opportunity to put them back on. In any case we had been breathing the atmosphere and eating the food, so whatever damage could happen would have happened."

Phil silent for a moment, then says, "I think you have summed up dilemma right there. The suits were not only to protect you, but also to protect us back 'ere. Whatever you 'ave taken on-board so to speak, you'd be bringing back with you."

Phil's words hit me like a sledge hammer!

I had not even given the matter a thought. We have been in two alien environments, this planet, the city and then the alien ship, all without the protection of our suits. We have breathed the air, touched the soil, ate the food and touched a lot more besides.

"How the 'ell am I going to explain to authorities what has 'appened to Anile?"

Rachel replies, "We can tell them Phil."

Phil, head in hands replies, "You've missed point Rach, you cannot come back lass, you're as contaminated as you possibly could be. We don't 'ave us facilities to bring you back and keep you in safe place, so as you don't infect us all back 'ere."

"Couldn't you talk with the authorities and see if they can help us, they may be able to provide some form of isolation facilities?"

I come to Phil's rescue, "To achieve what Rachel? For us to live the rest of our days in some form of isolation ward? We would probably never be allowed out, plus the very risk of us being back home is too great a risk to the world, let alone the humans. We could bring about an ecological disaster!"

Rachel's face, as the full horror of the situation dawns upon her.

~~0~~0~~0~~

## Chapter 22 – Five Years On

We survived, more than that...

Rather than feeling like we have been isolated, we feel as if we are a human outpost, probably the only representatives of the human race in this sector. It has almost been like early settlers in a foreign land.

Thinking back to the time when we realised that there would be no possibility of return, to the Earth for us; we were devastated at first, still wondering whether we would, or even could survive, given all that we had been exposed to. We took each day as it came, not knowing whether it would be our last.

Phil and Gavin kept us supplied with water and food, plus other essentials.

We had decided at an early stage that we needed to "come clean" about the project, us being stranded here and Anile's death. There was an official enquiry into Anile's death, with a hearing conducted via the tunnel. We are "visited" by officials every now and again, we have chats either via the tunnel or the comms device that Phil and Gavin had invented and yes it works well.

We started with a temporary tent structure, but that got blown away one day, when a really strong storm blew up. So Phil sent us some materials to build a permanent shelter, well more like a house, at least it is now, that we have our family; a boy a girl and another on the way. But I jump ahead of myself.

We were lucky in that some of the seeds that Phil and Gavin sent us, took well to this soil. The officials sent us some equipment so we could more efficiently survey the land. Their aim being to gain more information about an alien planet, in the process we discovered some water right near our encampment and dug some wells. The water was alright for the plants but needed some processing before it was fit for us to drink; it contained some minerals that in enough concentration would have killed us. The boffins back home came up with a processing plant, which Phil and Gavin sent to us in parts. As it runs from solar power, apart from periodic cleaning of the filters, it pretty well looks after itself.

More iols arrived and at first there were tensions between us and them. When they discovered our encampment and the fact that we had food that was much better than theirs, they sent the machines to raid our fields. The authorities back on Earth sent us some weapons to defend ourselves. We felt guilty about blasting up the machines; after all they had been good hosts to us, when we had visited them.

The iols soon realised that they could not afford to lose any more machines as replacements were not possible, their home planet was too far away to send for spares, as it was the number of iols sent here were only a few. We subsequently found out that it cost so much in terms of resources that the final craft that had been sent, was the last that would ever be sent. So the raids ceased.

One day a lone iol visited us with the intent of setting up some form of trade. You may think to yourself, what did the iols and machines possibly have that would be valuable enough to trade? They offered us some of their decorative artworks and also one of their machines to work in our fields. For the sake of peace, also because we loved their art work and could do with the help anyway, accepted their offer. We had more than enough food.

We now have a very good trade relationship with the machines and their "iols". More of the machines help us tending and processing the crops and iol community is growing.

We found another use for the fighting arena, we now put on joint entertainments. Rachel and I taught the iols how to enjoy acting, in return they taught us their songs, both sides now speak a combined language that I call "Germanish", a cross between English and German.

There have been exchanges of ideas and information between the officials (back on Earth), the machines and the iols. The whole thing worked out really well in the end.

As for our tunnel equipment, it is now financed by the authorities as a means of conducting experiments on an alien planet. Every so often new experimental packages are sent to us. The officials were so taken with the possibilities of our invention that now they are carrying out their own experiments, but in a much more controlled and safe way.

There is even a family planning to make the one way trip, they are planning to settle out here with us. We met them a few times now, via the tunnel. He is a teacher, she is biologist and they have two children, both girls, they are slightly older than our two. We are looking forward to them joining us, so are the iols, especially as the family are into sports. I can see even wider use of the arena now.

All that sparkles may not be.... But sometimes it can be really good.

The End – or is it?

©2012 Steve Simons

~~ The End ~~

If you enjoyed this book, could we suggest that you check out this author's other books, for example, "The Elles Here (Eleswhere) Place", "The Gateway", or "Regenis 4 Chronicles". You will find them on Smashwords.com or check out the author's own website to see what the latest books are: www.SciFiStories.co.uk

Steve's word processor is nearly always busy working on something new, check out his website to find out what he is currently working on.

