The Alien Artifact 8 Read Online Free PDF Page B

thin
atmosphere, resembled the blazing sun in space, with its high
radiation, and it exhausted them, especially with lower level
oxygen they had altered their spacesuits to.
    He thought of
Anders and the way his body had been resting and his stare and he
looked there now, to the location in space, and was surprised to
see the Earth.
    What
surprised him was another large object raced passed it, and faster
than it should go, and he slowed, shaded his eyes, and struggled to focus on it, covering up a distorted form of the
sun, shimmering around, and he recalled where his spacesuit
helmet’s polarization adjustment was and adjusted the polarized
faceplate to compensate for the extra light, and started studying
the object’s incredible velocity and shape, and even thought it
looked like a small alien spaceship.
    When Rosenberg stopped and stood dazed he
knew it was something big, and when he rested he realized its true
identity and that it was one of their shuttles, and they both
rushed on.
    Their speed increased vastly and he knew he
would not die before they reached the shuttle, and knew he had to
go faster, and he was surprised when they got over a hill and saw
their shuttle was resting at the bottom, and they watched the other
shuttle come down from the sky and land next to their shuttle, and
they ran down the hill as fast as they could, not wishing to miss
anything and to get a new supply of fresh air.
    At the shuttle he was so out of air and
suffocating that he ordered them to get him into the shuttle, where
he removed his helmet and collapsed over the floor, recovering from
the run, and breathed the incredible air in, and Rosenberg copied
him, and he realized how wonderful it was not to have the helmet
on, after sleeping in it, and he studied the amused face of Stanley
sitting in at his pilot chair, and he wondered what had happened
while they had been away.
    He was surprised beer cans were lying over
the floor, and tried to work out where they came from, and if
anything had occurred.
    “ Did you manage to contact the base?”
he panted, curiously, breathing in the sweet air, seeing the
remains of the food they had been eating, and discarded food
containers lying about the floor.
    “ So you made it ...! ” Stanley murmured, grinning
at him, and at the state he was in, lying over the
floor.
    “ When did
you know t hat the shuttle was
coming? ”
    “ Just before you arrived! It was lucky!
Our oxygen is starting to get real low!”
    “ Whose idea was the SOS message over
the ground?”
    “ That was Orwell! He claimed he had
seen it done before! And calculated the size it had to be to see
from up in orbit! We all worked on making it!”
    “ It worked! Any food?”
    The pilot jumped up and removed a container
of food he knew he liked, and gave it to him, and got a drink
dispenser!
    He watched Cronenberg and Rosenberg sitting
on the floor eating through the food hungrily.
    “ Where’s Campbell?”
    Cronenberg gasped and nearly choked, and saw
Rosenberg look startled, and watched the others look up with looks
of astonishment, knowing something had happened.
    “ We found him dead!” Rosenberg
announced. “Something here kills humans! When we woke we found his
body and that he had been partly eaten!”
    “ What! Something ate him! And neither
of you heard anything?”
    “ The spacesuit and the thin atmosphere
don’t carry much sound, and we were heavily asleep in our
spacesuits!”
    They all seemed to consider what had happened
astonished!
    “ Perhaps that’s what took us here! To
eat us!” Lyndon gasped.
    “ What did you see over there on that
hill?” Stanley asked, curiously, examining them, and the state they
were in.
    “ I saw little!” Cronenberg
confessed.
    “ Where you there early in the morning?”
Stanley asked.
    “ Yes!” he replied.
    “ I thought I saw you! I got up early!
The top part is visible from over there!”
    “ Find anything else? Why did you come
from over there …?” Lyndon