All That Sparkles is Not...

  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, th
rough 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?”

&nbs
p; “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.