Software Vault: The Sapphire Collection/Software Vault (Sapphire Collection) (Digital Impact).ISO/cdr16/marslife.zip/CHAPTER5.TXT

Text File | 1994-07-23 | 8KB | 149 lines

                         CHAPTER 5: THE TEACHING MACHINE


          Clara and David found themselves in a large room filled with
     the soft hum of machinery which lined the walls.  In the center
     of the dimly lit room, stood a small, three sided pyramid which
     stood about a metre high.  On top of this were three stilts
     supporting a silvery crystal sphere, inside of which was a
     complex looking arrangement of multi-coloured crystals.  Directly
     above this was a large three sided crystal attached to the
     ceiling.  A few metres away from the pyramid was a raised dias
     with two steps leading up to two posts about a metre apart topped
     with the same half-globes as were on the lift platform.

          Meanwhile the rest of the team were standing around the
     circular metal space where the lift had been just minutes before.
     Rick had switched on the portable viewer, and everyone was
     watching the images transmitted by David's camera below.  Dan,
     while finding a good spot to see the screen, stood on an outlined
     square on the floor at the side of the circle.  It lit up and the
     floor opened, the lift poking its console through and stopping
     before the scientists.

          Noticing the lift had gone, Clara pressed her intercom
     button to talk to the rest of the crew.

          "Where are you?" she asked.
          "Straight above you, at the lift," came Rick's reply.
          "Place your hands on the globes on the side of the console
     opposite to the one we used on the way into the hangar," David
     said to the party above.

          Rick walked to the console and motioned everyone to get onto
     the platform.  He did as David had said and the lift floated down
     into the dim room below.  As soon as the lift stopped they walked
     over to the center of the room where David was standing before
     the dias.  He walked up the two steps, turned to face the pyramid
     and slowly lowered his hands onto the domed tops of the posts.
     There came the sound of machinery, a panel of the floor slid away
     behind David and a chair with an arrangement of three spheres at
     the top rose from beneath the pedestal.  He took his hands off
     the posts and sat down, replacing his hands when seated.  The
     sphere on top of the pyramid rose into the air as it's three
     supports moved outward.  Hanging in the air, the sphere started
     spinning, sending rainbow-coloured swirls of light around the
     room as the crystal above it and the top of the pyramid below it
     glowed with light.  The three spheres on the head rest
     surrounding David's head also glowed as the spinning sphere spun
     faster.  He closed his eyes, his head filling with vague images
     of a paradise world with great towering buildings and green
     landscapes.  These were all suddenly destroyed, leaving a barren
     wasteland.  The image of earth in the period of the  dinosaurs
     appeared, the skies clouded over and the huge lizards on the
     surface died from the lack of food and sunlight.  Then the
     picture changed to a different earth, this one covered with green
     vegetation.  A huge fleet of space ships landed on the planet and
     great cities, not unlike the ones that were destroyed, were
     constructed.  The next image was not a pretty one, a primitive
     ape-like creature was being used for experimentation in a strange
     laboratory.  This ghastly image caused David to take his hands
     off the posts and shiver with fear.  The sphere stopped spinning
     and Dan came up to him to calm him down.

          "Are you alright?" he asked, "What did you see?"
          "I'm fine," replied the sweating David, "I'm fine.  I'm
     going on."

          Dan stepped back to rejoin the rest of the group who were
     looking on nervously as David placed his hands back on the two
     posts.  He tensed up and the pictures went flowing back into his
     mind as the sphere started spinning again.  He saw a devastating
     war, ending with a great flash of light, then the evolution of
     man.  Pictures of man's great achievements flashed through his
     mind, the steam engine, electricity, nuclear power, and many
     others.  Soon he saw the flying discs, all coming from mars,
     landing and spying on the earth.  After this, the launch of
     aerospace planes from earth heading toward mars.  The images
     stopped at a picture of the biosphere, fading away to reveal
     Cydonia.  David rose from the chair, this last image stuck firmly
     in his mind.  The sphere settled back on its supporting stilts
     which had folded back to their original position, and the light
     from the crystals above and below faded to a dim glow, leaving
     enough light to see the inside of the room in detail.  At the
     same time the chair slowly receded beneath the dias, the floor
     panel sliding back over it.

          "What did you see David?" asked Vicki.

          He told them what he had seen in the chair.

          "Amazing!" said Rick, "what do you think it all means?"
          "It's hard to say," said David in reply.

          While all this was going on, Dan had become preoccupied with
     examining the walls.  Among the strange machinery along them he
     had found a tall slab resembling a door which was hardly
     distinguishable from the wall.  He examined it with his hands and
     started pressing it in different areas to try and open it.  When
     he pressed it on the right side, a small square lit up and it
     silently opened.  Dan went through to the other side of the wall
     into a huge laboratory, something akin to the one Vicki had
     investigated inside the flying disc.  The room was filled with
     strange apparatus and tables of odd looking devices and half
     completed assembly jobs.

          Noticing Dan's absence, Robert called out to him from where
     he was examining one of the machines attached to the wall.

          "Dan?  Where are you?"

          There was no answer, he looked around the room, Vicki joined
     him as he walked to the door that Dan had entered.  They found
     Dan examining a jumble of metallic components at one of the
     tables in the cluttered room he had stumbled upon.  On several
     walls were a number of screens with operating boards beneath
     them.  Vicki and David walked over to one and studied the rows of
     flat squares outlined on the operating board.  Robert pressed one
     at random and an image formed on the viewer, it was some kind of
     organic cell matter, magnified and subtitled in the martian
     hieroglyphs.

          "Dan!" he called, "we've found something you have to see."

          Dan came over and gazed at the picture.

          "Is it alien?" asked Vicki.
          "No," said Dan in reply, "It is however very significant.
     It's human tissue!"

          He leaned over the panel and selected another square, the
     image on the screen changed to a three dimensional X-ray of a
     human skeleton.  Meanwhile Vicki and Robert were preoccupied,
     debating over the fact that whatever alien creatures had lived
     here, may just still be around.

          Back in the other room, the lift mysteriously descended down
     one more level of the stone face's interior, with no one at its
     controls.  No one noticed its absence, until Dan poked his head
     out of the laboratory door.

          "Hey you guys come and look at this..."

          He stopped abruptly upon seeing the absence of the lift, the
     gaping aperture still open.

          "Did anyone go down there?"

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