The Orbs of Elysium Mons #Blogbattle #Scifi

The bog battles, arranged by Rachael Ritchey is a friendly battle of stories between bloggers. Under 1000 words and with the theme word every week. This weeks word is Mars. Why not come and join in?

Elysium mons – one the the great mountain volcanoes on Mars it obscured the view out of my quarters window on the Mons base. It was also filling the forward view of the ATT (All Terrain Transport). we were moving at quite a speed for such a large vehicle and you could feel it in the ride. This trip for some reason was shrouded in mystery, either that or it was someone’s pet whim and they didn’t want to say for fear of being ridiculed.

“Where are we going Max? I had to half shout to the driver.

“We’re heading for the Eddie crater, just south of Elysium Mons” The driver half shouted back.

“I know that Max, but what’s this all about?”

“I don’t know Marcus” He barked back “Even if I did I can’t tell you” That just made me more suspicious. I didn’t know why. Or what all this meant.

“The ride should smooth out soon Marcus, the terrain get better until we’re nearly there” Max shouted back to me. He was right, only a few minutes after the ride smoothed out until we were nearly at the excavation site. When we arrived we suited into our life support suits and moved to the back of the vehicle. These things were so big, they were really a mobile base. It wasn’t much effort to enter the airlock and in a few minutes we were on the Martian surface.

Landing onto the soft dusty surface two people greeted us.

“Hello Marcus” came the voice of the first person in my intercom “I’m Lucy and this is Victor”

“Hello there, can you tell me what this is about?” Forgetting for an instant that I had the intercom, I was speaking far too loudly, but it seemed they were too polite to point this out. We all walked towards a turbo shuttle that would take us to the site, as we all sat down it sped along it’s track at a rather unnerving speed.

“Yes, Marcus, now that you’re on site we can. Our excavators have been working endlessly to uncover them and it’s at this stage in the dig that we need you. The artefacts we’ve uncovered have given us more questions than answers and we need a physicist to help us”

“I still don’t know what we’re talking about Lucy” I replied with some frustration.

“Look over to your left Marcus” Said Victor, in a deep stern voice, up until now he had said nothing.

There they were, nine huge black orbs, at this distance I couldn’t tell how big they were. They must have been tens of metres in diameter, they looked black, but somehow when you looked it seemed like you looked through them. The shuttle turned on the track towards the nearest one. I could clearly see the excavators, tiny by comparison removing the red Martian dirt. As we moved forward our elevation decreased, still speechless I just observed. The nine orbs were arranged in what seemed like a perfect array of 3 x 3 in the centre of the crater.

As we neared the nearest orb I could see there was something else, the nearest orb had been completely dug out and was… floating. All by itself…

“Are… are you suspending that orb in the air?” I stammered

“No” Victor replied sharply, “It seems they are suspended in space”

The shuttle stopped and we all got out, not taking my eyes off the huge suspended orb, I walked towards it. Numerous work bases lined the crater, there were around ten operators responsible for working the excavators. The orb must have been around one hundred metres in diameter, suspended twenty metres about the surface. I walked closer and closer, not taking my eyes off it. after a few minutes of walking I was right underneath it’s black spherical form. From this distance it had a strange surface, if it even had one. At will I could make it seem flat or spherical in my mind. I stood there with my arms out, trying to feel something of the force that held it there. As I turned, I saw the three figures of my colleagues stood there, watching me.

“These are incredible” I exclaimed “How are these even here?”

“Come with us Marcus” Victor half ordered “There’s more you need to see”

We all set off after Victor towards a work base, as we looked over some instruments Victor talked us through his findings.

“When I first reviewed this site, all that was here, were nine empty cavities in the centre of the crater. It was only after we excavated that we began to find the orbs. Here look at this Marcus”

I looked at a range of pictures in UV, infra red and visible light, looking at what seemed like the inside of the crater we were standing in.

“These were taken an hour ago Marcus” Said Victor, almost with some concern in his voice.

“But there’s nothing here, except the crater” I exclaimed

“Exactly” Said Victor “Whatever these things are, we can see them somehow, but to in every measurable means, they are not there.

I turned and looked at the orb again “My God!” I exclaimed “What are they?”

To be continued?

Copyright 2015 Simon Farnell

No ownership claimed to images – taken from Google Images