Nexus - 0503 - New Times Magazine-pages

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he spoke to me in the usual manner, without moving his lips. "We have come to take you to a most important meeting, and such is the distance that all of us must accompany you. You are to see our base of operations here on your planet. Please take your small metal disk with you." I went to the strongbox where I kept the piece of metal, took it out and held it tightly in the palm of my hand. Then, turning to the figures, I waited further developments. They approached me and formed a circle about me, and for the first time these people from another world actually touched me. They placed their hands on my shoulders, and as they did so I felt as if I had been touched by a piece of dry ice. My whole body suddenly went numb as if I had received a giant dose of novocaine. found myself in a large cavern of some sort. The immense ze astounded me, for I had never seen or heard of a cavern such as this one. I was not even certain I was still on Earth. After the fantastic events of the past months, I would not have been sur- prised had I found myself on the Moon! My three companions were still beside me as I noticed we stood on a platform made of a bright shiny metal, reminding me of stainless steel, and a bright beam of light shone on us from an object in front of us but not far away. I wondered why so much light also came from above, and looking up discovered the reason. The entire ceiling was made of ice, and light from the surface was shining through it, illuminating the cavern. It appeared as if some superhuman being had carved this enormous cavern as a human would form a hollow spot in the snow with a hot iron. A tremen- dous amount of heat surely had been used to create such a hide- ant T= was the last I remembered until I opened my eyes and out. I had a remarkable feeling that I was still on Earth, but at a remote spot where man would likely never set foot for many years. My escorts noticed my keen interest in my surroundings Reeory On THE BRUSH CREEK SAUCER 55f Reeory On THE BRUSH CREEK SAUCER The cover of an early issue of The Saucerian, designed by Albert K. Bender (now deceased) 68 + NEXUS and pointed to a metal path directly ahead of me, indicating I should take it. I walked on, and as I did the beam of light fol- lowed us. The path continued straight for some distance, then made a sharp turn to the right; and there, nestled in a larger por- tion of the cavern, loomed a huge cigar-shaped object resembling one of our rockets, though as big or bigger than one of our ocean liners. I couldn't see the other end of it from my vantage point, but noted it was constructed of similar shiny metal and contained porthole-type openings in its side. The path led directly to a panel in the side of the enormous object. As I reached the panel, the beam of light which had accompanied us focused on a small bubble on the panel. At once it slid back, making a shrill, piercing noise. I entered, followed by the three escorts. As we did so, the panel closed behind us with the same noise. I could not hope to imagine what would happen to me, why I had been brought here and whom I was to meet. We were in a long corridor with panels at various points along the walls. Above all the panels were small, glowing bubbles, some of the same colour, others varying in hue. My escorts halted at one panel and one of them removed a small cylindrical object, similar to a flashlight, from his clothing, and shone it on a small hole in the panel. The door slid open at once. They beckoned me to step inside, and I found myself in a room resembling a labora- tory in a chemical plant. The lab was equipped with complicated machinery, all of which seemed to be made from the same shiny metal. At many locations in the long lines of tubes and coils, globular glass containers inter- rupted the flow of a travelling liquid which was clear like water. It was evidently heated by some means, for it was bubbling away into vapour. My impression was that of witnessing some distill- ing operation of gargantuan scale. At one end of the lab stood a huge instrument complex of gauges, lights and meters. Someone sat at the panel, working levers and pushing buttons. As we approached, my three escorts stopped and the panel operator turned to them and spoke, still without lip movement. Although I had been able to understand all which had been said previously, I could not grasp their communication. I knew, however, they were conversing. The operator retained his natural, monster-like appearance, as I had seen on the screen in the room with the glass dome. He was no taller than my escorts, but quite ugly. His outline was bulky and almost oblong. But his eyes conveyed that same glow, and when he looked at me I could feel them burning into my very soul. I then sensed he was speaking to me. "Welcome to our base of operations here on your planet of Earth. You have travelled many miles to reach this spot, but the time has been only seconds, whereas you would require many days to reach this same area by your conventional means of trans- portation. "You are at a spot on your planet known as Antarctica. We have chosen this area because it is uninhabited and there is no one here to disturb us in our task. We have made this base by tun- nelling into your ice-covered surface and burying ourselves, with only a small opening through which our smaller craft may enter and depart. The intense cold here does not disturb us, for we are not affected by your range of temperature. Our bodies acclimate themselves readily to such ranges. The surface of our home plan- et is barren and the cold even more intense than here in your southern polar region. "All our cities are constructed underground. We have crater- like openings on the surface, through which we are able to elevate spacecraft stations for take-offs and landings. When these sta- tions are not in use they descend into the craters, and the landing APRIL - MAY 1998