Read The Alien Artifact 8 for Free Online Page B

first he had dismissed that there was a
library, as the others had not been aware of there being a book on
the entire base.
    He had just grabbed some books and sat down
when Orwell marched in smiling, and marched up to him and sat next
to him.
    “ I saw you coming in here at the end of
the corridor!” he laughed, and picked up a book off the table, at
his side, and flickered through the pages. “What you looking
for?”
    “ I’ve checked everything about Anders
everywhere and have not found anything!” he moaned back.
    “ Anders!” he replied, surprised. “What
do you want to know about him for?”
    “ Why was he there, for starters? It’s
an incredible coincidence he crashed at the exact same place, in a
desolate region covering such a vast region, and it was one of the
only crashes on Mars!”
    “ You’re correct! What’s the connection
though? Why do you think he was there, anyway?”
    Cronenberg just shrugged back.
    The furniture
about him held his attention, and amused him, and was clearly used
to make it look like an original Earth library, to give it
authenticity, like many of the rooms and objects about the station,
to give it the look of a normal place, as the astronauts had to
live there for a long time, and stay indoors, without seeing a
normal world.
    The vast size
of Base One was incredible now, and had been slowly built up over
decades, with many countries helping build sections, and them
wanting to increase the inhabitants on Mars, and explorations there
and in space. It was as though they were on the Earth most of the
time, even after being there for years! The military and police had
recently been increased to compensate for increases in the
inhabitants!
    It was now like
a small town, in a strange place, and Cronenberg kept realizing how
little he knew of the inhabitants, as many he had never seen, and
many left and many were new there, and he realized how little of it
he had actually seen.
    He still
regularly returned to the Earth and visited places like where he
had been born and the people he knew back there!
    The library now
had the look of an ancient study, and he started examining
bookshelves, and he even wondered if the books were mostly all too
old.
    The furniture
there grasped his attention as it looked expensive, and he realized
that they had lowered the production costs and amount of materials
used in the furniture about the base, and he was surprised at the
quality of it and how far they had lowered the quality and he
realized the seats and other furniture there were also far more
comfortable and usable. It gave the whole room an atmosphere that
was not elsewhere and he considered trying to use it in his
apartment at the base and considered where he could get it and if
it was still available there.
    He soon started
examining bookshelves searching for anything on Anders, astronauts,
things of that era he was in, and he and Orwell worked away for
hours searching, and started speeding their search up and he soon
realized that there was nothing there, and he slowly grew depressed
and started trying to consider other methods of getting what he
wanted.
    It was then he
spotted a closed door at a hidden part of the library, which had
ignored as it had looked like another entrance into the outer
corridors or just a locked storeroom.
    On his close
approach he realized it was something else and grabbed at its stiff
brass handle, and felt it had been that way for a long time, and he
realized how long the place had gone unused and how aged it was,
and he gave the door a hard jerk to make it budge, and it creaked
open, and a black switch became faintly visible on an interior
white wall and he activated the lights, which flickered and grew
bright.
    It took a few
seconds for the sight before him to sink in, and he stood steady,
glaring at shelves of books there, covering its walls, realizing
that they were far more different and what he was looking for.
    It was clear it
was a small room of