Moon Disaster

The search for the killer.

The entire colony gathered around as the engineers and technicians sent the glass spy capsule on its way into the deep to search for the killer, the water was crystal clear giving great vision from the three cameras.
The lake tapered down on a gentle slope then at one thousand feet down the water started to darken but the low light camera was performing well, the lake floor then dropped sharply as rocky cliff faces appeared.
At the sixteen hundred foot mark the floor flattened out then what appeared to be a forest of large trees with four feet long melon type fruit of some type could be seen. Beyond the forest the lake floor again dropped sharply then flattened out at the thirty-two hundred feet mark then a gravelly bottom appeared through the gloom.

The spy cylinder searched all that day without finding any life forms, at days end another two technicians took over to search throughout the night and some progress was made as several bright flickering lights moving up the canyon walls were detected in the distance. The day time crew then took over and within two hours found four freshly cut tree melons laying on the gravel canyon floor, the stem that held the melon to the tree was as large as a man's thigh and had been cut through with what appeared to be a saw. The mystery deepens and as the reports flow from the technicians the fear grew more through the whole colony, I stayed with the search team's reporting as much as I could.
The spy cylinder then came across what appeared to be a trail around eight feet wide, after following it for several miles some strange looking creatures appeared. They were dome-shaped with spikes all over their top side, the underneath was flat with six long spindle legs attached. These aliens had large semicircular mouths with a continuous cutting edge on small beaks, they had long stocky necks with a huge bulbous head and had no eyes. These strange creatures were around eight feet in diameter and stood around eight feet high.

At days end speculation run rife, are these aliens the killers or is there something else lurking down there in the gloomy depth of the lake? The night crew took over and I returned to the cave village with the day crew, after much discussion it was decided that their creatures were not the killers that we were searching for. They seemed to be slow clumsy creatures and do not appear to be able to swim, therefore we must continue searching until a conclusive answer is found.
The night crew again made some discovery just before dawn when a long band of flickering light travelling upwards to the forest was spotted. The day team had the spy cylinder slowly ascend to the forest level their it was revealed that several tree melons had been freshly cut. There was no way the clumsy dome creatures could have performed this task as the canyon walls were too steep and their beaks don't match the cut marks on the stems.

The spy cylinder then travelled along the edge of the tree line and after four hours something was moving ahead, the spy cylinder was slow but gradually crept up on an enormous creature at least thirty feet long.
It had a wide flat mouth with saw shaped teeth a gigantic head without eyes, this alien was long and thin with a flat swimming tail,  a short neck with two large muscular arms which had four sharp claws.
As these creatures didn't have eyes the team decided to turn on the light in the spy cylinder to get a better picture of this fascinating alien which was truly the killer. What an amazing creature this alien is with a brightly coloured mottled skin which deflected the light in all directions, it's strange how such a brilliantly coloured creature exists in a deep dark place.

I reported to the astronomy pod and sent vision of our amazing find, the people on S.E.2 said that they will never go near the lake again, the spy cylinder crews assured them that this alien killer could not come out of the water as they needed water pressure to survive. Just why one of them surfaced to kill is still a mystery as it would have only been able to leave the pressure of the deep water briefly so we will continue to monitor them to get answers.
After another two weeks of searching on the edge of the forest, another four of these aliens were seen cutting the tree melons then taking them down into the gloomy depth of the lake bottom. The spy cylinder then descended to the bottom of the lake floor then after another twelve days of searching it came across a large pile of gravel at the foot of the steep canyon walls.
There were many of the dome-shaped aliens gathered around the gravel pile, now with the light on the camera the true colours of these creatures were revealed, they were a bright red with black spikes over their backs.

The crew then guided the spy cylinder above the gravel walls than inside two juvenile killer aliens being fed by an adult was discovered the adult was opening the melons then dumping the melon shell over the gravel walls.
The dome shell aliens were then crunching them up with their sharp beaks, these creatures are bottom-dwelling scavengers which could eat just about anything and would eat the juveniles hence the gravel walls around them.
The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fit into place now as we see how these aliens of the deep lived but just why the killer surfaced still had to be found and it was frustrating, the search teams who had operated the spy cylinder now day and night for almost six months. Then the night crew captured the vision of one alien killer leaving the forest and heading upwards not down, the spy cylinder had no way to keep up with its speed but headed for the surface. The two technicians operating the spy cylinder became excited and one of them kept watching the cameras vision and the other technician scanned the surface of the water for any movement. It was an exceptionally bright night one technician looked up and saw the three moons were almost aligned he then saw that there was a lot of movement in many areas of the lake surface which lasted for almost one hour.
The technicians reported the findings to the colonies the next morning and everyone cheered as they now knew that the two unfortunate victims were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The killer aliens only surfaced briefly every six months with the eclipse of the three moons, they were told it's now safe to go back in the water but it took a long time before most people did.

Life soon settled down and we were soon living in happy communities, my storytelling was becoming more and more popular so the fly guys fitted me up with a fly me backpack so I could visit the other three colonies every week.
My time spent learning the art as well as the years of research into the history of the human being species gave me an almost endless amount of material to work with.
Each evening after the meal people would gather around to listen I would tell them of an early man doing just as we are doing now, sitting around a fire telling stories then looking at the star's in the night sky before going to sleep.
Man developed more and more knickknacks until they lost their way in life they became obsessed with material goods and we're headed for disaster. Most of you have lived on the astronomy pod and many of you were borne there, it was an easy life but I am sure you will agree that this is a better life, we are happier and have a sense of worth here fending for ourselves.
I told the stories of mans continuous struggle for power and domination which resulted in them killing each other since recorded time on earth, our people gasped in disbelief and saying how could they have done that.
I told of the moon disaster recording which then turned people's way of life around on earth before its destruction by asteroids.

I received a message from Cosmic saying that the Jupiter moon pod had arrived on S.E.1 last week our colony spent a few days living inside then returned to their life in the caves. The new arrivals wanted to go out and set up new colonies on the planet, Cosmic said he based himself on the Pod to work with the engineers, scientists and technicians to try to find the magical power of the yellow glowing crystals that had been mined here thousands of years ago.
Our people had tried unsuccessfully for almost twenty years to discover the secret, it must have some other use apart from its light-giving properties for a mining operation of that size to have taken place.
Our engineers and scientists had collected around one thousand of the crystals, they crushed them, heated them and boiled them but were none the wiser as to their worth, the pod had many specialists as well as the facilities to perform many different tests on the crystals.

The fly guys had the pod deliver the volunteers in lots of four hundred to the destinations that they have identified years ago as ideal colony sites the Pod then return to the original S.E.1 colony where it will be based.
The enormous pod was then almost empty so many tests stations were set up to try to find the secrets of the crystals, a team of forty-seven people from many fields worked on the project for many weeks without success.
Cosmic reported to me the situation then I contacted Solar on the astronomy pod and reported the problems that the team are having on S.E.1 with their project.
Solar said she will discuss the matter with the team leaders on the astronomy pod to see if they may be able to help, she then contacted me the next morning and said the astronomy pod experts are now in touch with the team on the S.E.1 pod so now there are sixty-four bright minds involved. If an answer can be found then this joint effort will find it otherwise we will get the experts from the Jupiter moon colonies as well as the colonies on the New World planet as the secret must be found.

Read Part 19                      What's the secret?

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