Ice Tomb

Exploring an Alaskan glacier leads to an amazing discovery.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This short story is presented for personal entertainment only. Commercial and all other use is expressly prohibited.

(c) 2009-2017 Robert Horseman, All rights reserved.

Logbook: Taslina Glacier, Alaska, June 2002 June 4, 2002 I arrived at the Taslina Glacier by my ski plane today. The snow field I have landed on in past years looked treacherous, so I ended up landing about a thousand feet higher up the mountain where the snowpack looked more solid. This place is always spectacular, but in all the summers I have visited the glacier, I’ve never seen it like this. It’s far warmer than it’s been on any of my previous solo trips, and the lake at the base of the glacier is much higher as well. It looks like I’ll need to use my collapsible canoe more than ever before as I explore the foot of the glacier. I never know what I going to find as the glacier continues its retreat, but there’s almost always something interesting. I secured the plane using snow spikes, and hiked down to my annual campsite. But instead of camping on a flat snowfield, the ground down here is glacial till this year. No snow at all. It took me a while to even out a flat area for my tent in the rocky ground. Tomorrow I’ll get my canoe set up and start exploring. June 7, 2002 I found something, but I’m not sure what it is yet. As I made my way along the base of the glacier, I spotted a glint coming from one of the stream tunnels that drain from the bottom of the glacier. These tunnels are extremely dangerous since the ice is melting, and cave-ins are common. I’m alone here, and if I died no one would find my body for years. Fortunately, I have time and warm temperatures on my side. I marked the spot with a red flag, and moved on. Every few days I will check on the progress of the melting ice, and then try to figure out what is in there. June 18, 2002 Enough of the ice tunnel has receded to make the artifact, whatever it is, close to the ice tunnel’s opening. I carefully ventured in. What I saw emerging from the ice looked for all the world like the landing pad and strut of a small vehicle of some sort, perhaps an airplane. The strut was shiny, almost like chrome, which must have been what caught my eye the last time I was here. I saw a ghostly but indistinct outline of the body of a craft in the surrounding ice, but couldn’t make out exactly what it was. I really want to hack it out, but destabilizing the ice tunnel is far too dangerous. I’ll just have to be patient and come back in a week. June 25, 2002 It’s been hard to stay away from the site for a whole week, since I’m immensely curious about the craft, whatever it is. I got back around noon today, and the entire strut as well as a small portion of the dark gray underside was exposed. It’s not like any small airplane I’d ever seen. For one thing, it was quite smooth. No rivets of any kind, and I would have expected the shell of a plane to be damaged and dented. If not from a crash, then at least from the pressure of the tons of glacial ice that made up its tomb. Part of one side was almost visible under a thin sheet of ice. I couldn’t quite make out a word written there. All I could clearly see was the last letter, which was a “d”. The letter before it might have been an “n”, or maybe an “r”. Hopefully I’ll get it figured out at my next visit. July 4, 2002 The last few days have hit the high sixties, and the ice is melting fast. The whole glacier seems to be in a constant state of groaning, and whole sections of the glacier’s bottom have calved off into the quickly rising lake. Getting back to the site was a challenge. I had to use the canoe most of the way to the site. It’s certainly not an airplane; that much I’m sure of. But what it really is, I haven’t a clue. The ice cave was melted right up to the craft, and half of one side and almost the entire bottom were fully exposed. Two landing pads and their struts protruded about two feet from the fuselage. I know I said it’s not an airplane, but “fuselage” seems to be the only word I can think of that fits. A similar pad and strut was visible at one end of the craft, about twelve or thirteen feet from the other two. The struts must be hinged at their bases, because there were slots in the bottom that had the shape of the pads and struts. Since there were open slots both in front and behind the struts, it looked like the struts were only partially extended. If it is an airplane, I would have expected to see wings by now. But none were visible, not even the stumps of broken wings. The sides bulged out at the bottom, but certainly not big enough to be wings. On the side, I saw the entire word “F-o-r-d” in large blue script. That really freaked me out, because unless I’m completely loony, it’s not a car. What the hell is this thing? July 5, 2002 I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about the craft. I set out early for the site, and made it there by ten. A narrow gap had opened up between the fuselage and the surrounding ice, and I guessed that the sunlight had warmed the craft’s surface more than the surrounding ice. I pushed gently on one wheel strut, and the whole craft swayed a quarter of an inch in its ice trap. I carefully chipped the ice around the gap a little to see if I could get it to move more, but it wasn’t long before I realized I was going to have to be more patient. I had gotten pretty warm with the work in the sunshine, and I absentmindedly hung my coat on one of the landing pads. I heard a click of something releasing, a quiet whir, and all the struts smoothly extended to their fully deployed positions! I took a step back and stared in wonderment. This thing still had power! By the deep blue color of its ice prison, it had to have been trapped in the glacier for many years. So how could it have power? The sun was blazing today, and the temperature hit the low seventies. With any luck, the craft might be free of the ice tomorrow. July 6, 2002 When I got to the site today, the craft had slipped partway from the ice, and the lower of the two main landing pads was on the gravel stream bed. Reaching up, I grabbed the other pad and put all my weight on it. It moved a few inches, but that was all. I decided to rock it like you do when you try to get a car unstuck. Alternately pulling and releasing on the higher strut, I got the craft to rock up and down. Then with a final heave, it fell over onto its pads. Fortunately I was ready, and managed to jump out of the way as it came over. The craft sat on its three pads, looking like it must have in the showroom. Every part of it looked brand new. It had a flat diamond-like shape with rounded corners, with the bubble of a cockpit canopy on top. It appeared that the end with the single landing pad was the front of the craft. I estimated that from front to back it was about twenty-five feet, and side-to-side about ten feet. Here’s a sketch of what the craft looked like: A slot in the side had the icon of a shoe next to it, so I put one in and hoisted myself to the top. I could not see into the canopy because the inside surface was covered with a thick layer of frost. Hunting about the edges of the canopy, I found another symbol that looked like a thumb pushing a button. I pushed the white circle next to the symbol, but it didn’t go in at all, and nothing further happened. I was about to try again when I heard the sound of an underpowered motor begin to whir, then it abruptly stopped. Guessing that there was not much power in the craft, I pushed on the canopy. It gave a little, so heart hammering I pushed harder. Then I heard the sound of escaping air, and the canopy slid back four feet. The stench was unbelievable, and I winced as I involuntarily tried to close my nose. Turning back to the craft, I looked down into the cockpit. The remains of a desiccated pilot sat strapped into the single seat, his dried-out eyes staring lifelessly up at me. At least he was human. Some part of me had feared that I might find something, well, alien. The pilot’s skin looked like leather, probably the result of endless years of freezer burn. Most of the moisture in his body had probably sublimated out, ending up as frost on the inside of the canopy. I reached down and unbuckled the pilot’s straps, and then pulled on my work gloves. Reaching under the corpse’s buttocks, I pulled up with all my strength. It was partially frozen to the seat, but with a bit of effort the corpse finally ripped free. It was light as a feather. I tossed it over the side, and it landed with the sound like breaking sticks. Bones in this case, I thought morbidly. I climbed down to the stream bed to get a closer look at the pilot. Oddly enough, he was dressed in boxer shorts and a gray Hanes tee-shirt. I would have expected at least a flight suit of some kind. A military craft probably wouldn’t say “Ford” on the side, so he must have been a civilian. I also noticed that the corpse’s nose was oddly twisted to one side, as though it had been badly broken just before he died. I wasn’t sure what to do with the body. Even if I buried it, the stream would eventually carry it into the lake. Deciding it was pointless to bury it, I propped it against a bolder. I climbed back up to the cockpit, and spent a few minutes cleaning bits of the pilot’s boxer shorts, and probably some flesh too, from the seat. Then placing my hands on grabs above the instrument panel, I swung myself down into the seat. It was a tight fit with my jacket still on, but it hadn’t warmed up as much as yesterday, and anyway the seat surfaces were quite cold. I looked at the instrument panel. There was a floor-mounted joystick right in front me, and a large black display screen behind it. No analog dials or any other instruments were visible. I still had no idea what this thing was. An airplane? A spaceship? What else could it be? There was only one thing that I recognized, and that was something that looked like a glove box. I had to laugh at that, but I suppose that goes with it being a Ford. Reaching forward, I pushed next to the thumb icon, and the glove box fell open. Various papers and detritus fell out into my hand. My breath caught as I recognized one item. It looked like an owner’s manual. I turned it and I read the cover: Ford Worldkar 2137 Ownrs Manual For ur safety and kumfort, pleez reed and keep in vehikl The spelling was bizarre to say the least, as though someone in a third-world country was writing in English without a spell checker. And what the heck did 2137 mean? The manual was extremely thin, as though the manufacturer had nearly given up the pretext of having a manual at all. I didn’t think that Ford had been bought by Microsoft. The few pages had numbered pictures that apparently showed how to turn the vehicle on. And that was all there was. The first picture showed a finger pushing on a dark display. I pulled off my glove, and touched the instrument panel’s display with my index finger. The display was very cold, but it came to life, and the face of an elegant but cartoon-like woman appeared. A female voice with an odd accent said, “Welcome to Ford Worldcar. Power level one point five percent. Please recharge power cells or leave the vehicle in direct sunlight for twelve hours. Shutting down to conserve remaining power.” The display went dark, and I was dumbfounded. This vehicle was completely beyond anything I had ever seen or even heard about. Sunlight would not be a problem. With the craft completely out of its ice tomb, it was now completely exposed to sunlight. A flashing icon of a lightning bolt appeared on the instrument display, which I assumed meant that the batteries were being recharged. Satisfied, I climbed back out of the craft. It was getting late, and I had to get back to my camp for dinner and sleep. At this time of year the sun was up for almost 21 hours a day, so the craft would be recharged in no time. The only problem was the lake level. The water was now lapping at the craft’s landing pads, and steadily rising in the warm temperature. I thought I might not have much time with the strange vehicle. July 7, 2002 When I got back to the craft this morning, the water had risen about three inches since last night. Wasting no time, I climbed up into the seat and put my finger on the display. The same woman’s image appeared and a female voice said, “Welcome to Ford Worldcar. My name is Gail. Please state your request.” That wasn’t exactly what I had expected, but I decided to try plain English. Hesitantly, I said, “What is the system status?” There was a pregnant pause, then Gail said, “System status. Power level forty-two percent. Expected battery life exceeded by….sixty-nine years. Maximum chargeable power level… forty-four percent. Warning… battery power level may degrade faster than normal due to battery age. Repulsor lift status…nominal. Secondary systems status…nominal. Global positioning system…off line. Warning…satellite telemetry not found. Warning…sensors have detected high moisture content in equipment bays two and four. Would you like to dehumidify those bays?” What the hell. “Yes, please dehumidify bays two and four.” I heard the sound of rushing air for about a minute, and then it stopped. Then Gail said, “Equipment bays two and four have been dehumidified. Please state your request.” I decided to ask the most obvious question. I said, “What is this vehicle?” “This vehicle is a Ford Worldcar, model year twenty-one-thirty-seven. Please state your request.” That was a lame answer that told me nothing I didn’t already know, although I was startled to hear that 2137 was in fact a year. That would explain a lot, but it raised a hell of a lot more questions than it answered. “What are the capabilities of this vehicle?” “This Ford Worldcar is fitted with four state-of-the-art repulsor lifts, providing a maximum altitude of thirty meters above ground level. Its five-hundred kilowatt mercury ion drive system propels this vehicle to a speed of two-hundred-and-thirty-five kilometers per hour at sea level. Global positioning system comes as standard equipment. Warning…global positioning system is offline. Warning, this vehicle is not fitted with the optional autodrive system. Manual driving at speeds exceeding one-hundred-and-fifty kilometers per hour should be avoided. Four equipment bays provide easy installation of factory approved optional equipment packages. Equipment bay one is ... empty. Equipment bay two is … fitted with a factory-registered sound and video system. Equipment bay three has unregistered hardware tied in with the main system. Warning: unregistered hardware invalidates the vehicle’s warranty. Equipment bay four is ... empty. Please state your request.” I pondered for a moment. “What can you tell me about the unregistered hardware in equipment bay three?” “Interfacing, please wait….The equipment in bay three does not respond to interrogation. Please state your request.” “Where is equipment bay three, and how do I open it?” “Equipment bay three is positioned on the port side, 1.2 meters aft of the canopy. It is opened by verbal request to this system. Please state your request.” “Open equipment bay three.” I heard a click and a pop behind me, so I climbed out of the cockpit and hopped down to the stream bed. Good thing I remembered to wear my boots this morning. As promised, a panel behind the canopy had popped open. Inside was a metal box with a wiring harness plugged into the aft end. It looked, well, homemade. Looking closer, I saw that someone had written the following on the side with a marker: Propertee of Docter Feliks Tomson Universitee of Ankorage Warning: Do not engage unles altitood ekseeds 20 meters Unless I missed my guess, that must have been the good doctor’s body in the cockpit. I closed the equipment bay, and climbed back into the cockpit. I touched the display, and Gail said, “Please state your request.” I considered for a moment, then said, “Operations tutorial.” Gail was silent for a moment as if considering my request, then said, “Would you like instructions for operating this vehicle?” “Yes.” For the next hour, Gail and the instrument display described how to operate the vehicle. It was quite simple really, especially for a seasoned pilot like myself, but it seemed that every other sentence was a warning about one thing or another. Apparently lawyers will run the world in the year 2137. Now I had a decent idea of how to operate the vehicle, and what system commands were available. I said, “Estimate maximum flying time.” After a pause, Gail said, “Battery life is out of normal range. No data is available. Please state your request.” Damn. “Estimate normal flying time with batteries at their end of service life, with current power level.” “Estimated flying time…two hours, fourteen minutes. Please state your request.” To be safe, I thought I might have one hour of flying time. And whoever programmed this thing should be shot. I said, “Do not ask me to state my request anymore.” “Acknowledged. Command?” I groaned. “Fine. Initiate drive system start.” A low hum filled the cockpit, which gradually faded. The cockpit canopy slid closed automatically, and locked in place. I had a giddy feeling in my stomach. I said, “Defrost cockpit canopy.” A rush of warm air filled the cockpit, and the frost that was once the pilot’s bodily fluids quickly evaporated. “Warning, repulsor lift three is responding with 42 percent active elements. Compensation will reduce maximum altitude to 17 meters. Command?” “Engage repulsor lifts for maximum available altitude.” The craft rose gracefully from the ground, and the sunlight glinting off the upper surfaces made me squint. I peered down at the instrument panel. A power level indicator was displayed, and it now showed thirty-nine percent. I grabbed the joy stick with my right hand, and gently pushed forward. The craft accelerated rapidly, and the display split into a combined power and speed readout. According to the display, I was travelling at twenty-seven kph. I did a little math in my head… about seventeen miles an hour. I gently push the stick to the right, and the craft nimbly banked and turned in that direction. I aimed toward my camp site some seven miles distant, and pushed the stick forward. The craft rocketed ahead, and the displayed speed climbed to one-hundred kph in a heartbeat. No two ways about it, the craft was exhilarating to fly. It was light and responsive to the touch, but always felt like it was under control. And flying so fast and so close to the ground just amplified the feel of the speed. I decided to have some fun with it, so I banked back and forth as I made my way back to my campsite. July 8, 2002 Today I thought I’d get a little practice flying the machine. So after a quick breakfast and my morning ablutions, I climbed into the craft and powered it up. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I had no idea how to get the craft out of here with its bad batteries and the repulsor lift problem, but figured I’d stash it in a safe place and come back for it with proper extraction equipment. I have a friend that runs a heavy lift timber helicopter, and hope he will be able to help me. In any case I have a few weeks left on my trip, and I figure I’ll spend it exploring with the craft. Thinking about the craft’s problem led me to think about its GPS. Why would that be on the fritz? I said, “Gail, establish GPS fix.” “GPS is offline. Command?” “Bring GPS system on-line.” “Unable to comply. Satellite telemetry not found. Command?” A moment of inspiration hit me. “Calibrate GPS system to use GPS satellites in existence in the year two-thousand-and-two. Bring GPS system on-line.” After a long pause, the voice said, “GPS fix established. Warning: GPS accuracy is not within safety limits.” A terrain map of the area appeared on the display, with an illuminated icon of the ship at its current location. “Command?” Awesome. I touched a spot on the screen roughly corresponding to the location of my ski plane, and said, “Take me there.” “Unable to comply. This vehicle is not fitted with the autodrive system. Manual driving at speeds exceeding one-hundred-and-fifty kilometers per hour should be avoided.” Now I understood what Gail meant the other day. Oh well, I’d just have to fly it myself. The day was warm and it was getting decidedly hot in the enclosed cockpit, so I took a moment to strip off my extra layers of clothing. I tossed them to the ground, and shut the canopy. I flew the machine up to my ski plane to make sure it was still secured. One of the snow spikes had pulled loose, so I reset it in firmer snow. Then I decided to fly the craft down the center of the glacier, toward the spot where I had found it. I wanted to make sure my canoe hadn’t drifted away, since I thought I had forgotten to tie it off in my eagerness to fly the craft yesterday. About halfway down the glacier, a new icon appeared on the display. It was in the shape of an hourglass. The craft said, “Unregistered hardware in equipment bay three is interfacing with the system. Interface complete, ready to relay commands. Command?” Now what? I said, “Enumerate commands available for equipment in bay three.” A moment passed, then the craft said, “Available commands: initiate, date and time, help. Command?” “Help”. “Accessing…the help library is empty.” Cripes. So far the craft was behaving pretty well, and I wanted to find out what the hardware did. I figured it was probably some kind of experiment the good doctor was running. What could it hurt, right? I hesitated, then said, “initiate.” The craft dropped about a meter, and the voice said, “Warning, power level dropping. Estimate five minutes remaining at current power drain. Relaying bay three hardware reports: temporal shift initiated. Date and time not set, using system default: January 1, 1984, 2400 hours. Warning: insufficient altitude. Stand by…Temporal shift in ten seconds…Nine…Eight…” Oh shit. A sharp pang of fear shot through my gut. Temporal shift? What did it mean by that? The last time I heard that word was in a sci-fi movie or something. Heeding the altitude warning, I pulled back on the stick to increase altitude, but nothing happened. Gail said, “The maximum altitude under current power and available repulsor elements is twelve meters. Six…Five…” I shouted at the instrument panel, “Cancel shift. Dammit, CANCELLLLL.” “No such command. Two…One…Commencing Temporal Shift…” Individual sparks of orange light began to flash by the canopy. In a moment it became a deluge, until the craft was completely enveloped by it. Then green lightening flashed over the canopy, and a loud whump rattled me to my bones. I was thrown hard against my harness straps. Another whump tossed me back hard into the seat cushions, and the light show winked out as fast as it had come. “Warning: Power levels insufficient for repulsor and drive systems. Brace for impact.” The craft arced down in an unpowered ballistic trajectory. Since I hadn’t been very high, the glacier’s surface raced up at me at an alarming rate. Somehow I had lost my grip on the control stick, so I grabbed it and pulled back as hard as I could to gain altitude. Not surprisingly, nothing happened. They say that when catastrophic events like this happen, objective time seems to slow down. It did nothing of the kind for me. The craft dropped like a stone into a crevasse and slammed hard into the glacier. I was instantly knocked unconscious by the massive collision. Date Unknown I have no idea how long I was out. I awoke about an hour ago, feeling badly dehydrated. The craft is completely encased in ice, although amazingly enough it appears to be completely intact. A murky light filters through the ice, illuminating the cockpit in an eerie glow. I can’t get the craft’s systems to respond, so I think the batteries must be dead. Whatever that thing in equipment bay three was, it condemned me to a slow death in this ice tomb. The first thing I noticed after coming awake was my broken nose. My face must have hit the instrument panel when the craft slammed into the glacier. It’s so twisted and swollen that I can’t breathe through it. The second thing was my extreme thirst. I have nothing to drink in here, and no way to get at the ice since the canopy won’t budge. The third thing I noticed scared the hell out of me, as if I wasn’t already scared enough. I looked down, and realized that I was wearing just my boxer shorts and a gray Hanes tee shirt. And, of course my broken nose. Exactly like the damn corpse I found in this thing. And now I remember what temporal means – time. And so a temporal shift must mean time travel. What did the system say the date and time setting was? 1984? Something like that. I am so screwed. The air in here is getting thin, and I’m breathing really fast. This will surely be my last log entry. My only hope is to hold this log book in my lap, and pray that the next version of me finds it in eighteen years, and reads it. Epilogue As the ice of the glacier makes its way slowly down the mountain valley, it grinds along the rocky bed which twists and turns the ice, opening and closing fissures. The Ford Worldcar is slowly tumbled in its ice tomb over the passing years. The log book slips from long dead fingers, and eventually it gets caught under the seat, along with three other identical logs.

•••••The End •••••