On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 158, of 240 so far.

Menagerie

The air was thin, but somehow the biting cold actually helped.

They had been travelling for more than a day, and the scientist was tired but also excited. His expertise was in climatology and geology, particularly in the analysis of ice core samples and surrounding terrain in order to determine the conditions in ages long past. He had become a leading expert in retrieval and thawing techniques, and was often consulted by universities, meteorological institutions, museums, and sometimes governments.

This was his first time being contracted by the military, though.

He had received a call six days earlier, and had then been collected by car from his office on campus. The destination had been a rented office building, where three men in nondescript suits asked him a number of questions, then requested that he provide a comprehensive list of equipment and supplies he might need for an extended expedition to an unspecified location, for an on-site retrieval consultation. They then showed him an absurdly generous number which indicated what he’d be paid. Finally, they made him sign a stack of documents that was fully ten centimetres thick. Four days of preparations later, here he was.

The scientist had been unsettled by the uniforms at first, but had quickly come to appreciate them, as they flew farther and farther south, then landed and switched transportation, flew even farther, then transferred to tracked land vehicles, and ultimately proceeded on foot. The climb had been long and arduous, in almost constant snowstorms, but the soldiers around him made it look easy. They also took excellent care of him, as if their lives depended on it.

“Is it much further?” he asked, shouting to be heard over the wind, and the team leader ahead of him half-turned, still moving, and shook his head.

“No, sir,” he replied. “We’re almost there.”

The scientist nodded, brushing snowflakes from his beard yet again. Sure enough, there was a cave mouth just becoming visible up ahead, and even though it was more than halfway up a mountain whose name or exact location he had no idea of, he was still slightly concerned about large predators. Once more, he was grateful for the soldiers, and for their very conspicuous weapons.

A few more minutes of trudging brought them to the shelter of the cave entrance, and inside there were three more soldiers standing far back, with a portable heater which had already began to draw large droplets of water from the rocky ceiling.

“Do you need to rest, sir, or are you able to continue the rest of the way?” the team leader asked, and the scientist just waved him onwards. There was no purpose in stopping now, and presumably there would be a better-equipped resting place at their main encampment, somewhere within the mountain.

They pushed on. Despite the walls being coated with ice, it was warmer here than outside, and the darkness was dispelled by powerful light beacons that had been set down at regular intervals. As they moved inwards and downwards, power cabling became visible, and the scientist swore that he could even faintly smell coffee. His stomach began to rumble.

Sure enough, a few minutes later they reached what was clearly a base camp, in a large cavern that was much longer than it was wide. There were at least a dozen tents of various sizes, military personnel moving around, generators, and all of the equipment he’d asked for. Towards the farthest point was a larger tent, currently open at the near side, which was obviously a command centre. It was to this structure that the team leader escorted him.

Inside, there were several lightweight collapsible desks and work-surfaces, holding assorted computer equipment amongst other things, and presiding over it all was a grey-haired man who looked like he’d been chiselled from the surrounding rock by a sculptor who hadn’t yet learned how to make curved edges. The scientist could see that the man was a General, and he could also see that he was waiting impatiently.

“Welcome, doctor,” the General said. “If you’re ready to take an initial look at the site, we’ll get that done before you have some lunch.”

The scientist was slightly taken aback, but he didn’t feel able to refuse, and he also didn’t want to show weakness in this environment, so he simply nodded. The General seemed satisfied, and the man donned an expedition jacket and led him out of the large tent and further into the cavern. Three armed men appeared to escort them, without a word from anyone.

There was an opening at the far end of the cavern, and it wasn’t a natural one, as indicated by the blast debris that had been swept efficiently off to one side. The scientist frowned, but didn’t remark on it. He was led through a short tunnel which was supported by metal struts, and then the party of five men exited into a brighter area. It seemed to be an ancient crater, frozen for aeons, which had once been open to the surrounding mountain range. Now, it was a spectacular crystalline space, entirely hidden from the outside world, and illuminated by powerful floodlights connected to the generators back in the main cavern.

“Is it some animal species you’re looking to retrieve?” the scientist asked, even as he judged the age of the ice formation at several hundred millennia or so. The General shook his head.

“Human,” the man replied. The scientist smiled, intrigued.

“It’s just down this way,” the General said, and they progressed carefully down an incline which led to a place where the ice wall met the rock at an angle, and there was a narrow but usable passageway between. The General led the way, then one of the armed men, then the scientist, followed by the other two soldiers. It took only thirty seconds to reach their final destination.

It was like a glacier, stretching away for a kilometre, and protruding from it was a sight that the scientist’s mind first refused to accept at all. He blinked, and looked again, then he felt goosebumps break out all over his body, despite his several insulating layers of clothing.

There was no way to tell its overall true shape, but it was black in appearance, with an iridescence that made it look almost aquatic. It was smooth in some places and sharp in others, and while its geometry was strange, there were parts of it which were at least familiar in broad terms. A section that might have been a panel joint, and something that could be an exhaust or vent, and an outline that looked very much like a hatch. But vast, like a skyscraper lying on its side, frozen alive in this forgotten place.

The scientist forced himself to look at the ice, and the rock, and to listen to his own training and education. The conclusion was inescapable. It had been here for a very long time.

“That’s… a vehicle,” he said, his voice only a whisper, but the words still echoed around him. “From a time when men lived in caves and hunted with spears. And they never spread to this part of the world.”

The General stood in silence, allowing the scientist to come to terms with what he was seeing.

“It’s a spacecraft,” the scientist continued, mostly to himself. “Not built by humans.” The General nodded.

“We’ve sent autonomous survey machines down into the ice,” the General said. “They’ve done some boring, taken some samples and footage. There are windows down there, or at least what passes for them. And you’re right about the cave men. A few of them, and animals that any natural history museum would kill for. Pairs of them. Quite the menagerie.”

The General walked forward, to where a part of the vessel stuck up from the ice. He kicked it with his snow boot, and the sound was resonant within the thing’s hull.

“How did you find this?” the scientist asked, trying not to ponder the question of what else might be buried beneath his feet.

“Mostly by putting pieces together from ancient religious texts that were recently discovered in the Middle East,” the General said, sounding disinterested. The scientist frowned.

“Religious?”

The General nodded. “Holy books, and history in general before the modern age, are like the child’s game where you each whisper something to the next person, and it gets progressively distorted until it’s unrecognisable. Everyone in the damned world knows about this ship. They just don’t realise it.”

“I don’t understand,” the scientist said, venturing to step forward now. From his new vantage point, the ship’s hull had taken on a vaguely golden sheen, like a striated onyx. It was beautiful, and utterly alien. The General sighed.

“Take a good look, doctor,” he said. “You’re one of the first people in a very long time to clap eyes on Noah’s Ark.”

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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