This ongoing work in progress is entirely a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed within are entirely fictional and any resemblance to people, living or dead is coincidental.
No part of the work may be reproduced in any form without the explicit permission of the author.
Copyright Ion Fyr 2022
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After his dry and tasteless lunch, Pool left his kit by the dreadful hole and taking his canteen (now with a dent in the shape of his left hip), he set off, up the incline of the narrow cleft in search of flowing water. There was a rivulet that meandered back and forth across the floor, diving here and there beneath the gravel, and given the valley’s boneyard aesthetic, there was no way he was drinking from the ground, even with iodine tablets.
He intended to remain until the morning to make some drawings and deeper investigations into the gigantic skeleton. It was clearly a different species. Do the terrestrial beasts live in distant, untrodden locations? he wondered.
Could it even be called a valley? Pool looked up briefly surveying the steep walls. They widened five or seven meters up, but here at the ground level, the width ranged from barely a meter to sometimes three.
After five minutes he came to a meter and a half vertical rise. Beyond, up and around a bend he could hear what sounded like a small waterfall, so, finding hand- and foot-holds away from the wet rock, and despite his throbbing head, he clambered up.
Four meters forward the “valley” curved to the right. The mountain to the east faced him with a massive sheer cliff that bore the shadows of the peaks to the west as the sun was dropping lower. The cliff face echoed the falling water and indicated an unseen space, larger than the tight walls of the path so far.
Rounding the bend, Pool was confronted with a doubly unexpected sight. The first was simply natural and consisted of an icy blue lake. It was not by any means large, roughly 100 meters by 200 or 250 long. A smallish waterfall fell into it from the west, cascading down from the left side, and fancifully providing broken rainbows in the upper sunlit mist. Pool wondered for an instant how the volume of water from the cascade, was so much greater than the outlet.
Perhaps because of his years of urban dwelling or the unending wonders of the unbelievable adventures of the last several years of his life, but the existence of the glacial lake caught his eye before the other, more unlikely manifestation.
On the far side of the lake, resting in a haphazard and precarious manner, was the broken skeleton of a dirigible of middling size–from what could be seen of its remains.
I-beams, riveted into circular polygons and bound together like ribs by intersecting beams, rusted, devoid of covering fabric. Even the internal envelops were absent, though tatters hung from several of the beams.
Pool could see the fragmented remains of drive shafts, which once turned the propellors in flight, however the propellers were gone as well.
It quickly became apparent what had become of the missing material. At the far end, up the lake’s distant bank, a kind of lean-to had been constructed from steel and the outer fabric. In seemingly random locations dead chimneys jutted forth. These had been constructed, probably, from the interior pipes and tubing and valves.
The upper edge of the slope of rubberized fabric was flush against the rock wall behind, touching closely some five or six meters up and sloping down at more or less 45 degrees to about one meter, which overhung an inset vertical wall of the same fabric.
The aspect of the sloping roof was conical and it formed a tent that was sheltered, efficient and likely internally voluminous.
What finally caught Pool’s eye, was the wheel turned by the waterfall, possessed of its own small tent, and the bundle of wires hanging above a scavenged crankshaft, running between the small wheelhouse and the greater tent.
He crouched down and observed, wishing he had brought his binoculars up from below.
The light was still good and for several minutes, Pool watched and saw no one. No smoke or steam came from any of the pipes, nor was there any sign of life at the site.
A smaller branch of the waterfall could be reached by following the edge of the lake around to the left. It did not cross under the falls, but gave way to a deeper cut that appeared to go right up to the wall behind.
The beach of broken rock and rubble circled around to the right and was significantly wider, and seemed to possess a path through the more easily traversed route, avoiding larger boulders and rockfalls. This one wrapped around and joined his location to the big tent, though a large section was under the lurching wreck of the airship.
Pool would absolutely return in the morning, but despite his imagination and curiosity, he was aware of both the need to get water for his supper, make camp, and also the throbbing ache in his head.
He had considered collecting his belongings, and camping here.His condition and a level of personal restraint that he had cultivated for all of his adult years prevented this. He would need all day tomorrow to investigate, perhaps more than one day. More importantly he needed food and rest.
#sci-fi #science fiction #fantasy #writing #fiction #time travel
Ion Fyr 