Since a starfaring alien is obviously at least our peer, he is 'higher' life form - hence is certainly dead! Objective of thawing is to look at equivalent of alien bacteria - these low life forms are said to survive 20 million years of freezing. We are told certain fish survive such freezing & thawing, but no higher life forms do. There are some arguments presented here that always sound egotistic to me (but I'm not a biologist, & cannot now locate relevant quotes): distinction between 'lower' & 'higher' lifeforms where it concerns basic life processes. Some argument after taking it back to camp ('Big Magnet' - that's camp's name), & a decision is made to thaw it - slowly. We will later learn - through arguments I don't recall - that the alien ship came from stars it's not of any world within Sol.Īnyway, the story is about this frozen alien specimen.

An authentic alien, probably intelligent, probably part of the crew, probably tried to take a look at the place after crash & was frozen 'within ten feet of the ship'. Result is: the whole ship is blown to bits, with nothing recoverable!!īit more investigation reveals a frozen specimen nearby. To melt this snow, they throw a supposedly harmless '25-pound thermite bomb', an 'ice-softener', in the airlock. It's buried 'within one hundred feet of the glacier surface' we will later learn it has been buried for at least 20 million years! Note there was also a magnetic anomaly on moon that led to discovery of ancient sentinel in Arthur Clarke's '2001 A Space Odyssey'.Īfter digging, they find the ship's airlock ajar, but jammed - there is snow inside too. Further investigations reveal a buried ancient spaceship of alien origins - 'a thing like a submarine without a conning tower or directive vanes, 280 feet long and 45 feet in diameter at its thickest'. 37 men, with Commander Garry as leader.Ī team investigating magnetic south pole discovers a second minor magnetic pole nearby! Hitherto unknown, & not explained by anything known.

A research expedition is camping in Antarctica - where all action in the story takes place. Clement's is more rigorous where behavior of alien is described.įull text of this story is available for download. Not always reasonable, but it held my interest all through.Ĭonceptually, the story is closest to Hal Clement's 'Needle' - among the stories I've read. Great fast-paced thriller, even if many of its themes are no longer new.

Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr.