Eric Smith hated the cold, but cold he was. It sometimes seemed like a curse, this assignment. Sure, he knew that if he could stick it out a couple years he'd get any placement he wanted, but for now he was cold.
And there was no surprise. He was in the Arctic, after all. It didn't help that he was also lonely. For three weeks he'd been alone at the station, studying samples he'd pull out of the ice, studying the sediment. His last partner, Susan Ball (DOCTOR Ball, she'd remind him if he ever slipped up) wasn't much better, always bitching, always bossy, but she was better than nothing.
He sighed as he stared at the sample in front of him. The scanner had picked up something strange, something metal. Not raw ore, either, but something refined. He walked along the long shelf that held the long tube of ice, eying it closely, looking for any sign of the object. His excitement over the mystery was probably bigger than it should be, but heck, he figured, it passed the time!
His eye caught something sparkling. Grabbing his chisel, he delicately chipped away the ice around whatever it was. It was small, so he wouldn't have to chip too much away. Soon enough it lay in a puddle of melting ice. It was gold, round, and smooth.
It was a ring.
"What the heck are you doing here?" he asked the ring. That was something that was happening more and more as he spent more and more time alone.
He picked it up. It wasn't cold at all. Strange, that, but he didn't notice. He was too excited too catch it. It looked like it would fit, just a perfect ring for his hand. Quickly he slipped it on.
And that was when everything changed.
