by Martha Wells
Teyla came up to stand beside him. Surveying the scene with a preoccupied expression, she said, "I am not sure I like this place, Major Sheppard."
"Oh, what's not to like?" John teased her. She lifted a brow at him, her mouth set in an unamused line, and he gave in. "Yeah, I know. It's going to be a logistical nightmare trying to explore this thing, even if there aren't any.. .monsters and whatnot. I wouldn't worry so much if it was just our team." He looked back at the group by the jumper, frowning a little. The last time he had gone on a mission with inexperienced scientists, it hadn't ended well. They had been investigating an Ancient Lagrangian Point satellite in orbit around the second planet in Atlantica's system and found a downed Wraith supply ship on the planet's surface. Unfortunately, there had been one last surviving Wraith, hibernating after having eaten all the stored humans on board and then all his Wraith friends. John and Rodney had managed to survive; the two scientists with them hadn't. "Kavanagh and Kolesnikova don't have any experience with field work, and keeping people from getting hurt in all that debris is going to be hard enough."
Teyla nodded. "And I admit, I am glad to find this place deserted. If there are people who would choose to make this sad ruin their home, I do not think I would like to meet them."
McKay arrived in time to hear Teyla's comment, juggling his equipment to check for power signatures and to keep one eye on the life sign detector. "In most movies, a place like this would come equipped with a horde of cannibalistic mutants, possibly with psychic powers."
"Oh, that's ridiculous." John snorted. "It would be zombies, flesh-eating zombies."
Teyla sighed a little and refused to take the bait.
Corrigan joined them, using a small camcorder to film the wall of the repository. He lowered it, frowning. "This is a little odd. The surrounding structures aren't Ancient, or at least not Atlantean. The Ancients might have built this place with help from another culture."
Ford, Boerne, and Kinjo returned from their quick survey of the immediate area. John lifted a brow at Ford, who shook his head, saying, "Nothing, Major."
"Good. Boerne, Kinjo, I want you out here with the jumper."
John caught a flicker of disappointment on Kinjo's face. He was Asian and looked nearly too young to be here; John knew he was one of the volunteers from the SGC, and probably hadn't been there very long before the chance to join the expedition had come up. Boerne was big, blond, and older, and if he was disappointed, he kept it hidden behind a very correct poker face. "Yes, Sir."
McKay turned to yell at the other scientists, "Let's get a move on, people, we're on a schedule here!"
"Don't shout, McKay, we can hear you perfectly," Kolesnikova said, shouldering her pack and coming to join them with Kavanagh.
"Still nothing?" Kavanagh demanded, craning his head to look over McKay's shoulder at the sensor. "No energy readings?"
"No such luck. If there's anything still intact in there, it's been shut down." McKay eyed the repository grimly, apparently forgetting that he had just tried to eviscerate Kavanagh for asking nearly the same question earlier. "We're going to have to do this the hard way."
John nodded. He wasn't surprised; the hard way was the way they did everything. He made everybody do radio checks, then used the remote to tell the puddlejumper to close its ramp and set its cloak. The little ship obediently sealed itself, then vanished. The cloak would keep it invisible to the naked eye and to any non-Ancient instruments, and each team member had a remote to allow them to open the ramp and enter. Those precautions, plus leaving the two Marines on guard, made John reasonably sure the jumper would still be here when they came back-possible Wraith, flesh-eating zombies, and mutants notwithstanding. "Right, let's go," he said, and started up the steps to the entrance.
Once inside, McKay paused to take some more readings, and the others spread out a little to look around, Corrigan still filming, moving close to the walls to get detailed shots.
John led the way on through the foyer and into the big triangular corridor. The bright daylight outside and the broken skylights made it possible to see the big control area at the opposite end, and he could hear the scientists' awed reactions.
"Well, here it is," McKay said as they reached the entrance. He didn't sound as enthusiastic as John had expected. Normally something like this would have caused McKay to go into a near hysterical frenzy of excitement. He should almost be able to smell the ZPMs that possibly lurked in the bowels of the building's power systems. Instead he sounded almost resigned. "I'm still not getting any readings-most of this is probably too damaged to tell us much-but this has to be the control center for the structure."
"The only thing missing is the Stargate," Kavanagh put in. Corrigan was still filming, and Kolesnikova was already moving toward the intriguing heaps of dead machinery, both as eager as kids in a toy store. Kavanagh was frowning at a spiral design in the center of the floor, directly below the peak of the ceiling. It was too obscured by dust and debris for John to make out much, but it looked as though it was made of little silver tiles. Kavanagh shook his head. "The Heliopolis in our galaxy had an interior `gate. The one here must have been removed at some point."
"You think?" McKay glanced up, intrigued, studying the chamber again. "It would have to be here in the center, and I'm not seeing anything like a well or a platform safety zone. Though it could be-"
"If there was a `gate here, we'll find evidence of it," Kavanagh cut him off.
"Listen up." John raised his voice to make sure they all heard. They had gone over this with the new kids before leaving, but he wanted to emphasize the point. "Everybody remember the rules. Especially the one about not going anywhere alone. Stay in sight of me, Ford, or Teyla at all times. If you see something interesting in another room and need to take a closer look, tell one of us and we'll come with you. At the moment we have plenty of time, and there's no point in not practicing safe science."
"He means," Rodney added, digging through his vest pockets distractedly, "Don't do anything stupid and get killed. This is an alien planet, possibly filled with things that will try to eat you. Listen to the man who had a giant bug attached to his neck, he knows."
John rolled his eyes. I am never living the giant bug thing down. He asked Rodney, "Can you not bring that up every time we go out with new people?"
Rodney already had a power bar unwrapped and shoved into his mouth. He said around it, "It makes an excellent object lesson."
"We know what he means, McKay," Kavanagh snarled and started toward the nearest pile of debris.
Leaving Ford on guard in the central chamber, John and Teyla did a brief survey of the dozen or so connecting rooms. Their flashlights revealed nothing but more shattered glass and twisted metal, bits of the crystalline material the Ancients had used for their circuitry and wiring, the remains of incomprehensible machines, melted lumps of plastic-like substances and ceramics. Everything was so wrecked, John suspected that it wasn't just the random destruction of a bombing and a surface battle. It looked methodical and deliberate, as if someone had been careful to destroy every working console, to leave nothing intact. "The Wraith must have been very angry at this place," Teyla commented, sounding sober and a little regretful.
"We don't know it was the Wraith." John flicked a look at her, but it was too dark to read her expression. He was glad to hear she thought the destruction was unusual too, that it wasn't just his imagination. "But yeah, whoever it was definitely had anger issues."
They came back through the center chamber to find Ford keeping a wary eye out, Kolesnikova and Corrigan hard at work, and McKay and Kavanagh having a loud emphatic discussion that was probably another one of Kavanagh's attempts to challenge McKay's position as alpha male of the science team. John trusted one of the others to break it up if it progressed to the hitting stage. He decided to risk a set of wide stone stairs that still seemed stable and do a quick sweep of the upper galleries.
There was no sign that anything alive had been in here fo
r decades, despite the open access through the doorway and the broken skylights. Up on these levels, an undisturbed layer of dirt and dust coated nearly every surface, made thick and corrosive by the moisture and salt in the air. There wasn't even anything like bird or rat droppings, no spider webs or other signs of insect life. The local fauna seemed to be carefully avoiding this place. It was quiet, except for his and Teyla's footsteps and an occasional exclamation or clatter from below. Creepy, John thought, and felt glad to rejoin the others on the main level.
Once they were back down in the center chamber, Teyla moved off to tell Ford they hadn't found anything, and John went over to Rodney.
He was crouched down, already half-buried in the center control station near the giant organ-pipe-tubes, taking what was left of it apart. John knew he was trying to get some idea of what the connections to the power system were like, hoping for a clue to where a ZPM might be hiding. McKay was also assembling a little pile of useful spare parts to drag back home to Atlantis.
"Hey, you think this damage looks deliberate?" John asked him.
Rodney snapped automatically, "If I look busy it's because I am!" Then John's question must have penetrated, because he pulled his head out of the console to stare up at him. "What, you think it was accidental? Somebody tripped and accidentally pushed the `bomb our own city back to the stone age' button?"
"No, no, I do not." John held onto his patience. "I mean, like somebody came through here with a crowbar or the high-tech equivalent and made sure nobody would ever be able to use any of this stuff again."
McKay sat back on his heels, poking into his pack for another tool. "Wrecking whatever human technology they can find still intact is probably standard operating procedure for the Wraith, Major. What are you getting at?"
"I know, but this looks different." John gestured helplessly, giving up. He didn't know what he meant.
He left Rodney to get on with it and paced, trying to keep an eye on everybody, feeling a little like a hen with too many chicks. The back of his neck kept itching, but he didn't see how anybody or anything could be watching them. Ford was helping Kolesnikova shift some twisted pieces of metal to get to the crystals and circuits underneath, Corrigan was making notes on his PDA, and Teyla stood across the big chamber, watching the corridors that led off into unlit areas. She didn't look like she was having a great time, but it wasn't like she wouldn't have mentioned it if she started sensing Wraith. And- Where the hell is Kavanagh?
Gritting his teeth, John keyed his radio on and said into the headset, "Dr. Kavanagh, come in, please."
He heard a distant crackle from the headset, then nothing. Crap. "Kavanagh, come in."
McKay looked up, frowning. "What? What's wrong?"
Frustrated, John took a moment to say, "Rodney, is your name Kavanagh? Then shut up." The others had heard him on the radio and were starting to look around. He called, "Teyla, Ford, did you see where Kavanagh went?"
Ford started across the chamber. "He was right over there, sir, looking at the stuff over in that back- There he is."
Kavanagh was coming out of the shadowy passage to a side room, his face distracted. John waved Ford off, crossing over to say pointedly, "Uh, Dr. Kavanagh, why didn't you answer your radio?"
Kavanagh looked up, startled. "Did you call me? I didn't hear it." He fumbled his headset off. "It was working earlier."
"Yeah, I know." John looked past Kavanagh. The passage the man had come out of led to a room with side areas sectioned off by empty metal panels that had probably once held colored glass. The only thing interesting about it was a round swirly design in the floor. John was pretty sure Corrigan had already filmed anything in here that looked like a decoration or a symbol. "Look, you need to stay in sight at all times. I know this place seems safe-"
Kavanagh blinked, his glasses reflecting the dim light. "Sorry. I was only gone a moment. I thought I heard something, but it must have been my imagination."
John let out his breath. He had cleared that room himself earlier, something Kavanagh probably knew and was refraining from pointing out. "Right. Just ...be careful about that."
John sent Ford back to the jumper to get another headset for Kavanagh. When that was taken care of and everyone had gone back to work, Ford pulled John aside to say, "Sorry I lost him, sir. I'm used to keeping an eye on Dr. McKay, and Dr. Kavanagh moves faster than he does."
Rodney, who had a preternatural ability to know when people were talking about him, popped out from under a wrecked console and glared at them.
"It's okay," John told Ford. "Just stay sharp."
Everyone kept working and they expanded their explorations, making their way across much of the ground floor, with cautious forays up into the more stable upper levels. Corrigan confirmed that some of those levels had unfinished sections, where construction had stopped at some point before the bombing had occurred. After a couple of hours they took a break, going back out to the plaza to let the scientists regroup and to refill water bottles and pass out MREs. The day was still warm and pleasant, and they sat down on the steps up to the repository's outer door. It was a good spot, allowing a view of the beach and the sea, and the distant Stargate.
As they ate, the dust from knocking around inside the ruin was making everybody sniffle, even John, who didn't normally have allergies. He felt it was probably because he had gotten too used to Atlantis, with its automatic cleaning systems and fresh air.
Poking at her MRE thoughtfully, Kolesnikova said, "Have you boys got any idea yet what this place was for? It can't be simply a repository. They had more equipment in that one room than in the operations tower at Atlantis, systems that must have supported weapons, communications. Yet the `gate is well outside the complex. This looks very much like a support or control center for something, but for what?"
Kavanagh's brow furrowed. "I'm finding a great deal of monitoring systems, possibly meant for the unfinished upper levels of the towers, though with so much damage it's hard to tell." He seemed uncharacteristically hesitant, especially for a man who regularly got in Elizabeth Weir's face about how she was running the expedition and who had nearly as practiced a turn for tearing people's heads off as Rodney. "I think this facility was meant to include a hospital."
"Abandoned hospitals are inherently creepy," John said. Teyla lifted a puzzled brow, Ford nodded emphatically, and McKay looked at him as though he wanted to ask if John had forgotten to take his lithium or something. Everyone else was too busy considering Kavanagh's suggestion to notice John's comment.
"Atlantis wouldn't need an offsite hospital for its own inhabitants, of course," Kolesnikova said slowly, thinking it over. "But if they meant this to be a meeting place for many cultures-and that large space in the unfinished section certainly seemed intended to be an auditorium-a hospital may have been part of the services provided. Or if this world is perhaps inhabited-or was inhabited-by another human culture..."
"We didn't pick up any communications from the puddlejumper, and neither did the MALP," Corrigan pointed out. "But if the people of this world have been bombed back to primitive conditions by the Wraith, they might not have recovered enough to have radio traffic yet."
McKay eyed Kavanagh narrowly but didn't comment on the hospital theory. The word John had gotten earlier from Ford was that Kavanagh had found some intact control crystals in one of the pieces of equipment near the center shaft and that McKay hadn't found any; McKay was undoubtedly still constructing his game plan for getting them away from the other scientist. McKay asked Corrigan, "You still think this place is Ancient?"
Everybody stared, even Boerne and Kinjo, who had been having a separate conversation about city duty shifts. Corrigan frowned doubtfully, as if he suspected McKay of setting him up for something. "The writing on the consoles is Ancient, and so is the design of the equipment. The building itself resembles Heliopolis. But..." He shrugged, looking around again.
"It doesn't look like Atlantis, at least from inside that main control area,"
Ford said, glancing at the big doors behind them. "Even in the technical areas, Atlantis is made to look pretty. This is all just mostly functional."
"I agree," Teyla said. She had finished her meal first because McKay had talked her out of the brownie and was neatly tucking the remnants back into their foil bag. "This place does not have the same..." She hesitated, looking thoughtful. "The same feel as Atlantis. I do not think the Ancestors were here for very long."
"Well, part of that could be because the structure is unfinished," Corrigan told her, "But that triangular archway, the way the walls are put together, the colored material in those skylights-those are Atlantean design. It could be another branch of Ancient culture-"
McKay shook his head. "I doubt that. The technology that created that equipment was inferior. It isn't integrated with the building's superstructure in the same way the Ancients would do it. A lot of it was added after construction. And Irina's right, there's too much of it for just a repository and meeting area-far more than was recorded in even the brief examination of the original Heliopolis conducted by SG-1." He sniffed, possibly in disdain, possibly from the dust. "I think this place was taken over before it was completed by scavengers who had access to Ancient technology."
Kavanagh looked annoyed. "What kind of evidence have you seen for that?"
Kolesnikova shook her head. "I don't think we've seen enough to make that call. Why would a culture advanced enough to understand and use this technology need to scavenge?"
"What do you think, Major?" Ford asked.
"It's sort of Atlantean. And sort of not," John admitted.
"Oh, that's helpful." Rodney snorted. "I'm glad we have a consensus." He leaned toward the spaghetti MRE John had been picking at. "Are you going to finish that?"
"Yes." John shifted it out of range.
They finished up, everybody packing the remains of the meal away into the trash container on the jumper, to be taken back to Atlantis for recycling. This was part environmental policy, part safety; it would be dangerous to leave indications of their recent presence to any Wraith that might come sniffing around after them. John always found the practice a little depressing; it made him feel like the rabbits in Watership Down, trying to keep from luring foxes to their burrow, helpless to defend themselves against a stronger enemy. War and Peace had its share of issues, but he was glad he had brought it to Atlantis instead.
