Entanglement

by Martha Wells

  ENTANGLEMENT

  The jumper spun sideways and then end over end. The inertial dampeners didn't go out, but the view flipped crazily in the port, the ground changing places with the sky. John heard the collective gasp, but the rumble was already dying away. He felt the yoke ease up and brought them smoothly out of the spin, taking them up and away into the upper atmosphere.

  John let his breath out, feeling sweat break out all over his body. He looked back at the others. Teyla was gripping the arms of her chair, Rodney's hands had left permanent dents in John's shoulders, Zelenka looked faint and was holding hands with a very pale Miko. Ronon just looked impressed, but he was gripping the hatchway tightly. John said, "Everybody okay?"

  "We were upside down," Zelenka said weakly. Miko patted his arm.

  "I think we are well." Teyla looked up at Rodney, her brow furrowed in concern. "What was that?"

  John twisted around to see that Rodney's face was white with shock. Rodney's throat worked and he said, "It's unstable. That sensor spike, right before the blast-

  "It's not a Stargate."

  Miko stared at him blankly, then gasped in horror. Zelenka took a sharp breath, shaking his head, saying, "No, no, Rodney, it cannot be."

  ENTANGLEMENT

  MARTHA WELLS

  CHAPTER ONE

  ohn Sheppard lowered the binoculars. Even now that he had had a few days to get used to it, this view was still incredible.

  They were on a moon that orbited a gas giant, and the shape of the huge planet was always visible in the sky, banded with the red-brown clouds of perpetual storms. It made a brilliant backdrop for the Ancient ruined city spread across the plateau.

  The city went on for miles, a roofless maze of tumbled walls and pillars of indigo stone, with interconnected rooms, halls, dry fountains and pools, open courts. It stood above a barren desert plain, and the strong cool wind carried sheets of dust that washed up against the city's walls in continual waves. It was alien and exotic and beautiful; everything that made stepping through a Stargate worthwhile. John said wearily, "There's got to be something here besides rocks."

  "No. No, there really doesn't." Rodney McKay climbed up the last few steps to join him on the terrace, looking over the acres of rubble-filled ruins with a grimace. "Rather like Charlie Brown at Halloween," he added sourly, folding his arms.

  John let his breath out, resigned. "Did you figure out what-"

  "No."

  "Why the readings were-"

  "No."

  "Or the-"

  "No."

  John stared at him, depending on his sunglasses to convey the full depth of the extent to which he really wasn't in the mood. Rodney, impervious to hints, demanded, "What?"

  John tucked the binoculars back into the pocket of his tac vest deliberately, and did not push Rodney off the platform. It hadn't been a good day, or a good six days. One of the most promising Ancient sites they had found in the entire time the expedition had been in the Pegasus Galaxy was turning out to be a huge dud. Maybe the biggest dud since that intriguing room on the twentieth level of the southeast tower ofAtlantis had turned out to be for making fruit ripen really fast and not recharging the Zero Point Modules. The only saving grace was that nothing here had tried to kill them yet.

  The Stargate address had come out of the Ancient database in Atlantis, and the view of the ruined city on the MALP's fuzzy camera had made the entire science team dizzy with excitement. John's `gate team had done a survey by jumper a week ago, and the extent of the ruins and the energy signatures Rodney had been able to pick up had seemed to confirm that this was a spectacular find. John had thought they had hit the jackpot here, that they were going to turn up more Ancient tech than they knew what to do with and maybe even a second ZPM. The first one that the relief mission from Earth had brought had saved their asses, allowing them to raise the city's shields and defend against a hiveship fleet, but it had to be used sparingly.

  Since then, the team's enthusiasm level had dropped drastically. The energy readings that had seemed so encouraging at first just became scattered and erratic the further they got into the ruins. Even bringing in a team of archeologists and more Ancient technology experts from Rodney's lab hadn't helped. The extra personnel had come up with various ways to boost the sensors and made elaborate attempts to triangulate the source of the energy, all with no luck.

  Rodney squinted up at the planet filling the sky, the big red swirling cloud of a storm dominating it now. "We're coming up on the eclipse," he pointed out.

  John took a last look around at the empty city. "I know." He started down the battered stone steps that wound down through this square tower. Technically it was night right now; this side of the moon had a night phase when its orbit took it between the gas giant and the sun, but due to the reflected light from the planet, it wasn't so much dark as slightly overcast. The only time it actually got dark was when the moon's rotation took it around the far side of the planet, and John needed to finish his check of their security points and patrols before then.

  The steps wound down a central column to the ground level, to the walkways between the crumbled structures. A ruined city of this size, with its narrow streets and overhanging structures, should have felt oppressive. But the gas giant provided a constant ever-changing show, and the translucent quality of the blue stone brought light down to even these lowest levels.

  They hadn't found any signs of recent human habitation here, which at least meant that the Wraith were unlikely to visit this moon any time soon. That was important right now, and not just in the usual sense of not being eaten; the Wraith currently believed that Atlantis had destroyed itself in a nuclear blast and the expedition had to keep it that way.

  In the open court at the bottom of the steps, they met Teyla, who was walking her patrol circuit. "Any trouble?" John asked dutifully.

  Teyla tended to take most situations with trademark Athosian equanimity, but from the tired edge to her expression, John could tell she was bored out of her skull, too. She said wearily, "At lunch there was a small altercation over rations among Dr. Chandar's technical assistants."

  Rodney snorted. "Spoiled bastards. I did without coffee for six months last year."

  John gave him a look. "We know. We were there." He asked Teyla, "What rations?"

  "The packages of snack cakes. Apparently there are only a small number left, and Petersen was accused of taking two. They would not stop arguing, so I took the disputed package and ate it myself. I confiscated the remainder from the supplies and concealed them under the emergency medical kit in Jumper One. Dr. Beckett assisted me so I gave him several." She frowned a little. "I fear now that extreme annoyance led me to overreact."

  John regarded her solemnly. "Did you punch anybody?" He thought in her position he would possibly have punched somebody.

  Teyla shook her head regretfully. "I did not."

  "Then you're fine." And Jumper One was full of the confiscated goods, so he figured there wasn't a downside.

  Teyla accepted that with a nod. She looked at Rodney, hesitated, and added, "I don't suppose you have found-"

  "No, we haven't found a damn thing!" Rodney snarled, teeth gritted. He turned abruptly, heading up the street.

  John lifted a brow, watching him stalk away. "I think he's starting to take this personally."

  Teyla's mouth quirked. "And we are surprised by that?"

  "Not really," John admitted.

  Teyla continued her patrol. John didn't have anything better to do for the next few minutes since he had his security check routine timed to the last second by now, so he followed Rodney.

  The big building at the end of the street was mostly intact, with a few soaring spires still stretching toward the sky. The entranceway with triple arc
hways and heavy doors still in place had been a tempting distraction, until they discovered that there was nothing inside except dust. Pulling his sunglasses off, John caught up with Rodney at the little archway to one side and the steps that led down.

  The stairs were wide and spiraled down around a central column, and were lit by an array of battery lamps. They led to a mostly open room, with empty corridors leading off from each wall. Like everything else here, it was made of the smooth blue stone, glossy and reflective where it wasn't marred by cracks or gouges where Ancient equipment had been removed when the city was abandoned. In the center was pretty much the only thing they had found so far: a circular bank of consoles set into stone pedestals. There were side panels that opened to reveal a confusing mass of crystal and clear conduit, the usual materials that the Ancients used. Right now it was hooked up to half a dozen laptops, and a large collection of portable and not-so-portable monitoring equipment.

  On the third day of the mission, when they had tracked the intermittent power signatures to this room, Rodney and the other members of the Ancient Technology team had gone nuts, certain it was a major find. But the three members of the archeology team hadn't been enthusiastic. "It is either very, very dangerous or very, very useless," Dr. Baroukel had said, studying it grimly.

  So far it was the second option all the way.

  Now Radek Zelenka glanced up from an array of laptops spread out on a folding table, wiping sweat off his brow wearily. "Hello, Colonel, Rodney." He waved around at their equipment. "Still nothing."

  Dr. Chandar, tinkering with the connections of one of the laptops, added, "There haven't been any new fluctuations in the signature, so we haven't been able to test the new triangulation method." He was one of the new scientists who had come out on the Daedalus, and this was his first offworld mission. Unlike the science team veterans who had come to Atlantis with the original expedition, the new people had never been through an attack by a hiveship fleet, never seen their friends turned into empty husks by Wraith, never lived for months with the fact that they were out here on their own and might never see Earth again. Even now that the Wraith thought Atlantis had self-destructed, and the Daedalus ran regular support and supply missions between galaxies every few months, this still wasn't a safe mission, and John preferred to go offworld with expedition veterans, people who knew that in their bones. Just because nothing had tried to kill them yet in this apparently empty city on this uninhabited moon, didn't mean it wouldn't happen.

  "Yes, I actually didn't need the word `nothing' translated." Rodney sourly eyed Chandar, the equipment, the chamber, and the scientists and techs studying the monitors. "I wasn't really expecting anything to have changed in the past half hour."

  Miko Kusanagi, young, Asian, with most of her face dominated by coke-bottle glasses, looked up from her laptop, waving shyly at Rodney. "Dr. McKay, I have the new analysis of the readings-"

  "Right, fine, yes." Rodney stamped over to peer at her screen. "Not that I suppose it's any different from the old analysis." This was Dr. Kusanagi's first time offworld, though John wasn't too worried about her survival skills. She had been with the expedition from the beginning, and had survived a year in Rodney's lab, so she had to be much tougher than she looked.

  John wandered over to the Ancient consoles, looking at the crystals set in the smooth metal surfaces. The archeology team had pointed out the places where other devices had been attached, the spots on the floor where they thought other equipment, long since removed, had once stood. "So we still don't have a clue, huh?"

  It was a rhetorical question, but Chandar said earnestly, "I still think it's a monitoring device of some sort." He threw Rodney a wary look. "McKay, I know you and Zelenka do not agree-"

  Zelenka leaned back in his chair, and shrugged amiably. "We would agree perfectly, if we could find some hint of what it could be monitoring."

  Rodney waved a hand in weary resignation. "Yes, if Archeology would get off their collective asses and find something-anything."

  John knew Archeology had to be bitching just as hard about Ancient Tech, but at least they had the courtesy to keep it among themselves. In the interest of fairness and not just to relieve boredom by messing with Rodney, he pointed out, "Archeology wants you to get off your ass and find the location of the power source, so they know where to dig."

  "Yes, thank you, Colonel Obvious, I'm aware of that," Rodney said with acid emphasis, gesturing so sharply he nearly hit Miko in the head. With the ease of long practice, Miko leaned out of the danger zone. "If you have any other earth-shaking revelations-"

  Zelenka interrupted, "But Dr. Corrigan has told me that he now believes most of this installation was dismantled at the same time as the city was abandoned. You would think that the Ancients would also have removed the power source, whatever it was, but-"

  "But something keeps doing that!" Rodney shouted, stabbing an angry finger at the console.

  There wasn't a big light show or anything else impressive, just a faint glow from the crystals and a low bass hum that John could feel in his back teeth. But every laptop in the room went crazy, beeping, flashing, displaying rapidly-scrolling screens of data. Rodney snapped, "Move." Miko scrambled out of the way, and Rodney sat down at her monitor as the others bolted frantically around the room.

  Used to this by now, John smothered a yawn and checked his watch. During the eclipse they shut down operations everywhere but here, since the Mystery Power Source Room needed constant attention in case it did something explicable. "Rodney, you coming or staying?"

  Rodney waved a hand vaguely, and John correctly interpreted that as a dismissal.

  John finished his pre-eclipse security check, and in the wider passage that led to the Stargate platform, he ran into Carson Beckett and a couple of the Marines assigned to help him. All three men were covered with dust and blue smudges, and they smelled a little like rotting lettuce. The two Marines looked sour and Beckett looked blissfully happy. "How's it going?" John asked him. "Find some good fungi?"

  "Aye, we've been very successful," Beckett said, contentedly patting the specimen case slung over his shoulder. "There's a lovely new species under that big slab Archeology is digging out."

  Beckett was the only one happy with this moon. The Ancient database had hinted that there were some species of fungi here that had been used to make some of the medicines mentioned in the Ancient medical records, and apparently it had been right. Beckett checked his watch, adding, "They've found what might be a sewer entrance a couple of streets over. I'm going to take a look down there first thing after the eclipse."

  "Great." The two Marines looked a little desperate, and John made a mental note to switch them out and let somebody else have a turn.

  They parted ways and John headed up the passage, climbing the smooth steps to the Stargate platform.

  The `gate stood on a flat-topped pyramid in the exact center of the ruins. It had the best vantage point in the city, with a good view of the only open ground with enough space to land the puddlejumpers, a large roofless enclosure nearly the size of a football field that might once have been an arena or theater.

  The naquadah ring of the Stargate gleamed faintly in the reflected light from the gas giant. Off to one side, out of the path of an initiating wormhole, was the MALP they had first used to test the address. Sitting on the platform and leaning back against the MALP was Ronon Dex.

  "How's it going?" John said, and sat down on the sunwarmed stone.

  Ronon shrugged slightly, apparently having learned by now that that was a question that didn't necessarily need an answer.

  It was helpful that Ronon had volunteered for the most boring guard duty post, but after seven years of being hunted for sport by the Wraith, John got the idea that he found it restful. It wasn't a bad post; it was quiet, the gas giant and its satellites put on a continual show in the sky, people stopped by occasionally, and there were regular breaks for meals and sleep.

  And an Ancient ruin, abandone
d for ten thousand years, was a far cry from a human city destroyed by a Wraith culling, with burned ruins and bomb craters where science centers or weapons emplacements had once stood, desiccated corpses in the streets and recently orphaned children scrounging for food.

  John leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows, tilting his head back to catch the last of the failing sun. "You want to be relieved?"

  Ronon shook his head. It was too dark during the eclipse to make this post practical; they would depend on the life signs detectors and the instruments in the three jumpers for a warning of anything approaching. Instead of taking a break during the dark period, Ronon usually patrolled with the Marines on shift, making a circuit around the camp.

  They sat there in silence for a time, then Ronon stirred a little and asked, "They find out why the Ancestors put this here yet?"

  "Nope."

  Ronon nodded, unsurprised. "Think they will?"

  John started to give him the same answer, but he had a weird feeling, so he just said, "You never can tell."

  John was used to scientists having conversations while he was trying to sleep. On missions that required long hours in the jumpers or camping on alien planets, it was impossible to avoid. Unfamiliar noises would wake him instantly and have him reaching for his pistol, but familiar voices didn't disturb him, and if they did, the conversations were usually easy to tune out. In this camp site, where the scientists were sleeping in the jumpers and John, Teyla, and the off-duty Marines had put their sleeping bags near the open ramps, it was unavoidable. This particular conversation seemed to be about energy signatures, and distances, and triangulation, but it also seemed to be taking place at very close range. Unusually close range. John opened his eyes to see Rodney and Zelenka in the faint light from the dimmed battery lamp. They were crouched over him on opposite sides of his sleeping bag.

  Zelenka was saying intently, "-if the source is intermittent, and the calculations are correct-"

  "Of course the calculations are correct!" Rodney broke in. "This could explain-"