Chapter Seven
Saul led them down the wide main stairway into another hall on the level directly below. It was equally run down. He stopped at the end of the corridor, pressed his hand into an intricately carved bit of masonry, and a crack opened in the wall. It widened slowly and they all waited to see what it would reveal.
“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Sheppard said, glancing up and down the hall, “you guys could use a good housekeeper.”
Saul smiled. “You’ll find the lower levels better tended,” he said. “When the Wraith threatened, we managed to fight them off — but we found it simpler to allow them to believe we’d been wiped out than to make ourselves a target for repeat attacks. We retreated to the lower levels and we left the main floors and the outer grounds untouched. We had sufficient shielding to prevent detection from long range scans, and the appearance of the planet’s surface acted as a shield against visual searches. A very simple ploy, I know, but it has served us well.”
“Oh really?” Rodney said. “That’s interesting, because I had no trouble detecting your power signatures, or your life signs. If I can tell you’re here, what’s to prevent the Wraith?”
“We’ve turned the shields off,” Saul said with a smile. “We no longer fear the Wraith, or any other form of attack.”
“Why not?” Ronon said. “Wraith are active again. Didn’t you know that?”
“Yes, of course we do, and I’ll be happy to explain what has changed for us in good time,” Saul replied. “But first, please, allow me to offer a proper welcome. You are our guests. There will be plenty of time for talk.”
He stepped through the opening in the wall into a lift beyond. Sheppard looked at the others, shrugged, and followed. One by one, they stepped in, and when the last of them had crossed the threshold, the opening in the wall closed cleanly behind them, cutting them off from the dead, vacant halls beyond.
Rodney wasn’t willing to give up on his inquiries so soon, or to be distracted by a welcome to the city. He was still studying readouts on his computer screen, and he pushed forward so that he walked closely beside Saul.
“The city,” Rodney said. “It has a star drive?”
“It does,” Saul agreed. “How did you know that? Were you able to detect it as well?”
“We’ve come from the city of Atlantis,” Sheppard replied. “Admah is very… similar.”
“Almost identical,” Saul said. “Two cities with incredibly similar architecture and technology, but so different in other ways. Some used to call them the light and the dark. But I’d heard Atlantis was abandoned, sunken beneath the waves and forgotten?”
“The rumors of her demise were, exaggerated,” Sheppard said. “Atlantis is very much active and inhabited.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Saul said. “I never expected anyone from that city to visit us again. It is an honor.”
Teyla eyed him speculatively, eyes slightly narrowed. “Which were you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said they referred to Admah and Atlantis as ‘the dark and the light.’ Which were you?”
“That would depend on who you asked, I suppose,” Saul smiled.
When the lift doors opened, they stepped into another corridor. This one was clean and cheerful. There were colorful lights running along the ceiling and the floor was polished stone. The walls were lined with tapestries and, in stark contrast to the corridors of Atlantis, each doorway was ornate.
“Welcome to the real Admah,” Saul said.
The team stood in the center of the corridor, turned in a circle, and stared. Ronon walked over to one wall and examined something more closely.
Sheppard followed him, and then turned back to Saul. “We saw a lot of these on the upper floor. This one seems newer, though. They’re advertisements?”
The poster showed a beast with the head of a great cat and the body of something similar to a horse. Its fangs dripped saliva and its eyes gleamed as if lit from within. It was squared off against a tall, slender warrior with long blonde hair and a spear twice his own height. The spear had some sort of sphere midway down its shaft. The sphere glowed, and the man’s hand disappeared into its center.
“We’ve been here in this city for a very long time,” Saul said. “We’ve found ways to amuse ourselves. Entertainments, we call them. The problem with entertainment in any form is that they are limited unless you change either the milieu, or the stakes. Variety is the key. We have become quite adept at changing things up and avoiding boredom.”
“But what is this thing?” Cumby said, stepping up beside Ronon. “This creature? It can’t be real? I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You never will,” Saul replied cryptically. “It was one of a kind. If you like, I’ll tell you about it later on, but for now, if you will all follow me, I’d like to introduce you to some of the other citizens of Admah.”
“I’d like to get back out to the gate and get a report through to Atlantis,” Sheppard said.
“First, I must insist that you come with me,” Saul said. “I’ll arrange to have one of your people taken to the surface later — they can establish contact and set your people’s mind at ease. Will that be acceptable?”
He smiled at Sheppard, but there was something odd in the expression. They all caught it, but managed not to react, though Ronon glared at him openly. Teyla looked perplexed, Rodney turned from Saul, to Sheppard, and back to Saul.
“Alright,” Sheppard said at last. “Let’s go. It will have to be soon, though,” he added. “Commander Woolsey directed us to report in every three to four hours. If we don’t make contact, he won’t wait long before sending another team.”
Saul smiled and led them on down the hall. Ronon dropped back beside Sheppard. “I don’t like this,” he said.
“I don’t either, but we don’t have much time to find out what we need to know. If we return to the surface now…”
Ronon met Sheppard’s gaze and held it, then nodded. They passed by a number of the colorful posters. There were more warriors and more creatures, some familiar, others incredible, and still others that appeared to be amalgams of creatures they knew — sometimes mixed with those they didn’t. Rodney studied the images, scanning a few as he passed, and then hurrying to catch up.
“What do you think they are?” Cumby asked Rodney, his voice low. “Surely they aren’t images of actual creatures.”
“I don’t know,” Rodney admitted. “I’ve tried to scan farther out to see if I can locate any other life signs, but the signal seems to be dampened. The range of what I can reach is limited.”
“Have you analyzed the signal dampeners?”
Rodney turned, irritated. “How would you suggest I go about that? Let’s see, I use a signal to analyze it, but…oh! It’s dampened. Of course I’m trying to analyze it.”
Cumby frowned. It wasn’t an expression of irritation, he was thinking.
“What?” Rodney snapped.
“I’m remembering something. Almost everything I’ve learned as an adult is crystal clear…eerily so, I suppose. Things I saw and read when I was younger are still there, but it’s like the data is running in the background.”
Ahead, Saul had opened a door on the right side of the hallway. Light and sound spilled out of it. Cumby looked almost frantic and Rodney hung back, waiting.
“What’s not there!” Cumby said, snapping his fingers in relief. “Instead of trying to find what is available and what is there — scan for signals and think about what should be there. It’s an old game I learned as a boy. To find something that is there, you remove all of the things you expect to be there first. Whatever is left, that’s what’s different. I don’t know if it will help, but…”
Rodney was already walking, following Saul, Sheppard, and the others. Cumby followed after quickly. “Rodney,” he called. “Dr. McKay?”
The group disappeared through the doorway and Cumby scuttled to catch up. He entered the room jus
t as the door closed behind them.
Chapter Eight
“Mr. Woolsey?”
Woolsey glanced up from his desk to find Zelenka standing in the doorway, a tablet computer in one hand.
“Yes,” Woolsey said. “What is it?”
“It’s the gate, sir,” Zelenka replied. “We’ve been trying to open it to receive Colonel Sheppard’s SITREP as you requested. It won’t open. We’ve tried everything, and we’ve been unable to reopen it, despite the fact we know the proper address. We haven’t heard from the team since their departure, and now we’re completely cut off. We had one short message from Colonel Sheppard right after they passed through the gate, but since then, nothing.”
“If they attempt to report in, and that attempt fails, they should return to the gate, open it, and re-establish communications.”
“I know sir. It’s not like the Colonel to miss a report — but he’s already half an hour late.”
Woolsey sat and forced himself to count to ten as he thought. His first instinct was to try and force the gate open and send another team through to be certain nothing had gone wrong. It wasn’t the first time that Colonel Sheppard or the members of his team had failed to act in strict accordance with regulations, and he didn’t want to appear to have a knee-jerk reaction every time it happened. He also didn’t want to fail to act if they were in trouble, and the irony of the moment wasn’t lost on him.
His own philosophy was one of strict adherence to protocol. He’d come to Atlantis with a very straight-forward, no nonsense attitude toward command, but over time he’d learned that there could be more than one set of rules. Time and again, when strict adherence to regulations would have ended in disaster, death, or worse, his people had come through in startling and spectacular ways that he himself could never have conceived. It wasn’t easy, but he’d brought himself, and them, to a sort of compromise.
“We’ll give them a couple more hours before we panic,” he said. “But I want a full crew working on getting that gate opened again, and I want a second team on alert to be ready at a moment’s notice. Get Major Lorne to handle it.” He paused, then added, “And see if we can dig up anything else on Admah. I’m beginning to dislike this situation.”
He turned back to his work. Zelenka stood in the doorway a moment longer, as if he might say something further, such as reminding the Commander that he wasn’t an errand boy. Woolsey kept his gaze firmly fixed on the paperwork he was processing, and eventually Zelenka took the hint.
When the doorway was empty, he glanced up and stared thoughtfully into the blank space for a few moments, then returned to his reports.
* * *
Major Lorne gathered a second team in a ready room just off the main control area. They spent their time inventorying equipment cases, checking their weapons, and chatting quietly. No one showed any particular concern, but the tension in the air was thick. The longer they went without word from Colonel Sheppard, the thicker it grew.
Zelenka had his own team gathered around a group of computer consoles. They had several screens open at once. One scanned for any type of radio or communication signal from the gate, concentrating primarily on weeding out static from the last moments the gate had been open to see if something had been missed. The rest of the personnel were divided between those running a variety of searches on the exhaustive data in Atlantis’ databases, seeking any mention of Admah — good or bad — and a frantic team trying to open the gate back to the city. Very little had surfaced, and what they’d found was open in yet another window being translated.
“Here’s something,” said a young woman, Doctor Quint, tapping the screen.
Zelenka leaned closer. “What is it?”
“It’s another of the same sort of isolated reports we’ve been finding,” Quint replied. “Travelers visited Admah, and they never returned. The translation isn’t complete, but in this report it says that there was a malfunction with the gate itself. They were unable to send anyone through to search. It’s just like now, isn’t it? They continued to try for some time, but they never managed to reopen the gate to Admah. Their people were never heard from again.”
“I think we just discovered the meaning of that warning we ignored,” Zelenka said, feeling his heart sink. “Keep searching. There has to be someone who took the time to study this. I can’t believe they lost an entire group of their own people and all it received was a simple warning label.”
Quint went back to her computer screen and Zelenka turned toward the gate. He thought about Rodney, on the other side of that portal. The two men were at each other’s throats constantly, Rodney going on about how much smarter he was than the rest of the universe, and Zelenka trying to ignore him. He never argued the exact point, because it was very likely true. Arrogant, socially inept, and rude, Rodney was possibly the most brilliant man Zelenka had ever encountered. Still, no amount of intelligence granted the right to lord it over others, and there was a certain lack of common sense that accompanied Rodney’s brilliance — evidenced in actions like the one that had erased the warning about the Admah Gate — that grated on Zelenka’s nerves.
The missions rarely fell to Zelenka. Rodney had more experience, but that came in many cases from greater courage. Zelenka had signed on as a scientist, not an adventurer. He preferred to remain in the lab and provide support. Rodney plowed into things at full speed and, more often than not, his presence was crucial to a mission’s success. Zelenka felt a certain amount of personal guilt connected with the role he’d chosen, and with his reluctance to take the plunge into adventure. At times like this, he felt that guilt most strongly.
“Where are you Rodney?”
The gate, and the radios, held their silence.
Chapter Nine
The room they entered was chaotic. Rather than the bright even lighting they were used to in Atlantis, lanterns and strings of track lighting broke the huge room into smaller areas, making it look like some sort of weird alien bazaar. They stopped in a foyer, separated from the main room by beaded curtains that glittered like droplets of water in the low, flickering light. There was something overwhelming about the sights, scents, and sounds that assaulted them, and none of them was in a hurry to cross the threshold.
Saul smiled at them as they took it all in — or attempted to. “What do you think?” he said. “Am I correct in guessing it is somewhat different to Atlantis?”
Rodney glanced down at his scanner, frowned, and then turned to Saul. “You do know that your moon — uh, city — has jumped out of orbit?” he said. “Unless my calculations are wrong, in fact, and they never are — or almost never — you have less than a week before the sun is too close to allow for any means of escape, even assuming the city has an operational star drive.”
“You don’t waste any time on pleasantries, do you?” Saul said with a chuckle. “If it eases your mind in any way, we are well aware. We’ve had a lot of time to work on the star drives. If memory serves, your city sank beneath the waves…many years ago. We have been here all along, and though we choose to spend a great deal of our time entertaining ourselves, we have not been completely idle in scientific advance. Some might say we’ve been here a bit too long. You seem to forget, Dr. McKay, that while you have a working knowledge of the star drive, my people built it. And we have made modifications. By embedding anchors into the bedrock of the planet’s surface, we’ve merged the city and the moon. Modifications to the star drive have enabled us to — ”
“Fly the entire thing as if it was a starship,” Cumby cut in.
Rodney glared at him, but Saul nodded and smiled. “Exactly. We are able to change the orbit of the planet itself — even to fly it to a new location, or remove it from orbit completely. We could explore the galaxy.”
“Yes, very Space 1999.” When Saul looked perplexed, he added, “So you decided to test it by driving into the sun?” He made no attempt to hide the sarcasm or the frustration in his voice. “Of all the possible uses for such technology,
you chose mass suicide?”
“There is nothing to be concerned about,” Saul said, waving the comment aside. “You’ll have to trust me when I tell you that we know exactly what we’re doing. Now, come. I want to introduce you to some of the others. It’s been a long time since we had any company and you, Dr. McKay, are putting a damper on the party.”
Saul stepped forward and swept the curtains aside.
The room beyond was much larger than Rodney had first imagined. In fact, it was more a long string of small rooms, segmented off by low walls, architectural constructions of every sort, shape, and variation of light. There were fountains that bubbled with liquid of varying hue, flickering in the corners and along the walls. There were acoustically divided alcoves, and a variety of music floated out from within them, soft and muted so that each melody and harmony blended subtly with those from the other rooms.
To the right, on a slightly raised platform, a woman danced. There was a man seated on a stool beside her, bent over an odd stringed instrument. It vaguely resembled a guitar, but it had three necks. The musician’s hand flowed from one to the next, and by some trick of electronics, or acoustics, the notes from whichever strings he left lingered as he plucked the next into life. The woman wore only the sheerest of gowns, and she danced seductively, her eyes closed and her lips provocatively parted. Those gathered nearby watched, but the musician never looked up.
Straight across from them a group of tables was arranged in a semi-circle. The people gathered around them wore a startling diversity of color and style. One man lounged back in his chair, dressed head to foot in black leather. His hair was a bright, shocking white, and his shoulders were almost as wide as Ronon’s. At his table sat a very slender woman in a long green dress that shimmered in the dim light, a squat, burly man with a beard, and a blond woman dressed in brilliant blue. Her hair was piled on top of her head and tied in place with strings of crystal. None of them seemed quite…natural. It was as if their personas had been donned like clothing, or a disguise — a caricature of decadence.
SGA-15 Brimstone Page 4
