At that thought, she suddenly recalled the fleeting glimpse of the Banshee. She shuddered slightly. Whatever those things were, it seemed unlikely their motives were purely altruistic.
“Did you come alone?” asked Geran. The grim edge in his voice had begun to recede. Perhaps he greeted all new arrivals in such a manner.
“There are more, back in the tunnels,” said Miruva. “We thought it best to explore ahead.”
Geran motioned towards two of his companions, and they silently melted into the darkness.
“They will retrieve them,” he said. “You needn’t fear us: we are Forgotten, just like you. All our squabbles have been put aside now — we must look after one another here.”
At that, he looked quizzically at Teyla. “I knew of Miruva before I was taken,” he said. “Of you, though, I have no recollection. Which family are you from?”
Teyla returned his gaze flatly. “I am a traveler,” she said. “Miruva and her people have given me shelter. I am one of them now.”
Geran looked at Miruva, and then back at her. “Strange,” he said, suspicion heavy in his voice. “There have not been travelers on Khost for a generation or more.”
Teyla found herself unwilling to get into a discussion of her origins, and moved to change the subject. “You say you have been here for three years?” she asked. “How do you sustain yourselves? Where do you get your food?”
Geran looked like he might press his earlier question, but then appeared to relent. “We will show you,” he said. “Come with me. If you have any doubt now that this place is indeed the resting place of the dead, you will soon lose it.”
The storm blew over far quicker than Sheppard had feared, and the tearing wind seemed to hurl the clouds across the sky. After a frustrating wait cooped up underground, the whole place became a hive of activity as the inhabitants prepared to make use of the break in the weather. No one knew how long it would last, and the people were clearly determined to restore some sense of equilibrium after the Banshee raid.
Sheppard donned his furs and went to find Rodney. The enforced break had at least allowed them to eat something and prepare for the cold again. The morning was not yet over, though they’d lost precious time.
McKay was waiting for him, sitting on the floor of the corridor near the entrance, adjusting some of his instruments and muttering irritably to himself.
“Hey,” said Sheppard. “Ready to go back out?”
McKay winced, and struggled to his feet. “Oh yes,” he said. “I’ve just managed to defrost the last of my fingers, so it’ll be good to freeze them up again. By the way, were you aware that this place is falling apart?”
“Looks pretty solid to me.”
“Well, I guess that’s the level of observation I’ve come to expect. During my only partially successful attempts to warm up, I logged three tremors. Three. That’s why I came out here. It’s frankly a marvel that I’m alive at all, let alone capable of reactivating the Jumper, fixing the Stargate, locating Teyla and Ronon, getting us out again, and… what’s next? Oh yes, no doubt we’ll be fixing Khost’s climatic model so that none of the little children die. Really, I’m very pleased by how things are going.”
“Keep it together,” warned Sheppard, opening the heavy doors leading out into the wilderness. “I don’t need you going all crazy-eyed on me.”
“Crazy-eyed?”
Sheppard shrugged. “Yeah. You’ve started looking a little… crazy-eyed.”
McKay placed his fingers on his cheek, feeling gently. “You think so? God, that’ll be the cold. I mean, my eyes are my best feature. Apart from my hair. And Jeannie always said I had a cute smile. When she was talking to me, that is…”
Sheppard shook his head and walked out into the snow. One day he’d like to meet McKay’s sister. The woman deserved a medal.
After the latest storm, the ground was swept clean. Any residual footprints near the settlement entrance had been buried. Just as before, the vista before them was magnificent: sweeping arcs of glittering ice interposed with isolated craggy outcrops, all watched by the insipid sky. It was frightening how quickly the scene could change into one of utter desolation.
“Anyway, I was talking about those tremors,” said McKay as they trudged through the snow.
“Don’t get jumpy. We can cope with a little jiggling about.”
“I had time to take a few readings when I was in the Jumper,” said Rodney. “Seismic read-outs. Some basic meteorological scans. Nothing very detailed — nothing was working properly. But I didn’t like what I saw.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like it either?”
“Look, I’m not sure. We’ve not been here long enough. But the shakes we felt when we arrived? They’re getting closer together. And those storms — they’re building up to something.”
“OK, quit beating about the bush. What’re you telling me here?”
McKay shrugged. The gesture was almost entirely absorbed by his thick layers of clothing. “I don’t really know yet,” he said. “I’ll take more readings when I can. But I’ve got to say it: from what I’ve seen, this place is falling apart. The storms, the earth shifting. Something very bad is happening here. It could be coming to a head.”
“Why is it that we seem to arrive places just as everything’s kicking off?” Sheppard sighed.
“Well, in this case, we’ve got the whole nine yards. We already knew about storms, ice-shifting, no power, dead Stargate, missing team. You can add earthquakes to the list now.”
“Great,” said Sheppard, grimacing as the icy wind scoured his exposed skin. “Just great.”
Weir forced her attention back to her paperwork with difficulty. There were things that really needed her attention — there were always things that really needed her attention — but it was hard to concentrate on them when she knew there was a team stranded off-world. Just as her weary eyes started scanning the opening lines of a report on food supply in the Athosian settlement, Zelenka’s voice crackled over the intercom.
“Dr Weir? I think we’ve got something. Do you have time?”
“You bet,” snapped Elizabeth. She flipped the report into her ‘pending’ tray, and made her way quickly down to the Jumper bay.
When she arrived, the place was a mess. Cables connected to various diagnostic instruments trailed all over the floor. One of the Jumpers had been moved into the central area, like a patient on a surgeon’s table. All of its various panels had been opened or removed and Zelenka’s team were crawling over it like blowflies on a wound.
“I see you’ve been busy,” said Weir.
Zelenka looked up and gave her a satisfied smile. His fingers were black with engine oil. Which was odd, because as far as Weir knew, Jumpers didn’t use engine oil.
“We have!” he said. “And I think we’ve done it. If Rodney were here, he’d be proud.”
The Czech scientist wiped his grimy hands and took her around to the rear of the Jumper. Within the exposed bay, the scene was even more chaotic than outside the vessel. Most of the internal panels had been pulled open. The equipment inside them had been taken out, mixed-up, and put back again in various configurations. It all looked extremely confused.
“It’s possible,” he said, gesturing to mass of electronics. “It’s really possible. The power module used to negotiate the long link can be constructed using standard Jumper internals. Presumably, this was a design goal of the original project. We should think of the experiment as a way of boosting the Jumper’s own systems, rather than a replacement for them. So the team should be able to modify their systems, and augment their vessel for the journey home.”
“That’s good, Radek,” said Weir, trying to keep her voice neutral. It was important not to get carried away. “I thought we couldn’t make contact with the gate?”
“Yes, that is still true — at least partly,” Zelenka said. “But it’s progress, nonetheless. Come.”
Weir followed him into the Jumper’s
open bay. “Assembly process for the module isn’t too difficult in itself,” he explained, gesturing to a relatively small set of components connected by a cluster of wires. “The problem is ensuring that the Jumper’s basic systems remain fully functional in the absence of the instruments needed for the power boost. It can be done, but getting the bypass circuitry right is tricky. It’s taken us a while, but we’ve shown it can be done. I’ve run a hundred tests on this Jumper. If we could get it through the gate in one piece, I’ve no doubt that it would be able to travel all the way to Khost.”
Weir pursed her lips, impatient to know more but aware that she had to give Zelenka time to explain his achievement. “Well done, Radek,” she said. “This is good work, but…” It felt cruel to puncture his bubble, but it had to be done. “It doesn’t solve our main problem. We know how to avoid premature materialization, but we still can’t communicate with the team, nor reach them. Unless they somehow stumble on the same conclusion as you, we’re as stuck as we were before.”
At that, Zelenka shook his head. “I’ve been looking at the data from the first journey again,” he said. “What is clear is that the gate at the far end has been damaged, both by our actions and by its environment. We can’t simply fly a second Jumper through the gate to rescue them. The stress of opening a fully-functional wormhole, with all the power demands we’d need, risks irreparable damage being done. However, do you remember when Dr McKay managed to open the intergalactic gate for just a second or two on very low power? When we thought our days on Atlantis were numbered?”
“Of course I do.” How could she forget? “But how does it help us?”
Zelenka walked over to a monitor wired into the cannibalized Jumper bay. He pressed a button and streams of data began scrolling down it. “We’ve managed to put the instructions for enabling the module, plus everything we know about the power systems in the gate route, in a highly compressed data file,” he said. “Sending a Jumper through the Stargate might be impossible, but there’s a chance there’s just enough residual power in the receiving gate to get a short databurst across. Think of it like a ping.”
Weir felt her heart jump. With the schematics available to them, the chances of getting the team home were suddenly looking much better. “What kind of a chance?”
Zelenka looked uneasy. “If everything works as I think it will, McKay will be able to modify his Jumper to make the trip back. If he can find a way to get the Stargate even minimally operational, he’ll be able to break the event horizon at that end. Once inside the wormhole, there’ll be a critical power failure, just as before. That might damage the gate on Dead End even further as it attempts to compensate, but that’s OK, because the Jumper will now have the additional module onboard. It should kick in immediately, giving the craft just enough energy to exit the gate at this end. We’ll have destroyed whatever Stargate technology the Ancients were working on, but at least we’ll have our people back.”
“That’s good enough for me,” said Weir. “We’ve got to take the risk.”
Zelenka nodded. “It’s all ready. Just give the word.”
Weir looked back over the chaotic piles of instruments and equipment. It was hard to imagine anyone being able to assemble a workable module of such complexity from a simple set of instructions, and when she imagined the conditions McKay would have to work in, she shuddered. Zelenka’s plan was a shot in the dark, but it was the only plan on the table and dithering over it would do no one any good.
“You’ve got it,” she said, her voice betraying none of the doubts in her mind. “Let’s go.”
Ronon cast a wary eye over his surroundings. All the hunters now carried the little tallow candles; they burned slowly and with a minimum of smoke, but the light was feeble. The ground was uneven and slick with iron-hard sheets of ice. Even the practiced hunters slipped and fell occasionally; Ronon had been on his backside more than once and his body ached from the sudden impacts. They inched along in the dark, trying to ignore the distant sighs and cracks deep within the ice. It was like being buried alive, with just a glimmer of hope to keep you going.
The network of fissures and caves might lead nowhere and this could very well be their grave.
He put the thought to the back of his mind. That kind of speculation could prove fatal. Instead, he concentrated on Orand’s optimism. The leader of the hunters seemed unperturbed, confident that the warren of narrow subterranean passages would lead to the surface. Even after an hour of painstaking progress, though, they were no nearer to finding an exit. Ronon’s sense of direction had totally abandoned him in the darkness and he hoped that Orand had a better idea of where they were.
Occasionally, a dim blue light filtered down from the ice above and Ronon caught a glimpse of the tiny stalactites encrusting the roof of their strange underground world. The caves were not entirely devoid of life — there were patches of luminous algae on some of the rocks on either side of them — but mostly it was a barren place, shrouded in unremitting darkness and cold.
“How are you doing, big man?” came a whisper from beside him. Orand was there, insubstantial in the shadows.
“No need to worry about me,” said Ronon. “I’d rather be here than in that storm.”
“Some of these systems go on for miles,” Orand said. “But that’s a good thing. The longer we keep going, the more likely we are to find a route back up to the surface. If we’re lucky, the storm will have blown out. If we’re unlucky, we’ll have another trek in the wind. I hope we’re back soon, though — I’m beginning to get hungry.”
The hunter grinned in the dark, and the faint blue light picked out his teeth. Ronon found himself regretting the loss of all that meat, now no doubt frozen solid on the surface. It was unlikely they’d ever see it again.
“Orand!” came a low voice from up ahead. “You should look at this.”
They had entered a slightly larger section of cave and the ceiling rose high above them. One of the hunters crouched next to a dark fissure in the wall.
“What is it, Haruev?” said Orand.
At first glance, it looked little different from the many narrow gaps they had clambered through. But Haruev ran a hand along the edge of the rock. “That’s not natural.” As soon as the man spoke, Ronon saw that he was right. The shape was too regular, too smooth. It looked as if a doorway had been carved into the rock and ice. Even with the candle flames it was difficult to see too much, but there was no mistaking it — the fissure had been manufactured.
Orand stood before the gap for a few moments, thinking. “It must be an abandoned settlement from the old times,” he said eventually. “And if it’s a settlement, then there must be a way out the far end.” He turned to Ronon. “What do you think?”
Ronon shrugged. “Not much choice, I reckon.”
“Agreed. Then we go this way.”
With a slight hesitation, the hunters began to file through the narrow opening, only to be consumed by the darkness beyond. A bobbing line of little flames was the only evidence of their progress on the other side.
“They’re afraid,” Ronon observed. “Of the dark?”
“No,” said Orand, preparing to squeeze himself through the opening. “Of what lives in the dark.”
Saying no more, Orand slipped through the fissure and vanished into the shadow. With a muttered curse, Ronon followed; not for the first time that day, he was glad of the weapon concealed beneath his furs.
Geran led Teyla and Miruva back along the length of the massive hall. His companions fanned out on either side of them, saying nothing. In the dim light, it was certainly possible to imagine them as silent servants of the gods. Even Teyla had to work to keep her imagination from running away with itself. Miruva was more subdued. That was to be expected. To be reunited with colleagues who had been missing for several years was a difficult adjustment, and the bizarre surroundings didn’t make it easier. Teyla resolved to keep her skepticism to herself. There would be plenty of time later to investigate what th
is ‘underworld’ really was.
Traversing the hall took some time. It seemed to go on forever. Rows of pillars marched away into the darkness on either side of them, glinting dully in the half-light. It was gloomy and silent. Teyla wished she had her sidearm with her, despite its lack of effectiveness against the Banshees. Even a dagger would have been something of a comfort.
“This is the Hall of Arrivals,” said Geran as they walked. “At least, that’s what we call it. None amongst us knows why it’s so big, or why it is kept in darkness the whole time. There are some areas where the shadows are absolute. Many think there are hidden rooms leading from the far walls. If so, then we have no business investigating them.”
Teyla found such an attitude disappointing, and made a mental note to come back and have a scout around as soon as she was able. The Forgotten had the unfortunate tendency to accept their fate, which was perhaps the only feature she disliked in their character.
“So the entire… ‘underworld’ is not as dark as this place?” she asked.
“No,” replied Geran. “If it were, we could hardly survive. You asked me about our food supplies. This is the answer you seek.”
They had reached the end of the austere hall. The light had been growing slowly as they walked, and now the oppressive red glow gave way to a more healthy, natural illumination. Ahead of them there was a high doorway. There was no mark on it, and it was made from the same smooth dark substance as the rest of the hall.
As they approached the door, Geran pushed it open. Light flooded in and Teyla had to shield her eyes from the glare. It took a few moments to adjust. When she did, she couldn’t suppress a gasp of wonder. Miruva, standing beside her, looked rapt.
STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End Page 13
