STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End Page 6

  Orand grinned again, clearly skeptical.

  “Good,” he said. “But don’t worry, it’ll warm up once we’re underway. The sun’s strong, and the light on your back will heat you soon enough.”

  Ronon looked up into the washed-out sky, covering his eyes with his palm. If this was strong sunlight, he wondered what weak was. Even though the sky was clear, the light was oddly diffuse. He had traveled on a hundred worlds, and this was the palest light he had ever seen. There was something strangely ineffective about Khost’s sun.

  Orand offered him a weapon. It was a long wooden shaft, tipped with an ornately carved blade. Ronon took it in both hands. It was light, but felt strong and well-made. He hefted it powerfully, noting the way the wood of the shaft flexed.

  “This is a jar’hram,” said Orand, proudly. “My father’s. He no longer joins the hunt so, as our guest, you shall use it.”

  Ronon looked at the young man carefully. “You sure?” As a warrior himself, he knew the importance of an ancestral weapon. He wouldn’t have parted with his own Traveler gun for all the ZPMs in the galaxy.

  Orand studied the blade with a pinched expression. “He has no use for it any more,” he said. “Say no more about it.”

  Ronon nodded. “Thanks.”

  There was a long leather strap attached to the base of the shaft and tethered to the point at which the wood gave way to steel. Seeing how the other hunters were arrayed, Ronon strapped the spear to his back. As he did so, he felt the reassuring weight of his pistol against his thigh, buried in layers of fur. Swords and sticks were all very well, but it was good to know he had a force weapon available if need be.

  “When do we go?” he said, still trying to hide his sensitivity to the cold.

  Orand looked around at the party, fully clad for the conditions and standing expectantly.

  “No time like the present,” he said. “There was a time when my people used to ride across the plains. But the horses couldn’t take the cold and there are none left. Now it’s just us and the Buffalo. That alright with you?”

  The Satedan shrugged. “Sounds ’bout right,” he said. “Let’s get started.”

  Ronon pulled the radio from his furs. “You picking me up, Sheppard?”

  “Loud and clear, Ronon. Stay in contact.”

  Orand gave a signal, and the hunters began to move off towards the wasteland ahead. They didn’t assume any particular formation, but walked easily in ones and twos. Ronon cast a look over his shoulder. The barely-visible entrance to the cave complex was several yards distant. Beyond that was the snowfield where the Jumper had landed, and past that stood the Stargate. It all looked very insubstantial compared to the endless expanse of ice and snow around them.

  “You’ll be able to get us back?” he said to Orand.

  The hunter laughed. “I’ve pursued the White Buffalo on dozens of hunts. I’ve not lost my way yet.”

  Orand was young and fresh-faced, but he had an air of calm confidence about him.

  “Good,” said the Satedan, grimly. “If we get lost out here, I’ll never hear the last of it from McKay.”

  Teyla looked across at Miruva as the young woman stripped dried grass stems into narrow ribbons. The Forgotten worked quickly and surely. Her fingers danced in the firelight, weaving the strands into ever more complicated patterns.

  Teyla appreciated Miruva’s art. Her own people back on Athos had been more used to the skills of farming and craft-making than high technology. Teyla even thought she recognized some of the Forgotten girl’s techniques from her homeworld. Though older members of her village had retained many of the Athosian ancestral skills, and no doubt still did so on Atlantis, she had never had the patience or the time to learn. Hers had always been the way of the warrior, the leader. Perhaps the presence of Wraith DNA in her body had driven her that way, to a rootless existence, trading where possible, fighting where necessary. Now, looking at Miruva contently working, she saw a vision of a different life, one that she might have had. That is, if the Wraith had never existed.

  She shook herself free of her introspection. It did no good to speculate on what might have been.

  Teyla looked around the chamber. It was much like all the other Forgotten dwelling places: clean, basic, well-kept. Even though it was now mid-morning, the torches still burned. They seemed never to be extinguished. Every so often, she saw attendants pour a little more of the mysterious oil into the base of the lamps. When this was done, there was a faint acrid smell, but otherwise the fuel burned with remarkably little residue.

  Aside from the ever-present torches, the room was lit with trapped sunlight filtered down from the sky above. They burned as brightly as any of the synthetic lighting on Atlantis, and did much to relieve the feeling of closeness engendered by the subterranean environment.

  “The sun-traps,” said Teyla to Miruva. “They are artfully made. How did your people construct such things?”

  Miruva sighed. “The secret to making them is lost,” she said. “We have legends amongst us, about the first attempts to carve out a life in the caves. This was in the days when the winters were short. Back then, the secrets of the Ancestors were better known. The tale is told of the master glassmaker, who constructed the shafts of light in the underground places. We benefit from his foresight, but we cannot replicate it.”

  “That is a shame,” Teyla said. “You could make your living quarters more comfortable with more such devices.”

  Miruva put down her weaving and looked at the twinkling points of light herself. “You’re right,” she said, as if considering the possibility for the first time. “But where would we get the glass? We can still delve the tunnels, but many of the materials our people once used have left us. We make use of what we have, repairing what is broken, but we do not create new things.”

  Teyla found this idea disturbing. The galaxy was torn by war and conflict. There was no place for such gentle people, stuck in their ways and reluctant to try new things. If they didn’t find some way of moving forward, they would surely be swept aside. Even if the Wraith didn’t know they were there yet, there was no hiding from them forever.

  “The changing climate has no doubt limited what your people can do,” she said, anxious not to offend. “But are you not concerned that if you stick to your traditions, then you may be at risk? The Tauri are not perfect, but you have seen that they are restlessly curious. Where there is a problem, they try and solve it. That is why they are so strong.”

  Miruva looked puzzled. “The Tauri?” she said. “Is that the name you give to your men?”

  Teyla smiled. It was easy to forget how isolated these people were. “No,” she said. “It is the name of their people, the ones I travel with. And you must put aside the notion that only the menfolk are responsible for our achievements. Our commander is a woman, and I am as much a part of the team as my colleagues.”

  Miruva looked at her with admiration. “It is not like that with us,” she said. “I wish it were. But while our men have the honor of hunting the Buffalo, we have little to do but tend the dwellings and ensure that all is kept in order for their return.”

  “Such things are important, to be sure,” Teyla said. “But you are an intelligent woman, you can see the problems your people face. Can you not help them do something about them? I’ve seen the way Orand looks at you. You have a follower there, at least.”

  Teyla smiled as Miruva blushed deeply. “It’s not that easy. My father…”

  “He seems like a good man,” Teyla said, not wanting to cause a family rift.

  “Oh, he is,” Miruva said, with feeling. “But perhaps age has not been kind to him. My mother was taken many years ago…”

  A note of grief marked her voice, and she trailed into silence. Teyla felt awkward. She had no business interfering. “I am sorry,” she said. “I have been discourteous.”

  “No, you haven’t,” said Miruva. “You’re making me think, Teyla.”

  She looked up at the Athosian,
and her smile returned. Her face was lit by the sunlight coming from above and, despite her slender features, she looked strong and determined. Like all the Forgotten, she clearly possessed resilience.

  “Maybe we should be looking to make changes,” she said. “But for now, there are tapestries to be woven. Let us keep talking. Your ideas will find their ways into the designs, if nothing else.”

  Teyla smiled. “I would like that.”

  It studied the two subjects. One was outside the parameters, and no analysis had yielded any helpful results. The delay had caused problems. There was chatter over the data-streams.

  You are wasting resources. Act.

  It hung, immobile, invisible. Not yet. Information was invaluable. There were fragments, snatches. Some of them reminded it of events a long time ago. Some words were…

  So much had been lost. Something like anger coursed through its cortex. Not real anger, of course. Even when things had been better, they had only been a sham set of emotions. The program couldn’t change that.

  The time was coming. Power levels had fallen again, and the recovery had to commence. With every passing hour, the chatter grew.

  What do I do about the newcomer?

  There was no answer. They didn’t know any more than it did. The days of being able to process creatively were long gone. It was all blind interpretation now. Cold and blind, like the planet itself.

  I have set the sequence in motion.

  That finally shut them up. They would be getting what they wanted.

  It gazed down at the scene, half regretfully. Only a matter of time now. They wouldn’t like it, of course. But it had to do it. It had to come for them.

  It had to perform the cull.

  McKay was cold. Seriously cold. It didn’t seem to matter how many layers of furs he had on, the freezing air took his breath away. He stood in front of the stricken Jumper, slapping his hands together in a vain attempt to keep them warm.

  “Looks pretty bad,” said Sheppard.

  McKay fixed him with his most withering stare. “Well, that’s an astute comment, if ever I heard one,” he said, acidly. “Why don’t you take over the repairs? Perhaps I could hand you a wrench from time to time and make the coffee?”

  “Maybe you should,” Sheppard said, dryly. “Might get this thing fixed a damn sight quicker.”

  The Jumper looked as if it had been through an inferno. The curved sides were blackened and scored. Many of the Ancient-designed patterns on the flanks had been razed from the superstructure. There were several places where it seemed as if explosions or heat had nearly penetrated the shielding. The windscreen, remarkably, had remained relatively unscathed. Clearly, the damage had been done as the Jumper had careered into the edges of the wormhole anomaly. There were no lights working. The vessel lay nose-first in a snowdrift, its cockpit buried deep. Fresh snow from the storm had piled up around the open rear bay, obscuring any footprints from their hasty exit. The door had been frozen in place, leaving the innards of the vessel open to the elements.

  The Stargate had been the same. It looked like had been burned, and badly. There hadn’t been a flicker of life from the chevrons, and some of the inner panels were cracked. That alone was worrying. It was naquadah, for God’s sake. That stuff didn’t crack easy. What was worse, there was no sign of a DHD, nor the MALP. If a dial home device had existed in the past, it sure didn’t now. As for the MALP, there was no telling where it had ended up — probably destroyed, or buried deep in a snowdrift.

  McKay sighed; once again, the entire galaxy had conspired against him.

  “Well, I suppose we’d better make a start,” he said.

  The two men ducked into the Jumper. Soon McKay had pulled out an array of transparent panels. He looked at them in disgust, tutting to himself as he carried out basic diagnostic tests. “Well, this is shot. So’s this. That’s totally zeroed, and I don’t even know what that does.”

  Irritation began to boil inside him. The cold was part of it. Having to exist on a diet of pure meat was another factor. It seemed that whatever situation the team got itself into, it was always he who had to perform the necessary magic to get them out. And yet, who emerged with the plaudits? Most likely Sheppard, or perhaps Weir. Without McKay’s in-depth knowledge of Ancient artifacts and power systems, virtually every mission they had ever been on would have ended in failure. And the few times he got it wrong, such as the unfortunate business on Doranda, were never quite forgotten. It was unjust, and irritating, and constant.

  He sighed, and stomped through the open bulkhead to the cockpit. Sheppard was sitting in the pilot’s seat, aimlessly trying a few controls.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nada. Zilch. This baby’s going nowhere.”

  McKay gave him a wintry smile. “This endless positivity is really helping. Honestly, you should think about becoming a motivational speaker or something. You’d be a blast.”

  “Hey!” Sheppard swung around in the seat and scowled at him. “Just what is it with you this morning? You’ve been even more grouchy than normal, which is saying something.”

  “Grouchy?”

  “You heard me. Grouchy.”

  “Oh, let me see,” McKay snapped. “We’re stuck on a god-forsaken rock on the edge of the galaxy with no supplies and no power. We can’t send as much as a shopping-list back through the gate to Atlantis because the gate’s been served-up well-done and we’ve got the only DHD on the whole damn planet and that’s toast too. The people here are about to freeze themselves to death because they’re too stupid to look for somewhere else to live. It’s freezing cold. And I’ve got massive indigestion. So, yes, I’m not exactly the happiest I’ve ever been. But thanks a lot for asking.”

  McKay picked up a loose circuit board and started poking at it.

  “Oh, give it a rest, Rodney,” Sheppard snapped. “If these people hadn’t been here waiting for us, we’d be deep frozen by now. And if we can’t generate enough power to get back in the Jumper, Elizabeth will send the Daedalus. You’re worrying over nothing.”

  “Am I?” The circuit board suddenly gave a fizz, and a shower of sparks burst from the housing. “Dammit!” McKay yanked his hand back. His mood was getting worse all the time, and Sheppard’s admonishment hadn’t helped. “The Daedalus isn’t available, which you’d know if you’d looked at the schedule more carefully. We’re on our own. And maybe I wouldn’t mind that if, for once, it wasn’t me in charge of getting us back.”

  “You know, Rodney, you’ve really got the knack of looking on the dark side of life.”

  “Well that might have something to do with being stuck here with a bunch of primitives who haven’t mastered the basic techniques of Jell-O making yet, and who seem to think the height of architectural achievement is a bunch of caves with — ”

  Sheppard’s eyes widened and he shot a warning look towards the back of the Jumper. With a sudden lurch of embarrassment in the pit of his stomach, McKay turned around. Aralen was standing in the open bay, observing.

  “Greetings,” the Forgotten leader said, unperturbed. “I trust things are going well?”

  McKay felt his face redden, despite the cold. Why could he never learn to keep his mouth shut?

  “Ah, Foremost,” he said. ”Didn’t see ya there. Did you, ah, hear much of the conversation?”

  The Forgotten walked towards them, looking at the interior of the Jumper with intent interest. “I assumed you were discussing the means by which to restore your vessel.”

  Sheppard gave Rodney a look which said you got away with that one. “Something like that,” he said. “We’ve just made a start.”

  Aralen stared at the cockpit viewscreen with undisguised wonder; there was little glass on Khost and it must have looked like something out of the legendary past. “I am glad you’re moving toward a solution,” he said. “Surely this machine will soon be operational.”

  Feeling he needed to claw back some dignity, McKay put on his most authoritative voice. “Perhaps,” he
said. “There’s relatively little structural damage, but there are some important systems which might take a while to bring back on line. One problem we have is power. We don’t have any. And I fear that your Starga… — sorry, portal — might have been damaged by whatever it was we did in that wormhole. I’ll need to look into it. Whether it’s the distance, or some other problem, I don’t know yet.”

  Aralen looked troubled at McKay’s downbeat assessment. Perhaps the old man thought that the visitors should be capable of fixing anything. Rodney wasn’t convinced that Aralen had entirely given up on idea that they were Ancients.

  “That sounds grave,” the leader of the Forgotten said. “May we help?”

  McKay couldn’t help but let a sarcastic smile slip through. “Not unless you’ve got a ZPM,” he said. “Or maybe a stash of ZPMs?”

  “Forgive me, I don’t understand…”

  Sheppard coughed significantly.

  “Not unless you’ve got access to more power,” said McKay. “And from what I’ve seen — with all due respect — you don’t. So we may be here a while.”

  Aralen nodded. “Very well. Then I will leave you to your work. But if there is anything else…”

  McKay was prepared to give him his version of a polite refusal, when suddenly there was a grinding sound deep beneath them. It echoed inside the Jumper bay ominously.

  “What the…?” started Sheppard, rising from his seat.

  It sounded like someone was using a circular saw on metal, directly below. Aralen looked around, his face stricken with panic. The Jumper started to rock and McKay grabbed on to a bulkhead, heart hammering.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, the noise ceased. The Jumper settled back into position, listing a little further to port and embedded deeper in the snow.

  “And that was?” said McKay, his voice shaky.

  Sheppard looked at Aralen. “Felt like a tremor,” he said. “You get earthquakes here?”

  Aralen, recovering himself, sank back against the wall of the Jumper cabin. “From time to time,” he said. “Some of the ice is less stable than the rest. Perhaps your descent has disturbed something.” He looked troubled. “But they have been increasing in recent months. Another of the many curses we have had to endure.”