“Ronon!” An anxious shout drifted down from the gap above. It must have been twenty feet or so. “Can you hear me?”
“I’m OK!” he bellowed back, before realizing that shouting his head off in an unstable ice cave was possibly not the wisest move.
A few moments passed. The chill lay heavy in the crevasse, but at least Ronon was protected from the searing wind. He shifted slightly, trying to take some pressure off his bruised ribs. As far as he could tell, the rock beneath was solid. In fact, now that the adrenalin was wearing off, he could see how fortunate he’d been. Instead of a yawning chasm to nowhere, the entire floor of the crevasse looked like solid granite. It was hard to make out much detail in the gloom, but it looked as if he’d broken through the ceiling of a cave rather than into the mouth of a bottomless pit.
Something brushed against his cheek. He slapped it away quickly, before realizing it was the end of a cord. The Forgotten made their ropes from strips of leather bound together with worked strands of plains grass. It made for a surprisingly sturdy construction. Before Ronon had time to react, there was a flurry of snow. Orand came down the slender lifeline and landed heavily by his side on the rocky shelf.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” said Ronon, ignoring the throbbing in his ribs and head. “You shouldn’t have come down. It’s not safe.”
Orand cast an expert eye around him. He reached deep into his furs and pulled out a small candle. With a strike of a flint and a deft flick of the wick, the candle lit, throwing a weak light across the subterranean space.
“Interesting,” he mused. “This place might just be the safest option we have right now. That storm will kill us if we stay out there much longer.”
He swept the candle around, checking the floor of the cave and scrutinizing it carefully.
“This is good,” he said. “You’re bringing us luck today, Ronon.”
“Don’t feel much like
good
luck.”
Orand tugged on the rope, and the silhouette of a head appeared at the gap above.
“Make sure the rope’s secure, and bring the lads down,” ordered Orand. “This is a shelter.”
The hunters out on the surface hastened to obey. One by one, they slid down the rope. Even in the dim light of the candle, Ronon could see they were in a bad way. All of them limped, and some looked like the extreme cold had bent them double in pain. Eventually, the entire party assembled in the cave. It still wasn’t warm, but at least it wasn’t lethal.
“You sure about this?” Ronon asked. “That opening doesn’t look too secure.”
“Relax, big man,” Orand said, lighting more candles and passing them around. “If I know anything about this country, this cave will be linked with others. In some places, there are tunnels which go on for miles. Besides, we couldn’t have lasted for any time above ground.”
Ronon looked around him doubtfully. There were dark recesses ahead. Some of them might well lead deeper into the rock. Going farther into the shadowy recesses of Khost was not something that filled him with enthusiasm.
“You’re planning on going down there?”
“Possibly,” said Orand. “This chamber looks stable enough to light a small fire. We’ve got some food, and can melt snow. Unless this storm lasts for long, we can wait it out, but we might have to do some exploring if it’s a big one.”
The rest of the hunters shuffled further down into the cave. There was room enough for the dozen of them, but not much more. Icy blasts came through the serrated opening, and it was still deathly cold. Getting away from the gap caused by Ronon’s descent was in all their interests. Orand moved further down, holding his candle low to show up the uneven floor. Ronon took one last look up, before hauling himself to his feet. He went carefully, feeling for any damage.
He’d been lucky. A few bruised ribs and a headache seemed to be the worst of his injuries. He followed Orand and the others away from the crevasse entrance.
It proved to be a wise move. Seconds after shuffling down into the deeper area of the cave, there was a shuddering crack from above. Part of the hole briefly widened, before a cascade of loose snow slumped down the cliff side.
“Get back!” cried Orand, pushing his men deeper into the cave.
They could barely scramble fast enough. More cracking sounds came echoing down from above and it seemed as if the entire shaft was collapsing. Ronon staggered after Orand, his limbs stiff and unresponsive. More snow and ice tumbled in, dragging the rope after it. There was what felt like a minor tremor, and then the landslide settled.
“Everyone alright?” enquired Orand, his face a bobbing island of light in a sea of darkness. Murmured voices of assent rose out of the shadowy rear of the cave.
Ronon felt his earlier sense of relief evaporate instantly. He looked back, peering at the dark rock against the low light of the candles.
He didn’t like what he saw. The cave walls around them seemed perfectly solid and reliable, but that was no longer his chief concern. The jagged gap to the surface, their only means of escape, had just become choked with snow and ice. He didn’t need to have the skill of the Forgotten to know that there was no digging through that pile of freezing debris.
They were trapped, stuck under the surface of the planet, and there was no way out.
Sheppard looked down at the floor. McKay stood at his side, doing the same. There, discarded on the stone, lay a P90 and a radio. There were scorch marks around the two items, some other artifacts of Forgotten origin, and nothing else.
Beyond the two of them, people still milled in the corridor, lost in their own concerns. They were still gray-faced, but at least they weren’t wailing anymore. Slowly, with difficulty, the settlement was returning to normal.
“That’s hers,” said Sheppard.
“Well,
of course
,” replied McKay. “Unless the Forgotten have learned how to make their own P90s.” He gazed at the objects thoughtfully. “Interesting. Did she just drop them before she was taken?”
“Unlikely. She wouldn’t have given in without a fight.”
“Agreed,” said McKay. “So they’ve got some means of disarming their victims. It doesn’t look like Wraith; no one here’s been fed on and I don’t see any real signs of a struggle.”
“I don’t see any real signs of
anything
.”
Sheppard cast his gaze around the site of the Banshee attack. The remains removed any doubt in his mind that the Banshees were dangerous. Teyla would not have allowed herself to be taken by a mere phantasm.
“There must be something here. Some kind of clue.”
McKay stooped down and looked at the scorch-marks. There wasn’t much to them, just a random pattern burned into the stone. “OK, let’s work with what we’ve got,” he said, brow furrowed in concentration. “These ‘Banshees’ must be using some kind of teleportation device — there’s only one physical way out of the settlement, and we came through it. For that they need power, and we’ve not seen anything capable of running a teleporter here.”
“So they came from off-world.”
“Possible. They’d need hyper-drive capable ships to get here — trust me, there’s no way anything came through the gate. If they were operating from Khost, it seems unlikely the Forgotten wouldn’t have come across them.”
Sheppard felt his frustration rise.
“Dammit!” he snapped, thumping the wall beside him.
McKay rose. “I’m not sure that adds anything to the discussion.”
“Well, I’m pissed. Real pissed. We can’t go back out, we can’t get the Jumper working, we can’t use the gate. And I have no clue where Ronon is either.”
McKay gave one his rare looks of sympathetic understanding. Being cooped up in the warren of the settlement was frustrating for both of them.
“Look,” he said. “Ronon’s as tough as that buffalo-slop they keep giving us. If anyone can make it through that storm, he can. And when the gale’s over, we can get back to working on the Jumper. That’s our best chance of finding both of them.”
Sheppard shook his head.
“Negative,” he said. “Soon as we can, I’m going out on the ice.”
McKay lost his look of sympathetic understanding, and reverted to the more usual unsympathetic exasperation. “You’re
kidding
me. John, that’s not going to do any good. It’ll be like looking for a needle in a Hiveship. A big one.”
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” snapped Sheppard. “Sit here twiddling my thumbs while half my team is missing?”
“No, I expect you to help me get the Jumper back online.
Then
we can do something about both of them.”
Sheppard started to reply, but the words died in his mouth. Much as he hated to admit it, McKay had a point. There was nothing they could do until the storm blew over. And once it did, their first priority had to be the Jumper. Without its range, a search would most likely be fruitless.
“How close are you to getting the Jumper back on its feet?”
“Always with the impossible questions,” said McKay, shaking his head. “I don’t know. Could be a couple of hours, could be much longer. The conditions I’m working under…”
“Yeah, you mentioned it.” Sheppard felt torn between a couple of equally bad options. “But you’ve made your point. When the storm lifts, we’ll try to get the Jumper back in the air.”
McKay seemed about to launch into another tirade when he realized Sheppard was agreeing with him. “I… oh. Yes, very wise decision. And anyway, I’m probably closer than I think to fixing it.”
Sheppard gave him a warning look. “You’ve got me for a couple of hours, no more,” he said. “Then I’m going after Ronon, power or no power. We’ve been in tight spots before, and this is no different. We’ve just gotta pull ourselves together, and we’ll be back up and running in no time.”
But as he spoke the words he wondered whether he really believed them. Something about the cold had seeped into his soul. It was corrosive, it sapped the spirit. And the longer his team was on Khost, the more Sheppard wondered how they were ever going to get home again.
“So what
do we do now?” Ronon said, not liking the fact he could barely see his own hands in the dark. More candles were quickly lit, but there weren’t enough of them to do more than faintly light up the narrow space.
“We can’t get back up,” said Orand, darkly. “Even if we could shovel all that snow out, we’ve lost the rope. And anyway, that whole ascent is clearly unstable.”
There were murmurings from the hunters behind him. It seemed like every decision that was made brought them into fresh danger.
“You said there would be tunnels to other caves,” said Ronon, trying to stay positive.
Orand nodded. “I’d stake my life on it,” he said — a poor choice of words. “The rock round here is like a buffalo’s heart: full of holes.” He raised his candle into the air. The weak light showed up more dark cracks in the rock and ice walls. Some of them were clearly wide enough to walk through. “We’ve got to pick one of those and see where it leads us.”
Ronon cast his eyes over the evil-looking gaps with distaste. However bad it had been on the surface, at least they had been out in the open with the sky over their heads. That was a kind of danger he was used to. Creeping like ants through the narrow tunnels under the ground was an entirely different proposition.
He took a deep breath and tried to push the worst of his fatigue to the back of his mind. He could cope with the aches and the cold. It was the uncertainty that he didn’t like.
“OK,” he said, firmly. “Let’s do it.”
Teyla felt her heart miss a beat. The Land of the Dead. A name which had chilled her since she’d been a child on Athos. Was there any culture in any part of the galaxy that didn’t fear the afterlife? Normally, she would have pushed such ridiculous talk from her mind in an instant, but the dark walls, the oppressive silence, the strange red light… As the stranger uttered his words, a part of her believed him and lost hope. It took a few moments for her rational side to reassert itself.
“I am very much alive,” she said firmly, trying to convince herself. “As is my friend. Perhaps I will indeed find myself in the promised halls of the Ancestors one day. But not today. You must be mistaken.”
The figure standing before her remained in the shadows. Teyla peered into the gloom with difficulty. Who was this man? Was he even human?
“So say all who first arrive here,” he said. “But wishing things were different won’t change the facts. When have you ever seen a place like this in all Khost? We are on another world. We will never return.”
Teyla had to admit the man had a point. No one on Khost had the technology to create such a place. Whoever had made this place, it wasn’t the Forgotten.
“I know this feels like the end of the world to you,” she said, trying not to offend him. “But you can trust me. I have visited many worlds, and seen many strange things. It is only when we lose hope that we are truly lost. Whatever secret force has brought us here, there will be a way of countering it. There always is.”
“I once thought the same thing,” he said. “No longer.”
The man came forward, and a faint light fell across him. He was tall, built like the Forgotten. It was difficult to make out his features in the gloom, but he seemed human. No vengeful angel, then. And not an Ancestor either, by his demeanor.
“Geran!” exclaimed Miruva.
The man nodded. “When I was a living man, my name was Geran. That past is all but forgotten to me now.”
“You were lost three years ago! Are all those taken by the Banshees here?”