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 this ‘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.
“Behold,” cried Geran. “Sanctuary!”
After
a heavy slog through the ice, Sheppard and McKay approached the Stargate. The edifice stood defiantly in the middle of a wide depression. It was the only structure for miles around that dared poke its head over the bleak horizon. The grounded Jumper was visible about a mile in the distance, now half-buried in piles of snow.
Despite the millennia of ferocious storms the Stargate must have endured, it was barely marked. The Ancients certainly knew how to build things, Sheppard thought. Worryingly, though, he also noticed that it wasn’t quite level with the horizon.
He cocked his head. “Hey, you think this thing’s leaning over?”
“Possibly,” McKay said, looking rather annoyed. “When you get a tremor in the settlement, the Stargate is likely to be affected too.”
“Gotta wonder why the Ancients built this thing in earthquake central.”
McKay shrugged. “The gate’s been here over ten-thousand years. Things change.” He squinted up at the Stargate. “But whatever’s causing this instability, I don’t want to make it worse. If we power the gate up again, even assuming we can figure out how, we risk cracking the ice further. Sending the Stargate into an ice fissure isn’t going to get us home any time soon.”
McKay turned back to Sheppard. His eyes were rimmed with red. He looked tired. Really tired. The stress of trying to square the circle was clearly getting to him. John regretted his earlier comments about crazy eyes.
“We should press on with the Jumper,” McKay said. “One thing at a time. If we get that working, at least it’s a start.”
“Right,” John said, forcing himself to sound cheerful. “Anything you say.”
They turned their backs on the Stargate and trudged the short distance to the downed Jumper. The deep furrows plowed by their chaotic descent had been completely erased by the actions of the wind and the snow. When they came nearer, it looked for all the world as if the spacecraft had simply been deposited on the plain by an absent-minded pilot.
Thankfully, it had not been completely buried by the fury of the recent blizzard. The front half of the craft, still more or less completely out of action, was inaccessible, but the rear bay poked up out of the snow as if proud of its elevated status.
Sheppard looked at the damaged craft with a little concern. “Uh, you know you said the door controls weren’t working yet?”
“Yeah?” muttered McKay, breaking out his tools.
“Well, how’re we gonna get in?”
McKay took what looked like a massive TV remote out of the leather bag he was carrying. “You really think I’d forget about something like that?”
“Seems not. What
is
that?”
“The keys,” said McKay, sounding satisfied with himself. “You didn’t think I was just twiddling my thumbs while that storm was blowing over, did you? I mean, once you’ve had your third bowl of buffalo stew and admired your fourteenth charming little tapestry beer-mat, then there’s not a lot to do.”
That, Sheppard had to admit, was true. “I’m impressed,” he said. “Should I say ‘open sesame’?”
McKay flicked the controller on with a button press, and brandished it proudly. “If you must, but it won’t help.”
At the press of a second button, a series of lights switched on along the Jumper’s flanks and there was an encouraging whirring from inside the vessel.
“Voilà!” cried McKay, just as alarmingly dark smoke started escaping from one of the starboard plasma vents.
Sheppard kept his voice as mild as possible. “That meant to be happening?”
McKay quickly pressed a series of switches on the controller. A curious stuttering, whining sound came from deep within the Jumper, and it looked for a minute as if the thing was trying to burrow back under the ice. Then there was an audible snap and the smoke belched more strongly. From within the ship came the sound of something electrical expiring and then the whole thing came to a shivering halt. Just as it looked as if the entire ship had been terminally affected, the rear door fell open with a clang.
“See?” said McKay. “It’s all fine.”
“You know how to reassure a guy,” said Sheppard. He glanced up at the sky. His brow furrowed. There was no sign of a fresh storm. Yet.
“Let’s get a move on,” he said. “We don’t know how long we’ve got.”
Weir and Zelenka stood in the Operations Center, looking down at the Stargate. It was dormant, as it had been since Sheppard and the team had last passed through. Concerned faces looked up at Weir from the various consoles in the operations room; it was obvious that they all knew the risks.
“Right, people,” said Weir. “Let’s get that number dialed.” Her heart was pumping strongly, but she retained her habitual cool demeanor. “Doctor Zelenka, ready with that databurst?”
“Got it.” He was concentrating furiously on the screen in front in him. “We’ll have a split-second, nothing more. When the aperture opens, it’s going through.”
Weir turned to the gate operator. “You heard him. Open the gate.”
The operator keyed in the address and looked over at Zelenka before touching the final symbol. He nodded once, and the last glyph was entered.
Immediately, the Stargate fired up. The vacant surface filled with bubbling energy and an event horizon formed, bursting into life and shimmering with that strange, unnatural glow.
Almost immediately, the lack of power was apparent. The event horizon flickered and the lights around the edge of the Stargate dimmed. The vortex buckled, warped and finally sheered away. There was the faint sound of machinery winding down, and then nothing. The Stargate was as dead as it had been before.
Weir turned to Zelenka urgently. “Well?” The monitors were filling with data and Zelenka’s eyes flicked across the rows of numbers and symbols. “We’ve lost the connection,” he said.
“But did it
work
?” she asked. “Did the databurst get through?”
Zelenka looked up, concern etched into his face. “It was sent. Something went through the wormhole. Whether anyone was listening, that I don’t know. We can hope.”
Weir looked back at the now-silent gate, consumed with an impotent frustration. She had hoped at least for confirmation that the message had been delivered. Without that, the knowledge that they had sent potentially life-saving technology through the wormhole just added an extra layer of uncertainty.
“Yes, we will,” she said, half to herself. “We’ll just have to hope.”
Ronon slipped his gun from his furs. The hunters had become uneasy, and the effect was contagious. The further they went, the darker it got. Surrounded by shadows, it was easy to start getting jumpy.
“What is it?” he hissed to Orand.
“The others sense something,” he replied, keeping his voice low. “I can feel it too. It’s like when…” He trailed off.
“Like when what?”
“Let’s just keep going,” said Orand, taking his
jar’hram
from his back and hefting it in his free hand.
They pressed on, heading ever downwards. The rock around them closed in, glazed with ice. Ronon couldn’t sense anything. There was nothing but the distant, echoing cracks of the ice and the soft footfalls of the hunters.
Then he heard it.
“What’s that?” he said, whirling round and pointing his gun into the darkness behind them.
“What?” said Orand, coming to his side. His eyes were wide with fear.
“Something back there. Like a… whisper.”
“Ancestors preserve us…” breathed Orand. “We’ve got to move faster.”
He hissed an order to the hunters, and they started traveling quicker. It wasn’t easy — the dark was almost complete, and the rock corridor was uneven and twisting.
“Orand, you’re gonna have to tell me what this is about,” said Ronon, jogging to keep up.
“Maybe you don’t have them on your world,” said Orand, pushing the pace further. “They come at random, and you can’t fight them. We’ve lost so many to them.” He shot Ronon a worried glance. “They come to cull.”
At that, Ronon felt a tremor pass through him. So the Wraith were here.
“
You
might not be able to fight them,” he growled, looking about him eagerly, “but I can.”
“I don’t think —”
Orand was cut short. There was a cry of alarm from up ahead.
“They’re here!” came a strangled shout from one of the hunters.
In the narrow confines of the tunnel, all became confusion. The hunters started to run, pushing past one another, stumbling against the rocks.