STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End (23 page)

Unwilling to concede defeat, Helmar kept going. “What range does the box have? Perhaps we can try and get closer?”

“Don’t you get it, kid?” Sheppard snapped. “This box of junk is telling me we’re right in the middle of a crowd of people! Unless they’re invisible, or up in the air, or under the…”

As the words left his mouth, realization crashed in like a landslide. He looked at his feet. The snow and ice were as unmarked as ever, just another part of the featureless wastes.

“Gotcha.”

Teyla looked over at her companion with satisfaction. Once the two of them had reached the wide rock shelf, Miruva had returned almost to normal. At the higher levels of the stairway the air was clearer, and even Teyla felt her spirits restored. Whatever phenomenon had clouded their judgment, it seemed to be at its strongest in the fields below.

“Do you have any idea what we’re looking for?” said Miruva, peering through the entrance to the dark Hall of Arrivals.

“No,” said Teyla. “But I am sure that there is something hidden in those shadows. We will just have to look carefully.”

They walked into the gloomy chamber. At first it seemed entirely black. Gradually the dim red outline of the columns re-established themselves. If anything, the place looked even more grim and forbidding than the last time they’d been there.

“We know what lies straight ahead,” said Teyla. “If there is anything to find, it will be in the shadows along either side. Now we have a choice. What do you think, Miruva? Left or right?”

Miruva, her face in shadow, peered into the gloom. “They’re equally unattractive,” she said. “But let’s go left. For some reason, that feels correct.”

Once they had moved away from the starlit outline of the entrance gate, the darkness grew ever more complete. They went slowly, placing their feet with care. Even though the floor was perfectly smooth, the shadow was so all-encompassing that it felt as if they might stride into a bottomless pit at any moment. Though the meager red glow allowed them to negotiate a path through the mighty columns in the dark, it was quickly swallowed by the endless shadows between them.

Several minutes passed. They were like a tiny, mobile island in an immense sea of shadow. Even after their eyes had adjusted, everything was obscured. Miruva fell silent, perhaps troubled by her doubts. Even Teyla felt her limbs stiffen. The effect of the dark was disorienting and she began to feel an odd sense of dislocation.

“This place goes on forever,” whispered Miruva, her voice muffled and indistinct.

“It must end soon,” said Teyla.

As she spoke, she saw a faint glint ahead. The reflection was weak, and only by moving her head back and forth could she be sure there was something really there. They came to a standstill. Ahead of them was a blank wall, as dark as every other surface in the hall.

Teyla ran her fingers carefully across its smooth cold surface. “We can go no further,” she said. “That is something, at least.”

Miruva stood alongside her, and pressed her face close up against the flawless stone. “I can’t see a thing,” she said. “This is just a blank wall.”

Teyla turned to her left and began to walk beside the sheer face, keeping her fingers lightly grazing the surface. “This wall continues for some distance,” she said. “I think this may be what we are looking for. Let us follow it for a while.”

The silence became ever more oppressive, the darkness ever more threatening. To their left, the dimly-lit columns passed in gloomy files, like an army of frozen giants.

Teyla began to lose heart. The hall was gigantic. If they tried to map out the entire area in the dark it would take them days. For all she knew, they had already passed several exits. It was almost impossible to make anything out.

She began to become despondent. “I think…” A sudden impact on her forehead sent her reeling backwards. She staggered.

“Are you alright?” cried Miruva, groping forward to find her in the dark.

“I am fine,” said Teyla. Her forehead smarted, but it was nothing serious. She had walked into a wall, jutting out at right angles from the one she had been following. Easy enough to do in the circumstance, but still embarrassing.

Teyla peered at the obstacle. It was a buttress of some kind, set hard against the wall to her right. It was about five feet across and, for all she could tell, stretched up as far as the hidden ceiling far above them. She ran her fingers over it, testing for any indentation or marking. It was as smooth and featureless as everywhere else.

Just as she was about to give up, light blazed from its surface. The illumination was not severe, but after so long in the dark it brought tears to Teyla’s eyes. She stepped back, shielding her face. The light dimmed and resolved into a shape. A symbol had sprung into life on the obsidian buttress, scored in lines of silver.

“By the Ancestors,” breathed Miruva, looking at the emerging shape in wonder. “We’ve found it.”

A dozen questions ran through Sheppard’s mind at once. This was good. Very good. Probably.

“What d’you know about this place, Helmar?” he asked, seized by a sudden idea. “Anything special about it?”

Helmar shook his head. “We’re out on the high plains,” he said. “Nothing special that I know of.”

Sheppard studied the proximity meter again. “You people live in caves, right?” he said, thinking out-loud. “Makes some sense — it’s real cold. But maybe even when it
wasn’t
you guys still did it.” He started to talk more quickly, warming to the theme. “Maybe there are places down there you’ve forgotten even existed. Maybe…”

He looked down again, as if by concentrating hard enough he could penetrate the layers of ice and rock to see what lay beneath. If he was right, the signals were coming from a long way down. And if Ancient technology was having trouble penetrating that far, then that meant dense rock.

“You really don’t know anything about this place?” he asked. “No scary stories of goblins living under the rock?”

Helmar shifted, uneasy. “I don’t know much,” he said. “No one pays much attention to stories. Aralen might be able to tell you.”

Sheppard frowned; he couldn’t imagine the Foremost liking what he had in mind. “Yeah, maybe he would,” he said. “But one way or another, we’re gonna have to get down there. You know how to mine, right?”

Helmar nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. Even our children know how to use a mallet and ice-axe.”

“Just what I wanted to hear,” said Sheppard, putting the life signs detector away. “I like the way this conversation is going.”

He glanced at the horizon. The clouds were still some distance off, but they looked like they were building. The window of opportunity was closing.

Helmar squinted at the clouds. “What are we going to do?”

“Get back to the settlement,” Sheppard said. “We’re gonna need every spare pair of hands you’ve got, and fast.”

McKay placed his pliers down wearily and admired his handiwork. But as soon as he saw the pile of wiring in front if him, his heart sank. It looked ready to fall apart at any moment. Using crude tools on millennia-old Ancient technology was like trying to fix a computer with a flinthead axe. Not impossible, but you’d only want to try it if there was absolutely no alternative.

The module was almost complete. Zelenka’s instructions had been frustratingly elliptical in places and the man had clearly not quite realized what conditions McKay would have to work in. It was one thing constructing a complex piece of equipment back on Atlantis, where there were whole banks of computers dedicated to running simulations and pinpointing structural weaknesses. Working in the rear bay of a semi-functional Jumper in the middle of a snowfield was somewhat different.

Still, it could have been worse. The life support was now more or less fully functional, making the environment in the Jumper pretty much as comfortable as it ever was. Fixing delicate control nodes to fragile input actuators was much easier when your fingers didn’t feel like frozen sausages. Much of the power to the drive system was restored and it wouldn’t be long before the Jumper could take off again.

As for the module itself, that was a complete mystery. It was impossible to test before the Jumper actually attempted to break the event horizon. He looked across the jury-rigged equipment once again; its shoddy appearance didn’t fully reassure him. However, as long as you were prepared to ignore the aesthetics, McKay couldn’t see an obvious reason why it
wouldn’t
work. It would just take some careful handling, a bit of faith, and a fair slice of luck.

McKay collected his essential equipment together, and shut down the experimental parts of the system. He powered up the long range scanners one last time, hoping against hope to see something different on them. It was just the same. No sign of Teyla or Ronon, just a wall of storm-cloud closing in on them from every direction. He adjusted the range, taking it out to its maximum setting. Mile upon mile of turbulence. It looked terrifying. He flicked off the viewscreen, pulled on his layers of furs again, and stood up stiffly. Hours of work had fused his joints together and he winced as he moved.

“Rodney? You there?” Sheppard’s voice crackled over the radio.

McKay picked it up. “Just about. I hope you’re enjoying yourself while I slave away here.”

“Know what? I am. But we’re heading back now.”

“Any sign of Teyla or Ronon?”

“Maybe. I’ll explain when I get back. How’re you getting on?”

McKay didn’t look at the pile of electronics again. He really had no faith in it at all. “Excellent,” he said. “Well ahead of schedule.”

“Good. We’ll see you back at the settlement. Sheppard out.”

McKay sighed. No ‘thanks Rodney’, or ‘that’s amazing Rodney — well done’. As ever, John seemed almost oblivious to how much work he’d had to do just to give them a fighting chance of getting home.

He flicked a switch and the rear door lowered. Immediately the biting air rushed in. McKay hurried outside and quickly sealed the Jumper. Turning his back on it, he began the trudge back to the Forgotten settlement.

Ronon
kept his eyes fixed on the light streaming through the doorway at the far end of the tunnel. It was low and almost perfectly round. Before Ronon could stop him, Orand ducked under the lintel and disappeared. Cursing beneath his breath, Ronon had no choice but to follow. He had to bend double to get under the lip of the rock, but after that he managed to squirm through easily enough. On the far side, surrounded by blue, he gasped with amazement.

They were standing on a shelf of rock about twenty feet wide. On either side of them, the ground fell away and, beyond the chasm, cliffs of unimaginable height reared up. They were at the edge of an abyss, a pit that delved into the very core of the planet.

“By the Ancestors…” breathed Orand, looking at the spectacle in wonder.

Sapphire light bathed the whole scene, spilling down from the distant roof of the vast chamber. Instead of the dark, soulless rock through which they had been creeping, the ceiling of the enormous space was entirely constructed of ice. Light filtered and winked from myriad facets, and massive icicles hung down like diamonds. Ronon was not normally given to flights of aesthetic fancy, but the sight was staggeringly beautiful.

The light was clearly sunlight, albeit filtered through many hundreds of feet of ice, but it was hard to gauge exactly how close to the surface they were — the ceiling itself was several hundred feet above them.

Ronon gingerly approached the edge of the rock shelf, and took a look over. The chasm stretched off into infinity, falling into darkness. There was no escape that way.

The remaining hunters came through the narrow opening, one after another. Soon there were a dozen of them standing on the narrow shelf, mouths open, gaping at the light show in front of them.

“Right,” said Ronon, conscious of the need to keep things moving. “What are we going to do now?”

“I guess that’s our only option,” said Orand, pointing.

At the left hand side of the rock shelf, a thin pier of granite shot out into the void. The blue light caught its edges dimly, but otherwise it was nearly invisible against the bottomless shadow below. Ronon took a good look at it. It was maybe six feet wide, and looked dangerously fragile. It was clearly a bridge of some kind, though it was impossible to see where it led beyond the first few dozen feet. After that, the dim blue haze obscured everything.

“You think it takes us to the other side?” he said, looking toward the unseen far walls doubtfully.

“Where else could it go?” said Orand. Now that the Banshee had gone, some of his earlier lightness of spirit seemed to be returning. He was clearly excited at the prospect of crossing the chasm. “The entrance we saw back there was man-made. This whole place must be the work of our forefathers. I had no idea that we were once capable of things such as this. This was worth a trek under the ice.”

Ronon studied him. Extreme tiredness could cause weakness of judgment, and Orand’s eyes were dangerously bright. But perhaps the man was just exhilarated. He couldn’t blame him for that; they had been through a bad time, and it finally looked like they might be getting somewhere. And it wasn’t like they had much choice; they couldn’t go back.

“I’ll go first,” he said by way of an answer.

Orand nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Teyla looked at the glowing symbol carefully. It was vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t remember from where. Miruva had no such trouble.

“That’s the symbol you showed me,” she said. “Do you remember? In the settlement, in the Hall of Artisans. You said it was of Ancestor design.”