Dead end

Chapter Thirteen

Sheppard stared at Aralen, trying to keep himself calm. It wasn’t easy.

“It’s no good,” said the old man, shaking his head. “Your friend Teyla is gone. There’s no point in searching.”

“Just one guide. C’mon, Aralen — that’s all I’m asking for.”

“You would be taking our guides into danger. And if the storms close on you, you will perish on the ice. It is madness. You are a madman.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been called a whole lot worse than that,” growled Sheppard. “But I don’t have a choice.”

Aralen was unresponsive. He seemed to have been traumatized by Miruva’s disappearance, and had a vacant look in his eyes. Though Sheppard could sympathize with his loss, time was short.

“Do you not think we’ve thought the same, many times?” the old man said. “We have lost so many people. We have never succeeded.”

“Look, you don’t have the gear I have,” said Sheppard, carefully keeping the frustration out of his voice. “I have a… magic box. It’s real good at finding people.”

The leader of the Forgotten looked back at him with mournful eyes. “You don’t even know where to start looking.”

That, Sheppard had to admit, was true. The only thing anyone had been able to tell him about the Banshee abductions was that they never left a trace of their victims behind. There were no trails, no marks, no clues. Just heading out on to the ice wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best he’d been able to come up with.

“Not quite true,” Sheppard said, trying to make it sound as if he wasn’t just making it up on the spot. “I’m gonna head where Ronon and Orand went. I should be able to detect them, even if they’re holed up somewhere real inaccessible.”

Aralen started to say something, but then shook his head resignedly. He didn’t look like he had the energy for the argument.

“So be it,” he said. “You will not listen to reason, but I cannot let you travel into the wastes on your own. You’ll need a guide. Helmar will take you. I won’t have your death on my conscience, too.”

A young man came forward. He looked slight and unprepossessing, like most of the Forgotten, but he had a confident manner about him. He extended his hand to Sheppard.

“I am Helmar,” he said. “We can leave whenever you wish.”

Sheppard returned the handshake. That was all he’d wanted; taking along a local was always a good idea.

“Good to meet you, Helmar,” he said. He turned back to Aralen. “I’ll be back when I can. And you might wanna look in on Rodney while I’m gone — he can get a little cranky when he’s left in sub-zero temperatures.”

Aralen didn’t smile. “We’ll look after your friend,” he said. “The laws of hospitality remain strong. While all around us changes, we’ll keep a vigil here, tending the hearth until the Ancestors in their wisdom release us from calamity.”

“Yeah, you do that,” muttered Sheppard, turning away from the Foremost and heading from the chamber. He’d had just about enough of Aralen’s passivity. “C’mon Helmar,” he said. “We’ve got us some tracking to do.”

“Why are you doing this, Geran?” asked Teyla.

They were alone in one of the dwellings. She was tied to a chair near the middle of the room; he was standing at the entrance. The rest of the men had left, some limping or cradling sprained wrists. It hadn’t been easy getting her into confinement.

“Isn’t it obvious? You are not one of us. You threaten the peace of Sanctuary. This place is only for the Forgotten.”

“Then let me go.”

“I cannot. I must pray for guidance on what to do with you. There is no escape from the land of the dead.”

Teyla began to realize what this was about. Geran wanted to believe the myths he had woven about Sanctuary. He needed to trust that they were true. She was a threat to all of that.

“Geran, I do not wish to challenge anything you hold dear. But you have to understand that the people on Khost are dying. My friends are there too. I must get back to them.”

Geran drew a little closer. He had a strange expression on his face. “Do not tell me what I must do here. This is our realm. I will decide what to do with you in due course. And all options remain open.”

Teyla didn’t like the sound of that at all. Geran didn’t give her a chance to respond, but turned on his heel and swept out of the small room. From outside the hut there was the sound of men standing to attention as he walked by.

Teyla tested her bonds carefully. No obvious weakness in them. She felt frustration begin to rise up within her. There was no time for this! She knew how precarious the team’s position was on Khost, and that every minute she was held in captivity added another layer of difficulty to the mission. She rocked the chair back and forth, trying to find some weak link in the cords at her ankles and wrists. It was pointless. They knew what they were doing.

Then, from outside, there was a thud. Teyla stopped, listening carefully. There was another heavy noise, and what sounded like a groan.

Miruva slipped through the doorway, rubbing her knuckles. “That hurt more than I thought it would,” she said, moving quickly to untie Teyla.

“Miruva! How did you…? I thought you’d told Geran…”

Miruva looked up from her work, a hurt expression on her face. “Geran’s been watching you since you arrived, Teyla. I would have come to warn you, but he’s had his men watching me too.”

She finished loosening the cords and stood up. Teyla rubbed her wrists.

“I am sorry. I should have trusted you.” She let slip a rueful smile. “I didn’t know you could fight.”

Miruva smiled back. “I couldn’t. But I’m beginning to think there are lots of things women do just as well as men.”

Teyla stood up, feeling the circulation return to her ankles. She had a nasty bump on the back of her head, but was otherwise in good shape. The game was back on.

“Then you’ll come with me?” she asked.

Miruva grinned. “Just try and stop me.”

Sheppard stole a glance at his young companion. Helmar looked full of beans. That was good. The two of them had been tracking out on the ice for well over an hour, and his eager expression hadn’t changed. At least, Sheppard didn’t think it had; the facemasks and furs made it hard to tell for sure.

The chat wasn’t exactly flowing. Sheppard never sold himself as a conversationalist at the best of times. Breaking the ice — so to speak — with a hunter almost half his age wasn’t going to be easy.

“So,” he said eventually, searching for the right words. “You like hunting, Helmar?”

Helmar grinned, and nodded vociferously. “Oh, yes!” he beamed. “I’m an expert hunter, one of the best of my age. It’ll only be two more winters and I’ll be allowed to hunt the buffalo with Orand’s team. They’re the most honored.”

“That’s great,” said Sheppard, doing his best to sound enthusiastic. “I’ve, er, done some hunting in my time, too. Mostly ducks, as it happens. A deer. Once. But mostly ducks.”

He winced. Really not going well.

“We’re not far from where Orand would have gone,” continued Helmar, his enthusiasm undimmed by Sheppard’s stumbling. “There are caches around here too. If they’re holed-up, I’ll find them.”

“That’s great, Helmar. Glad you came along.”

He reached inside his deep pocket and retrieved the proximity meter he’d taken from the Jumper. It was a typical McKay hybrid model: Tauri technology grafted on to an Ancient core module. It was behaving a little strangely in the extreme cold, but was functioning well enough.

“Might give this thing a whirl again,” he said. “You never know.”

Sheppard adjusted the range, activated the locator, and turned a slow three-sixty.

Helmar, who regarded the instrument as a magic item of extreme potency, watched from a respectful distance. “Anything?” he said at length, sounding like he spoke more out of hope than expectation.

Sheppard frowned, trying to interpret the various patterns on the viewfinder. “I dunno,” he said. “There’s something out here, but I can’t get the signal to hold.”

He altered some of the control parameters and the display switched. Strange flecks danced across the screen. It looked as if the meter was picking up a whole cloud of indistinct shapes, something like human, but much fainter.

“Heap of junk,” he muttered, giving up on improving the feed.

He looked northwest, the direction from which the readings were strongest.

“We’d better take a look that way,” he said. “Call it a hunch.”

Helmar swept his gaze across the flat horizon. His practiced hunter’s eyes assessed their chances.

“The weather looks like it’ll hold,” he said, though not with huge conviction. “The wind can come down strongly here, and quickly. We need to be careful.”

They continued for another half hour. The sun was low on the horizon by the time Sheppard called a halt.

“I reckon we should be about right,” he said, flicking his hood up and looking around. No change, just endless flat ice-plains.

Helmar nodded and resumed his anxious scanning of the horizon. The few clouds seemed some distance off. Even with a stronger wind, they would take some time to arrive.

Sheppard pulled the meter out and activated it again.

“Here we go,” he said to himself, adjusting the controls. “Gotta love these McKay specials.”

The screen burst into life. Even before he’d had time to narrow the parameters, the display began to fill with data.

“Holy Moly,” breathed Sheppard.

“What is it?” asked Helmar.

Sheppard looked at him, not bothering to hide his bafflement. “You know what?” he said, letting the proximity meter do its work. “I have no idea.”

Teyla drew the fabric covering over the entrance to the hut. Two bodies lay beside it, both out cold. Apart from that, the village was silent and empty.

“Did you see any more of Geran’s men?” she whispered to Miruva, who shook her head.

Together they crept through the huts and back on to the wide path leading back to the Hall of Arrivals. As they went, Miruva seemed to lose her earlier confidence.

“What if the Banshees discover us?” Miruva asked, sounding much more timid than she had done back on Khost.

“What harm can they do us?” said Teyla. “They have already done their worst by bringing us here.”

“As far as you know,” said Miruva. “Have you forgotten the terror?”

“We will have to take the risk, Miruva,” she said.

Together they walked across the rolling plains and back towards the giant cliff-face. No one followed them out. For the time being at least, they were on their own.

Soon they were at the foot of the spiral staircase. The dark steps were lined by the soft silver starlight. Above them, the rock glistened. All was silent.

After a few steps, Miruva stopped. “I can’t go on.”

Teyla looked at her carefully. Her face was ashen and her hands trembled.

“Miruva, I am surprised at you,” Teyla said. “When we spoke in the settlement, you seemed so full of strength. And now, at the first sign of — ”

Teyla stopped herself. She felt the same thing. Even now, the anxiety began to return. It wasn’t Miruva’s fault.

Teyla took the young woman’s shoulder. “Listen to me,” she said. “There is some force at work here which affects your mind. I feel it too. You must try and resist it. You are braver than this — I know it. If you give in to the feeling now, you will never escape the Underworld.”

Miruva looked back. The fields and crops stretched away under the benign starlight. “I know,” she mumbled. “But…”

“No more hesitation,” snapped Teyla, losing patience. “Trust me. We passed through it before. We can pass through it again.”

Miruva looked briefly as if she would relent and turn back the way they had come, but under Teyla’s gaze a glow of resolve lit in her eyes. She took a deep breath and looked up at the forbidding cliff face. “I can do it,” she said. “I must do it.”

“We will do it,” said Teyla, taking her by the hand.

“Is it broken?” asked Helmar, still prudently respectful of the device but keen to see what was going on.

Sheppard frowned and adjusted the settings. “Damn thing’s telling me we’ve hit the bulls-eye.”

“And, er, that isn’t good?”

“Nope,” he said. “According to this work of genius, we should be standing in the middle of several hundred people.” He looked around at the empty icescape. “You see any?”

There was absolutely nothing — let alone people — for miles on end. Sheppard studied the display, trying to make sense of the readings. They were very odd-looking. Whereas a human would normally register on the scanner as a green blob of fairly consistent intensity, these readings flitted in and out of existence. Even when they were present, they were hazy and indeterminate.

Against his normal inclination, Sheppard found himself wishing McKay was there. At least the man would have a theory as to what was causing the anomaly. Was it instrumentation failure? Or was he picking something else up?

He tightened the search parameters, narrowing the set of phenomena picked up by the machine. The results remained stubbornly inconclusive.

“Rodney told me he’d fixed this,” he said, frustration rising. If his only means of detecting human life-signs was defective, then the whole rescue-mission was near-impossible. There weren’t a whole lot of alternative strategies available.

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.