by Martha Wells
Rodney glared. "Of course! That's what I was trying to-
"So how do we get out?" Ronon asked.
"We're working on it," John said easily, before Rodney's head exploded. They were still finding stuff; it wasn't time to start the real worrying until they had exhausted all the possibilities. "Right, Rodney?"
"Yes, yes." Rodney turned away from the crushed subway car, flicking his light around. "There should be alternate entrances, if this was a regular method of transportation to and from the port. In which case, there could be something nearby..." He stepped over the rubble, moving toward the wall.
They spread out a little, searching, their lights finding more rubble and dust and buckled metal. John kept a close eye on the time, thinking about their air tanks.
Finally Zelenka halted, shining his flashlight toward the ceiling. "Wait, Colonel, Rodney? What is this?"
John stepped over the rocks to reach his side, squinting. "That.. .looks like a hatch." It was a door-sized panel set in a recess in the flat stone ceiling. From the chunks of metal still attached, there had once been a stairway or ladder to access it. John saw with relief that it had a little console, which meant Rodney could trick it into opening for them if there was any power left in this section at all. "Good job, Radek."
"Yes, you get a gold star," Rodney added, joining them.
It was too high for even Ronon to reach while stretching up and standing on his toes, but fortunately there was no shortage of rocks. They piled up enough to make a small platform for Rodney to stand on and reach the console.
Zelenka stood below, handing Rodney tools and kibitzing. Ronon offered to hold Miko up so she could see too, but she declined. After a few minutes of work and trading insults with Zelenka, the console popped and the hatch groaned, starting to slide open. John stepped back as dirt and pebbles poured through the growing opening, a red landslide. Rodney hastily jumped down as everyone else backed away. Tucking his toolkit back into his pack, Zelenka said fervently, "Don't be blocked, please-Hah, I see light!"
He was right; wan daylight was visible through the cascade of dirt. There were murmurs of relief. "Looks like we're in business," John said, trying to get closer, squinting to see through the dust cloud. The slide trickled to a halt and he stepped up onto their awkward rock platform, looking up through the opening. It led into a metal-walled shaft about eight feet long, and he couldn't see much beyond that but the curve of the planet dominating the sky.
He still couldn't see anything when Ronon boosted him up, but he could tell the edges of the hatch were set securely in some kind of stone platform. Ronon half-shoved, half-flung him, and John scrambled for a moment, sending another small landslide down. The walls of the shaft were crusted with dirt, but he finally got a grip on a set of handholds forming a ladder in the wall. He hauled himself up enough to brace his feet on the metal of the shaft, then climbed the rest of the way to the surface.
Poking his head out cautiously, he saw the shaft opened into the bottom of a semi-circular pit with sides too regular to be anything but manmade. Dirt was still trickling down the opening, and it looked like whatever covering that had originally shielded it had been torn away, and the whole thing buried under weather-shifted soil, most of which was now down on the floor of the chamber below.
John climbed out and struggled through the loose sand toward the side, finding a set of steps by luck when his boot caught on the first one and he smacked into the side of the pit. They were still mostly buried, but provided enough purchase to make the climb easier than trying to swim upward through a sea of shifting sand. His headset came on and Rodney's voice demanded, "What are you doing? What do you see?"
"I see sand. Lots of sand. Give me a minute." At least the SCBA kept him from having to breathe in the dust. John reached the top of the pit, and swore in relief. The outer wall of the installation was about five hundred yards away. The distance didn't quite add up; he didn't think the series of belowground rooms had covered that much ground. Rodney must have been right about the transporter; it hadn't been a straight shot down the shaft. It had taken them further outside the building, and Ronon must have called to them over an automatically activated comm system.
But however they had ended up out here, they were on the right side of the building. John could see one of the triangular doorways as the structure curved, and the rock formation not far to the south looked familiar. He fished the jumper's remote out of his tac vest. "Well hello, baby," he muttered as the readout told him the cloaked jumper was within close range. That must be the doorway they had used to enter the building, and the jumper was waiting only a short distance from it. "What, what?" Rodney was yelling in his headset as in the background, Teyla said, "Dr. McKay, please calm down," and Zelenka added helpfully, "You are using up all your air, Rodney."
"We're near the jumper," John reported, ignoring all the commentary. He shoved off from the dirt-encrusted stairs and went back to the shaft. His arrival caused another small cascade and some grumbling exclamations from below.
He dropped to his knees beside the open hatch, unslinging his pack to get the rope out. He figured Teyla, Miko, and Radek would need it, all being too short to reach as far up as John had been able to, and Ronon could only fling them so far up the shaft. There was no good spot to tie it off, the ladder set into the side just had handholds, not actual rungs he could wrap it around. John settled for anchoring the rope by bracing his body across the shaft, planting his butt and his feet against the stable stone and metal rim. He said over the radio, "Teyla, you're next."
She managed it with some scrambling, and another small landslide as more crusted dirt was dislodged. She struggled out, shook a spray of red sand out of her hair, and looked around. "We have been lucky for once," she said, her voice wry.
"Hey, hey, watch it," John told her seriously. "Remember, we talked about that." He said into his headset, "Come on, McKay."
Teyla lifted a skeptical brow at him, taking up the slack of the rope and bracing herself to help anchor it. "Yes, you believe if we speak of luck, it goes away. I do not share your superstitions."
"You were willing to humor the people on P6S-221 who thought wearing hats kept the Wraith away-" John leaned back, steadying the rope as Rodney started his climb. "You can humor us."
Teyla shifted to take more of the weight. "Wearing a hat because our hosts asked it was simply courtesy. I am not going to encourage your primitive-"
Rodney's head appeared near the top of the shaft and John reached down to give him a hand up. Rodney was looking down, apparently addressing Zelenka, "I can't tell if it's a power access port or not, do I look like I can make a complete assessment while hanging in midair?" John and Teyla heaved and Rodney dragged himself up, scrambling out of the shaft to thump down heavily on the sand. Breathing hard, he told John, "If the jumper's nearby, I don't see why you couldn't have gotten the winch and saved us the trouble of-" Rodney froze, eyes going wide, and that was when the shadow fell over the pit.
John threw a look over his shoulder and got a heartfreezing view of a big dark shape hovering over them. He twisted around, jerking up the P-90. It was a ship.
He heard Teyla take a sharp indrawn breath and Rodney gasp, "It's-It's-"
Gritting his teeth, his whole body tight in anticipation of a culling beam, John whispered tensely into his headset, "Ronon, fall back, get them away from the hatch, now, do it now."
But it didn't look Wraith; it didn't look like anything John had ever seen before. It was larger than the jumper, curved into a conch shell-like spiral, dark purple shaded to pink... It matches the tulip ship, John thought in shock. This thing went together with that ship like Lego bricks. A faint flush of cool air came from it, smelling of ozone; a cloud of dust rose slowly around it. John registered Ronon's terse, "Come on," a murmur of alarm from Zelenka, Kusanagi's breathless, "Hurry, Doctor."
"I sense no Wraith," Teyla was whispering, her P-90 aimed at the thing looming over them. "This ship is not of the Ancestor
s?"
"I have no idea," Rodney managed. He winced. "It's not killing us yet. That's probably wishful thinking."
John couldn't see anything that looked like the muzzle of a weapon. Since it had been maybe thirty seconds and they still weren't dead, he added, "Rodney, when I say go, grab the rope and get back down there. Teyla, you're right behind him."
Teyla flicked a worried look at him, but nodded. "But, I, it's-" Rodney swallowed noisily. "Right." He edged back toward the shaft, his eyes still on the ship. "What about you?"
"I'm going to be right behind Teyla," John assured him. "Go!"
Rodney swung his legs into the shaft and grabbed for the rope. John shifted, bracing his leg against the edge of the hatch, but Rodney let go of the rope, grabbing onto the dirt-encrusted ladder and half-climbing, half-falling down. "Teyla, go," John snapped.
She twisted around and grabbed the rope, and just as she swung down into the shaft, the ship moved. It rolled with a sudden rush of air, dust sheeting over the pit, and John twisted his face away. He felt Teyla's weight leave the rope and he rolled to crouch on the edge of the opening, trying to disappear into the dirt and sparse tufts of grass. He couldn't go down yet; if he fell he would slam Teyla and probably Rodney into the rocks at the bottom of the shaft. Then he heard Rodney yell "Go, go, we're clear!" and Teyla's breathless confirmation. John swung his legs over the side, scrambling for purchase. Then the shadow and the looming weight overhead were suddenly gone.
His heart pounding, John looked up. The ship was lifting away from the pit. It rolled gracefully, with a sound like wind rustling through pines, then moved out of sight toward the south.
John slid down another foot before he managed to stop himself. He couldn't hear the ship anymore, but he watched the edge of the pit warily. So did it leave? Wraith ships didn't have cloaking technology, but it sounded like the consensus had been that this wasn't a Wraith ship. And John had to admit that the evidence was in favor of it; if it had been some new kind of Wraith ship it would still have a culling beam, and he, Rodney, and Teyla would be well on their way to getting stuck to the wall of a hiveship as future items on the dinner menu. John winced as his headset crackled and Rodney's voice whispered furiously, "What the hell are you doing? Get down here!"
"It left. I'm trying to figure out where the hell it went." John dragged himself out, getting another ton of sand down his pants in the process, kneeling in the dirt to untangle himself from the rope.
Teyla's voice overrode Rodney's to ask, "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Rodney, just out of curiosity, when did you last check the life signs detector?" John kept his head down as he made his way to the half-buried steps at the edge of the pit.
Rodney was saying to someone else, "Oh please, I have no idea what it is and unless you've got a copy of Jane's Fighting Intergalactic Spaceships hidden in your pack, neither do you." He answered John, "When you first climbed out, there was nothing on the screen but us. The ship must have been out of range. Or it's shielded against the detector, which frankly would be just our luck. And if it's still out there, I'm not getting a reading. So basically it could be anywhere so be very, very careful!"
John scrambled to the top of the steps and took a cau tious peek over the edge of the pit. "Oh, crap."
"What?" several different voices demanded.
"I found it. It landed." John cautiously eased back down, digging his binoculars out of a tac vest pocket. "Guess where."
John could hear Rodney thumping himself in the forehead. "It's next to the jumper, isn't it?" Rodney said bleakly.
"Yeah. Maybe about twenty yards from it." John wiped sweat and dirt off his forehead and lifted up enough to focus the binoculars on the alien ship. "That's not an accident. It has to be able to see through the jumper's cloak."
"An Ancient ship would have that ability," Radek put in, sounding unnerved.
Teyla said, "But if they were somehow Ancestors, they would see we are human, and try to contact us."
"They could be like us, humans who have found and learned to use Ancient technology," Miko added cautiously.
"Maybe they are trying to contact us," John pointed out. With the binoculars he could see more detail on the ship, including bulbous projections that might be sensor devices or weapons, and a curved depression in the hull that could be a hatch. He put the binoculars away, checked his watch, and grimaced. They didn't have a lot of time left on the air tanks, and all that climbing and suppressed hysteria had to have used up an extra share of oxygen. "If they wanted to lure us out into the open, all they had to do was fly behind the building and wait till we came out."
Then Ronon said, "Maybe they just want to make sure we're good to eat first."
John shook his head wearily. There was a moment of silence, then Teyla said, "Ronon. That was unnecessary."
"We have fifteen minutes of air left," Rodney added, his voice grim.
"I know." John didn't see that he had a lot of choice. "I'm going to get the jumper and bring it over here. If I'm not back in seven minutes, get back to the building. Teyla's in command."
Rodney was already sputtering, "What? Alone? Are you out of your mind?"
Easing up to the top of the steps, John didn't see how company would help if the ship decided to fire on him. "Yeah, alone."
"Sheppard, I'll go," Ronon said as Teyla began, "Colonel-" and Rodney started, "We could try-"
"Ronon, stay with the others and do what Teyla says. That's an order. Everybody shut up now. That's also an order." Wincing, John stood cautiously, already feeling like he had a target painted on his chest. But there was no sign of movement from the ship.
The others interpreted "shut up now" as "continue to argue in furious whispers" but it kept John company as he crossed the suddenly endless stretch of open ground between the pit and the cloaked jumper. He moved at a jog, because he just didn't have time to take it slow and cautious. He gave the other ship as wide a berth as possible.
The argument was still raging in his headset. He heard Rodney say, "You're discounting the possibility that it could have come through the Mirror!" and Radek reply, "I am not discounting! I see no reason to theorize in advance of my data!" John hoped Kusanagi's earlier guess was right, and the ship was occupied by Pegasus Galaxy humans who had stumbled on Ancient technology and figured out how to use it. The other option was aliens, and he really wasn't comfortable with that.
It wasn't that he didn't believe there were benign aliens. He had seen all the SGC reports and he knew about the Tok'ra and the Nox and all the assorted others, and he had met an Asgard in person, though he still thought Hermiod was a creepy little bastard. But his gut reaction wasn't ever going to change. In an argument where Rodney had called John a xenophobe, Rodney had pointed out that John's perception of aliens had been adversely affected because his first experience with one had involved being pinned to a dinner table by a life-sucking vampire that wanted to eat his entire species. John had replied, yeah, so what? and that was pretty much the end of rational discourse on that subject.
Of course, if it was humans in there, that certainly didn't mean they were out of the woods. Instead of sitting in there thinking hey, other people with a spaceship, let's contact them, it could be hey, another spaceship, let's kill them all and steal it.
But they could have done that with one burst of fire into the pit and they hadn't, and that was all John had to go on right now.
"Colonel! What's going on? What is the alien ship doing? What-" Rodney demanded.
"Nothing, yet." The ship was just looming silently on the sand, like a giant metal conch shell.
Forty yards now from the square dent in the sand that marked the jumper's position, John debated the relative merit of glaring suspiciously at the strange ship versus trying to pretend it wasn't there. Thirty yards and he was starting to think he was home free.
Then the dent in the purple hull made a metallic clunk and started to slide open. "Crap," John muttered, spinning to face it. He k
ept the P-90 aimed toward the growing opening, still backing toward the jumper.
"What? What is it?" Rodney said urgently. The others had gone quiet.
"The hatch is opening," John said through gritted teeth.
The hatch slid all the way up. The interior was too dark to see anything but a shallow airlock. Then a helmeted head peeked out.
John stumbled to a halt because he was having a The Day the Earth Stood Still moment. Except this figure was a lot smaller and more tentative than Gort. It was maybe a little over five feet tall, human-shaped from what he could tell; everything was concealed in the dark blue folds of a loose outfit that might be a pressure or environmental suit of some kind. The helmet was dark glass, opaque, and attached to a small purplish-gray unit strapped to its back. It was gripping one side of the hatch, braced as if to leap back into the ship, its whole stance conveying uncertainty and trepidation rather than hostility. John was still mostly expecting it to shoot at him, though its hands were empty.
They stared at each other for a very long moment. Then it lifted a gloved hand slowly, fingers spread in what had to be a greeting. Five fingers, John noticed. Slowly, he took one hand off his P-90 and waved back. He said, "Uh, hey there. I actually can't do this right now, because I'm running out of air, and I have to move my ship."
In his headset, he heard Rodney say, "What? Who are you talking to-Oh. Oh, God."
The figure hesitated, then a voice, light and a little tinny as it was filtered through whatever comm device the helmet used, said, "Oh." Then it added, "I-I'll wait here."
They stared at each other for a moment more, then John said, "Okay." He reached into his vest and triggered the remote. He heard the welcome hiss and thump as the jumper's ramp opened behind him, felt the cool breeze as the conditioned air flowed out. He backed up until his heel caught the end of the ramp and he barely managed not to fall on his ass. Fortunately the cloak extended far enough that the human-alien-person-whatever would have missed that part.