I meant it, Radek wanted to say, but they both knew that. He nodded instead, and settled the P90 more comfortably against his chest.
They came up to the Museum by the back way, or so Ronon said — the street that had been the intended approach was still blocked by a collapsed building, and this was easier, if a little longer. Even from the back, the building was impressive: a long stretch of once-pale stone, fire-streaked now in places, the severe line of windows gaping empty. Everything was sharp, straight lines, except for the dome that rose from the center of the building. There had been statues once at the four corners of that central portion, but only fragments remained. It looked vaguely German, Radek thought — pre-war, pre-Hitler German — except for the lines of Satedan script carved into the band of stone that marked the division between the first and second stories.
“What does that say?” William asked, and Ronon looked over his shoulder, impatient.
“It’s the names of the city districts, and the suburbs. It’s the Museum of the City.”
“Ah.” William had his camera out, was recording the facade with practiced ease.
“This door is open,” Teyla said. She looked at Ronon. “Is this the best way in?”
He hesitated, frowning as though he was trying to remember — or, more likely, Radek thought, trying to match what was still here with what had been. The door was open, certainly: it was missing altogether, the frame scorched and blackened. The stone to either side was pockmarked by shrapnel. A bomb, then, rather than fire, and that was a good thing.
“Yeah.” Ronon closed his eyes for a moment. “Yeah. If we go in here, we should be able to go straight to the main hall, and then the Hall of the Ancients will be to the left…”
“Let us go,” Teyla said. She touched the switch that activated the P90’s light, and stepped through the broken doorway. Radek took a breath, and did the same. Ronon followed, looking over his shoulder.
“Dr. Lynn!”
“Coming.”
Radek swung his P90 carefully from side to side, letting the light pick out the details. They were in what looked like a service corridor, part of the museum’s functional space, not any of the exhibit halls. Here, by the doorway, there was plaster down, and cracked floors; to the right, another door hung half off its hinges, and the room beyond it was half filled with debris, chunks of plaster and a fallen beam covering what looked like a desk and chairs. Not far ahead, though, the damage was considerably less, and he let the light play over the supporting walls, assessing their stability. They looked remarkably solid, considering, and he picked his way carefully over the debris.
“I think this way is safe,” he said, and Teyla nodded.
“Ronon, you said we should go straight here?”
“Yeah.” Ronon stepped past them, blaster loose in his hand, like an extension of his arm. Teyla shifted to let her light play ahead of him down the corridor. It ended in a dark green door — a padded door, Radek saw, as they came closer, and guessed it must lead into the exhibit area. He shifted his own light to check the stability of the wall and ceiling.
“OK,” he said, and Ronon shifted his blaster to his left hand to try the latch.
To everyone’s surprise, the door opened smoothly, without even a whisper of metal on metal. Sunlight poured in, blinding, and for an instant Radek could see only a riot of color. And then his sight cleared, and the colors resolved to a vividly patterned tile floor — like an Oriental carpet in stone — and the peeling remains of painting on a carved pillar. Beyond the pillars was an open atrium, and multi-colored glass from the broken skylights glittered against the patterned stone. A bird scolded, and there was a whir of wings as it launched itself from among the pillars. It was pigeon-sized, and gray-blue, and Radek couldn’t help laughing at the sight.
“Not more pigeons.”
To his surprise, Ronon gave a rueful smile. “Choua. They’re everywhere.”
“Evidently.” That was William, looking with disapproval at a deposit of droppings at the base of one of the columns.
Teyla’s eyes were laughing, but her voice was grave. “I believe there are symbols from the DHD on the doorway here. Perhaps it leads to the Ancient collection?”
“Right.” Ronon looked around again. “Yeah. Through there.”
The corridor led back into the dark. Radek flicked his light back on, looked over his shoulder to see William carefully filming the doorway and its symbols. They were the familiar markings from the DHD, all right, and Sateda’s address arched above the doorway, the rest of the patterns trailing down the sides. The ones closest to the floor were damaged, the paint flaking away, but the words on the lintel had been carved too deeply to be erased in a mere decade.
“What does it say?” William asked, and Ronon looked back, impatient.
“Hall of the Ancients, Ancestors of Humanity. Come on.”
William made a soft sound that might have meant anything, but put the camera aside. Radek let his light play along the corridor’s walls. There had been fire here, he thought, perhaps the flash of a bomb; the paint was scorched in spots, dark and peeling, and when he checked overhead, there were only beams and emptiness where a ceiling had been.
“Here’s the Stargate,” William said, pointing to the wall. The circle of his flashlight caught a panel that was mostly intact, the gate standing empty in the center of a field, a few humans gathered by the DHD.
“And here also,” Teyla said. She let the light of her P90 play across the opposite wall, picking out a similar scene. This time, Radek thought he recognized some of the buildings surrounding the gate.
“That is here, the gate square, yes?”
“A history — it’s a history of Satedan gate use, right?” William swung his light back and forth, scanning the murals. “Oh, and that’s nice. The frames are the Stargate itself.”
Ronon was staring at him, and he shrugged.
“I suppose that’s what the captions say? You’ll have to teach me your alphabet, I hate being illiterate.”
“Perhaps later,” Teyla said, reluctantly. “Is that — ?”
She stopped abruptly, eyes widening. Radek lifted his P90 in reflex, joining its light to hers.
The corridor ended in an arched doorway, and through its opening the lights flashed from glass and metal. Display cases, Radek thought, some broken, some intact — and then he saw it, too, the tripod of a portable lamp, a coil of rope and a woven basket, and the breath caught in his throat.
“Someone’s been here.”
“Did Cai mention anyone else?” Ronon asked.
Teyla shook her head. “He did not.”
“This is recent,” Radek said. The plaster dust had been swept off the cases, and the floor was relatively clean. He let the light play around the room again, picking out more display cases, metal and crystal glittering within, found a shuttered window. It looked as though it had been repaired, and he crossed to it, eased it back. The sunlight poured into the room in an almost solid wedge, dust dancing in its beam, and his breath caught again at the sight of the display cases. There were two ranks of them, stretching the length of the hall; on the walls to either side were more murals, scenes of what must be Ancient history alternating with stylized starscapes. At the end of the hall, part of the ceiling had fallen — nothing structural, just lathe and plaster and perhaps some light boards — and the display cases were broken but not crushed beneath it. Most of the rest were intact, and he saw what looked like a lifesigns detector laid between the panels of a lamp and the cracked crystal from a control board.
“This is Genii,” William said. He crouched beside the basket, poking cautiously at its contents. “The equivalent of an MRE.” He held up a box with unfamiliar lettering.
Teyla frowned. “Perhaps this has been here some time?”
William shook his head. “This says it was packed three months ago.”
Ronon lifted an eyebrow. “You can read Genii and not Satedan?”
“It seemed relevant at
the time,” William answered. He set the box carefully back into the basket, stood up, dusting his hands on his thighs. “Food and water. I think they’re planning to come back.”
“That’s not good,” Ronon said.
“No.” Teyla turned slowly, surveying the room. “I think — this all looks valuable and important, and I think we need to examine it closely. But I would also like to know what the Genii are doing here. If they are still here at all.”
“I agree,” Ronon said. He took a breath. “We split up. Zelenka, Dr. Lynn, take stock of what’s here, collect anything that’s useful. Teyla, let’s you and me see if we can find any Genii.”
Teyla followed Ronon back to the hall with the atrium, frowning at the tracks they had left on the dusty floor.
“If the Genii are still here,” she began, and Ronon nodded.
“Yeah. I know. Let’s hope they’re not.”
There wasn’t anything to say to that, at least nothing that did not sound more critical than she meant. And she was to blame as much as anyone: she had trusted Cai — still more than half trusted him, if it came to that, and she frowned again. Everything he had said had seemed honest; she could not point to a moment when she had thought, he is concealing something, even in the details of their bargaining. That was disconcerting, and she put it aside, to be dealt with later. She would get answers from Cai on their return.
The atrium gave onto another, smaller hall, this one lined with pillars carved like kneeling men, taking the weight of the ceiling on their shoulders. The dome they had seen from outside rose overhead, a dozen round windows piercing its surface. The glass was missing, and the hall was full of leaves and the damp tracks of rain and wind. And of humans, she saw, and in the same moment Ronon pointed.
“They came in this way.”
“Or someone did,” Teyla said.
Ronon stooped to examine the marks. “Looks like Genii boots to me.”
“Can you tell how long ago they were here?”
Ronon straightened, shaking his head. “Not more than a week ago — maybe as recently as yesterday, depending on the weather.” He met her eyes. “Cai should have told us.”
Teyla nodded. “Yes. And still — Ronon, I trusted him. I don’t know what to think.”
“Maybe we can get some answers from the Genii,” Ronon said, with a sudden smile.
“Perhaps,” Teyla answered. “But — we should be cautious.”
“Absolutely,” Ronon said. He looked around again. “This way. There’s a side door we can use.”
Radek walked the length of the Hall of the Ancients, glancing from case to case. He recognized perhaps half of their contents, recognized that some of the items weren’t even Ancient — that odd silver sphere, half crushed, looked almost Asgard — and his fingers itched to examine them more closely.
“Don’t even think of it,” William said, without looking up from his camera, and Radek muttered a Czech curse under his breath. “We need to make a record first.”
“We may not have time for that,” Radek said. “Not if the Genii are here.”
“We know they have been here,” William said. “Not that they’re here now.”
“And that they’re planning to come back,” Radek pointed out. “You said that yourself.”
“Yeah, OK, I did say that.” William straightened, took a breath. “Priorities?”
Radek gave the Asgard sphere a last regretful look. “Undamaged Ancient objects. Things that we can maybe use on Atlantis.”
“Control crystals?”
“Have you found some?” Radek moved to join the other man at a long case that had stood against the wall. It gaped open now, the shards of glass covering the long, pale blue crystals that lay on the stained velvet.
“Yes — ”
“No, we have plenty of those,” Radek said. “And, look, see there? Most of them are cracked.”
“Well, it was a start,” William said. “These?” He pointed to the next case, where a scattering of smaller crystals were laid out in a spreading fan-shape, bright against a soft dark-red backing. There were gaps in the sequence, crystals replaced by plasticine models, but Radek caught his breath again.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Those we should take.”
“I’ll make a list,” William said. “See what we have, and then we can take as much as we can carry. The most important things first.”
There was a park next to the museum, where saplings were beginning to spring from the broken trunks of the old trees. At the far end of the green space, a thread of smoke was rising between two ruined buildings — clean smoke, cooking smoke, and Teyla looked at Ronon.
“I thought Cai said all his people were staying by the gate.”
“He did.” Ronon flicked his blaster from stun to kill and back again. “It could be somebody else. Somebody Satedan, I mean.”
“It could,” Teyla agreed.
“Yeah. I don’t think so, either.” Ronon looked around, surveying the broken ground. “If we move north along the edge of the park, we’ll be in cover most of the way.”
Teyla nodded. “Our main goal is to find out if the Genii are here. Not to engage them.”
“I know!” Ronon glared at her, and she met his stare squarely. He sighed, and looked away. “I know.”
“And then we will have a conversation with Ushan Cai,” she said.
“Yeah.” Ronon looked happier at the thought, and pointed along the crumbling facade of a long low building. “That way.”
The sprouting trees screened them from the distant camp for most of the way. The smell of the smoke was stronger, wood and cooking, and Teyla wished she’d had more than a power bar when they had stopped earlier. But that was pointless, a weakness, and she put it aside with the ease of long practice. She could see the tip of a canvas tent between the buildings, white in the sunlight, and Ronon came to a stop behind a broken set of stairs.
“Looks like the Genii to me,” he said, softly.
Teyla reached into her pockets, pulled out a pair of the Earth people’s binoculars, and eased forward to peer over the edge of the stones. The tent did look like Genii work, the odd mix of primitive and sophisticated that they now showed the rest of the galaxy — and, yes, the man stirring the kettle slung over the campfire was wearing a Genii uniform. Another man was sitting on a three-legged stool outside a second tent, working on some piece of equipment, but there was no one else in sight.
“That cannot be all their people,” she said, and Ronon shook his head.
“No.”
Teyla lifted the glasses to her eyes again, scanning the camp a second time. It looked as though they had been in the Museum — surely that metal crate was Ancient work — and she reached for her radio. “Radek. Radek, come in.”
“I want to get a little closer,” Ronon said, and slipped forward without waiting for an answer.
“Radek,” Teyla said again. “This is Teyla. The Genii are here in the city, and may be coming your way.” She paused, waiting for an answer, some acknowledgement, and none came.
Ronon signaled, and she moved to join him, crouching low.
“I’m guessing maybe six, ten men all told — ” he began, and she lifted her hand.
“I am not getting a response from Radek.”
“Damn it,” Ronon muttered. He looked at the Museum, then back at the camp.
“We should go back,” Teyla said.
“Yeah.” Ronon didn’t move, and in the same moment, the tent flap was flung aside, and a slender red-haired woman stepped out into the sunlight. Her uniform jacket was open to the waist in the warm air, showing a pale undershirt. “Is that — ?”
“Yes,” Teyla said. “Sora Tyrus.” She touched her radio again. “Radek. Respond, please.” Ronon looked at her, and she shook her head. “Nothing.”
Ronon met her eyes. “Back to the Museum.”
They were getting toward the end of the hall, and Radek shook his head in frustration. The list was already too long for them to take e
verything that was on it, and it was obvious that this end, where the ceiling had come down, was where the curators had displayed their largest pieces. He ducked under a beam, crouched to see into the next case. It was bigger than the others had been, perhaps a meter long and half a meter deep; two of its legs had broken when part of the ceiling fell on it, and the body of the case sloped down and away from him. He checked the heavy wedge of plaster, and when he was sure it was secure, worked himself further into the debris so that he could see into the case.
It was beautiful. That was his first thought, incoherent and startled. It had been lovely enough on Atlantis even burnt-out and cracked; the intact array caught the light from his flashlight, reflected it back in a cloud of multi-colored stars. It couldn’t possibly be — but it was, it definitely was a hyperdrive control array, the missing crystal, the one that had blown out on them and dumped them onto an unnamed world, and he sat back on his heels, swearing in Czech.
“Was that an invitation?” William asked, working his way through the rubble after him, and stopped. “That — that looks important.”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” Radek pushed his glasses up onto his nose, still not quite able to believe what he was seeing. “This — whatever happens, William, this has to get back to Atlantis.”
For a second, he thought the other would object, but William nodded slowly. “All right. What is it?”
“One of the major control crystals for the hyperdrive,” Radek said. He was almost afraid to say it out loud, for fear it might somehow vanish. “With this — and a ZPM, of course — we can fly the city again.”
William stuffed the notebook into his pocket, pulled out his flashlight. “It’s really beautiful. Very sculptural.”
The doubled lights drew more colors from interior facets, thin sheets of color like the aurora playing inside the crystal. Reflections danced on the walls, on the fallen ceiling, sparks that drew bits of color from the paintings. The Satedan curators might not have known what they had, but they had taken good care of it, secured it against the padding so that even the collapse of the display hadn’t jarred it loose. Reluctantly, Radek turned his beam away from the array, scanned the case and the straps that held the crystal in place. It would take some planning to get it out safely, but he thought he could do it —
STARGATE ATLANTIS: Allegiance(Book three in the Legacy series) Page 16