STARGATE SG-1 STARGATE ATLANTIS: Points of Origin - Volume Two of the Travelers' Tales (SGX-03) (STARGATE EXTRA (SGX-03))

by Karen Miller

  Melena was frankly blushing, now, but she kept her chin high. “Sort of.”

  “Big shelves of rock move underground,” Soro said, sliding her hands against each other. “But they don’t move smoothly. Sometimes they get stuck. The pressure builds up, and then…” She shoved her hands past each other and let her fingers fly open. “You get earthquakes. The ground shakes apart. The Ancient device has been stabilizing this area, preventing quakes. It’s probably just transferring the stress down the fault to somewhere else, but that somewhere else isn’t an inhabited area underneath a massive dam.”

  “That’s why you left the statue on the dam,” Ronon said.

  “As close to the original shrine as possible. That and the fact that we don’t actually like antagonizing the local residents when there’s an easy way to prevent it. But in this case, we would have fought to keep the iron horse in place. It’s the only reason we felt safe building the dam in an area that would otherwise be earthquake-prone.”

  “I’m assuming your people didn’t send it off to the Museum, then.”

  “We would never do that,” Soro said. “Is that what people are saying happened?”

  “People are scared,” Melena said.

  “They probably should be. No, I don’t know what happened to the device. Yesterday it was up in its usual place — there’s a niche for it built into the external structure of the dam. It’s open to the front of the dam — we wanted to replicate the conditions of the original shrine as much as possible, and that meant leaving it exposed to open air and the spray from the waterfall — but we usually access it through a maintenance tunnel. The first I knew that anything was wrong was when Kif came running down saying that the iron horse was missing. Then the earthquake started.”

  “How safe is the dam?” Melena asked quietly.

  “It’s intact. But another big earthquake . . . I can’t make any promises. We need to evacuate the entire river valley. If the dam breaks, it’s all going to flood.”

  “Evacuate how?” Ronon asked flatly. “The troop train won’t fit half the people in Ironlode, and that’s just one town. I doubt there’s a truck in town. The next regular train doesn’t come through until tomorrow morning. We can radio back to Redfell and see if they can run a special train, but that may not get here any sooner.”

  “Then get as many people as you can out now and as many as you can tomorrow morning,” Soro said. “I can’t tell you exactly when the next quake is coming. It could be tonight, or it could be two or three days from now. But not much longer. And when it comes, it’s going to tear this valley apart.”

  “Go tell all of this to Task Master Kell,” Ronon told her. “He can radio back and try to get another train through. Tell him to send more troops down here to help load the less seriously wounded patients onto the train.”

  “What are you going to do?” Melena asked.

  “Find the iron horse and put it back.”

  He filled Tyre and Ara in on what they’d missed as the three of them hiked up the hill toward the dam. “I figure the most likely thing is the iron horse is still here in town,” Ronon said.

  “Why would you steal it and then stay in town?” Tyre asked.

  “Why steal it at all?” Ara asked. “If you’re a local, and you know that the horse protects against earthquakes, why would you move it?”

  “Maybe to destroy the dam. There are some old-timers around here who liked it better before the dam went in.”

  “If the dam goes, it’s going to take out everything downstream,” Ronon said. “No one would have done that. No, I figure one of two things. Either somebody who isn’t from Ironlode moved it for some stupid reason — maybe they were cleaning, maybe they wanted to take a picture of it, whatever — or somebody who wasn’t from Ironlode stole it.”

  Ara shrugged. “How does knowing that help?”

  The trail wound back and forth up the steep hillside. Beside them, the dam face dropped off like a concrete cliff, water cascading white and furious down to the river below.

  “Because either way I figure they’re still here,” Ronon said. “Melena said no one left town on the first train. She and her friends got off, but no one got on. If somebody moved the horse by accident, they would have taken it into town or into the dam control room, unless they were hurt or trapped somewhere up here. Which they might be.”

  “And if someone from the city took it?” Ara asked.

  “Then they’re planning to make their way somewhere else on foot. There’s no other way of getting out of here without being noticed. Even if you had a truck, somebody would have noticed the truck.”

  The trail ran out shortly before the top of the hill, turning off toward the waterfall and then ending abruptly. Someone had put up a metal railing to keep people from falling. Above where the path ended — probably where the shrine had once been, when this was a lazy series of waterfalls rather than the spillway of an artificial lake — a set of much newer paved stairs ran up to a railed catwalk that stretched across the face of the dam.

  “How do we get inside?” Tyre said.

  “I’m not sure we need to get inside,” Ronon said. “Stop walking around.” He crouched to get a better look at the tracks on the trail. Someone had come up here in dry shoes, walked out onto the catwalk, and then come back in wet shoes. And the prints of the shoes were interesting. “Either of you see anybody down there wearing rubber-soled shoes?”

  “The nurses,” Ara said. “And our unit.”

  “Anybody else?”

  “No.”

  “Neither did I. They’re all wearing leather-soled shoes. Probably made somewhere local.” He followed the tracks back to the trail, and then away from it, toward the top of the hill. “These shoes have rubber soles, but I’ve never seen a pair that made tracks like this.”

  “Somebody bought new shoes in the city,” Tyre said.

  “Maybe. It wasn’t one of the nurses, though.”

  “They didn’t even get here until after the earthquake,” Ara said.

  “And they’ve got smaller feet.” The tracks were easy to follow. The ground was wet; it had probably rained not long before the earthquake, setting the stage for the landslide. “He came up here and started walking along the edge of the lake.”

  “Maybe he lowered it into the lake,” Tyre said. “He could come back for it later.”

  Ara rolled her eyes. “If it were that close to where it’s supposed to be, there wouldn’t have been an earthquake, would there?”

  “How would I know?”

  “He didn’t put it in the lake,” Ronon said. “He turned off here.” The tracks were fainter, here, but still possible to follow, and still going in both directions. Not only had whoever he was tracking carried the iron horse up to the lake and then into the woods that surrounded it, he’d come from this direction, too. “What’s up here besides the lake?”

  “Not much,” Tyre said. “There used to be some towns up along the river, but they flooded them when they put the dam in. And the train doesn’t run this way. I don’t think there’s a town closer than a couple of days’ walk.”

  The underbrush was getting heavy, and he found a patch where someone had hacked their way through it with a heavy knife. He sniffed at the cut branches. “Smells like machine oil.”

  “There’s nothing back here,” Ara said.

  “Something’s back here.” The tracks on the ground were getting harder to read in the springy underbrush, but whoever had come this way had blundered through the woods, and hacked at branches every time they got thick. Ronon pushed branches aside more carefully, and emerged into a small clearing between towering evergreen trees.

  He drew his weapon, and after a moment’s hesitation, Ara and Tyre did so as well. If someone was hiding up here, scared, Ronon didn’t want to stumble on
them unarmed. “Anybody here?”

  If someone were up here hurt or lost, they would have called out. Unless they were unconscious. But the tracks were even and widely spaced, the steps of a man walking quickly, not staggering in pain and confusion. He kept his eyes on the tracks, trusting Ara and Tyre to cover him.

  They led out into the middle of the clearing, and then abruptly ended. Beyond them, the grass was crushed under the weight of something heavy, with deeper indentations in regular shapes at both ends of a long rectangle. It looked like a vehicle had been parked there, if a vehicle could suddenly appear in the middle of a clearing without having been driven there. Only the shapes weren’t wheels or treads, but something more like feet.

  Ronon crouched to get a better look. The chemical stink was stronger, here, not just the smell of machine oil, but a sharper smell like kerosene. Some of the grass was brown, and when he touched it, it felt crisp under his fingers, scorched by the heat of whatever had rested here.

  He rocked back on his heels, considering whether the explanation that sprang to mind was the only possible one. His grandfather had taught him that tracks told a story, but that the first story you told yourself about them was often just wishful thinking. He waited a minute for his grandfather’s sake while Ara and Tyre circled the clearing impatiently, but his feeling of certainty didn’t change.

  “A spaceship landed here,” he said.

  Tyre and Ara descended on the spot, crushing some of the same grass in their eagerness. It didn’t matter; he’d seen what he needed to see. He sketched out its shape on the grass for the benefit of the others.

  “I thought the Travelers’ spaceships were a lot bigger than that,” Ara said. “Whole families live on them.”

  “They have little ships,” Tyre said. “They use them to go from ship to ship. And sometimes to come down to planets. Didn’t you ever listen to Spaceman Kim?”

  It was a radio show that Ronon remembered mostly for its endless cliffhangers that had left the spacemen strangling in vacuum or fleeing from a dozen Wraith Darts. He’d wondered even as a child why the spacemen in the show didn’t just use the Ring of the Ancestors to travel. Flying through space sounded dangerous.

  “Spaceman Kim is made up to sell powdered tea,” Ara said, as if talking to a small child.

  “We know there are spaceships up there right now, right?” Ronon said, nodding toward the sky. “The Travelers. First time in ten years.”

  “You mean the people who are right now being presented to our leaders in the capital, minus one honor guard?” Tyre asked, sounding like the words tasted bad in his mouth.

  They didn’t taste very good in Ronon’s, either. “We have to tell Kell about this. Somebody has to get the iron horse back from them before they leave.”

  “You mean before or after the council tells them how welcome they are to Sateda and what an honor it is for them to be here?”

  “That’s politics,” Ronon said. “Who cares about politics? We’ve got to get this thing back before a bunch of people die.”

  “So let’s go,” Ara said, and they headed back to the trail at a dead run.

  Kell listened soberly to Ronon’s report when they reached him. “All right,” he said. He frowned up at the dam for a moment, as if looking at it would give some hint at how long it would hold together. “We’ve loaded everyone who’s willing to go aboard the train. The rest of the company is staying here to help the townspeople evacuate.”

  “Yes, Task Master,” Ronon said, starting to turn away.

  “Not you three. You get back on the train. I’ll need you on hand to testify to what you found.”

  Ara and Tyre moved toward the train, but Ronon hung back. “We can’t wait to tell anyone until the train gets to the capital,” he said. “The Travelers may be gone by then.”

  “I’ll radio ahead,” Kell said. “You leave that to me.”

  Melena was climbing down from the train car as Ronon reached it, and he handed her down and then caught at her sleeve as she moved past him.

  “You should get aboard,” he said. “The train is about to leave.”

  “I’ve still got a lot of patients to deal with here,” Melena said. “Cellese is already aboard to keep an eye on the serious cases. I’ll evacuate with the townspeople.”

  Ronon was tempted to argue with her, but a glint in her eye suggested that wasn’t likely to do much good. “Get to high ground as soon as you can,” he said. “If there’s another quake, anyone near the river is going to drown.”

  “The whistle’s blowing,” she pointed out, and Ronon shook his head in frustration and swung up to the train step. She turned her back as the train pulled away, heading back to the town hall, and he watched as she and the soldiers left behind dwindled into the distance.

  All the pleasure had gone out of the train ride, the train now crowded with frightened civilians. With the injured laid in the aisle and the most badly wounded people installed in the officer’s cars that featured pull-down bunks, the unhurt huddled in their seats, bundles and parcels on their laps. Ronon saw too many empty seats that could have been filled. A lot of people must have decided they’d prefer to take their chances evacuating on foot than leave their homes and friends behind with little more than the clothes on their backs.

  “We’ll get you back home as soon as we can,” Tyre promised a pair of old women who had claimed the seats across from him. They both nodded, tight-lipped, but said nothing. Ronon wished he could think of anything to say himself.

  It was a relief when the train pulled into the station, and there was more to do again, herding the civilians out of the train and handing their belongings down, shepherding them into one group to go to the hospital and another to be put into the hands of Stranger’s Aid. Usually called into service to find homes for groups of refugees from Cullings on other worlds, the bustling women with their urns of hot tea were certainly capable of finding some displaced Satedans beds for the night.

  It took some time to clear the station of refugees, though, and to get the last of the wounded on their way to the hospital for treatment. It was well after dark when the station grew quiet, the station attendants taking down the last of the signs announcing departing trains and posting the first arrivals scheduled for the next morning.

  “Do we go report to Kell?” Ara asked.

  “He said to wait for him here,” Ronon said.

  “I think he’s been delayed,” Tyre pointed out.

  “Maybe it took them some time to go up to their ship and get the horse back,” Ronon said.

  “Maybe,” Ara said, but she bit her lip.

  “There he is,” Tyre said in relief, and Ronon looked up, expecting to see Kell striding toward them with the iron horse tucked triumphantly under one arm.

  Instead, Kell walked toward them with a somber expression, his boots echoing on the polished floor of the train station. He stopped and shook his head, and then shrugged as if trying to shed a heavy weight.

  “You have to let us talk to them,” Ronon said. “If they don’t believe you, they’ve got to believe us when we tell them what we actually saw.”

  “It’s too late,” Kell said. “The Travelers left orbit two hours ago. They’re beyond our reach.”

  Ara swore, and Tyre’s hands bunched into fists.

  “But you radioed ahead,” Ronon said. “You told them. You’re saying they couldn’t even stall the Travelers for a couple of hours? How hard could that be?”

  “Apparently too hard, for men who’ve spent the last few weeks congratulating themselves for the coup of persuading the Travelers to visit Sateda,” Kell said. “They weren’t willing to create a diplomatic incident on the word of a common soldier. I thought my word carried more weight in certain quarters, but… apparently not.” He bent his head gravely.

  “Then tha
t’s it?” Ara said. “We’re just going to let those people die?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Kell said at once, his chin coming up. “There is one thing that might still save them.”

  “Getting the iron horse back,” Ronon said.

  “They’re in space,” Ara said, her head to one side as if she thought he was being childish.

  Kell nodded. “On their way to Belkan, where they plan to visit the trading fair. It’s a short jump through hyperspace. And an even shorter trip through the Ring of the Ancestors.”

  “If the Council wouldn’t even ask for it back, they’re not going to let us go take it back by force,” Tyre said.

  “Of course they’re not. I’m not talking about sending an army to go threaten them. I’m talking about a raid. Quick, quiet, and small. A few hand-picked men.” His gaze swept pointedly over the three of them. “I want the three of you to go to Belkan, find a way to get aboard the Travelers’ ship, and get that artifact back.”

  “Yes, Task Master,” the three of them said in ragged chorus. It sounded so easy when Kell put it that way. Ronon was suspicious of things that sounded too easy.

  “Having doubts?” Kell met Ronon’s eyes steadily. “I trained you,” he said. “I know what you’re capable of. I have no doubts about any of you. I know you can do this. And every man, woman, and child left in that valley, is depending on you.”

  “Yes, Task Master!” The chorus was crisper this time.

  “I’ll get you through the Ring without any questions being asked,” Kell said. “I have every confidence that you can handle matters from there.”

  The square around the Ring was busy even late at night, with people streaming between the hotels and restaurants and dance halls. Music poured out onto the street from half a dozen open doorways, and the smell of cooking meat reminded Ronon sharply that they hadn’t eaten since breakfast.