“Carter!” Jack was already at the transport chamber door. “Let’s go.”
“Sir, if Daniel kills the power while we’re in transit —”
“We’re dead. I know. But I don’t think he’s going to, and I want you up there now.”
He was right. All around them, lights were flickering on, then off again, then back on, a pattern that in its own way was worse than a steady power drain. “Yes, sir,” she said, and stepped into the chamber with him.
Jack closed his eyes, and there was a weird shiver of not-movement. The door slid open on the gateroom floor.
“Daniel!” Sam shouted, and started for the control room. “Any progress?”
“No, not really.” Daniel didn’t look up from the console, a bad sign. “Oh, crap.”
In the distance an alarm began to sound.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Return
THE CITY shuddered under Teal’c’s feet, its alarms a rising crescendo around him. Colonel Carter scrambled up to the control room level, slammed herself into a chair at Daniel’s side.
“Oh, this is so not good.”
Teal’c looked at O’Neill, whose face was tight with strain.
“Did you have to use the transport chamber?” Daniel demanded. “That turned on about six systems all at once.”
“Yes, we did,” Carter said. Her hands flew across the board. “Damn it, the shield’s shutting down.”
That must be the new alarm, Teal’c thought, the one whose strident note cut through all the others. That was what the ultimate disaster alarms always sounded like, ear-splitting, discordant, impossible to miss. He couldn’t help looking around the gateroom, at the walls of colored glass bound only with thin strips of metal. If the shield failed, those windows would never hold back the water.
“Come on, Carter,” O’Neill said, but too quietly for her to hear. The city shuddered again, metal creaking far beneath them.
“All right,” Carter said. “Daniel, keep trying to divert power back to the shield. I — there has to be some kind of fail-safe.”
“It’s not working,” Daniel said.
“Keep trying.”
“Carter…” O’Neill’s voice trailed off, drowned by the echoing alarms.
“We’ve lost the outer pads,” Daniel said. “The shield’s collapsing, I can’t hold it.”
The city groaned, a grinding metallic sound as though it strained against some enormous pressure. On the edges of the city, windows were shattering, water flooding corridors and towers, walls collapsing. It would happen here soon enough, Teal’c knew. The shield would fail and all the beautiful glass would shatter, shards and water falling together in a killing wave, sweeping away even the Stargate.
“Dial the alpha site,” O’Neill ordered.
“We can’t,” Daniel said. “There’s not enough power.”
“Carter!”
“I’m trying, sir.” She was typing frantically, her eyes darting from screen to screen. “Wait, wait — Daniel, is this —”
“Ancoram tollere — to release —”
“Hang on!” Carter hit a final sequence of keys.
The city moaned again, metal snapping somewhere, and Carter squeezed her eyes shut. Teal’c caught the nearest stanchion as the floor lurched beneath him, the city swaying as though caught in a sudden current. Metal ground on metal, kept grinding, a long wail like a thousand raw-throated ghosts. The light behind the windows changed, grew brighter as the floor lurched again, wobbling as though an earthquake rocked them.
“We’re moving!” Carter’s voice cracked.
“We’re rising,” Daniel answered. He clung to the console’s edge as the city shook again. “The shield’s holding —”
There was new light outside the windows, true sunlight, and the rippling reflection of water sheeting down the outside of the tower. Teal’c turned as the last of the water rolled away and behind him, behind the consoles, the windows showed clear sky and Atlantis floating on the surface of an unknown sea. Water still poured from her roofs and walkways, but she was alive and safe for now.
“The shield’s gone,” Daniel said. “Sam, you did it!”
“Good job, Carter,” O’Neill said, and Teal’c nodded.
“Indeed.”
“We’re on the surface,” Carter said, reading from her console. “There’s — well, not plenty of power, but without the shield to maintain, there’s enough.”
“Long-range sensors are coming online,” Daniel said. “Do you want me to shut them down?”
Carter made a face, studying the readings. “Let’s make sure there’s nothing out there.”
“Ok.” Daniel peered at his screens. “I’m not seeing anything. It looks like we’re clear.”
O’Neill nodded. “Good news. Ok, Carter, what just happened?”
Teal’c released his grip on the railing. “I, too, am curious.”
“Well.” For once, Carter looked flustered, her eyes still wide, one hand caressing the edge of the console. “The city was underwater, and something had to be keeping it there — putting aside all the other factors, there was enough atmosphere trapped inside the shield to make the city buoyant. The city wasn’t using any power to hold itself in place — there wasn’t any to spare, and anyway, if there had been, that would have been sacrificed to keep the shield up. So there had to be some kind of mechanical anchor holding the city down, and — I released it.”
“In the nick of time,” O’Neill said.
“Yes, sir.” Carter looked embarrassed. “Sorry, sir.”
“Joking, Carter.” O’Neill looked around, the sunlight pouring in through the colored glass, spreading patterns across the floor and walls. “So what have we got?”
“Looks like one Ancient city fully intact,” Daniel said. “A little low on power —”
“A lot low on power,” Carter said. “We certainly can’t dial Earth from here, even if we were in the right timeline. And I’m not sure about the shield. I think maybe it could be raised, but I don’t know how long it would last. Everything else, though — Daniel’s right, everything else seems to be working.”
Suddenly it seemed more important to be out in the air, to feel their escape in the air on his skin rather than to hear them discussing it. Teal’c pushed cautiously at what looked like a door, and it slid back, admitting a puff of warm, salt-smelling air. He stepped through onto the balcony.
The sky was clear, cloudless, the deep clear blue of a world with no industries to speak of. He tipped his head back, feeling the sun on his face and arms, looking up into an expanse empty enough to dazzle. It was warm, tropical, and all around him was Atlantis and her towers, riding steady on the breast of the ocean. He could hear water running in the distance, see a few thin, glittering streams where it still ran off roofs and overhangs. Below him the deck was already drying, and in the distance, sky and sea met in an endless, empty horizon.
“Makes you wonder what our guys found,” O’Neill said quietly.
Teal’c turned, unsurprised at the other man’s stealth. O’Neill had always been able to move silently when he chose. “Indeed.”
“Is our Atlantis at the bottom of the ocean? Were they short on power, too? Did they get away through the gate, and are there Wraith out there chasing them?”
“We will find out,” Teal’c said.
O’Neill shot him a glance that was for one instant naked in its concern. And then O’Neill looked away, familiar mask falling back into place. “Daniel’s in there arguing with himself about whether all Atlantises have to have sunk. Carter’s getting ready to dial the alpha site.”
“Ah,” Teal’c said, and O’Neill nodded.
“No reason they can’t move back in now that we’ve solved their little problem for them. And it’s a hell of a lot safer than bouncing around Pegasus trying to dodge the Wraith.”
“Let us inform them,” Teal’c said, and pushed open the door that led to the control room.
The Stargate lit ag
ain, the unstable plume collapsing to form the familiar rippling puddle. Sheppard emerged from the wormhole, looking around with a startled expression. McKay and Teyla followed him, both of them open-mouthed, and Jack couldn’t help grinning.
“Welcome to Atlantis, Major!”
“Thank you, sir,” Sheppard said, still looking around as though he couldn’t believe it.
“We’re not underwater!” McKay said. “How’d you do that?”
“It is beautiful,” Teyla said. “Truly this is the city of the Ancestors.”
“Carter figured out how to fix the problem,” Jack said, to McKay — he figured he could afford to indulge himself just a little.
Sheppard shook his head in disbelief, but he was smiling. “Damn. It’d take us a couple of days to move everything through from the alpha site, but —” He shook his head again. “No sign of the Wraith? Any other hostiles?”
“The long range sensors are all clear,” Carter answered. “They’re capable of reaching well beyond the limits of this system, too. And Daniel says that there’s a landmass about forty miles due east of here. Sensors don’t show any lifesigns above the size of a bird. So you’re good. For the moment, anyway.”
“What about the shield?” Sheppard asked.
“You can run it for a few minutes,” Carter answered. “After that, it’ll drain the ZPMs.”
“Not so good.” Sheppard looked around again, unable to keep from grinning. “Still, if the Wraith don’t know we’re here…”
“And if you can find another power source,” Jack said. “Another ZPM would be nice.”
“We know they’re out there,” Sheppard answered.
Teyla nodded. “I have seen such things for trade, though I do not know if they would function, and also in museums on certain more advanced worlds. I believe the Satedans might be able to help you, though they will drive a hard bargain.”
“We can bargain,” Sheppard said. “And even without another ZPM, there’s enough power to run everything except the shields. Right, McKay?”
“Right.” McKay was looking at Carter’s laptop, barely raised his head.
Sheppard looked at Teyla. “Your people would be welcome to take shelter here, at least until you’re sure the Wraith have abandoned Athos. There’s plenty of room.”
Teyla smiled at that, a genuine smile that made her younger than she was. Or maybe she really was that young, Jack thought. Sometimes it was hard to tell any more.
“Yes, I do not believe that you are lacking in space, Major Sheppard. And I will gladly convey your offer to Halling and the rest of the council.”
“I was thinking especially the kids,” Sheppard said, and she nodded.
“That was in my mind also.”
Jack could imagine them all too clearly, the gateroom and the soaring halls alive with a pack of kids. As it should be, as it had been once, and the thought was complicated enough that he shook it aside. “In the meantime, Major, we still need to get back to our own timeline.”
“Whatever we can do, sir,” Sheppard said, and Carter looked up from the laptop.
“Could I borrow Dr. McKay, Major? I have some ideas about the ouroboros that he might be able to help me with.”
“He’s all yours,” Sheppard said.
“What have you got in mind, Carter?” Jack asked.
“Well, sir, I want to try to run that diagnostic with the key crystal in place,” Carter said. “If the system is functional, then I want to check the master control crystal and see if it has the coordinates that we came from still stored in it —”
“No, no, no,” McKay said. “There’s no reason it would.”
“Actually, when I was examining the system, it looked as though it was set up to reflect and record the various points of origin,” Carter said.
Jack tuned out the argument, knowing Carter was going to win. He was suddenly dead tired, as though the weight of the city itself had come crashing down on him. And this was exactly why it had been time for him to get out of the field, no matter how hard it had been to settle down behind a desk. Yeah, he could still do it — he’d just proved that, no question — but it was a lot harder than it had been eight years ago. One last hurrah: yeah, if – when — Carter got them home, he’d stay in Cheyenne Mountain and manage things. At least for a while.
“Ok, Carter,” he said, interrupting McKay mid-stream. “What do you need to make this work?”
Sam regarded the results of the most recent diagnostic with a certain satisfaction. With the key crystal in place, the system proclaimed itself complete, and, despite the warnings that flickered at the edge of the screen, she was reasonably confident it would function.
“You need to replace those broken crystals,” McKay said. “If you don’t — you’re just asking for it to blow up in your face.”
“We don’t have any replacements,” Sam said. “I mean, yes, if we had them, absolutely, but we don’t.”
“We could take them from the ouroboros on Athos,” McKay said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Look, what are the odds that the Wraith are going to show up at the exact moment we’re in the city? We go through, we get the crystals, we gate back before anyone’s the wiser.”
Sam shook her head. “The way our luck is running, the Wraith will be waiting for us. First let’s see if the return path is intact, otherwise we’re going to have to do some pretty fancy calculations.”
“It probably won’t be,” McKay said, but stepped out of her way.
Sam adjusted her probe, touched it carefully to the master control crystal. Yes, there was an energy signature stored within it, though it was faint enough that she suspected McKay might be right, and the residual effect wasn’t intentional. But at least it was present. She touched keys on her laptop, increasing the sensitivity, and this time the probe connected immediately. She copied the signature, frowning at the unfamiliar pattern, and McKay came to look over her shoulder.
“Well, it’s definitely not a normal pattern. I’ve pulled buffer patterns before, and this one’s different. Are you sure it’s an address?”
“If it isn’t, I don’t know what it is,” Sam answered. “And you wouldn’t expect it to look like a normal address if it’s actually reaching outside the timeline.”
“I suppose.” McKay tilted his head. “How are you going to enter it into the system?”
“I was hoping to just reverse it,” Sam said.
“That’s not going to work,” McKay said. “At least, I’m pretty sure it won’t. I think you’re going to need to run a Marsden transform on it to turn it into an address the system can work with.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to work, either,” Sam said. “This isn’t a gate address we’re talking about, it’s an entirely different form.”
McKay didn’t contradict her, which she supposed constituted agreement. “So your theory is that this is designed as a hub, and it’s the connection through subspace that brought you here.”
“Yes.” Sam rubbed her cheek as a new idea struck her. “Not Marsden, but Wakefield. The Lowe-Wakefield theorem.”
“Yes.” McKay reached for his own laptop. “Yes, we can use that to define the general parameters of the problem as it relates to the subspace generator, and then we can plug in the reading you got —”
“After we translate it to coordinates using Lowe-Wakefield —”
“And that should let the system jump across timelines,” McKay finished triumphantly.
Sam grinned at him, for all that they had hours of calculations ahead of them. “Exactly. We’re just about done.”
It took almost six hours to finish, even using the city’s computers, and by that time it was dark and Sam was exhausted. The rest of SG-1 had claimed a suite of rooms in the tower one level below the gateroom, and she rolled herself into her sleeping bag, too tired to do more than wolf down the last of the power bars.
Sunlight woke her, the pink light of a spectacular sunrise,
all of the eastern horizon pink and gold beneath a shell of cloud. Jack was awake already, though Teal’c and Daniel were still asleep, and she rose quietly to come stand beside him at the window. The city glowed in the early light, a thousand reflections gleaming from glass and steel and stone, and the edge of the sun lifted above the sea, almost too bright to bear.
“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, and Jack nodded.
“It is. And abandoned all this time.”
“It’s hard to believe we finally found it.” Sam paused. “Well, some form of it. Is Atlantis like this in our timeline, I wonder?”
“Daniel thinks so,” Jack said. “It matches descriptions he’s read or something, I wasn’t entirely clear. He’d like to stay — well, if it was our Atlantis.”
Sam nodded. “I’m almost ready. The system’s almost ready, I mean. We should be able to try it today.”
“Good job, Carter.” Jack smiled. “It’s probably time we were getting home.”
It was noon before everything was finished. Daniel gave the city’s towers a last regretful look before taking the transport chamber down to the lower levels. The door of the ouroboros chamber stood open, though there was now a console jutting up in the middle of the floor, and Sam and McKay were arguing across its top. Jack was leaning against the wall, trying to look bored, while Sheppard and Teal’c stood to one side, Sheppard looking faintly awkward as usual.
“I think we can tap this power source once you’re gone,” McKay was saying, “which will more than make up for the ZPMs. And all it takes is the boost from one naquadah generator, of which we have plenty.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that straightforward,” Sam said. “Working directly with subspace is tricky.”
“Oh, please, you don’t think I can control it?”
“I think you’re likely to blow up a sun or something,” Sam said frankly, and Sheppard’s frown deepened.
“How likely is that, Colonel?” he asked.
“Not very,” McKay snapped. “And you might ask me, since I’m your head of sciences.”
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