STARGATE UNIVERSE: Air

by James Swallow

  Young managed a brittle smile. “I’ll take you up on that, sir. Thank you.”

  They trudged through the lines of the sand, and Eli glanced down at his booted feet, watching a fat droplet of sweat fall from the tip of his nose and away. He blinked owlishly and tried to remember if there had been another time in his life where had felt this hot.

  No. Nope. Nada. Even that time when he was eleven, when he went on vacation to Florida in the middle of summer, it had been cooler than this. The heat was like a palpable thing, radiating off the sand around him, coming up in waves. Is it really possible for a person to melt? he wondered. Eli didn’t want to find out.

  As they climbed slowly toward the top of a dune ridge, he saw Franklin blow out a labored breath and take a long swig from his canteen.

  “Save it,” Greer told him.

  Franklin shook his head, “That’s not very smart. At temperatures like these the human body needs at least—”

  “Walk, don’t talk.” Greer shot Franklin a look that silenced him in mid-speech.

  Eli licked his dry lips. “Just FYI, he’s right about the whole human body and water connection….”

  Scott glanced back at him from the front of the group. “Eli,” he said firmly.

  “I know, I know,” he replied. “Walk, don’t…” He gave up on finishing the sentence, breathing hard from the effort of climbing the incline. Finally, as they crested the ridge, he managed a sniff. “Oh look,” he said, staring out at miles and miles of trackless white dunes. “More sand.”

  “This is pointless,” huffed Franklin. “We should go back.”

  “To what?” said Palmer. “We just got here.”

  He looked toward Rush. “I still think we should be checking out the other planets in range of the ship.”

  “I still think you’re wrong,” said Rush. “The solution is here.” He took a sip from his canteen. “We are going to find it.”

  They moved on, extending out into a single file line, crossing a wide swath of sand between the ridges. Up ahead, Greer walked the point, his rifle at his side. His pace was steady and constant, and Eli watched the Marine go, sure-footed and alert, while he slogged on, feet aching and brow filmed with sweat. Without really knowing why, Eli began to talk, half-aloud. “I know it was a mirage… But when we were walking over that last dune… I thought I saw the Statue of Liberty sticking half out of the sand.” If anyone was listening to him, they didn’t show it. He went on. “Just for a second there, I was all ready to yell; damn you, damn you all to hell.”

  Rush turned and gave him an odd look.

  Eli returned a weary grin. “Come on, that was funny.”

  “Was it?” Rush’s words were the coldest thing for hundreds of miles around.

  He paid no attention to the scientist’s withering tone. “Because it would mean we were really on Earth… But in the future… And that apes had taken over… and buried the Statue of Liberty for some reason.” It all seemed perfectly reasonable to him, but by Rush’s expression, the other man clearly thought he was delirious.

  “Have a drink, Eli,” he told him. “You’ll feel better.”

  That seemed like good advice, so he took it. After all, there was no telling what other things could be out here. Tusken Raiders, giant sandworms, a double-decker bus…

  Up ahead, Scott called out. “Greer, hold up. Hold up!” Their slow train came to a stop, and as Eli drank, Scott looked out over the desert. “This isn’t gonna work,” he said.

  “Not if we keep stopping,” agreed the Marine.

  Scott looked at his watch, mindful of the ever-encroaching deadline. “I’m saying we need to split up.”

  Greer nodded. “Fine with me.”

  “I agree,” said Rush. “I’ll take Franklin and—”

  The lieutenant shook his head. “No, no, you’re with me and Greer.” Eli watched him range around, getting his bearings. He pointed. “The sun’s been moving that way so we’ll call it west… Eli, Franklin, Palmer, and Curtis, you head that way.

  Palmer adjusted the straps on her pack. “We’ll test every twenty minutes or so, and contact you if we find anything.”

  Scott gave her a nod. “After two hours, head southeast. That should take you back in the direction of the Stargate.”

  Eli held up a hand. “Wait a second, do we really think that splitting up is the best idea?”

  “I say we head straight back,” said Franklin.

  Rush’s lip curled at that suggestion. “There’s no point in going over the same territory we just crossed.”

  “Or we could just stick together,” Eli pressed. Splitting up was never a good idea. Anyone who had ever seen a horror movie understood that simple fact. Scott stepped to him and he lowered his voice. “Look, Matt,” he said, using Scott’s first name for the first time since they had met. “I’m sorry… I just have this really, really sick feeling that you’re gonna go that way and we’re gonna go this way and—”

  Scott quieted him with a look. “Eli, listen to me. I need someone I can trust to lead the second team, okay? That’s you. Curtis is a good soldier. A tough guy. He won’t let anything happen to you.”

  The last thing Eli expected was to be promoted to team leader. “You’re just saying that, right? The truth is, I’m slowing you down and you want to get rid of me.”

  He knew he was right when Scott didn’t answer straight away. “I’m doing what I think will best accomplish this mission,” said the lieutenant. “You asked to come. I’m telling you how you can help. Now suck it up.” He patted him on the shoulder.

  Fine. Responsibility. I can handle that. Eli took a deep breath and headed toward where Franklin and Palmer were standing. “Okay guys, we’re going this way.

  Let’s move out.” He gave Curtis what he thought was a serious, we’re-all-in-this-together kind of look, but the sergeant said nothing.

  “Radio if you find the lake bed,” said Scott. “We’ll double back, come find you.”

  Eli nodded, and forced a cavalier smirk. “If you see the Statue of Liberty you know what to say, right?”

  Scott nodded. “Right.”

  Franklin and Palmer shook their heads, and as Curtis took the lead, Eli gave a last look at Greer and Rush as they stepped up to follow the officer. Scott said something, and Eli frowned as he caught it on the wind.

  “Now we can make some time,” said the lieutenant.

  Chloe sat in the staff car’s back seat and looked out of the window at the poplar trees, and the curve of the drive leading up to the house. Off to the right, just through the bushes, she could see the fence surrounding the tennis courts; no one ever really used them but her, despite all the times she’d talked to mom and dad about getting more fresh air and exercise. The Armstrong household rose up, all white walls and big windows, behind the courts. It wasn’t as sprawling as their other home back in California, but Chloe had always liked the Washington place; she enjoyed the sense of age that the building had. In a peculiar way, the house had an air of permanence around it that no other place she had lived in had. Chloe always felt at rest there.

  She tried to grasp a piece of that same emotion now, but it eluded her. There was a distance between what she saw around her that she couldn’t fathom, an odd sense of disconnect that lay in the back her thoughts like the echo of a headache.

  Major Green had gone inside ahead of her, asked her to remain in the car while he spoke with her mother. She had no doubts that her mom had already been informed about the attack on Icarus; her father kept nothing from his wife, and Patricia Armstrong knew as much about the Stargate program as Chloe did. That had been the source of the last argument they had, with her mother angrily demanding that she stay behind during her father’s fact-finding mission. Mom gave her enough static about following Dad from state to state on his normal business, so a voyage to outer space was, naturally, a geometrically larger issue.

  Chloe took a shuddering breath, wishing that she could be in that moment again, wishing tha
t she could will her past self to convince her father not to go. Then none of this would have happened; but then everyone on Destiny would be dead.

  She sighed and pressed her hand to the window. She felt the strange detachment once again; there against the glass were delicate, long fingers, the skin a rich tawny brown. Her eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror and Doctor Mehta looked back at her from there.

  I am here, she told herself. I am not here.

  Faintly, Chloe heard someone call her name from inside the house, and she knew it was her mother. The front door suddenly burst open and Patricia Armstrong stepped out, her face marred by anxiety and dread. Major Green was behind her, reaching out but hesitant to lay a hand on the woman.

  She approached the car with a look of confusion, and for a moment Chloe thought about staying inside the vehicle, afraid to face her mother, hiding behind the polarized windows. But then she reached for the handle and stepped out on to the gravel drive.

  Her mother halted, her confusion deepening. She glanced at Green. “Who is this?”

  “It’s me,” said Chloe. “I know I look different, and I sound different… But it’s me.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know you.” She looked at the major again. “I’m not interested in your wild stories, just tell me where my daughter is!”

  “Mrs. Armstrong…” began Green.

  “Mom,” said Chloe, tears prickling her eyes. “It’s me.” Her mother started shaking her head and Chloe pressed on. “Manny Krist,” she said, pulling up a random name from her memory. “Remember him? You told me not to go out with him because he had no respect for women. I ended up throwing a glass of wine over his suit, and you clapped. We never told Dad what happened.”

  Her mother’s face went from a moment of brittle understanding to a sudden flash of deep, deep terror. “Chloe?”

  Major Green cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should go inside?”

  They went to the living room, where the big bay windows had a view of the trees and the lawns, and Chloe listened to Green as he gave a terse explanation of why Patricia Armstrong’s teenage daughter now looked like a twenty-something woman from Delhi. Her mother said nothing, instead pouring herself a healthy measure of the good Scotch from a decanter. In the same motion, she drew a prescription bottle from the pocket of the elegant waistcoat she wore and shook a couple of pills into her hand.

  Chloe frowned. “Mom, please,” she began. “I have something to tell you.” Her mother didn’t respond; instead she knocked back the tablets with a long drink from the glass of whiskey. Chloe knew this behavior of old, and it made her feel sad to see it again. “Mom… Stop.”

  Her mother seemed to become aware of what she was doing, looking down at the glass, and her cheeks colored. Neither woman noticed as Green quietly excused himself and went to stand out in the hallway.

  “I’m sorry…” said Chloe’s mother. “It’s just …” She halted, and it was almost as if she had to force herself to look in Chloe’s direction. “The thought that you’re actually on some spaceship so far away, I can’t even imagine it.”

  “It’s all true,” Chloe told her.

  “I remember when your father first told me about the Stargate,” she continued. “He never kept secrets from me. Not in twenty-six years. He knew better.”

  “Mom…”

  She gave her a pleading look. “Just tell me you’re coming home.”

  Chloe’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I… I don’t know.”

  Her mother gave a shaky sigh and downed the rest of the contents of the glass in a single pull. Chloe had the terrible sense that she already knew where this was all heading.

  “Mom, please,” she went on. “The ship is old and damaged… We were losing air and somebody had to—”

  She cut her off. “He’s dead.” Her mother put down the glass. “Your father is dead, isn’t he?”

  Chloe tried to find the words, but there was nothing there. She couldn’t even bring herself to nod; instead, the tears came.

  Chloe’s mother took a few steps toward her, and seemed to stumble. The emotion of the moment cut her down, and she collapsed to the floor, overcome by the pain of the terrible truth. She was silent too, the anguish so powerful it robbed her of her voice. Her daughter got down on her knees and held her tightly.

  Long minutes passed in the hush of the open, airy room. There were no words strong enough to carry the depth of feeling that moved through mother and daughter.

  At last, after what could have been hours, Chloe’s mother whispered to her.” I can’t lose you too. I can’t.”

  Chloe shook her head. “You won’t. I’m going to be okay.” With care, she helped her mother back up, to a seat on the ornate couch, clasping her hands over hers.

  Her mother dabbed her eyes and composed herself as one of the maids discreetly delivered a tray of refreshments. “Thank you, Martha,” said Chloe. The maid, a woman who had known Chloe Armstrong since she was a little girl, gave her a quizzical look and walked away.

  Of course, Chloe thought, she looks at me and sees a stranger. The moment brought the reality of her situation back into hard focus; as much as Chloe was with her mother at this moment, she was also very, very far away.

  “Have some tea, Mom.” She poured a cup of Chamomile and pressed it into her mother’s trembling hands.

  Chloe heard a tap on the doorframe and turned to see Major Green standing on the threshold. “I’m sorry. Excuse me, ma’am, but Miss Armstrong, we’re going to have to leave soon.”

  “I have to…go back.” Chloe said, with a nod.

  Her mother got to her feet and gave the major a hard stare. “You get my daughter home,” she demanded.

  “Everyone is doing their best, I assure you,” said Green. “We’re all very sorry for your loss—”

  She cut him off. “Sorry… That’s not good enough.”

  “Mom, it’s not his fault.”

  Her mother kept her attention on the Air Force officer. “I am a personal friend of the President and of the First Lady.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Green nodded.

  She pointed at Chloe. “You tell your superiors that if anything happens to her, I will go public with what I know about your Stargate. I don’t care what happens to me. I only care about her.”

  “Mom,” warned Chloe, worried at her parent’s outburst. “I’m sorry, major, she’s just upset.”

  But her mother was using the tone of voice she only called upon at times of utmost annoyance. “Trust me, Chloe, threats are all these people understand.” She advanced on the officer. “My husband gave his life for my daughter. You get her back to me or the whole world will know what has really been going on these past years.”

  “Everyone is doing their best,” Green repeated.

  Chloe paused as she stepped back into the car, looking up to see her mother framed in the window, watching them. She glanced at Major Green. “She didn’t mean what she said,” Chloe told him. “My mother wouldn’t do anything foolish.”

  Green nodded, but his expression was unreadable. “I’m sure she’ll be okay, Miss Armstrong.”

  He closed the door after her, but instead of walking around to the driver’s side, the major took out a cell phone and dialed it. He turned to face the house, his back to Chloe so she couldn’t see what he was saying.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Telford was laboring as he made his way down the corridor, grimly soldiering on after Lieutenant Johansen and the Armstrong girl — correction, Doctor Mehta, he reminded himself — as the medic led them deeper into the alien ship.

  The colonel wasn’t sure what he had expected to see aboard the vessel, this Destiny, according to Rush’s translations. Maybe something that resembled the crystalline Ancient technology of the city-ship Atlantis, or the metallic structure of Asgard design. Destiny was nothing like that; it had an old, engineered feel to it. When he tried to put a shape on his first impression of the craft, he found himself imagining a ship built
not with an eye towards esthetics and artistry for its own sake, but instead one made by craftsmen and engineers to do a difficult job of work. The interiors reminded him of submarines, of steelworks and garages, of aged machines powered by steam and coal and fire.

  Telford tried to take it all in, but the lances of pain that shot through him with each footfall made it hard to concentrate. Even though he was feeling Young’s injuries at second hand, the body he had temporarily usurped wasn’t about to let him use it without making him pay for it. He gritted his teeth, dealing with the hurt.

  Mehta was looking around. “Where is everyone?”

  Johansen pointed ahead, down the corridor. “We’ve got all able-bodies searching the ship for anything that might have carbon dioxide sequestration properties to fix the scrubbers. The rest of the evacuees are in the crew quarters we found.”

  The corridor widened into a larger space, and Telford saw the distinctive shape of a Stargate at the far end of the chamber. The gate was active and the colonel noted straight away that the design of the vast metal ring was slightly different from others he’d seen. He recognized two familiar faces from Icarus Base — Adam Brody and Lisa Park — standing in front of a curved console. As they approached, the Stargate shut down with a shriek of noise, and a pair of vents in the floor either side of it discharged a blast of steam into the air.

  Brody threw him a look. “Ah, Colonel. We were able to dial out to the planet again.”

  Johansen stepped in before Telford could answer. “Colonel Young and Chloe are using the communication stones. This is Colonel Telford and Doctor Mehta from Homeworld Command.”

  Brody blinked. “Uh… right, okay.” He gave the colonel a measuring glance. “This might get confusing.”

  “Next time I’ll wear a sign around my neck telling you who I am,” Telford retorted. “Did you make radio contact with the off-world team?”

  “Yes, nothing to report yet,” said the scientist. “They’ve split up to cover more ground.”

  “How much time before the ship jumps back to faster-than-light?” said Mehta.