Still, it could have been worse. The life support was now more or less fully functional, making the environment in the Jumper pretty much as comfortable as it ever was. Fixing delicate control nodes to fragile input actuators was much easier when your fingers didn’t feel like frozen sausages. Much of the power to the drive system was restored and it wouldn’t be long before the Jumper could take off again.
As for the module itself, that was a complete mystery. It was impossible to test before the Jumper actually attempted to break the event horizon. He looked across the jury-rigged equipment once again; its shoddy appearance didn’t fully reassure him. However, as long as you were prepared to ignore the aesthetics, McKay couldn’t see an obvious reason why it wouldn’t work. It would just take some careful handling, a bit of faith, and a fair slice of luck.
McKay collected his essential equipment together, and shut down the experimental parts of the system. He powered up the long range scanners one last time, hoping against hope to see something different on them. It was just the same. No sign of Teyla or Ronon, just a wall of storm-cloud closing in on them from every direction. He adjusted the range, taking it out to its maximum setting. Mile upon mile of turbulence. It looked terrifying. He flicked off the viewscreen, pulled on his layers of furs again, and stood up stiffly. Hours of work had fused his joints together and he winced as he moved.
“Rodney? You there?” Sheppard’s voice crackled over the radio.
McKay picked it up. “Just about. I hope you’re enjoying yourself while I slave away here.”
“Know what? I am. But we’re heading back now.”
“Any sign of Teyla or Ronon?”
“Maybe. I’ll explain when I get back. How’re you getting on?”
McKay didn’t look at the pile of electronics again. He really had no faith in it at all. “Excellent,” he said. “Well ahead of schedule.”
“Good. We’ll see you back at the settlement. Sheppard out.”
McKay sighed. No ‘thanks Rodney’, or ‘that’s amazing Rodney — well done’. As ever, John seemed almost oblivious to how much work he’d had to do just to give them a fighting chance of getting home.
He flicked a switch and the rear door lowered. Immediately the biting air rushed in. McKay hurried outside and quickly sealed the Jumper. Turning his back on it, he began the trudge back to the Forgotten settlement.
Chapter Fourteen
Ronon kept his eyes fixed on the light streaming through the doorway at the far end of the tunnel. It was low and almost perfectly round. Before Ronon could stop him, Orand ducked under the lintel and disappeared. Cursing beneath his breath, Ronon had no choice but to follow. He had to bend double to get under the lip of the rock, but after that he managed to squirm through easily enough. On the far side, surrounded by blue, he gasped with amazement.
They were standing on a shelf of rock about twenty feet wide. On either side of them, the ground fell away and, beyond the chasm, cliffs of unimaginable height reared up. They were at the edge of an abyss, a pit that delved into the very core of the planet.
“By the Ancestors…” breathed Orand, looking at the spectacle in wonder.
Sapphire light bathed the whole scene, spilling down from the distant roof of the vast chamber. Instead of the dark, soulless rock through which they had been creeping, the ceiling of the enormous space was entirely constructed of ice. Light filtered and winked from myriad facets, and massive icicles hung down like diamonds. Ronon was not normally given to flights of aesthetic fancy, but the sight was staggeringly beautiful.
The light was clearly sunlight, albeit filtered through many hundreds of feet of ice, but it was hard to gauge exactly how close to the surface they were — the ceiling itself was several hundred feet above them.
Ronon gingerly approached the edge of the rock shelf, and took a look over. The chasm stretched off into infinity, falling into darkness. There was no escape that way.
The remaining hunters came through the narrow opening, one after another. Soon there were a dozen of them standing on the narrow shelf, mouths open, gaping at the light show in front of them.
“Right,” said Ronon, conscious of the need to keep things moving. “What are we going to do now?”
“I guess that’s our only option,” said Orand, pointing.
At the left hand side of the rock shelf, a thin pier of granite shot out into the void. The blue light caught its edges dimly, but otherwise it was nearly invisible against the bottomless shadow below. Ronon took a good look at it. It was maybe six feet wide, and looked dangerously fragile. It was clearly a bridge of some kind, though it was impossible to see where it led beyond the first few dozen feet. After that, the dim blue haze obscured everything.
“You think it takes us to the other side?” he said, looking toward the unseen far walls doubtfully.
“Where else could it go?” said Orand. Now that the Banshee had gone, some of his earlier lightness of spirit seemed to be returning. He was clearly excited at the prospect of crossing the chasm. “The entrance we saw back there was man-made. This whole place must be the work of our forefathers. I had no idea that we were once capable of things such as this. This was worth a trek under the ice.”
Ronon studied him. Extreme tiredness could cause weakness of judgment, and Orand’s eyes were dangerously bright. But perhaps the man was just exhilarated. He couldn’t blame him for that; they had been through a bad time, and it finally looked like they might be getting somewhere. And it wasn’t like they had much choice; they couldn’t go back.
“I’ll go first,” he said by way of an answer.
Orand nodded. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Teyla looked at the glowing symbol carefully. It was vaguely familiar, though she couldn’t remember from where. Miruva had no such trouble.
“That’s the symbol you showed me,” she said. “Do you remember? In the settlement, in the Hall of Artisans. You said it was of Ancestor design.”
As soon as Miruva spoke, Teyla remembered. It did indeed bear the mark of Lantean technology, though she had no idea what it signified. It could be a warning, or an instruction, or maybe even a piece of decoration.
“Be careful,” Teyla said, standing back from the shining symbol. It stood at about head height and was a foot or so across. She’d never seen anything similar and was momentarily at a loss for what to do. “We have to think.”
“Don’t worry,” said Miruva, calmly. With the activation of the symbol, her demeanor had changed entirely. The last traces of uncertainty had left and she strode confidently towards the shimmering device. “I know what to do, Teyla. Don’t ask me how, but I do. Thank you for bringing me here. This, I am sure, was the will of the Ancestors.”
The Forgotten woman placed her hand on the device and it instantly responded. A hissing issued from the base of the buttress and the whole structure sighed, as if air was escaping from ancient valves. A thin line of light appeared at head height and then grew as a door slid smoothly open. There was a room on the far side, lit normally and lined with machinery. A faint hum was audible and lights flickered across consoles mounted in the wall.
“You have the gene,” said Teyla, looking at Miruva with fresh eyes. “Of course. It was an activation device used by the Ancestors. Like Sheppard, you have the means to use it.”
“So it seems,” she said, staring with eagerness at the equipment in the room beyond. “Whatever the reason, I feel like I know how to use these things. It’s as if I was born to them. We should go inside.”
“Wait!” cried Teyla.
But it was too late. Miruva stepped over the threshold and the familiar swishing started immediately. The lights in the room flickered and a terrible feeling of dread surged through Teyla’s body. It was all she could do not to run, heedless, back into the endless dark. She panicked, loathe to enter the chamber, but just as reluctant to leave Miruva on her own.
Then they came, sweeping down like vultures. Teyla caught a glimpse of one as it swooped
: a haughty, severe face, fingers like talons. A high-pitched shriek echoed from the walls. Teyla backed-up frantically, her heart hammering with terror. How did they generate this sense of fear? She had no idea. All she knew was that they were in the room, and they were terrible. She tried to cover her face, but she could still see them between her fingers. They advanced without remorse and Teyla knew only despair.
They had broken the seal, they had tried to breach the Underworld. And the Banshees had come for them.
After his return, news of Sheppard’s discovery spread quickly. Even as the long Khost day was drawing to a close, and the shadows on the ice were lengthening, many of the Forgotten clustered into the assembly hall to hear what he had to say. The whole settlement was roused. Extra fires were lit and their orange flames leapt high up the walls, throwing long barred shadows across the rough-cut rock.
Aralen and his advisors sat on a row of low chairs on a dais in front of the crowd. All of the ruling council were men, and all of them were old; Sheppard knew exactly what he’d be up against. He looked over his shoulder at the crowds. He saw McKay’s face amongst them. That was a relief — at least he wasn’t stuck in the Jumper. Rodney gave him an encouraging wave.
Then John turned back to the council.
“Colonel Sheppard.” Aralen’s voice dripped like melting ice from the dais. “You went looking for the missing members of your party, and yet you have come back alone. What is it you have to say?”
Sheppard cleared his throat before speaking. Diplomacy wasn’t really his thing, but if he was going to do what needed to be done then he’d need the support of the ruling council.
“Look, I’m no politician like you guys,” he said, “so I’ll get straight to the point. Thing is, I did find the missing members of my team. In fact, I reckon I found more than that. You’ve lost hundreds of your people to these Banshees. But they’re less than two hours’ march away. They’re underground, right here on Khost.”
A murmur rippled across the crowd behind him, quickly silenced by a severe look from Aralen. The whispers died away.
“Impossible,” Aralen objected. “There are caves all over our land. We know them all. None have ever been found there.”
Sheppard held up the proximity meter. “Well, not according to this,” he said, hoping that the obvious Ancient design would impress Aralen. “I used it to find where they were. It’s absolutely foolproof.”
“Actually, that’s not entirely correct,” came McKay’s voice from the crowd. “Its harmonic spectrum is only about ninety-two per cent efficient, but that’s probably due to imperfect connections with the viewfinder technology which we’ve grafted…”
“Rodney!” A poisonous look from Sheppard halted his explanation.
McKay shrunk back into his place. “But, er, to all intents and purposes it is very reliable. Yes, you can definitely rely on it. Absolutely.”
Sheppard turned back to Aralen. “I used it to find my team,” he explained. “If they were sheltering in one of those caches, the meter should’ve picked them up. It didn’t. But there was something else. Aralen, your people are trapped underground. That’s where they go. And we need to get them back.”
A wave of shock rippled around the hall. It took a few moments for the elders to restore order.
“What madness is this?” hissed Aralen, his irritation turning to disbelief. “No one could survive that far under the ice. Even we need to surface to hunt for food and fuel. If we couldn’t get out, we’d have died years ago. You must be mistaken.”
“Hey, I know what it sounds like. But I know what I saw.”
Aralen’s face tightened “What is to say that you haven’t simply uncovered the origin of the predators that haunt us?”
“Look, trust me, I don’t want to disturb a nest of Banshees either. But we have to check this out.”
Sheppard half-turned to face the crowd of people listening to the debate. Without exception they were concentrating on his words, their dark eyes glistening in the firelight. Many of them looked as tired as he did, exhausted by the increasingly hard pace of life. A glimmer of hope, however slight, was what they needed.
“Suppose we do walk into a bunch of Banshees? So what? They can come and get you here anyway. I was always told to take the fight to the enemy.”
There were low mutters of assent from around the hall. Aralen clutched the arms of his chair, sensing he was losing the support of the assembled gathering. “This is dangerous talk!” he cried. “If the Ancestors had meant us to know of this hidden place, they would have shown us the way. If it is closed to us, what business have we there?”
“But it isn’t,” Sheppard insisted. “The one skill you people still have is excavation. Send a team of your best guys out on the ice and they’ll find a way down. You can do it. You must do it.”
Aralen smiled coldly. “Have you have moved from being our guest, Colonel Sheppard, to being our master? Do not forget that I am Foremost among the Forgotten.”
Sheppard stopped in his tracks. This was dangerous. He needed to keep them on side. Before he could speak again, though, Helmar stood up.
“With respect, Foremost,” he said, clearly nervous, “Colonel Sheppard is not asking the impossible. There are fissures in that area which some of us know. We’ve mined there before, looking for caches and future sites for new settlements. It won’t be easy, but we might be able to extend some of those old tunnels. If we’d only known there were people there, we might have kept going before.”
Aralen turned his hard stare on the young hunter. “And I suppose you now know more than your elders about such matters, do you?” He was getting angry. “Don’t presume to tell me about the feasibility of this plan.”
Helmar turned ashen, but stood his ground. “I will never have your knowledge and experience, Foremost,” he said. “But things are changing. The planet is changing. If we don’t look for new solutions to our problems, then we will surely die.”
As Helmar spoke, Sheppard turned to look at the crowd in the chamber. Some of the younger members were excited at Helmar’s words; some of the older ones were scandalized.
“Now that we know there are people alive under the ice,” Helmar continued, his voice steady, “We have no choice but to investigate. If we are successful, and we discover how they’re able to live so far below the rock, we may even find an answer to our own predicament. So I’m in favor of Colonel Sheppard’s plan. It can be done.”
Sheppard looked back at Aralen. The old man was staring in shock. Sheppard wondered whether any of the community had ever dared to defy him so openly. The hall remained as silent as a tomb. All eyes were fixed on Aralen. For a few moments, it looked as if no one would dare to speak. But then one of the other advisors of the Forgotten, an ancient-looking man with ivory hair and leathery skin, spoke up.
“For years we have dreamed of the return of the lost ones,” he said, his voice shaking. “Now comes this news. We have prayed to the Ancestors for a sign. Is this what we have been waiting for?”
Aralen shot the man a startled look. “You too, Rogel?” he asked. “You believe in this plan?”
The advisor shrugged. “I no longer know what to believe. Visitors arrive amongst us after so many years of nothing. But can we afford to ignore this opportunity, Aralen? When we were young men, full of life, would we have done so? Have we really grown so old?”
That seemed to stop the Foremost dead. He briefly looked lost, as if trying to summon memories of some other life, long ago lost.
After a few moments, the old man collected himself, his features forming into something like resolution. “So be it,” he said. “The torch passes from one generation to the next. They have had enough of my wisdom and we must hope that whoever comes after me will prove equal to the challenge.”
Muffled whispers of consternation passed around the hall, broken only when Aralen lifted his voice. “Do what you need to prepare,” he said, sharply. “I counsel against it: no good can come of tamper
ing with the ways of the Ancestors. But your minds are clearly made up. Never shall it be said that I imposed my will against the wishes of the Forgotten.”
Helmar looked at Sheppard, surprised that his defiance had worked. John smiled, then turned back to Aralen.
“Look, no one’s changing anything round here,” he said. “Least of all me. We just need to find out what’s going on down there.”
Aralen bowed his head in acknowledgement. “Very well,” he said. “You may leave as soon as you can. And may the Ancestors be with you.” He looked tired and anxious. “A storm is coming, though, Colonel Sheppard. I can feel it. Work quickly, if you must do this thing, for when it comes it will be terrible.”
Teyla cowered against the wall. All she wanted to do was crawl away — escape, hide, flee. Deep down, she knew such an attitude was shameful, that she should stand up and fight, but the fear was overpowering. She pushed herself hard against the smooth steel wall, feeling the metal grate against her spine. There was nothing she could do, nowhere she could go.
The Banshees had found them.
Then, almost as soon as it had started, the dreadful fear evaporated. It was like a switch being flicked. Gingerly, she opened her eyes. A spectral figure hovered in front of her, but she wasn’t afraid of it. The creature looked extremely strange: long, flowing translucent robes, long white hair, a thin face with mournful eyes. It stayed where it was, gazing at her impassively.
Teyla looked around for Miruva. The young woman was standing calmly, staring at the Banshee with an expression of benign interest. She didn’t seem to have been affected at all.
“Miruva!” cried Teyla, still shaken. “What is happening? Why does it not attack?”
“Because it does as I command,” Miruva said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I don’t think you fully understand my power, Teyla.”
STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End Page 18