Dead end

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 tampering 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.”

Teyla felt a sudden pang of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. There was something odd about Miruva. The diffident, sweet girl she had known in the settlement seemed to have been replaced by a cold, assured woman. Was she somehow in league with the Banshees? Was she being controlled by them?

Miruva laughed, and the fantasy was extinguished. Her smile was the same, her demeanor was the same. The effects of the Banshee attack had clearly confused Teyla’s senses.

“I don’t know how it happens,” said Miruva, sounding delighted nonetheless. “It’s as if they have a link to my mind. I tell them to do something, and they do it.”

Teyla pulled herself to her feet, and tried to regain something of her dignity. Whatever was going on here was very strange.

“Can you make them depart?” she said, eyeing the hovering, silent Banshee.

Miruva frowned.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s not so much that I can command them, like you would a child, but more like they know what I want and act on it. They seem almost an extension of my thoughts. Like my thoughts made real. I can’t really explain it.”

Colonel Sheppard had once said similar things about flying Ancient vessels, as if the machinery became an extension of his mind. Slowly, the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.

“You have the means to the control the technology of the Ancestors,” said Teyla. “We call this the ATA gene. Many of our number have it, though not all.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “I can hardly believe it. After so many years living in fear of these creatures, they seem like nothing more than nightmares that have faded with the morning.”

Teyla frowned. “The fear was real,” she said. “I do not normally run from battle, but I had no choice. How was this effect created?” She looked at the flickering shape intently. The Banshee’s eyes followed her, but it made no move towards her. “Miruva, can you instruct it to talk?”

Miruva’s face became a mask of concentration. After a few moments, the halo of energy surrounding the Banshee flickered and became brighter. It looked down at Teyla, still expressionless, and its mouth began to move.

“Full-power protocol established,” came a tinny voice from the ethereal presence. “Thirty-seven minutes remaining until power-down.”

“I do not understand.”

“The Banshee has been saving its energy,” said Miruva. “It’s terrified of losing power. In my head I can hear it saying the same thing over and over again: ‘Must maintain power’.”

“Miruva,” said Teyla. “How can you know of these things? Your people work with simple tools: fire, rock and fur. You are talking as if you understand how this device works. If I did not know better, I would even say that you sound like Doctor McKay.”

“I do understand,” said Miruva. “Somehow, I can feel what this thing needs, what it wants. I have the words for it — or at least some of them. It’s as if I was born for this.”

Teyla felt completely out of her depth. Ancient technology was not her specialty, but in the absence of Doctor McKay she would just have to do her best to unravel things, one step at a time. She looked back at the Banshee.

“Who are you?” she said, in as commanding a voice as she could muster.

The Banshee looked over at Miruva, who nodded to give her assent.

“I am EX-567, an avatar of my creator, Telion,” came the thin, rasping voice. “We are the guardians of the Sanctuary. We carry out the great work.”

“Why are you persecuting the Forgotten?”

“We carry out the great work. There is no power. The protocols are minimal.”

“I’m not sure I understand this,” said Teyla, looking to Miruva for support.

“There’s something there,” Miruva said, frowning. “It’s as if I can see inside the mind of this thing. Its thoughts are arranged like sheaves of grass in the drying chambers.”

“You have the gene. Perhaps you can see more clearly than any others what is going on here. Can you do anything to access those… sheaves?”

Miruva closed her eyes. “I’m inside its mind… It’s so strange. It’s as if ‘I’ and ‘it’ are one person. But I still retain myself. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

Teyla stepped back, unwilling to interfere with the process. She was as content as she ever would be that Miruva was safe and knew what she was doing. There had to be way of getting at the answers and if anything was capable of transporting them back to where they’d come from, it was the Banshee.

“I’ve got something,” said Miruva, her eyes still closed. “There is a key, just like the sign we used to get in here. I think it’s some kind of sequence. Shall I access it?”

“Yes, please do,” said Teyla. This sounded promising.

A few moments passed and nothing happened. Miruva opened her eyes and came to stand by Teyla.

“I’ve asked it to speak to us,” she said, calmly. “We must listen. I think this will give us the answers we’re looking for.”

Sheppard was pleased. About as pleased as he had been since arriving on Khost. The day was waning, but there was still time. Now he had a target, something to aim for, he could get stuck in. It was the waiting around that killed him.

Helmar had rounded up about fifty young men. They were keen, most looked pretty competent, too. Within moments of getting agreement to go, they had rounded up a fearsome array of mining equipment. Axes, hammers, twine-wound rope, material for making fire, it was all there. Helmar’s words had kindled their enthusiasm; they had listened to the cautionary words of their leaders for too long. Now their time had come.

They had assembled in one the large chambers near the settlement’s entrance, together with McKay. All of them looked at Sheppard expectantly.

“OK, guys,” he said. “We’re gonna have to work fast. The site isn’t far away — we can get there quickly. But there’s a storm coming, and it’s a beast. We’ve only got one chance at this, so let’s get it right.”

He paused for a moment, thinking of Teyla. He didn’t like to imagine her trapped so far under the ice. He hoped to God things weren’t too desperate down there.

“You’ve all got family who’ve been taken by these critters,” he continued. “One of my team was taken too. It’s time to take them back. I’m relying on you. All of you. Let’s get this done.”

Helmar began to stomp his feet on the rock floor. The others followed suit. Clearly, that was how they showed appreciation round here. The men started to tramp off toward the front gate of the settlement.

“And what exactly do you want me to do while you’re off on this expedition?” said McKay to Sheppard. His face looked sour — he was getting fed up with being left behind.

“How close are you to fixing the Jumper?”

“It’s not a simple operation…”

“How close, Rodney?”

McKay gave an exasperated sigh. “Three, maybe four hours.”

“Well, that’s just perfect,” said Sheppard. “We’ll be there and back before you know it.”

“Why do I find it so hard to believe you when you say that?”

Sheppard shrugged. “You should learn to be more trusting.”

He gave McKay a reassuring cuff on the shoulder, then joined the hunters. They’d started singing. The words were barely comprehensible, but it was clear they were keyed up for the task ahead.

Sheppard liked the men’s spirit. He hoped they could keep it up. If they were going to recover Teyla and the others in time, they’d need every ounce of it.