STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End (22 page)

“You are making a mistake, Geran,” she said, the frustration leaking into her voice. “If there is any hope for your kind on Khost, you must let me go.”

Geran squatted down beside her, feeling his jawline gingerly.

“Oh no,” he said. “That’s not how it’s going to be. Don’t you remember what I said when you first arrived?” He did his best to smile. “Once you come here, you
never
leave.”

Sheppard
stared at Aralen, trying to keep himself calm. It wasn’t easy.

“It’s no good,” said the old man, shaking his head. “Your friend Teyla is gone. There’s no point in searching.”

“Just one guide. C’mon, Aralen — that’s all I’m asking for.”

“You would be taking our guides into danger. And if the storms close on you, you will perish on the ice. It is madness. You are a madman.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been called a whole lot worse than that,” growled Sheppard. “But I don’t have a choice.”

Aralen was unresponsive. He seemed to have been traumatized by Miruva’s disappearance, and had a vacant look in his eyes. Though Sheppard could sympathize with his loss, time was short.

“Do you not think we’ve thought the same, many times?” the old man said. “We have lost so many people. We have never succeeded.”

“Look, you don’t have the gear I have,” said Sheppard, carefully keeping the frustration out of his voice. “I have a… magic box. It’s real good at finding people.”

The leader of the Forgotten looked back at him with mournful eyes. “You don’t even know where to start looking.”

That, Sheppard had to admit, was true. The only thing anyone had been able to tell him about the Banshee abductions was that they never left a trace of their victims behind. There were no trails, no marks, no clues. Just heading out on to the ice wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best he’d been able to come up with.

“Not
quite
true,” Sheppard said, trying to make it sound as if he wasn’t just making it up on the spot. “I’m gonna head where Ronon and Orand went. I should be able to detect them, even if they’re holed up somewhere real inaccessible.”

Aralen started to say something, but then shook his head resignedly. He didn’t look like he had the energy for the argument.

“So be it,” he said. “You will not listen to reason, but I cannot let you travel into the wastes on your own. You’ll need a guide. Helmar will take you. I won’t have your death on my conscience, too.”

A young man came forward. He looked slight and unprepossessing, like most of the Forgotten, but he had a confident manner about him. He extended his hand to Sheppard.

“I am Helmar,” he said. “We can leave whenever you wish.”

Sheppard returned the handshake. That was all he’d wanted; taking along a local was always a good idea.

“Good to meet you, Helmar,” he said. He turned back to Aralen. “I’ll be back when I can. And you might wanna look in on Rodney while I’m gone — he can get a little cranky when he’s left in sub-zero temperatures.”

Aralen didn’t smile. “We’ll look after your friend,” he said. “The laws of hospitality remain strong. While all around us changes, we’ll keep a vigil here, tending the hearth until the Ancestors in their wisdom release us from calamity.”

“Yeah, you do that,” muttered Sheppard, turning away from the Foremost and heading from the chamber. He’d had just about enough of Aralen’s passivity. “C’mon Helmar,” he said. “We’ve got us some tracking to do.”

“Why are you doing this, Geran?” asked Teyla.

They were alone in one of the dwellings. She was tied to a chair near the middle of the room; he was standing at the entrance. The rest of the men had left, some limping or cradling sprained wrists. It hadn’t been easy getting her into confinement.

“Isn’t it obvious? You are not one of us. You threaten the peace of Sanctuary. This place is only for the Forgotten.”

“Then let me go.”

“I cannot. I must pray for guidance on what to do with you. There is no escape from the land of the dead.”

Teyla began to realize what this was about. Geran wanted to believe the myths he had woven about Sanctuary. He needed to trust that they were true. She was a threat to all of that.

“Geran, I do not wish to challenge anything you hold dear.
But you have to understand that the people on Khost are dying. My friends are there too. I
must
get back to them.”

Geran drew a little closer. He had a strange expression on his face. “Do not tell me what I must do here. This is
our
realm. I will decide what to do with you in due course. And
all
options remain open.”

Teyla didn’t like the sound of that at all. Geran didn’t give her a chance to respond, but turned on his heel and swept out of the small room. From outside the hut there was the sound of men standing to attention as he walked by.

Teyla tested her bonds carefully. No obvious weakness in them. She felt frustration begin to rise up within her. There was no time for this! She knew how precarious the team’s position was on Khost, and that every minute she was held in captivity added another layer of difficulty to the mission. She rocked the chair back and forth, trying to find some weak link in the cords at her ankles and wrists. It was pointless. They knew what they were doing.

Then, from outside, there was a thud. Teyla stopped, listening carefully. There was another heavy noise, and what sounded like a groan.

Miruva slipped through the doorway, rubbing her knuckles. “That hurt more than I thought it would,” she said, moving quickly to untie Teyla.

“Miruva! How did you…? I thought you’d told Geran…”

Miruva looked up from her work, a hurt expression on her face. “Geran’s been watching you since you arrived, Teyla. I would have come to warn you, but he’s had his men watching me too.”

She finished loosening the cords and stood up. Teyla rubbed her wrists.

“I am sorry. I should have trusted you.” She let slip a rueful smile. “I didn’t know you could fight.”

Miruva smiled back. “I couldn’t. But I’m beginning to think there are lots of things women do just as well as men.”

Teyla stood up, feeling the circulation return to her ankles. She had a nasty bump on the back of her head, but was otherwise in good shape. The game was back on.

“Then you’ll come with me?” she asked.

Miruva grinned. “Just try and stop me.”

Sheppard stole a glance at his young companion. Helmar looked full of beans. That was good. The two of them had been tracking out on the ice for well over an hour, and his eager expression hadn’t changed. At least, Sheppard didn’t think it had; the facemasks and furs made it hard to tell for sure.

The chat wasn’t exactly flowing. Sheppard never sold himself as a conversationalist at the best of times. Breaking the ice — so to speak — with a hunter almost half his age wasn’t going to be easy.

“So,” he said eventually, searching for the right words. “You like hunting, Helmar?”

Helmar grinned, and nodded vociferously. “Oh, yes!” he beamed. “I’m an expert hunter, one of the best of my age. It’ll only be two more winters and I’ll be allowed to hunt the buffalo with Orand’s team. They’re the most honored.”

“That’s great,” said Sheppard, doing his best to sound enthusiastic. “I’ve, er, done some hunting in my time, too. Mostly ducks, as it happens. A deer. Once. But mostly ducks.”

He winced. Really not going well.

“We’re not far from where Orand would have gone,” continued Helmar, his enthusiasm undimmed by Sheppard’s stumbling. “There are caches around here too. If they’re holed-up, I’ll find them.”

“That’s great, Helmar. Glad you came along.”

He reached inside his deep pocket and retrieved the proximity meter he’d taken from the Jumper. It was a typical McKay hybrid model: Tauri technology grafted on to an Ancient core module. It was behaving a little strangely in the extreme cold, but was functioning well enough.

“Might give this thing a whirl again,” he said. “You never know.”

Sheppard adjusted the range, activated the locator, and turned a slow three-sixty.

Helmar, who regarded the instrument as a magic item of extreme potency, watched from a respectful distance. “Anything?” he said at length, sounding like he spoke more out of hope than expectation.

Sheppard frowned, trying to interpret the various patterns on the viewfinder. “I dunno,” he said. “There’s
something
out here, but I can’t get the signal to hold.”

He altered some of the control parameters and the display switched. Strange flecks danced across the screen. It looked as if the meter was picking up a whole cloud of indistinct shapes, something like human, but much fainter.

“Heap of junk,” he muttered, giving up on improving the feed.

He looked northwest, the direction from which the readings were strongest.

“We’d better take a look that way,” he said. “Call it a hunch.”

Helmar swept his gaze across the flat horizon. His practiced hunter’s eyes assessed their chances.

“The weather looks like it’ll hold,” he said, though not with huge conviction. “The wind can come down strongly here, and quickly. We need to be careful.”

They continued for another half hour. The sun was low on the horizon by the time Sheppard called a halt.

“I reckon we should be about right,” he said, flicking his hood up and looking around. No change, just endless flat ice-plains.

Helmar nodded and resumed his anxious scanning of the horizon. The few clouds seemed some distance off. Even with a stronger wind, they would take some time to arrive.

Sheppard pulled the meter out and activated it again.

“Here we go,” he said to himself, adjusting the controls. “Gotta love these McKay specials.”

The screen burst into life. Even before he’d had time to narrow the parameters, the display began to fill with data.

“Holy Moly,” breathed Sheppard.

“What is it?” asked Helmar.

Sheppard looked at him, not bothering to hide his bafflement. “You know what?” he said, letting the proximity meter do its work. “I have no idea.”

Teyla drew the fabric covering over the entrance to the hut. Two bodies lay beside it, both out cold. Apart from that, the village was silent and empty.

“Did you see any more of Geran’s men?” she whispered to Miruva, who shook her head.

Together they crept through the huts and back on to the wide path leading back to the Hall of Arrivals. As they went, Miruva seemed to lose her earlier confidence.

“What if the Banshees discover us?” Miruva asked, sounding much more timid than she had done back on Khost.

“What harm can they do us?” said Teyla. “They have already done their worst by bringing us here.”

“As far as you know,” said Miruva. “Have you forgotten the terror?”

“We will have to take the risk, Miruva,” she said.

Together they walked across the rolling plains and back towards the giant cliff-face. No one followed them out. For the time being at least, they were on their own.

Soon they were at the foot of the spiral staircase. The dark steps were lined by the soft silver starlight. Above them, the rock glistened. All was silent.

After a few steps, Miruva stopped. “I can’t go on.”

Teyla looked at her carefully. Her face was ashen and her hands trembled.

“Miruva, I am surprised at you,” Teyla said. “When we spoke in the settlement, you seemed so full of strength. And now, at the first sign of — ”

Teyla stopped herself. She felt the same thing. Even now, the anxiety began to return. It wasn’t Miruva’s fault.

Teyla took the young woman’s shoulder. “Listen to me,” she said. “There is some force at work here which affects your mind. I feel it too. You must try and resist it. You are braver than this — I know it. If you give in to the feeling now, you will never escape the Underworld.”

Miruva looked back. The fields and crops stretched away under the benign starlight. “I know,” she mumbled. “But…”

“No more hesitation,” snapped Teyla, losing patience. “Trust me. We passed through it before. We can pass through it again.”

Miruva looked briefly as if she would relent and turn back the way they had come, but under Teyla’s gaze a glow of resolve lit in her eyes. She took a deep breath and looked up at the forbidding cliff face. “I can do it,” she said. “I must do it.”

“
We
will do it,” said Teyla, taking her by the hand.

“Is it broken?” asked Helmar, still prudently respectful of the device but keen to see what was going on.

Sheppard frowned and adjusted the settings. “Damn thing’s telling me we’ve hit the bulls-eye.”

“And, er, that isn’t good?”

“Nope,” he said. “According to this work of genius, we should be standing in the middle of several hundred people.” He looked around at the empty icescape. “You see any?”

There was absolutely nothing — let alone people — for miles on end. Sheppard studied the display, trying to make sense of the readings. They were very odd-looking. Whereas a human would normally register on the scanner as a green blob of fairly consistent intensity, these readings flitted in and out of existence. Even when they were present, they were hazy and indeterminate.

Against his normal inclination, Sheppard found himself wishing McKay was there. At least the man would have a theory as to what was causing the anomaly. Was it instrumentation failure? Or was he picking something else up?

He tightened the search parameters, narrowing the set of phenomena picked up by the machine. The results remained stubbornly inconclusive.

“Rodney told me he’d
fixed
this,” he said, frustration rising. If his only means of detecting human life-signs was defective, then the whole rescue-mission was near-impossible. There weren’t a whole lot of alternative strategies available.