STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End (24 page)

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?”