STARGATE SG-1: Oceans of Dust
Peter J. Evans
An original publication of Fandemonium Ltd, produced under license from MGM Consumer Products.
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METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Presents
RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON
in
STARGATE SG-1™
MICHAEL SHANKS AMANDA TAPPING CHRISTOPHER JUDGE
DON S. DAVIS
ExecutiveProducers BRAD WRIGHT
MICHAEL GREENBURG RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON
Developed for Television by BRAD WRIGHT & JONATHAN GLASSNER
STARGATE SG-1 is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. ©1997-2012 MGM Television Entertainment Inc. and MGM Global Holdings Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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To Nicola
For research, for coffee, and for being able to put up with me.
Chapter 2. Riders on the Storm
Chapter 3. Goodnight, Travel Well
Chapter 10. Black Burning Heart
Chapter 13. A Dustland Fairytale
Chapter 17. Little Black Cloud
Chapter 21. Feeling Gravity’s Pull
Author’s Note:
This story takes place in Stargate: SG-1 Season 4, between the episodes ‘Upgrades’ and ‘Crossroads’.
Thanks to everyone who helped me out on this one, especially Sally and Tom at Fandemonium for letting me write it. Large and expensive drinks go to the informational James Swallow and the inspirational Heather Wallace, without whom this book would have been a far lesser thing than it is. And high-fives all round to the Pubmeet crew, for recharging my enthusiasm batteries on a monthly basis.
Terminal Frost
Laura Miles
saw a dead man on her way to the dig site.
He appeared to her like a vision, out of the golden dawn haze, by the side of the El-Fayoum highway. Kemp, who was driving, must have seen him too, because Miles didn’t even get time to shout before the SUV was lurching to a halt.
The vehicle had been moving fast. Miles had to brace herself against the back of Kemp’s seat as the brakes came on, and Andersson, who had been dozing in the front, was thrown forwards into the dashboard. She yelped, the seatbelt yanking her back.
Miles, startled by the sight, barely heard her.
Kemp reversed, slowly. The SUV pulled up close to the dead man and stopped, the engine idling.
Miles sat quite still, one hand against the back of Kemp’s seat, the other over her eyes to block out some of the glare. The sun was coming up, a molten crescent against the desert’s black horizon, and shafts of harsh light were cutting towards her across the sand. They outlined the dead man, making a halo of his white cotton headscarf, and forced Miles’ eyes almost closed.
Inside the SUV, no-one spoke for a long time.
The dead man was sitting by the side of the road, his back against an upturned cart. He must have been driving it along the edge of the highway when some speeding vehicle had collided with him, hurling his body into the sand. He’d lived for a while, Miles decided, after the impact; long enough to drag himself back to the cart, to prop himself against it, maybe to wait for help that never came.
Miles shivered, feeling queasy and strange. She had seen dead men before, many times, but they had been changed by the hot sand of the desert: their skins dry paper, their skulls hollow, their hearts black wisps clinging to the insides of canopic jars. This man might have been asleep, save for his one open eye and the swarms of flies already feasting on his tears.
“We should call somebody,” she breathed.
Kemp shook his head. “We probably shouldn’t.”
“What?” That was Andersson, quietly aghast. “We can’t just leave him out there!”
“Yes we can,” said Kemp, his voice a flat whisper. He was looking straight ahead now, through the windshield, not at the corpse. “It’s a highway. Someone will see him.”
“But —”
“Anna, I’m sorry. But if we call this in we’ll get involved, and Harlowe will throw a fit. You know what he’s like.”
Miles knew that arguing wasn’t going to do any good. Not with Harlowe visiting the dig. “He’s right,” she said. “I hate it, but he’s right.”
“
Så jävla typiskt!
” Andersson hissed, sitting back with her arms folded. “All right, if you’re so frightened of Harlowe. Drive on.”
“I’m —”
“I hope he haunts your dreams!”
“Kemp, just go,” Miles snapped. “Before somebody drives past and thinks we killed the poor bugger.”
“I’m sorry,” repeated Kemp. Then he turned the wheel and brought the SUV around in a sharp turn towards the east. Miles felt the tires leave tarmac and bounce solidly onto packed sand.
Andersson reached up for the grab-handle above the window and held on. “I hate all these secrets,” she muttered.
“Not long now,” Kemp replied. “Things will be back to normal soon.”
Normal
. He’d been saying that for a week, ever since they had first struck stone.
Miles risked one more glance back as they drove away. The dead man sat as if content, his one open eye gazing out towards the dig site. He was looking at where she was going.
Miles didn’t like that. It felt like a bad sign, an omen. As if the dead knew more of her business here than the living.
Around her, the desert grew hot.
Deserts are defined by their extremes. In western Egypt, it is not uncommon for daylight temperatures to peak at a searing fifty centigrade. At night, frost can form, in those scattered places where moisture remains in the air.
This is the rhythm of the place: roast and freeze, over and over, forever. It is a brutal process, a ceaseless hammer that turns mountains into hills, hills into rubble, rubble into fine sand that heaps into wandering, wind-scoured dunes a thousand kilometers from end to end. It is erosion, it is demolition; it is the way the desert remakes itself.