02 - Reliquary (3 page)

“No. Go away.” McKay, who hated people reading over his shoulder, elbowed
him.

“I am not sensing the presence of any Wraith,” Teyla said, sounding
thoughtful. She had the hereditary ability of some Athosians to know when the
Wraith were nearby; it gave you just enough time to bolt for cover or the
nearest Stargate and was a valued survival trait.

It wasn’t an ability that the expedition had any scientific explanation for
so far, but it was definitely real, and it had led to some initial suspicion of
Teyla, at least on the part of Sergeant Bates, whom Elizabeth had appointed head of city security. John
preferred some level of paranoia in the person who held that job, but Bates had
never trusted the Athosians in general and Teyla in particular, and it had
gotten in the way. Even before Bates had accused Teyla of betraying them to the
Wraith, Bates had made a snide comment about John wanting his new friend on his
’gate team. Unsure at the moment whether Bates meant Teyla or Rodney, John had
pretended to think that Bates meant Ford, and told him not to talk that way
about the lieutenant or he would put Bates on report, and things had gone
downhill from there. Now Bates’ paranoia just made John paranoid, mainly about
Bates.

“No Wraith, that’s always encouraging to hear,” McKay muttered, still
studying the detector. It wouldn’t identify the presence of hibernating Wraith,
just conscious ones. They had found that out the hard way.

“We’re not going to have much time to look around before dark.” John went to
the end of the plaza and up a short set of steps to the big double doorway.
Through it he could see a hall, littered with blown sand and powdered glass,
quiet, dusty, and dead. No bodies, but then this was old destruction; any
remains would have long ago rotted away. Still, it just looked like a place
where John would have expected to see bodies.

The two doors had both been blasted off and lay on the paving. One had
tumbled down so the outer side lay face up; it was unadorned except for some
embossed circles, which didn’t necessarily mean anything. The Ancients hadn’t
been big on brand names, or even just labeling stuff. He started inside, the
others following.

Inside the big foyer, McKay paused to take some more readings, and John
stopped beside him, frowning, trying to get a feel for the place.

At the far end a giant spiral stairway curved up into a large shaft. It was
made of cracked slabs of stone and charred metal, still mostly intact, but John
wouldn’t have wanted to chance it, not without climbing gear. Still, he would rather trust stairs
than the transporter/elevators, if there were any and if there was anything left
to power them. Behind the stairway was a big triangular archway, opening into a
passage toward the center of the repository. It had all been grand and lofty
once, but the dark gray stone of the walls and floor was scarred where broken
pieces of the stairway’s elaborately curled metal balustrade had shattered and
slammed into it.

“I thought I had something for a second,” Rodney muttered, glaring at the
detector. “An energy signature.”

John frowned at it too. “From where?”

“Couldn’t tell, it wasn’t there long enough for the detector to get a
direction.” Rodney grimaced. “Let’s try that way.” He nodded toward the
triangular passage and gave a mock-shudder at the stairway. “Better than
climbing that deathtrap.”

“If we search this whole place, we’re going to have to tackle the deathtrap
levels sooner or later,” John pointed out. He caught Ford’s eye and, with a jerk
of his head, told him to watch their six.

“We?” McKay’s brow furrowed, his attention still on the detector. “We who,
kemosabe?”

John led the way through the foyer and the big arch, Teyla coming up to walk
beside him. Ahead he could see the corridor opened into another large space,
streaked with light and shadow. John flicked on the light attached to his P-90.

They reached the triangular arch at the end of the corridor and saw what lay
beyond. John said softly, “Wow. J guess they didn’t get any time to pack.”

The eight-sided chamber was huge and shadowy, bigger than Atlantis’ gate
room, with three levels of open gallery above it, all intact. At the highest
level, the walls curved up, meeting in a point overhead. Long diagonal open
spaces had once held skylights, the glass long shattered by the bombing,
allowing in dimming light from the overcast sky. Directly across from the
archway, a bunch of giant silvery tubes like the top of an immense pipe organ
stretched up and away, vanishing into the ceiling high above. The place was littered with debris:
broken consoles that had been ripped off their platforms, smashed crystals,
twisted metal, bits and pieces of Ancient technology, scattered and smashed like
a trash heap. On this level alone, a dozen archways led off in all directions,
into dark rooms that seemed to be filled with odd-shaped equipment.

McKay looked up from the detector and his jaw dropped. “Oh, oh yes, this is
going to take a while.”

The sun was already setting over the sea when they took the jumper up and
dialed the Stargate back to Atlantis to transmit a report to Elizabeth. After a
three-way radio conversation between her, John, and Rodney, they decided to go
back for the night and return with a larger team when it was morning on the
planet. This Heliopolis, ruined or not, was in no danger of falling into the
ocean.

The next morning, John put the jumper down in the plaza near the entrance
again, saying, “Everybody out. Last one to Heliopolis II is a rotten egg.”

Unbuckling her seat restraints, Teyla stared at him, smiling incredulously.
“What?”

“It’s an old joke,” he explained.

“Don’t worry if you don’t get it, it’s not funny.” Rodney dug the life sign
detector out of his pack and headed for the ramp.

Ford and the other two Marines exited first to walk a perimeter. Both Kinjo
and Boerne had field experience on Bates’ recon team, and Boerne had received
the Ancient gene therapy and had been training to fly the jumpers. Locking down
the console, John heard Boerne’s startled “whoa” at the view of the repository
and the ruined city spread out at the end of the plaza. Sitting in the back of
the jumper, most of the team hadn’t been able to get a good view of it from
above. John followed McKay and Teyla out, while Kavanagh, Corrigan, and
Kolesnikova were still picking up their packs.

John paused on the plaza, taking a deep breath. The sun was out this morning,
and the sea gleamed blue, though the color was duller than the sea around
Atlantis. It didn’t have that crystal-clear morning of creation quality, of a
world that had never been touched by pollution. Then the breeze turned and John winced and coughed. “Damn.”
Atlantis doesn’t have that, either.
The odor of rot was stronger today, worse than the dead fish smell usually
associated with sea ports.

Dr. Kavanagh emerged from the puddlejumper, his expression torn between
curiosity and wary disgust; John figured that was probably from the smell.
Kavanagh was a tall thin man, with glasses, a high forehead, straight hair
pulled back into a tail, and a sort of permanently pissed-off expression. He
watched Rodney pace around with the life sign detector, asking sharply,
“Anything?”

“Yes, there’s an entire horde of Wraith about to descend on us, I just failed
to mention it because I was waiting to be asked,” Rodney snapped. “There’s no
life signs except us. I’m checking for energy readings now.”

Kavanagh snapped back, “If you can’t answer a simple question, McKay, then
don’t bother.” Kavanagh wasn’t exactly the best team player in the expedition,
but sometimes biting McKay’s head off was the only way to deal with him. John
frankly preferred scientists who bit; McKay had some of the less aggressive
science team members cowed into hysterical submission, not counting the ones
with Stockholm Syndrome.

“Boys, please, we’ve only just arrived.” Irina Kolesnikova shaded her eyes,
looking up at the dark wall looming over them. She added worriedly, “Yes, the
destruction is far more severe than the MALP indicated. We have a large job
ahead of us.” Kolesnikova was short and plump, with a round plain face and short
dark hair. She also had a deep voice for a woman, sort of like Lauren Bacall
with a thick Russian accent, and John could have listened to her all day. Like
McKay and Boerne, she had had the ATA gene therapy. This was her and Kavanagh’s
first trip away from Atlantis; Corrigan was an archeologist and had been going
out on ’gate missions with Sergeant Stackhouse’s team.

All the scientists were dressed in tac vests over the blue science uniform
shirts and tan pants, carrying a small pack for tools and other supplies. It was warm enough in the ruin for John just to
wear his tac vest over a t-shirt, and he was leaving his BDU jacket in the
jumper. He also carried a P-90, like Teyla, Ford, Boerne, and Kinjo. The
scientists had been issued 9mm sidearms, though Corrigan and McKay were checked
out on the P-90; McKay just didn’t like to carry one, saying he could run faster
without it.

John used the binoculars, scanning the ruined buildings around them, but
there was no hint of movement. They hadn’t taken the time to look at the city
much yesterday. Today the contrast between the bright sunlight and those empty
dark windows reminded him of something straight out of a post-nuclear-holocaust
or disaster movie.

Teyla came up to stand beside him. Surveying the scene with a preoccupied
expression, she said, “I am not sure I like this place, Major Sheppard.”

“Oh, what’s not to like?” John teased her. She lifted a brow at him, her
mouth set in an unamused line, and he gave in. “Yeah, I know. It’s going to be a
logistical nightmare trying to explore this thing, even if there aren’t
any…monsters and whatnot. I wouldn’t worry so much if it was just our team.”
He looked back at the group by the jumper, frowning a little. The last time he
had gone on a mission with inexperienced scientists, it hadn’t ended well. They
had been investigating an Ancient Lagrangian Point satellite in orbit around the
second planet in Atlantica’s system and found a downed Wraith supply ship on the
planet’s surface. Unfortunately, there had been one last surviving Wraith,
hibernating after having eaten all the stored humans on board and then all his
Wraith friends. John and Rodney had managed to survive; the two scientists with
them hadn’t. “Kavanagh and Kolesnikova don’t have any experience with field
work, and keeping people from getting hurt in all that debris is going to be
hard enough.”

Teyla nodded. “And I admit, I am glad to find this place deserted. If there
are people who would choose to make this sad ruin their home, I do not think I
would like to meet them.”

McKay arrived in time to hear Teyla’s comment, juggling his equipment to
check for power signatures and to keep one eye on the life sign detector. “In
most movies, a place like this would come equipped with a horde of cannibalistic
mutants, possibly with psychic powers.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous.” John snorted. “It would be zombies, flesh-eating
zombies.”

Teyla sighed a little and refused to take the bait.

Corrigan joined them, using a small camcorder to film the wall of the
repository. He lowered it, frowning. “This is a little odd. The surrounding
structures aren’t Ancient, or at least not Atlantean. The Ancients might have
built this place with help from another culture.”

Ford, Boerne, and Kinjo returned from their quick survey of the immediate
area. John lifted a brow at Ford, who shook his head, saying, “Nothing, Major.”

“Good. Boerne, Kinjo, I want you out here with the jumper.”

John caught a flicker of disappointment on Kinjo’s face. He was Asian and
looked nearly too young to be here; John knew he was one of the volunteers from
the SGC, and probably hadn’t been there very long before the chance to join the
expedition had come up. Boerne was big, blond, and older, and if he was
disappointed, he kept it hidden behind a very correct poker face. “Yes, sir.”

McKay turned to yell at the other scientists, “Let’s get a move on, people,
we’re on a schedule here!”

“Don’t shout, McKay, we can hear you perfectly,”
Kolesnikova said,
shouldering her pack and coming to join them with Kavanagh.

“Still nothing?” Kavanagh demanded, craning his head to look over McKay’s
shoulder at the sensor. “No energy readings?”

“No such luck. If there’s anything still intact in there, it’s been shut
down.” McKay eyed the repository grimly, apparently forgetting that he had just tried to eviscerate Kavanagh for asking
nearly the same question earlier. “We’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

John nodded. He wasn’t surprised; the hard way was the way they did
everything. He made everybody do radio checks, then used the remote to tell the
puddlejumper to close its ramp and set its cloak. The little ship obediently
sealed itself, then vanished. The cloak would keep it invisible to the naked eye
and to any non-Ancient instruments, and each team member had a remote to allow
them to open the ramp and enter. Those precautions, plus leaving the two Marines
on guard, made John reasonably sure the jumper would still be here when they
came back—possible Wraith, flesh-eating zombies, and mutants notwithstanding.
“Right, let’s go,” he said, and started up the steps to the entrance.

Once inside, McKay paused to take some more readings, and the others spread
out a little to look around, Corrigan still filming, moving close to the walls
to get detailed shots.

John led the way on through the foyer and into the big triangular corridor.
The bright daylight outside and the broken skylights made it possible to see the
big control area at the opposite end, and he could hear the scientists’ awed
reactions.

“Well, here it is,” McKay said as they reached the entrance. He didn’t sound
as enthusiastic as John had expected. Normally something like this would have
caused McKay to go into a near hysterical frenzy of excitement. He should almost
be able to smell the ZPMs that possibly lurked in the bowels of the building’s
power systems. Instead he sounded almost resigned. “I’m still not getting any
readings—most of this is probably too damaged to tell us much—but this has to be
the control center for the structure.”