"And rocks and trees and trees and rocks, and rocks and trees and trees and rocks...," Rodney McKay warbled tunelessly as he scrambled up the ridge clutching a handheld sensing device.
John Sheppard resisted the urge to rush McKay and kick his backside up and over said ridge. Instead, he adjusted his weapon and forged ahead. He gazed into the clear, blue sky, imagining himself piloting a puddle jumper far, far away—away from the heat, McKay's so-called singing, and what was clearly a ridiculous quest. At least he was seeing a lot of Atlantis, which meant, this soon after the megastorm that had lashed the planet, seeing a lot of downed and broken trees. They'd skirted some amazingly huge beauties lying on their sides with roots that towered over them, but they'd left most of the trees behind when they'd begun scaling the slow rise of the rocky ridge as they headed toward the giant sea. Other parts of the forested area were afire from lightning strikes, but they were safe; the nearest fire was miles away.
"...and rocks and trees and trees and rocks," McKay continued, a little breathlessly but no less loudly.
"It's a song about Canada," Aiden Ford offered, voice a little grim, and Sheppard turned to the young soldier striding beside him. The last person in their party, Teyla Emmagan, was just ahead of them. Was it his imagination, or had she taken to poking her improvised walking stick a little more savagely into the ground than was strictly necessary?
"I'm guessing it's about trees and rocks." Sheppard sighed as he reached for the canteen Ford offered him. "Thanks." He paused to take a swig, which luckily meant that McKay pulled a little ahead, and therefore harder to hear. The water went down cold and pure, and he took another healthy sip before recapping it. "Well, as long as he feels at home."
"Yes, sir." Ford took the canteen back and slung it over his shoulder. "He did say we were almost on top of it, didn't he?"
"Yes. Yes, Lieutenant, he did say that." Sheppard ostentatiously checked his watch. "That was...oh, an hour ago."
"...and trees and rocks..." McKay sang as he paused atop the ridge, presumably to take readings, for he deployed his handheld scanner.
Ford started moving again. "Did you want to turn back and get the puddle jumper?"
Sheppard considered as they drew closer to McKay. "I was just thinking the same thing," he said. "Hey, Teyla," he greeted the Athosian as they drew up to her. "What do you think of Rodney's little song?"
"I find it...soothing," Teyla said, completely seriously, and Sheppard eyed her narrowly. Was she kidding? He still couldn't tell.
"...and trees and rocks, AND rocks and trees and trees and rocks," McKay chanted. Sheppard watched with disfavor as McKay turned and, as if in wild surmise, held out the scanner with a straight arm. He started forward again, only this time he sang triumphantly, "and waaaterrrrrr!"
"McKay!" Sheppard yelled as McKay suddenly disappeared from sight, the "water" turning into a scream of panic almost drowned, but not quite, out by what sounded like a rockfall.
Teyla was the first on the scene, still clutching her walking stick. "He's fallen into a pit," she cried as Sheppard and Ford ran up behind her. "Something was once covered over here with stone. He has broken through."
Sheppard could see it: a faint pattern in the rock underneath their feet too perfect to be natural. Teyla knelt at the edge of what appeared to be a deep hole. The edges showed signs of recent crumbling, clean, pale stone exposed. McKay's body weight must have caused the stone to give way.
"Rodney!" Sheppard called down as Ford knelt beside him. The three of them looked curiously into the dark hole. When the edge by Ford gave way a bit, he edged back, but debris rained into the hole. "You okay? Are you down there?"
"Of course I'm down here," a familiar voice wheezed. "Ow! What are you doing? Stop throwing stuff at me!"
"Sorry," Ford called. "That was me."
"Get away from the edge," McKay ordered, but nobody moved.
Sheppard relaxed in relief at McKay's peevish tone. If McKay could be annoyed, he was probably fine. He began mentally began running down a plan to get McKay out of the hole so they could all go home. Grodin's keen idea to search for the planetside weather station, whose existence he'd inferred from some readings in the city's instruments, would just have to take another day or two. Apparently it had been damaged in the storm, because it had stopped transmitting, but McKay had babbled on and on about residual energy patterns and had been determined to find it quickly, so they could do far cooler offworld-adventure things.
McKay continued, voice a little breathless, "I probably have two broken legs and I got the wind knocked out of me, but yes, I'm fine. Thanks for your concern. Oh, hey." McKay shut up long enough to turn on a flashlight. Sheppard could see the light waving around, and he heard scraping as McKay moved. "Okay. Wait. I'm standing up. I'm fine! I'm fine! Oh. You guys are really far up."
Sheppard clicked on his own flashlight and played it into the hole. It wasn't that deep, maybe fifteen feet, he estimated, but it was too deep to just lean down and have McKay grab him. He couldn't see the sides of the pit, so it probably extended out pretty far.
"Rope?" Teyla suggested, pushing her hair behind an ear as she peered down.
"That'd be easiest," Sheppard agreed. "Can you guys get on it? I want to check something out."
Without waiting for a response, and ignoring McKay's shouted helpful advice, he pushed back and checked out the patterned stone. Now that he was really looking, he saw that the ridge was less a ridge and more the top of some huge buried structure. Elsewhere, a few inches of topsoil let hardy plants grow, but no trees. The spot where McKay had fallen through was worn; no dirt lay there, so the stone underneath was revealed.
Sheppard had no idea how long the structure had been there to accumulate the several inches of dirt that covered the structure. He walked a few yards off and scrubbed the dirt with his toe: more of the familiar stone. Two more tests revealed the same thing. Whatever it was, it was big. Next he checked out the top of the ridge; below him, trees grew on the hillside as the land fell away to the sparkling sea. He paused a moment to admire the view and inhale the heavy, muggy air: the storm had dumped a lot of water, and the earth was still wet, despite the days of sunshine since. During their hike, he'd gotten used to the pronounced scent of pine from the broken trees, but up here, he could only smell mud. The surf crashed, and when the wind was right, he could smell the fresh salt air. Unfortunately, it wasn't breezy, and mostly he felt hot.
"The structure is bounded on one side here," he called to Teyla and Ford, who were busy tying their ropes together. Ford was fashioning what looked suspiciously like a hangman's noose, presumably for McKay to put around his body and under his armpits so they could drag him up. He jogged back to them. "The only problem with the rope idea is that we'll probably break more of the top shell with his body weight when we try to drag him up."
"We could use a tree trunk," Ford suggested. "You know, from one of those big trees back there that fell in the storm. Prop it up inside, let him climb up. That might distribute his weight better."
"That'll be a lot more work," Sheppard argued, just as McKay snapped, "I'm standing right here, you know." Sheppard grinned: McKay held his flashlight under his chin as he gazed up, making him look maniacal. "And I just want to check something out." McKay waved vaguely, indicating a direction behind him. "I think the power signature is coming from in here."
"This is the weather station?" Sheppard asked blankly. "Isn't it kind of big?"
"Weather station, remote lab that just happens to have a weather console—whatever. Let's hope it runs on a ZPM. Although I doubt it does, because we would have sensed it before now. Still." McKay checked the sensor again. "It's just this way. It'll only take a sec. Wow, it's really dusty down here." He sneezed.
"Rodney—" Sheppard began, but McKay had moved away from the pit's opening. Sheppard craned his neck, to no avail. "McKay!" There was no answer. McKay was gone. He sat back. "Great," he muttered.
"The rope's ready," Teyla offered.
Sheppard saw a way. "You're pretty light. We can let you down. You go get Doctor McKay and come back. We drag you up, then we all three drag him up, and then we get the puddle jumper and do this right."
Teyla handed Sheppard the rope. "I like that plan."
"Good. So do I. Lieutenant, give me a hand here."
"No need." Before Sheppard could wrap the proffered rope around her, she put a hand on the edge of the pit and vaulted in. He leaned over the side, concerned, but she executed a graceful roll and ended up on her feet, like a gymnast. He was impressed despite himself, although he thought that she was showing off.
"I will report back soon," Teyla promised. She turned in a circle, getting her bearings. "His trail is clear in this dust. I will have no trouble tracking him." Then she too was gone.
"We're all going to end up in there," Ford said after a long pause.
Sheppard nodded. "I was just thinking that."
"Let's get a really big tree branch."
If they all went in, they'd need a way out, and nothing was handy to tie rope to. "Yes, let's. Unless you want to radio Atlantis for help?"
Ford, arms crossed, gazed grimly over the entrance to the hole. "I don't think so," he decided. "You?"
Sheppard laughed. "Elizabeth would never let me hear the end of it. Let's find a tree."
A half hour later, just as they were wrestling a suitably sized tree trunk they'd managed to find that was the proper size, with as many branches removed as they could snap off manually or hack off with knives, Sheppard's headset came alive. "Major Sheppard!" a strange, high-pitched voice called. "Lieutenant Ford!"
Sheppard exchanged a puzzled look with Ford. "Put it down," Ford wheezed, and they let the tree trunk drop.
Sheppard tapped his earpiece to activate it. He was drenched in sweat. "Sheppard here. Who is this?"
"It's me!" the voice said. It had an eerie sound, as if a recording had been sped up, but its quality seemed somehow familiar to Sheppard. "Teyla and I are locked in some kind of room."
"Doctor McKay?" Ford asked in disbelief.
"Yes, Doctor McKay," the voice said nastily. "I've had a slight, er, mishap."
"Teyla?" Sheppard asked. "Did you have a mishap too?"
"I am afraid so," another voice squeaked, lighter and even higher than the previous voice.
Sheppard frowned at Ford, who was laughing so hard that tears ran from his eyes. "They sound like they've been sucking on helium," Ford said, as if that were an explanation.
"Yeah, it does kind of sound like that," Sheppard agreed. "So how about it? Have you guys been inhaling helium?"
"The room is flooded with it," McKay's squeaky voice said. "So yes, yes, we have."
"Why would someone flood a room with helium?" Sheppard asked, quite logically, he thought.
"How should I know?" McKay said shrilly. "Could you please come and get us out? You can open the door from the other side."
Sheppard eyed the tree. "We'll be there shortly."
"Well, hurry up," McKay squeaked.
Teyla's strange voice interposed. "Will breathing this substance harm us?"
Sheppard, who had no idea of the answer to this question, found himself looking at Ford, as if Ford were some sort of helium-inhalation expert.
"Don't look at me," Ford said, putting up defensive hands just as McKay chirped, "No, we're fine. Helium is totally inert. I'm positive it's safe. Still, if you just hurry up and—"
A hideous screeching noise rent Sheppard's left ear, and as one, he and Ford ripped off their earpieces.
"What was that?" Sheppard demanded as he patted his ear. "Feedback?"
"Sounded like," Ford agreed. He reinserted his earpiece and tapped it. "Ford to McKay," he said as Sheppard slid his own back in.
Sheppard tried next. "Sheppard to Atlantis. Do you read me?"
They spent a few minutes trying to raise somebody, but not even the faint white noise that characterized a live transmission could be heard.
"Great," Sheppard grunted as he and Ford picked up the tree trunk again and started hauling. "We're going to be late for dinner."
"Stop, stop, stop, we're here!" Ford cried a second later.
Ford dropped his end of the tree and joined Sheppard at the other end, and the two of them lifted the tree trunk up and slid it forward until it nudged the opening of the hole. They lifted it high, and the other end abruptly skidded forward and slid into the hole. They had to run to keep their hands on the trunk in a futile attempt to control its descent as it rose up while simultaneously slipping down. Cries of "Watch it!" and "Careful!" and "Ow!" accompanied the sound of more rock hitting the pit's floor and the rustle of the remaining small branches as they whacked the pit's entryway.
"Okay, then," Sheppard panted after the tree had come to rest. It looked absurdly small and thin now that it was actually in the hole. They'd had to go for something thin and light to enable two men to carry it. He grabbed the front of his shirt under his vest. It was wet with humidity and sweat. He pulled it away from his body in a futile attempt to stop it sticking. "Maybe it'll be cooler down there," he said hopefully. "After you."
Ford cautiously sat on the edge of the hole, one hand on the tree, and half fell, half crawled down. More rock crumbled, and the top of the tree shook. "I'm down," Ford called up a minute later, then sneezed. "Wow. It's really dusty down here. Teyla wasn't kidding. It'll be no problem tracking them."
"Get away from the opening," Sheppard ordered. "Let me know when it's okay to come down."
"Any time," Ford yelled a minute later, and Sheppard imitated what Ford had done, half falling and half scrambling down.
His heavier weight must have done it, or maybe it was just that the structure was unstable. No sooner had he landed on the hard ground, legs absorbing the impact, when the tree shook, rock rained down, and Sheppard, arm thrown up to protect his face as he looked up to see what the problem was, realized that the whole ceiling was going to come down.
"Lieutenant!" he screeched, and Ford yelled, "Over here, sir!"
He ran blindly toward the sound of the voice. The contrast between the bright sun and the darkness of the pit made it impossible to see, and he stumbled over debris as he went. Someone—Ford—grabbed his hand, and the two of them ran for it, the young lieutenant dragging Sheppard behind. Behind them, the ceiling began caving in in earnest, its low rumbles accompanied by a heavy crash that was probably the tree falling in. He ran hunched over, one arm over his head as if that could stave off danger. He wouldn't have been aware of the door they ran through if he hadn't knocked into what felt like a smooth doorjamb on his way through.
The sound suddenly muffled, and Ford, coughing, said, "You all right, sir?"
"Fine," Sheppard gasped. He found his flashlight in one of his vest pockets. Now he was glad he'd followed regulations and left it on, even though he had been dying to remove it during their tree-carrying adventure. Paradoxically, the chill in the air meant that he was now cold as his sweat dried. He played it around, illuminating benches and covered consoles. The room they'd entered was fairly large. Ford had shut the door behind them; Sheppard recognized the locking mechanism to the door's right as identical to the one in the city. This was an Ancient outpost, then. "Thanks," he told Ford.
"No problem, sir." Ford clicked on his flashlight and used it to examine the ceiling. "I think we're underground now," he said.
Sheppard had gotten that impression too; maybe it the lower ceiling or the quality of sound. He listened as the loud rumbling outside the door slackened, then stopped.
"They came through here, sir," Ford reported, his relief evident. "Looks like they went that way." He indicated a direction with a flick of his flashlight beam.
"Good," Sheppard said automatically as he approached the door they'd entered through. "Let's make sure we can get out before we go in any deeper." He swung his hand over the door mechanism, and it obediently slid open. A cloud of stone dust blew in, and Sheppard coughed even as he flashed his light on rubble that reached taller than the doorway's opening. "Yeah, that's no good," he said, hastily shutting the door again when the rock wobbled and threatened to spill inside. "We need to find another way out, because digging through this would really, really suck." He turned. "Ford? Where'd you go?"
"Over here, sir," Ford called.
Sheppard headed for Ford's light, passing several fabric-covered consoles. He was forcibly struck by the installation's similarity to the city when they'd first come through the Stargate. Then, he'd touched a console and it had come to life. He tugged the fabric off a random console at random and deliberately laid his hand on it. To his delight, it promptly lit up, although it looked dim, and the lights seemed to glow rather than shine with the hard, bright light he associated with the city's machinery. A different power system? If there was a ZPM here, the city's scanners would have sensed it. What else could it use? Probably not solar power because this installation was partially buried. What kind of energy would be good to use underground? Geothermal?
"Sir?" Ford asked questioningly as Sheppard moved to another console and uncovered it.
"That's better," Sheppard muttered as he activated it. He recognized this one. All he had to do was touch it there, and—
Light bloomed overhead, and a faint blue stripe about chest high on the wall also illuminated, handily marking the room's boundaries as well as casting an eerie glow. There wasn't much light, but now it was possible to see.
"Thanks, sir," Ford said, stowing his flashlight, and Sheppard followed suit.
"Did you find them?" Sheppard asked as he joined Ford.
"The trail goes through here." Ford indicated a door and the muddle of footprints in front of it, then moved his hand over the red-gold control. Nothing happened, and, frowning, Ford tried again, with identical results.
"Huh," Sheppard said, giving it a try himself. He even touched the controls, thinking that perhaps his gene would magically activate the unit, but the door remained stubbornly closed. "That's weird. How did they get in?"
"Maybe it locked after them," Ford suggested.
"Yeah." It was as good an explanation as any. Sheppard hit the door hard with the side of his fist a few times. The dull thud that resulted seemed somehow menacing. "Rodney! Teyla!" he yelled, face close to the door. "You in there? We're locked out!"
Although he didn't hear any voices, squeaky or otherwise, someone knocked on the other side of the door. Sheppard frowned; he heard the strangely muffled sound, but he didn't sense any matching vibrations. Just in case, Sheppard tried his earpiece again, but no luck. He knocked three times, and the person on the other side knocked three times, again somehow without disturbing the door, and that seemed to be about all either of them could do.
"We could communicate by Morse code," Ford suggested half-heartedly.
"What do you want to tell them?" Sheppard stood up, frustrated, and began pacing. "Wait. Maybe one of the consoles—?"
"It's worth a shot," Ford agreed, and Sheppard moved from console to console, drawing off the dusty, silky cloths and activating each with a touch. One unit refused to work, but all the others obediently came on with that strange, faint light. After each one lit up, Sheppard called out and Ford tried the door again, but nothing seemed to work.
Frustrated, Sheppard took a circuit around the room. There were four other doors along the wall in addition to the one that McKay and Teyla had gone through, for a total of five, and on the far end of the room, there were five indentations in the wall. Sheppard didn't think that was a coincidence. The chest-high electric blue stripe zigzagged in and out of the nooks, flickering slightly. From their slight strobing, Sheppard expected an accompanying noise, like the sizzle of neon, but they flickered in silence.
"Lieutenant!" he called, and Ford came trotting up. "What do you make of these?" He indicated the indentations.
Ford examined them by walking into each one, then back out. "Maybe something broadcasts in them?" he guessed. "Like the hologram in the city." He stood in the perfect center of one and lifted his arms overhead, as if declaiming. "I don't know," he admitted, dropping his arms in defeat. "I guess those circles in the ceiling could be hologram projection units." He pointed, indicating them, and Sheppard squinted up. He could see them now that Ford had pointed them out. "In the city, there was a podium that turned it on, but I don't see anything like that here."
"Five doors, five of these nook things," Sheppard pointed out. "Zero podiums." He backed up to get better perspective, and his eye fell on what looked like a large dot on the floor. "Hey, come here. What's this?" He squatted down and brushed the dot to clean it off.
"There's one here too," Ford reported. "This one's blue."
"Mine's red." Sheppard got up and scanned the floor eagerly, walking as he talked. "And here's a yellow one," he said, standing on it as he spoke.
"And a white one—" Ford began, just as a voice that sounded like a chipmunk said, "Major? Is that you?"
"McKay?" Sheppard said cautiously, standing up and taking a step forward. It sounded as if McKay—or whoever—were right in the room with them. "Is that you?"
"What?" Ford asked, looking confused. "Is your earpiece working?"
Sheppard tapped it automatically. "No. I just heard McKay—at least, I think it was McKay. McKay on helium, anyway. You didn't hear it?"
"No." Ford looked puzzled as Sheppard walked back to the yellow dot.
"I'm standing on a yellow dot," Sheppard said conversationally.
"Oh, thank god," a voice squeaked. "Standing on a yellow dot? What does that mean?"
"It means I'm standing on a yellow dot, facing a little alcove, talking to you. That is you, Doctor McKay, isn't it?"
"Yes, yes, yes, of course it's me," the chipmunk voice said feverishly.
"You can't hear this, can you," Sheppard said, eyeing Ford, who was looking at Sheppard as though he were insane.
"No, sir," Ford said, just as McKay squeaked, "Who are you talking to?"
Sheppard gestured Ford over, and Ford, at Sheppard's urging, stood right behind Sheppard, so they were both mostly on the dot. Ford steadied himself by putting his hands on Sheppard's arms. "I was talking to Lieutenant Ford, Rodney," Sheppard said. He felt Ford's hands grip his arms in excitement as the alcove ahead of them briefly lit up. They had a brief glimpse of something blurry moving, and then, disappointingly, it went dark. "How's Teyla?"
"I am well," another voice squeaked. "Doctor McKay has activated several of the machines, and I am afraid it is getting rather warm in here."
"It's insanely hot," McKay translated. "Was that you banging about fifteen minutes ago?"
"Yes."
"Good," McKay said in obvious relief. "I think I've figured out how to make the door open."
"Great," Sheppard said encouragingly.
"It's got to be tripped on both sides simultaneously."
"Okay," Sheppard agreed. Ford stirred behind him. "You getting this?" he hissed, and Ford muttered "yes" as McKay said, "Getting what?"
"Just—tell us what to do," Sheppard ordered.
"Oh. Okay. Right. Um, okay, this makes more sense now."
"What makes more sense?" Sheppard said patiently.
"We have to do the door thing manually, but on your end, it must be voice activated. That was the thing that confused me. I didn't know what this meant, but now I do. It's because you have to stand on the dot."
"Right," Sheppard agreed. It was kind of hard to follow McKay because he spoke very quickly, his voice sounded like a chipmunk's, and Sheppard had no idea what he was talking about. "Just—tell me what to do so we can get you out of there."
"Basically, you say 'open sesame' while I trip the door lock here, and then the door should open."
"Open sesame," Sheppard said obediently.
"That was a metaphor," McKay snapped. "Anyway, you have to say it in Ancient."
Sheppard immediately saw the flaw in the plan. "I don't speak Ancient," he pointed out.
"I do," Teyla's high-pitched voice interposed.
"Great. Teyla does," McKay said. "Teyla, can you read that symbol?"
Teyla said something incomprehensible, made even more difficult to understand because of her squeak.
"I take it that's a yes. Major? Just repeat it."
"I need to hear it again," Sheppard ordered, and Teyla obediently repeated the syllables. He gestured to Ford, who stepped back and headed for the door.
It took a few tries, but finally Sheppard's pronunciation and McKay's fiddling with the controls on the other side did the trick. It seemed to take a long time; Teyla and McKay had clearly gone through the door, but they didn't immediately appear. Sheppard was just getting worried when the door slid open and McKay and Teyla fell out.
"Thank god," McKay moaned in his new voice as he rose to his knees. He and Teyla were smudged with dirt, and both had minor cuts and rips in their clothing. Teyla had the start of an amazing black eye. Sheppard got a whiff of them—dirt and body odor—and had to take a step back, although he probably didn't smell any better.
"You guys look awful," Sheppard told them. "What happened?"
"We are fine," Teyla said, shooting McKay a quelling glance when he opened his mouth, and he shut it again without saying anything. "We are very pleased to see you."
Ford was peering into the open door, which revealed nothing more than a little room. "You were in here?" he asked.
"No, a room beyond," Teyla gasped. She paused to cough, and she gratefully accepted a canteen that Sheppard offered her. "One stands in this little room, and the door closes behind. There is a delay, and then another door opens ahead. One steps through."
"Airlock." McKay held out his hand and snapped his fingers impatiently, and Teyla, giving him a dirty look, handed him the canteen. He drank thirstily, water running down his chin in rivulets. "Oh, that's better," he groaned. "When will my voice change back? Much as I love Lieutenant Ford's obvious amusement."
Sheppard glanced questioningly at a sniggering Ford, who still stood by the door controls. "Really, I just did the balloon-voice thing a few times when I was a kid," Ford protested. "Stop looking at me like I'm some big expert!"
"Airlock to keep the helium in," McKay continued. "They probably wore suits when they went in." He pointed. "This way out?"
Sheppard cleared his throat. "Not so much, no." At McKay's look, he added, "The roof caved in."
"The roof caved in," McKay repeated. He exchanged a look with Teyla. "I guess that explains that weird rumbling and shaking we heard."
"Yeah, the whole thing came down," Sheppard confirmed. He continued, in a falsely bright voice, "Did you find the weather station? Is this it?"
"No. Yes. Well, partially." McKay's voice had started to lower, but it still sounded awful. Suddenly he gave a start. "What are you doing?" he cried, gazing around wildly. "Turn those off! Turn them off!"
"What?" Sheppard watched as McKay staggered to his feet and stumbled to a nearby console.
"Power drain! We're on a backup of a backup!" McKay frenziedly tapped the console here and there, apparently at random. "I kind of wanted to keep the air circulation going. Maybe it's just my sudden desire to breathe air instead of, say, helium."
"Right," Sheppard agreed, and as Ford helped Teyla to her feet, he and McKay shut off all the consoles except the one that turned the lights on. Teyla followed, putting the slick cloths back on. They shed dirt when shaken, and she gave each one a sharp snap before casting it over a machine, as though she were putting a tablecloth on a table.
"Where's the dot?" McKay asked, voice still a little strange. They all trooped over to the yellow dot, and Sheppard stood on it and demonstrated its use. "Did anything come on, like a visual?"
"Just for a second," Sheppard said, remembering the flicker of movement. "It's probably broken."
"Probably," McKay agreed.
"So...what are they?" Ford asked when McKay clicked on his flashlight and started examining the ceiling.
"Oh, those are habitats," McKay said dismissively. "Those must be the holoprojection units," he muttered, wandering off. "And their power source is—where?"
"Habitats?" Sheppard appealed to Teyla. "Did he tell you what was going on?"
Teyla cleared her throat and patted her chest. "Doctor McKay believes that this remote site comprises guest quarters for visitors with special requirements." Her voice sounded almost normal.
"Special requirements like what?" Sheppard asked.
Ford frowned. "Like needing to breathe helium?"
"Like needing to breathe helium," Teyla agreed.
"Cool," Ford said, clearly amazed.
"Are there people who breathe helium?" Sheppard wondered.
"I have not met such a people, but Doctor McKay seems convinced that they exist." Teyla tapped her makeshift wooden walking staff absently on the ground. "Presumably the door-locking mechanism and the airlock were needed for safety."
"And the Ancients talked to their—guests—through those devices." Sheppard indicated the niches and their dots. "Why wouldn't they just put their guests in quarters in the city?"
McKay's voice, now sounding its normal baritone self, cut in, triumphant. "Because they had some mother of big visitors." He waved his sensing device, as if they could read it from afar. "This room?" He indicated a door. "It goes out to the sea." He bounced on the balls of his feet. "How about that? Cool, huh?"
Sheppard felt like he had missed something. "So it's our way out?" he asked.
"Well, that too. But they had some visitors, who they talked to through here—" He indicted the alcove. "—and they were large and sea-dwelling. I'm thinking that the Ancients would go through this door and swim with the sharks." He grinned. "The giant, sentient sharks."
"Wow," Ford said, impressed.
"They could probably come through the Stargate," McKay babbled. "We know you can flood the Gate room—"
This was news to Sheppard. "You can do that?" he asked, but McKay rolled over him.
"—and if they were submerged, they'd just open up the far wall—"
"You can do that?"
"—and the big guy—or gal—would swim out, into the ocean, and over to this facility." McKay gestured with his arms to illustrate how the giant sentient shark would move. "And then they'd chat." He cocked his head, clearly pleased at the idea.
"And we can learn all about those chats later," Sheppard said soothingly, because McKay looked demented in his excitement. "We can come back with a team of scientists and study the heck out of this place. But this door—"
McKay interrupted him. "I'll bet it's the blue dot. Get it? Blue? Like the ocean." He walked over and stood on it. "Yellow for helium—that's how it appears on the spectroscope, like this intense neon yellow line. So blue for the ocean makes perfect sense. What could red mean, I wonder?"
Sheppard said patiently, "You said this blue door leads out? So I say we go through it."
"Right. Of course." McKay nodded. "You mean now?"
"Yes. Now. Unless you wanted do what Doctor Grodin wanted? Our mission?"
"Mission?" McKay looked blank.
"To turn the weather machine back on, so we can study the planet's weather patterns and hopefully not get surprised by another epic hurricane," Sheppard reminded him.
"Oh! That mission!" McKay's face cleared.
"Isn't that what you were doing when you went in there?" Sheppard indicated the door.
"No, I was getting this." McKay dug through a pocket and pulled something out. It reminded Sheppard of nothing as much as a round grenade the size of a softball. It had a similar look of threateningly patterned metal. "It was in there," McKay added unnecessarily, offering it to Sheppard.
Sheppard hefted it with disfavor. A little yellow light glowed on one side. "What is it?"
"I have no idea," McKay said happily, taking it back and thrusting it into his pocket. "But it's got a really, really interesting power signature." He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. "So! Fix the weather console, and then door number three?"
"Yes," Sheppard said weakly.
Fixing the weather console consisted of finding the proper machine, turning it on, and watching McKay remove some panels and mess around. Sheppard, Ford, and Teyla sat ranged along a nearby wall. Sheppard didn't feel like exploring as much as resting, and there wasn't much to do if you couldn't mess with a console. They were definitely missing dinner, Sheppard thought grimly as he ate a ration bar, but at least another thing they'd missed had been a check-in, which was good because it meant that Elizabeth Weir would send backup. He tried to get Teyla to tell him what had happened while they'd been separated, but she steadfastly refused.
While they waited for McKay, Ford tried to repair his earpiece with a kit of tiny tools he carried in his vest, but without any luck. "Explosives are more my line," he admitted before he gave up.
"Okay, done," McKay announced after about an hour of fiddling. "Doctor Grodin's dearest wish has been granted by yours truly. We have to leave it on, but I've turned off some of the other systems controlled by this console to cut power consumption."
"Mission accomplished." Sheppard dragged himself to his feet. "Door number three, you said?"
"Door number three it is," McKay agreed.
The door opened readily at Teyla's wave. A faint sucking wind pulled at their clothes. At McKay's urging, they waited a few minutes before entering. Apparently the corridor had been vacuum sealed, and he wanted fresh air to fill the space. When Sheppard peered in, he saw a long, dark corridor, with no end in sight. Once they'd entered and the door had automatically closed behind them, he touched the wall. To his right, a now-familiar faint, blue, chest-high stripe flickered and lit up, just like the one that bounded the control room. No light came on overhead, but the floor was smooth and even, so despite the relative dark, they were able to walk at just under their normal pace. Unlike the control room, the sealed corridor was free of dust.
"I have been thinking," Teyla said after a few minutes of walking. The corridor seemed very long, but Sheppard could make out the door at the other end. "If such intelligent creatures exist who can live underwater, or in air mixed with helium, I wonder why my people do not know of them. I have never spoken to anyone who has suggested that such creatures could exist who could think like a human."
To Sheppard's surprise, Ford, not McKay, answered her. "The Wraith cullings mean that hardly anybody is technologically advanced," he said. "Maybe it's because you can't talk to them." He waved a finger. "No translation machines."
"Perhaps." Teyla remained unconvinced.
"Even on Earth, we don't have much to do with races that are really, really different from us," McKay said in his lecture voice. "We have Stargate addresses that go to all kinds of whacked-out places, but it's too much trouble to go there."
"Whacked out like how?" Sheppard asked, interested. Unlike the majority of the Atlantis expedition members, he'd come on board late, and he hadn't had a lot of time to read old mission reports or get up to speed on the Stargate project back on Earth.
"Whacked out like really heavy gravity or really light gravity, underwater worlds, worlds with extremes of temperature and/or pressure, strange atmospheric mixes." McKay sounded dismissive. "One Gate address goes to a world right by a black hole."
"Wow," Sheppard said, impressed.
"Still," Teyla persisted, "if such creatures exist, why do they not help in our struggle against the Wraith? They must have technology, to come here and speak with the Ancients."
"Maybe they died out," Sheppard suggested. "I mean, we don't even know about the installation back there. Maybe they held people prisoner and interrogated them, so they're not guest quarters but prison cells. And the Ancients have been gone for a really long time. The Wraith could have burned their worlds to destroy their tech."
"Or maybe they just don't care." Ford shrugged. "You can't talk to them to ask for help, and the Wraith can't feed off them, so—" He let this thought trail off.
"I have much to think about," Teyla said after a moment. "Ah. I see the door ahead."
McKay deployed his scanner. "A little room just beyond here, and then the sea," he reported.
Ford gestured at the scanner. "Didn't that tell you about the helium in the room?" he asked.
"Well, yes, it did," McKay said, defensive and uncomfortable. "But the level was originally quite minimal, hardly anything at all."
"Let's get out of here." Sheppard reached out to wave his hand in front of the door controls when McKay gave a sudden squeak. Sheppard dropped his hand. "What?" he asked, irritated.
"Look at this! Look at it!" McKay held the scanner in front of Sheppard's face, but before Sheppard could focus on it, McKay immediately began waving it around. "Huge power buildup! Like a surge! This isn't good!"
"Where?" Sheppard snapped, and McKay began turning in a circle.
"Everywhere!" McKay screamed. "I mean, everywhere! All around us!"
Sheppard grabbed the scanner out of McKay's hand and took a look, then stepped back. "Not everywhere." He pointed at McKay accusingly. "It's you. It's coming from you."
"Me? Me? Helium wouldn't do that!" McKay cried. "Helium is inert! Completely, totally inert! Scan Teyla!"
"It's not that. Teyla's fine." Sheppard handed the scanner, with its dangerous red spiking line, to Teyla, and shoved a struggling, panicked McKay against the doorway long enough to find and remove the grapefruit-sized unit McKay had taken from the helium room.
"That appears to be the cause of the spike," Teyla confirmed.
McKay pointed at the unit with a shaking finger. "How long has that light been on?" he demanded.
"It was on when you handed it to me," Sheppard said. He turned the ball so the light faced him. It glowed steadily. "That was more than an hour ago."
Now McKay's voice trembled. "That light was most emphatically not on when I gave it to you."
"It was."
"It was not."
"It was."
"It was not!" McKay seized his hair and pulled, which made him look rabid. "Your stupid gene must have turned it on!"
"You have the gene too," Sheppard pointed out. "And you don't call it stupid when you make me turn stuff on for you."
"My gene is the result of gene therapy! Yours works better! You know that!"
Teyla attempted to soothe them. "Major Sheppard. Doctor McKay," she began, but she didn't get any further, because McKay did a strange windup and then, with all his strength, threw the ball down the corridor behind them. Sheppard heard it clang a few times as it bounced and shut his eyes briefly, as if anticipating an immediate, huge explosion. Nothing happened, though, and he cautiously reopened them.
"Lieutenant," Sheppard said in his calmest voice, and Ford waved his hand in front of the control unit to open it.
Nothing happened.
"Great," Sheppard muttered as McKay moaned, "We're all going to die."
"The power signature continues to climb," Teyla said, gazing first at the scanner, then down the hall, eerily lit with the dim blue light.
"This is bad, this is really bad," McKay babbled.
"I remember this one," Ford said, turning to the door. "You take off the panel." He did so. "You take out this crystal, move this one over, and then bridge them." Sheppard heard a faint click as the crystals touched, and the door slid open.
"Good man," McKay said, as if he hadn't been jiggling in place in fear and impatience, muttering, "faster!" and they all stepped through.
The door immediately shut behind them, and the four of them found themselves packed into a small room.
"Airlock," Teyla said, pleased at remembering the new word.
McKay continued, mind clearly elsewhere, "The force of the explosion will be directed down the corridor, right at us. That means you scatter when the door opens. Run for it, and run off to one side. Aaaah!"
The last, a scream, was echoed by Sheppard and Ford as cold liquid suddenly poured across their feet with startling force. Sheppard was almost knocked over, and he stepped away from what felt like a jet near one leg.
"It seems that this room is being flooded with water," Teyla said unnecessarily.
"Airlock," Sheppard said grimly as the water crept up to his shins. "This must be right next to the sea. It's equalizing the pressure. When there's water on both sides, then the door will open in front of us." He slapped the door in vain. "Take everything off," he ordered. "Shoes and vests at least. We're going to have to swim." He tugged at his laces, fingers immediately stiffening in the cold water.
"A monster is going to try to eat us next," McKay predicted as he shrugged out of his vest. "Like in every movie ever made. Because things just keep getting better."
"We can go back," Ford said, turning around and pointing at the door control behind them. No door control existed for the door in front of them. He dropped a boot, which hit the water with a faint splash.
"I do not think that would be a good idea," Teyla said, turning the scanner so that they could all read it.
"That's—that's not good," McKay said. "Seriously, look at those readings! It's going to blow any minute now."
"You know, I am an explosives expert," Ford said repressively. The icy water had reached their knees. "If I'd had a chance to look at it—" Sheppard thought he heard longing in his voice.
"Not with those readings, Lieutenant," Sheppard said. "You know, when I held it, it really did remind me of a grenade."
"It was not a grenade," McKay informed him as the water lapped at their waists. "It was a portable power source, like a battery. A little mini ZPM, except with totally different technology. And it struck me that anything that could hold a charge like that for, oh, millions of years might be well worth further study." After a brief pause, he added, "This water is coming up really, really fast."
"That's good." Sheppard indicated the low ceiling. "It'll have to go all the way up. We won't have to hold our breaths for that long."
"We can still breathe, which is good." McKay was babbling nervously. "The pressure isn't building, so the top of the airlock must be vented, to let the air out as the water level rises." He continued, in a different tone of voice, as if struck, "How deep will we be when that door opens? Because getting the bends wasn't on my list of things to do today. Of course, neither was falling into a hole, getting locked in a room full of helium with an embarrassing voice, or blowing up."
"Shut up, Rodney," Sheppard advised, and to his relief, McKay shut up.
The cold salt water continued to rise until Sheppard found himself on his toes. Their discarded clothing floated around them like so much flotsam. Teyla had let the scanner float away when the water reached their chests, which was good because it was clear that the grapefruit-sized unit should have blown up by now, and if the blast didn't kill him, the suspense probably would. Maybe it was a dud, Sheppard thought, but without too much hope. Then he was treading water, face turned up to the narrow strip of air. The Ancients probably had weighted diving suits they wore while in the airlock. If he'd been in charge, he would have set some suits out in corridor as a hint.
He watched as Teyla took a few gaspingly deep breaths alternated with brief dips underwater. She looked as sleek as a seal with her wet hair plastered back. It struck him that he should do what Teyla did, because she seemed to know what she was doing, so he imitated her, timing his last deep breath so that he stayed down just as they ran out of usable headspace.
The salt made him buoyant, so he kept one hand against the ceiling of the room as he hung there, eyes open. McKay had puffed out his cheeks and tended to flail, but Ford looked as cool and calm as Teyla did. He could see the bubbling jets of water in the strange blue light, fizzing and white, forcing yet more water into the airlock.
Cold water fully covered his fingertips and he shoved himself down, trying to stay away from Teyla's and McKay's kicking legs. Ford dangled on the far side of the room, not attempting to maneuver in front of the doorway. An empty, floating boot bumped Ford's torso, but he didn't react. Sheppard didn't know what would happen first: a door opening, or a hideous explosion. He could hear the fizz of the jets and the sounds of his teammates moving. He found himself staring at the door, mentally chanting, "Open, open, open." Still the door did not open. Was this door broken too? But there was no way to get at the mechanism; they couldn't move around crystals on this side of the door. They had to trust the Ancients—and these were the people who never left behind appropriate instruction booklets or useful hints to a room's use, like labels on doors or usefully named computer files or, yes, wetsuits outside airlocks that would be filled with water.
Black spots began swimming before his eyes. He couldn't hold out. He was simultaneously drowning and freezing to death. He could barely feel his fingers, and his bootless feet were numb. The door would never open. He'd drown in this little room, with Teyla and Ford and McKay. He opened his mouth, and bubbles of air floated upward just as the door ahead of them opened.
He waved his team members through. He'd just started through when he felt an incredible pressure on his back accompanied by an epic roar, and everything went black.
"Major?"
The voice seemed to come from a long way away. Sheppard's eyes fluttered when someone slapped his cheeks, just a little too hard to be polite. He saw a black sky littered with stars overhead.
"Ow," he said weakly, except his own voice didn't sound right to his ears.
A voice he now recognized as Carson Beckett's said, as if from very far away, "That's much better."
"Did it blow?" he asked.
He saw Beckett's mouth move in response, but frowned when he couldn't make sense of it. A second later, Beckett pulled on one of his eyelids and shone a light in, then did the other side. His eyes automatically followed Beckett's finger when Beckett waved it in front of him.
"I can't hear you," he said when Beckett said something else.
Beckett moved closer as he tucked his penlight away. "Your ears still haven't recovered from the blast," he said, voice still strangely muffled. "It will take a few more hours until you can hear properly again. You have a concussion, a few broken ribs, and some minor contusions. I'll know more once I get you back to the city. Meanwhile, I'd rather you not move."
Sheppard nodded to show he'd heard, shut his eyes, then opened them again as a thought struck him. "Teyla? Doctor McKay? Lieutenant Ford?"
"They're fine. We fished you all out of the sea about an hour ago," Beckett told him. "Major Collins, his team, and I witnessed the explosion. You're lucky to be alive." Beckett shifted slightly, making himself comfortable, so he could lean over Sheppard to make himself heard.
"Elizabeth sent you," Sheppard croaked in that strange voice that wasn't his. "When we missed the check-in."
"Aye, that she did." Beckett adjusted something over Sheppard's chest, and he realized that he was lying on the ground with a light, silvery blanket covering him. It felt like his hands and feet were wrapped in something, but he couldn't see them and it was too much trouble to lift the blanket to take a look. "Doctor Grodin noticed when that missing weather station came online. We were able to find you by pinpointing its location."
"Is it still there?"
Beckett grinned. "No, lad, it's not. There was some kind of explosion underground, and now all that's left is a heap of rubble. Good thinking, heading out to the sea. The water absorbed some of the blast."
Sheppard was too tired to tell Beckett that they'd accidentally created the explosion, and that the sea habitat had been their only way out.
"We took some scans," he said. He suspected he was talking too loudly. "Some recordings."
"And I'm sure they'll be very helpful." Beckett patted his head soothingly. "You've been sedated, so do sleep. We'll be taking you back to the city directly, and you can make a full report to Doctor Weir."
"Right. Full report. Thanks, Doc."
Beckett gave him one last paternal pat and then moved away. Sheppard let his eyelids flutter, but he didn't want to close them. The sky was too beautiful, the sweep of stars too dramatic. The bright pinpricks smeared together when he blinked sleepily.
"And rocks and trees and trees and rocks," he croaked in a poor imitation of singing as he tried to force his eyes open. It was a song about Atlantis. He couldn't keep his eyes open. They drooped sleepily. "And water," he whispered.
Elements von Kylie Lee
Story Bemerkung:
Thanks to Sarah for the instabeta.
This was written for the atlantisbasics LJ community for Icarus. She wanted a story that explored "the beautiful and rugged Atlantis"; she loves "to embarrass Sheppard and/or McKay"; and she loves "carefully thought-out Ancient technology that fits with the science on the show but isn't just a retread of what we've already seen."
This is set during Season 1 after 1.10 "The Storm" and 1.11 "The Eye."
The song McKay sings is a real one, called "Trees and Rocks," by the Arrogant Worms.
Instead of saying "Emmagan," I'm using "Teyla," even though everyone else goes by last name. I know this is Wrong and Sexist, but canon never uses "Emmagan," so using "Teyla" seems more correct.
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