STARGATE SG-1-19-23-Ouroboros-s08 Read online

  “Yeah, but…” Daniel crouched, tracing a line of writing around to the back of the console. “Why would you label something like this? And in such an inconvenient place? This is one of the more recent forms of Ancient, too.”

  “That we did figure out,” McKay said. “This console, the whole weapons-and-shield thing, it’s a lot newer than the rest of the city. And one thing we did find out from the Athosians before — before things got awkward — was that the Ancients and the Wraith fought a long war, but the city was much older than that. I’m guessing this was all part of the defensive systems installed to fight the Wraith.”

  “Ok, that makes sense,” Sam said. She took a step back, tracing where the power inputs must have run, where the connections to the ZPM console must have been. “Wait a minute. I don’t — That console can’t pull nearly enough power to run a shield like the one on Atlantis.”

  McKay gave her a tight little smile. “Precisely. Except somehow it did.”

  “But not from the ZPMs,” Sam said. “I don’t know of anything else that could provide that kind of power —” She stopped abruptly. Except the power source for Janus’s ouroboros device.

  “I don’t either,” McKay said. “And I hate not knowing. But there was something here, and I’m going to figure it out.”

  “Janus,” Daniel said, and Sam glared at him. This was not the time to start talking about Janus’s mysterious devices, at least not until they had a better idea of what was going on. He pointed to a string of Ancient characters. “See? Janus was here.”

  Sam took a breath. Sure enough, under his finger an ‘o’ resolved to a snake eating its tail. And that meant — what? Janus was here, certainly, just as Daniel said, but it also meant that there was a chance that Janus had either tried to use the ‘hard-wired’ subspace tap or maybe even tried to work on his super-Stargate here in Emege. Daniel nodded as though he’d read her thought and pushed himself to his feet.

  “I’d like to take a look around the ruins, see what else I can find.”

  “Those goons on the guard tower aren’t going to let you,” McKay said. “Not without permission from Colonel Sumner.”

  “Then I’m going to try to get permission,” Daniel said, and looked at Sam. “You’ll stay here?”

  Sam nodded. “I’ll see if Dr. McKay and I can’t trace where the other power source was.”

  “Please,” McKay said. “You think I haven’t tried it?”

  Sam looked at him, and he threw up his hands.

  “Fine! We’ll do it again.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, firmly, and moved to the back of the console. McKay had managed to pry off the first protective layer and she recognized many of the basic components, but there was a deeper layer protected behind what looked like tinted glass. More of the pure carbon that had formed the shield on P6T-847? If so, then the connection to Janus’s new power source was probably inside.

  “You know something,” McKay said abruptly. “You’ve seen something like this before.”

  “Maybe.” They were out of earshot of the rest of the team, she thought, and she spoke before he could go any further. “Look, Doctor, I’ve got questions for you first. What’s happened to the rest of the expedition?”

  “Rodney,” he said. “Call me Rodney.”

  Sam ignored the offer. “Come on. What happened?”

  McKay ran a hand over his face. “You mean like Zelenka? And Sheppard?”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Look, Colonel Sumner is not being entirely honest with you. He and Dr. Weir had some major disagreements even before the Wraith showed up — she wanted to respect the locals’ feelings, not interfere with their traffic through the Stargate, not settle in the city and all that, which seems in the long run to have been a better idea, since Halling — he’s the Athosian leader — Halling says our being in the city is why the Wraith keep coming.”

  Sam blinked, not sure she was making sense of it all. “So where are your missing people?”

  “Well, some of them are dead,” McKay answered. She’d forgotten how maddeningly thorough he could be. “I think we must have lost, oh, forty-five, maybe fifty people to the Wraith, either dead or — Well, presumably dead by now, taken and fed on later. But after Dr. Weir was killed, a bunch of us, particularly medical staff and technicians, were living with the Athosians, and when Sumner ordered everybody to evacuate to Emege — not everybody did. Halling says he doesn’t know where they are, but Sumner doesn’t believe him. And, frankly, neither do I.”

  “Zelenka’s one of them,” Sam said slowly.

  “And Keller, Beckett’s number two. Dumais, Peterson, a bunch of others.”

  “Major Sheppard?”

  McKay nodded. “And Sheppard.”

  Sam stood silent for a moment. That was disobeying a direct order, best case, and worst case — worst case, she didn’t really want to think about. Jack had said enough that she knew there was already a black mark on Sheppard’s file, disobeying orders in Afghanistan, and this was not going to help matters at all. Assuming they made it back to Earth, of course, but even if they didn’t — what could Sheppard do without the rest of the expedition?

  “Look, I know what you’re thinking,” McKay said. “But Sheppard’s doing the right thing. Sumner — he’s going to get a lot more people killed if we’re not careful.”

  “If you think that,” Sam said, “why aren’t you off in the woods with the rest of them?”

  “Because somebody has to figure out how to get us back to Atlantis,” McKay answered. “That’s the only smart answer. We find a power source, we juice up Atlantis’s shield, and we move back there so that we’re not putting the Athosians in danger. It’s the only answer.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “I think you’re right, McKay. Let’s see if we can make some sense of this.”

  Jack leaned against the sun-warmed wall outside the mess area, sipping, apparently idly, at his cup of coffee. Carter and Daniel were already off with the scientists, and that was a good start to the day; for now, he watched Bates’ team paddle their unsteady inflatable boats back across the lake. They left one boat on the far shore under guard, and a couple of Marines began rowing the second boat back toward the city while Bates formed up his men and began giving orders. It was too far to hear, of course, but Jack could guess what the sergeant was saying. There would be a detail left to guard the boat, and the large party would head out to secure the Stargate. It seemed a little weird that Sumner wouldn’t try to keep the gate under guard over night, but maybe the risk was just too great. It would be too easy to get cut off, even if the locals didn’t much like to be out at night.

  “O’Neill.” Teal’c ducked under the low lintel, carrying a cup of coffee. He held it out and Jack took it gratefully. Teal’c accepted O’Neill’s almost empty cup in return. “I have been looking for Dr Beckett, but I have not seen him.”

  “Nor have I,” Jack said. He squinted at the group across the lake. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the things the Athosians were complaining about access to the Stargate?”

  “I believe you are correct, O’Neill.”

  “And yet we’re not guarding it overnight,” Jack said. “So presumably the Athosians could use it at night if they wanted to.”

  “Unless the Wraith are more likely to attack at night,” Teal’c said. “Or indeed if there are other dangers in the forests that they would prefer to avoid.”

  “We haven’t heard of any,” Jack said. “And you’d think, if they needed off-world supplies so much, they’d be willing to take the risk. Nope, no matter how you slice it, it’s not adding up.”

  “Indeed.”

  Across the lake there was a sudden swirl of movement and Jack straightened. A tall man with red hair stepped out of the trees, hands spread to show himself unarmed. Bates’s men relaxed, and Bates conferred for a moment with the redhead before sending three men off with him and sending the larger group off toward the Stargat
e.

  “For that matter,” Jack said, “why not station people at the gate overnight? You’d think it would be worth the risk to get advance warning of a Wraith attack.”

  “I do not know,” Teal’c said. “Unless the Athosians are more hostile than Colonel Sumner has indicated.”

  “Yeah.” Jack drained the last of his coffee, wishing there was more. The mess crew had been very firm about it, though: one cup per person, and even then the supplies weren’t going to last a whole lot longer. “Did you see Beckett at breakfast?”

  “I did not.”

  “I’d really like to have a chat with him,” Jack said. He straightened, gave the party on the far side of the lake a final glance — Bates’ main party was just entering the trees — and ducked back in the mess hall to place his cup in the rack of dishes to be washed. The sergeant in charge of the mess line gave him a grateful glance and Jack squinted at the man’s name tag.

  “Sergeant Pollard,” he said. “Can you tell me where I’d find Dr. Beckett?”

  “The infirmary’s three buildings to the west,” Pollard answered promptly. “It’s the one with the white tarp for a roof.” He paused. “Is everything all right, sir?”

  “Oh, yeah, fine,” Jack said. “I’d just like a word with the doctor.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pollard answered, and chivvied his crew back to work.

  Jack ducked back out into the rising sunshine and Teal’c fell into step at his side. The expedition had made a considerable effort to make the ruins in the immediate area of the landing habitable, or at least resembling something from a high-class safari, but as they made their way toward the infirmary, as conspicuous as promised with its white roof, Jack couldn’t help noticing that the rebuilt area was chosen so that Sumner could cover it from the central building they were using as a mess hall. Protection, he wondered, or keeping the civilians under control?

  Beckett had slung a length of tarp to serve as a door, but it was pulled back to let in the morning sun. Jack looked into the outer room, empty except for a row of packing-crate chairs and another curtain across an inner door, then stepped inside, Teal’c still at his heels.

  “Knock knock.”

  “Yes?” The inner curtain was swept back with a brisk rattle of rings, and a young woman in scrubs looked from one to the other. “Oh. General O’Neill. It really is you.”

  “Well, sort of,” Jack answered. He hated these kinds of explanations. “I mean, I am O’Neill, I’m just not the General O’Neill from your timeline. We think.”

  “Really?” She ducked her head, blushing. “Sorry. Of course you wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true. I’m Marie Wu, by the way.”

  “Wu,” Jack said, and Teal’c made a polite half bow. “We were looking for Dr. Beckett.”

  “Oh. He’s not here.”

  “Indeed?” Teal’c cocked his head to one side.

  “No. I guess Colonel Sumner called him early, there’s a note saying for me to take the morning appointments, not that we have any.”

  The sense of something wrong was growing again. Everything about her body language said she wanted to run, from her stretched uneasy smile to her hands closed in tight fists. Jack tried a gentler smile of his own. “Maybe you could answer some of my questions. About this anti-Wraith drug of Dr. Beckett’s?”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” Wu shook her head for emphasis. “I’m really not involved in that.”

  “Well, is Doctor —” Jack tried to remember the name of Beckett’s number two. “Dr. Keller. Is she here?”

  Wu’s expression closed down even further. “No. Sir. General.”

  “Where is she?”

  He saw her face change before the shadow blocked the door, and turned without haste to smile at Sumner. “Good morning, Colonel.”

  “Sir.” Sumner nodded to Wu. “Thanks, Marie, that’ll be all.”

  “Yes, Colonel,” she said, and slipped back into the inner room, rattling the curtain closed behind her.

  “I was looking to talk to Dr. Beckett,” Jack said, “but now I’m curious. What’s happened to Dr. Keller?”

  “She’s one of the missing,” Sumner answered. “The last we heard, she was with the Athosians, but — as you know — we’ve had trouble keeping in contact with them.”

  “So she could be dead, as far as you know.” Jack meant the words to sting, but Sumner shrugged them off.

  “Yes, sir, she could. I can’t risk the people I have to find out, on the off chance that the Athosians are feeling cooperative. Or that the ones who like us are in charge that day.” He paused. “Maybe we should go back to my office?”

  There wasn’t any point in staying here, Jack thought. He’d learned everything he was going to. “Sure.”

  “The thing about the Athosians,” Sumner said, as they started back toward the main building, “is that they don’t really have a government, at least not one as we understand it. They’ve got a batch of what I’d guess you’d call tribal elders, plus some younger people who seem to represent various constituencies, and I’m damned — sorry, sir. I can’t tell who’s in charge of what from one day to the next. There’s an old woman, Charin, who’s kind of on our side, and then there’s a guy called Nedellin who wants us out of the city yesterday. And then Halling, who seems to be as close to a leader as the younger people have, he’s been willing to work with us, but their trade person, Teyla, she just wants us dead.”

  “That seems extreme,” Jack said. They were back at the main building now, and Sumner gestured for them to precede him into the room he was using as an office.

  “She’s hot-headed,” Sumner said. “If anything’s happened to our people, Teyla’s behind it.”

  “So what did happen?” Jack asked. “How’d you end up with people stuck in the Athosian — village? Camp?”

  “Could be either,” Sumner said. “I mean, there is a village site, and we know people are there — that’s where Dr. Beckett is. Halling sent word this morning that one of the kids hurt his leg, needed our medicine. Of course Beckett said he’d go.” He paused. “I asked him to keep an eye out for any of our missing people, and anything else he can find out.”

  “Ok,” Jack said. “That’s probably a good plan. But can we get back to how your people got stuck in the first place?”

  “Sir.” Sumner folded his hands as though that would help him control his temper. “Before Dr. Weir was killed, there was a difference of opinion on how best to deal with the locals’ resistance to the idea of our exploring the city. We all agreed that we needed to either find a ZPM or confirm that there wasn’t one, and once Dr. McKay began examining the ruins it was pretty clear we were going to find some useful things. Dr. Weir thought we should stay in the forest with the Athosians, and search the city in daylight. Dr. McKay felt that this was wasting time, and I felt that we would be in a much more defensible position if we set up camp in the ruins. I was overruled, and we remained with the locals. When the Wraith attacked, we were scattered, us and the locals both. After it was over, I withdrew to the city to establish a more solid defense. Military personnel were under orders, and — for the most part — followed them. Not all the civilians complied, and — honestly, sir, we didn’t try very hard to get them back, not then. Once we had a decent perimeter established, I sent Ford back for them, but Teyla wouldn’t let him talk to them. And that’s why I don’t know the status of all the civilian personnel. Sir.”

  Jack nodded, and risked a guess of his own. “And this would be when you lost Sheppard?”

  “Yes, sir.” Sumner’s fists were closed tight, but he was keeping control of his anger. “He went AWOL — I have reason to believe that he was fraternizing with the locals, particularly with Teyla. I believe her influence is the reason he didn’t return to the unit.”

  That didn’t sound much like the John Sheppard Jack had met in Antarctica, the man he’d talked into joining the Atlantis expedition, and not just because of his ATA gene. He said only, “A messy situation, Colonel.�
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  Sumner straightened his spine. “Yes, sir.”

  “I still want to talk to Beckett when he gets back from the village,” Jack said. “In the meantime — you don’t mind if we look around?”

  Sumner shook his head. “Not at all, sir. But — for your own safety, I’d recommend you stay inside the perimeter.”

  “I just want to look around the ruins,” Jack said.

  He suited his actions to his words, tracing a meandering path through the ruined walls and heaps of rubble until he was sure that they weren’t being followed. Even so, he climbed to the top of one of the piles of broken stone, turning as though he were trying to get a good view of Sumner’s camp. The man had done a good job making it secure, he had to admit, with strong fire points protecting the main building and clear lines of sight along the perimeter and covering the boat landing. Of course, it didn’t look as though they’d done more than search a quarter of the city, and the area in which they were camping was even smaller, but — it was getting the job done.

  “O’Neill,” Teal’c said. “I do not believe that Colonel Sumner was telling us the entire truth about Dr. Beckett.”

  “You noticed that too?” Jack said.

  Teal’c dipped his head. “Indeed. We saw the first patrol leave the city this morning, and Dr. Beckett was not among them. Nor was he with the Athosian who met them at the landing.”

  “I imagine Sumner would say the call came in the middle of the night, and they sent Beckett across as a matter of mercy.”

  “Except that we would have heard the disturbance,” Teal’c pointed out, and Jack nodded.

  “Yeah. Let’s let him think we believe him, at least for the moment.” Jack squinted at the sun, gauging its height. “In the meantime, let’s you and me just wander around and see what turns up.”

  “General Hammond would approve,” Teal’c said. “It will be interesting to see what Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson discover.”

  “Won’t it just?” Jack began carefully descending the pile of stones. “Come on, let’s see what kind of trouble we can not get into.”