It would be painfully ironic if the Colonel were to survive innumerable confrontations in the Pegasus Galaxy only to run into a roadside bomb on his own planet. No, not painfully ironic-just flat-out painful. A man could only lose so many friends to explosively violent deaths.
Abruptly, Rodney stood. "If there's nothing else, I have equipment to pack."
Allowing him some latitude, Elizabeth dismissed the meeting. "Be ready to depart in an hour. Good luck."
Under less urgent circumstances, MIM-316 might have been an interesting place to explore-from the climate controlled comfort of the jumper, of course. The valley in which the gate was located had a certain aesthetic quality when viewed from the air. Having left the Marine team to set up a defensive perimeter around the gate, Rodney glanced out at the vista below as he eased his jumper into a trailing formation behind Lome's.
They climbed to some fifty thousand feet, which, Geisler had assured them from his seat behind, would be sufficient to avoid the pterosaurs encountered on their initial sortie. What little Rodney saw of the land they passed over hinted at massive, striking features. Approaching what the HUD indicated was the coast, the mist thinned sufficiently to reveal steep ravines overgrown with tree ferns the size of redwoods and impossibly dramatic waterfalls. It left him with the impression of a primordial landscape, one that had been shaped but never cowed by the passing of eons. Once over the shoreline, he used the zoom function on the HUD to focus on what Geisler said were gigantic crocodilians, wading contentedly in the shallows, and plesiosaurs in a narrow channel between several barrier islands. It was evident that the plesiosaurs were hitching a ride on the tremendous current set up by an outgoing tide and funneling through the narrow shallows. Whether it was for the purpose of catching fish or for the sheer pleasure of it, like dolphins and whales surfing offshore breaks, Rodney had no idea. He enjoyed an unexpected flicker of amusement at the sight until he realized that what fascinated him was the resemblance of the beasts to the supposed Loch Ness Monster.
"What is it?"
He turned partway in his seat to find Teyla studying him. "What is what?"
"Just for a moment, you smiled," she said quietly. "It has been some time since I've seen you do so. Why did you stop?"
There was no use offering flimsy excuses. Teyla's earnest, probing stare was a more effective interrogation technique than many methods banned by the Geneva Convention. "For the same reason I started." Rodney directed his gaze forward again, noting with vague indifference that the variegated patterns beneath the surface of the ocean indicated a long stretch of tropical reef. "Those animals down there, the long-necked ones, reminded me of a mythical creature from Carson's homeland. I just…"
"He would have liked to see them." Comprehending, she laid a gentle hand on Rodney's arm. "Perhaps he sees them now. I for one would not be surprised."
The sentiment was nice, but it left Rodney cold. They'd all kept moving, kept working, in the aftermath of Carson's death, having no other choice. Those people comfortable enough to mention him in conversation seemed to manage the task without any overt emotional displays, which only reinforced Rodney's sense of isolation.
Geisler was saying something to Radek about the presence of magnesium in the caves they were approaching being indicative of other heavy metals. Shutting out the chatter, Rodney focused on the distant horizon. Categorizing relationships had never been easy for him. Although he considered his teammates to be friends, in many ways a surrogate family even, he was the odd man out among them, the only one who hadn't come into this with some type of warrior background. Each time they went through the gate he had to prove to them, whether they realized it or not, that he could handle himself in the field. To his scientists-Radek included-he had to prove that he was worthy of being their superior. With Carson, there had been nothing to prove, and Rodney missed the simplicity of that friendship more than he would have imagined.
Sometime later, Radek's voice over the radio cut short Rodney's musings. "Starting descent and life signs sweep."
The coastline of the next continent was coming up fast. Unfortunately, just as Lome had advised, the life signs indicator was crowded almost to the point of forming a continuous blob across the entire screen. This ocean was teeming with life, even more so than the waters surrounding Atlantis.
Rodney knew to expect unusual crenulations in the coast; nevertheless the bizarre shapes that came into sight drew a brief grunt of surprise from him. Following Lorne's lead, he leveled off about fifty feet above the crests of the surging waves. It was then that he saw the narrow cuttings and sea caves in the patterned cliffs that made up the shoreline.
Ahead, Lorne slowed his jumper and flew parallel to the coast until reaching a rather unsteady looking outcrop, beneath which was a massive arch. The roof of the arch was about twenty feet above the waterline, although that varied somewhat as foaming surf surged back and forth through the gap. Teyla's sharp intake of breath was followed by a sound of satisfaction. "The outgoing tide has indeed allowed us access."
Rodney followed Lorne's jumper through and was gratified to note that the waves only reached a few yards inside. The arch-or perhaps tunnel was a more accurate term, because it was almost forty feet long and angled sharply up-was pockmarked by miserly shafts of sunlight through a multitude of holes and long cracks. The entire formation looked entirely too unstable to Rodney's way of thinking, so he focused on the ground, much of which was covered in tangled skeins of kelp and various other items discarded by the retreating tide. The tunnel also appeared to serve as a refuge for several dozen large lizards, which fortunately scuttled away at the sight of the slowly moving craft.
Ahead of them, it broadened out into a cavern, although strictly speaking it wasn't a cavern, since much of the roof had long since collapsed and been washed away. Somewhat smaller than the diameter of the jumper, and therefore not a viable option for access, the opening was cluttered with verdant growth that almost entirely blocked the view of the sky. Rodney's incipient claustrophobia was alleviated only by a few gauzy curtains of filtered sunlight trickling through the overhead greenery.
Once past the light's soft glare, he saw that the entrance of an Ancient building was contained within quite a stunning example of dolomite flowstone. Millions of years of magnesium-rich calcium, liquefied by weakly acidic groundwater and trickling through countless small cracks, had created a roseate wonderland. Glistening pastel stalactites and stalagmites were dotted here and there with rich veins of glossy blue-black manganese oxides. Encasing entire sections of the Ancient outpost, the living rock protected it from the ravages of time even as it slowly entombed it.
"Oh…my!" Geisler declared. "Extraordinary."
"It is quite beautiful," Teyla agreed, while one of the Marines in the rear of the jumper let out a low whistle of approval. "I have seen such things in caverns elsewhere, but nothing so extensive."
Looking beyond the formations, a barely visible bubble offered a different mode of protection for what was evidently the entrance to a more recently constructed Ancient lab. Presumably the sea level had been somewhat lower when the Ancients had abandoned the planet, making access to the lab far less dependent on the cyclic movement of the ocean.
Geisler confirmed this hypothesis with his observation. "Eons ago this entire region was underwater. That's how dolomite forms, you see: the result of coral reef building and then tectonic forces thrusting up the land. The process must be ongoing, or the mountains would have long since been eroded by the high rainfall. This tunnel was once part of a system of underground rivers exposed to the surface here and there by way of sinkholes."