“You OK?” came Sheppard’s voice from the blizzard.
For a moment, McKay couldn’t see where he was, but then the shape of the Colonel came blundering out of the snow. His furs were encrusted in a layer of ice.
“I am now!” yelled McKay, still shaken by his narrow escape from the Jumper. “Where the hell were you?”
“Trying to spot the route back!” shouted Sheppard over the increasing roar of the wind. “It’s this way! Let’s go!”
McKay staggered to his feet. He pulled his hood down low, and replaced the leather face guard. Only a few moments into the storm, and he was already chilled to the core. He trudged after Sheppard’s silhouette, now just vaguely visible through sheets of whirling snow and ice.
After a few moments walking, the form of the Jumper was lost in a cloud of white and McKay’s entire world drifted into a freezing nightmare of shapeless ice. The more he thought about it, the more he hated this planet.
Zelenka half-awoke from a particularly pleasant dream involving a flower meadow in the mountains of the Śnieżnik massif and a very attractive woman called Magdalena. Dragging himself away from it was really quite painful, especially as the two of them were getting on so well. Strangely, there was an incessant beeping coming from somewhere in the sky. Blearily, he dragged his eyes open, and the spartan interior of his room on Atlantis materialized around him. The alarm clanged irritatingly. With a sigh, Zelenka reached out and silenced it. Magdalena would have to wait.
He lay for a moment in the dark, gathering his strength. Getting out of bed was always difficult, especially when he’d only had two hours of sleep. Then he remembered what he’d been working on.
Zelenka hastily pushed the covers off and pulled some clothes on. A few moments to splash water over his face and soften the worst excesses of his unruly hair, and he was out of his room and striding back towards operations.
When he arrived, most of his team was still at work. They’d been working shifts under his direction and most had got considerably more sleep. Despite that, they looked as crumpled as he. What was it about scientists?
“Dobrý den, tým,” he said, as cheerily as he could. His colleagues had gotten used to his Czech ‘Hello, team’ greetings, and responded with tolerant smiles. “Now, where are we on this?”
One of the modules retrieved from the experimental chamber lay on a table, looking like a dissected carcass. He’d left orders for the modules to be taken apart in the hope that they would discover something useful. A slim chance, but one worth taking.
One of his colleagues, Watson, came forward.
“We’ve made some progress,” he said, looking proud of himself. “Come and look at the module.”
The Ancient device had been thoroughly pulled apart. What had initially looked like a monolithic structure had turned out to be a collection of smaller machines, encased in a thick layer of shielding. Zelenka cast his expert eye over the detritus. “It looks hastily assembled,” he mused. “I’d say a collection of pre-existing parts. Fair enough. It was experiment.”
Watson nodded. “Like many of the projects from the last days of the city, it looks like they were in a hurry. The system is composed of about twelve separate devices, each connected to each other with some fairly simple logic. If they’d had more time, this machine could have been half the size.”
Zelenka looked over the components with interest. They were all standard-looking Ancient constructions: angular, well-finished, with that esoteric patterning they were so fond of.
“This might be helpful,” Zelenka agreed, noting the way the various parts seemed to fit together. “If we could just find a way to get them through the gate to McKay…”
Watson could barely contain his excitement. “Take a closer look.”
Frowning, Zelenka cast his gaze back over the pile of machinery. For a moment, he couldn’t see anything particularly special. Then, as his sleepy brain finally hit full speed, he saw what Watson was so excited about. “These are standard Jumper parts!”
One by one, he recognized the pieces of machinery: there was a plasma transfuser straight out of the main drive system, and a crystal relay matrix that must have come from the cockpit HUD unit. “Are these all pieces cannibalized from one of the city’s Jumpers?”
“All but one,” said Watson. “Apart from the connecting equipment, there’s one component that I’ve not seen before. No doubt that’s the one that does the magic. But we’ve had a look at it and it doesn’t look that complicated. My guess is that things were pretty tight when this device was being designed. They had to use whatever they could lay their hands on. We might be able to reproduce it.”
Zelenka clapped the scientist on the shoulder. This was very good news. “Right, this is a start,” he said. “Good start. We need to figure out if there’s way of reconstructing this thing within a standard Jumper. If we can, then so can they. And that might just bring them home.”
“We’re on it,” Watson said. “There’s a Jumper kitted out in the bay, ready for work. It’s got the standard issue stuff in it, plus a few things we think Dr McKay would have had with him.”
“I’ll go to it,” said Zelenka. “I want you too, and anyone else you can spare. If we can create one of these units from the material the team will have available, we’re half-way towards getting them back.”
“That’s true.” Watson gave him a warning look. “But we’ve still got no way of communicating with them. And we have no idea how these things work.”
Zelenka waved away his concern. He was feeling full of energy, despite his lack of sleep. Once he had something to get his teeth into, there was nothing he liked better than meddling in Ancient technology. “One thing at a time!” he said. “For now, we have a power module to build.”
Chapter Eight
Sheppard screwed his eyes up. It was almost impossible to see where he was going, and he was navigating on instinct alone.
“Are we there yet?” shouted McKay. In the howling gale, his yell was not much more audible than a whisper.
“Sure,” said Sheppard, hoping he was right. “Any minute now.”
“That’s what you said ten minutes ago.”
“Yeah, well this time I mean it.”
He powered on ahead, more relieved than he’d admit when he felt the ground rising beneath his feet. Within a few moments he spotted a dim light up ahead. In the ferocious storm, it looked as faint as candle flame.
“Bingo!” he shouted to McKay. “Let’s pick up the pace!”
Easier said than done. Despite his heavy clothing, his limbs already felt heavy and sluggish; the middle of the storm was no place for a man to be, buffalo hide or no, and he could hardly wait to get inside the Forgotten’s hidden city.
But when they reached the entrance to the cave complex, the heavy external doors were shut. Light leaked from the cracks in the wood. Sheppard hammered on the weather-worn wooden portal, the dull sound of his banging snatched away by the wind. But there was no answer and the door did not open.
The storm howled in delight, throwing all its terrible might against them, and it was hard to keep his feet even in the lee of the rock face.
“So, you want to fill me in here?” cried McKay, huddled and miserable in the shadow of the rocks. “This party season, or something?”
“Didn’t strike me as party people,” Sheppard shouted. “I don’t like it. Aralen told me these gates were always manned.”
He retrieved his P90 from deep within the furs covering him. As he did so, the icy wind wormed its way inside and he gasped from the cold.
“We’re not going to last much longer out here!” Sheppard yelled. “Get back!” He raised the gun to fire at the heavy lock. Using a submachine gun to pick a lock was hardly an elegant solution, but the cold was crippling and there weren’t many options left.