"Before we are alarmed, we see correctly; when we are alarmed, we see double; and when we have been alarmed, we see nothing but trouble."
-Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
High mountains ringed the pine forested valley like scowling border guards, daring anyone or anything to get past them, their steep sides, jagged peaks and the loose shale they wore like a cloak ensuring that no one would be getting in or out in any way except for one.
That singular way sat in the center of one of the valley's few clearings, up a hill that seemed to have had its top sawed off just to make a flat table of land for the great dark silver ring that was set with its edge apparently wedged into a pedestal which held it firmly upright. That ring was the Stargate.
Avyan and Karka, of the distant city of Ntsevu, had been studying the ring for almost as long as they'd been alive. Queen Jahnavi had long ago had her scientists abandon research on the Stargate, primarily because the Wraith seemed especially fond of scooping up anyone near the ring whenever they came for a culling. Instead, she had them refocus on trying to find a way over or through the seemingly impenetrable mountains, which reduced the chances of the Wraith picking them off.
Her intentions to preserve the few scientific minds at her disposal and to protect her people as best she could were noble, but Avyan and Karka were both convinced that the only escape from the Wraith lay in understanding how to operate the Stargate, knowledge which had been lost long ago.
Whatever progress was made on the subject was soon erased whenever the Wraith returned because the Queen's scientists had the habit of keeping all of their knowledge in their minds except towards the ends of their natural lives, at which time they would write down what they knew if they still had the mental faculties for it. Because of the Wraith, they rarely lived so long, especially if they worked near the Stargate. The Queen knew, as all of the Ntsevu people did, that the Wraith were intentionally holding them back, intentionally destroying records and their greatest minds whenever they advanced beyond a certain level. The Wraith wanted them helpless, wanted them confined to this valley.
No one knew why, for no one had ever talked to a Wraith. At least, no one who had lived to tell the tale. And no one who was culled ever returned, nor was there any record as to why they were culled. It was enough to know that they were being controlled by an outside force beyond their comprehension, and that they wanted it to stop. Avyan and Karka were convinced that the Stargate would be their salvation, if they could ever get it to function.
In their records, they held the knowledge of other places, places not bounded on all sides by mountains. Even if the Wraith followed them, in those places they would be able to run. They would have somewhere to go, somewhere to hide. They might even have a kingdom consisting of more than one major city and a few roving hunter/gatherer tribes that traded what they could hunt or gather for what the people of the city could grow or build.
Avyan was from a hunter/gatherer tribe at the Northern most edge of the valley, though his intelligence had been recognized early on and he had been brought to the Queen, who commanded that he be educated and trained in the scientific arts. Karka was from the city, but she too had been recognized as having a fine mind, and had been educated just as Avyan. In fact, they had met when they were only ten and twelve years old, Karka being the eldest. Now twenty and twenty-two, they were both full of the hope and drive and arrogance of youth, and were convinced that study of the Stargate should resume.
They had spent a long time composing their formal argument, using every scrap of scientific and historical knowledge at their disposal, as well as the best logic they could summon, before finally going before Queen Jahnavi and begging to be allowed to journey to 'Ring Hill' and study the Stargate.
With obvious reluctance but clear awareness of the validity of the points they made, she granted them her permission to go. Because it was such a long journey, and because she did not wish for their work to be needlessly slowed down, the Queen even instructed one of the hunter/gatherer tribes to periodically deliver supplies to the camp Avyan and Karka set up near the base of the hill (the top was too exposed to sun and wind and other weather for them to camp there, particularly at this time of year, when the wind roared above the trees at gale speeds).
They'd been at it six months, and there'd been little in the way of forward progress. They understood that the inner ring must spin. They knew that the object standing near the Stargate would make it do that. But they were not much beyond that. They could make the inner ring spin, could make the jewels on the outer ring light up, but they could never seem to get beyond that. They knew what happened when the Stargate activated, because Wraith ships had come through it before. A whirlpool of what looked like water was supposed to rush and swirl forth, then stabilize like a standing pool. But they themselves couldn't get the Stargate to actually do that.
Soon they would have to return to the city for the winter, because the ice and snow that gripped the valley at that time of year made travel dangerous, and the area around Ring Hill almost uninhabitable. The first snows had already fallen, but with the sunrise had come a thaw. Those freezing, snowy nights told Avyan and Karka that their time was running out, even though the days which followed were still warm.
Of course, they could return in the spring, but they were impatient with the delay, and were afraid that Queen Jahnavi would decide in the meantime that the risk was too great, or that their skills would be better put to use on some other task. There was also the possibility that the Wraith would come, as they so often did in the spring, and that Avyan and Karka would be culled. It was even possible that Queen Jahnavi, despite being able to sense the Wraith as she could, would be taken, and a new ruler would have to replace her, a ruler who might run things quite differently.
"Let's try this combination," Avyan said, his breath clouding in the cold morning air.
"Which?" Karka inquired, and looked over his shoulder to see what he'd drawn in the fine soft dirt, "Oh yes, that one. Okay."
Karka went to the stump-shaped object with the symbols written on it, while Avyan stood well clear of the Stargate itself. She had just reached for the first symbol of the chosen set when suddenly the inner ring began to spin all on its own.
"WRAITH!" Karka shrieked, for that was the only thing in living memory that had ever come through the Stargate.
She stumbled back from the controller, and looked fearfully at Avyan, who stared back in terror. Both of them proceeded to run, even though they knew it would probably do them no good. They'd just reached the top of the path that led down the treacherous side of Ring Hill when they heard a deafening roar. It was the sound of the Stargate activating.
Despite their terror, the sound stopped them in their tracks, and they turned to stare. They couldn't help it. The Stargate fascinated them, and awed them. It was more than just possibly being their salvation if only they could learn to operate it. There was something deeply powerful and magical about it, and they were stunned not only by the sound, but by its terrible beauty as well.
Dimly, Karka wondered if perhaps the scientists who'd come before had also stood frozen in the open like this, and if perhaps that was the real reason they had been spotted and culled.
A moment later, she forgot all of her speculations, for what came out of the still pool was not a flying machine of the Wraith, but a man. At least, he looked like a man from where she stood. He was followed by three others before the Stargate shut off. For a moment, the four men did not appear to notice Avyan or Karka as they looked around. Then the one who'd stepped through first spotted them.
For a beat, he raised menacingly the weapon he carried with him. It was far different from what the royal guards carried, but not so different Karka was unable to recognize it for what it was. She knew she should put up her hands in surrender so as not to provoke him, but she remained frozen in shock.
No humans had ever come through the Stargate. Only the very oldest records, preserved for many generations, proved that humans even existed on the other side.
Evidently the man saw no threat in Karka or Avyan, because he lowered his weapon, and the hostile look left his eyes. In fact, the expression he acquired was a surprisingly pleasant one. He seemed rather amused, but was trying not to show it. The slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth would have given him away, even if the light dancing in his blue eyes had not.
"Hi," he began cheerfully, "I suppose you're wondering why we're here."
Karka gaped at him, and said nothing. Avyan was likewise paralyzed.
"My name is Major Lorne," the man persisted, smiling at them in what appeared to be a friendly manner, "What's yours?"
The strange name seemed to enter Karka's brain and ping around in there, finding nothing to attach itself to. She could think of no response for this unprecedented event. Absurdly, she found herself remembering her class on etiquette, which required her to invite a guest in and offer them something to eat or drink. But that was generally preceded by a knock on the door, and she wasn't inside. She supposed the Stargate could be thought of as a door, in which case these 'guests' had come in uninvited, which was actually terribly rude of them.
She shook her head to dispel the ridiculous thoughts, and managed to remember how to introduce herself.
"I am Karka, a scientist of the Queen's imperial research team," she was astonished by how steady her voice was, and how easily she followed this with a gesture in Avyan's direction, "This is Avyan, my assistant. What brings you here to Ring Hill?"
Actually she wanted to know why they were in the valley. To heck with that, what were they doing on this planet at all? The Stargate could take them to other worlds, that much she knew. What would people who knew how to operate it want with such obviously primitive peoples as the Ntsevu?
"The Stargate brought us here," Major Lorne replied, and waved at the Stargate, "The big ring thing."
"Yes, I saw that," Karka said, suddenly feeling a burst of impatience as she recognized this irritating and typically male sense of humor and momentarily forgetting both her fear and her awe, "What I meant was why are you here?"
"Ah, yes, that," he nodded as if he had not understood the question the first time, but the look in his eyes said he was having fun at her expense and enjoying it immensely, "We came to conduct trade negotiations with your people. See, you may have something we want, and maybe we can trade you for something we have that you want."
Did this man take her for a fool?
"I know how negotiation and trade work," Karka said through narrowed eyes.
"Great," Lorne said cheerfully, "So do I."
Avyan still had not found his tongue, and continued to stare gormlessly at the newcomers. Karka supposed she should still be impressed by them, as she had been a moment before. But, seeing nothing to fear, the emotion changed to an intense annoyance. She was annoyed that she had been afraid, annoyed that she had stopped and stared at the Stargate when she should have run, annoyed that she had not been able to find her voice, and annoyed that this man seemed to enjoy her fumbling at the start. She also found Major Lorne himself annoying.
Anyone coming through the Stargate should be regal, formal and well-spoken. Major Lorne's persistent levity and cocksure grin were not at all appropriate for someone capable of traveling the stars as he did.
It took quite a bit of coaxing and unflinchingly groan-worthy jokes to convince Karka and Avyan to take Major Lorne and his team to 'their leader', but Lorne figured it was worth it. The visiting team had been prepared for people, but they'd expected a long trip through the forest first. Lorne had been surprised and a little thrown off his game by the sight of the two royal scientists gaping at him as he came through the 'Gate. How much more surprised Karka and Avyan must be.
While many of the Atlantis expedition hadn't even known about the Stargate program prior to joining the mission to explore the Pegasus galaxy, Lorne himself had made several ventures through the Stargate prior to that. At the time, he'd served under a CO who didn't tend to play well with others, so his missions had primarily involved visiting planets without other people. But the few times he had been startled by people on the other side, it hadn't gone very well.
People in the milky way galaxy tended to mistake folks coming through the Stargate for gods or demons, depending upon how they felt about the Goa'uld. The people here had of course never even heard of a Goa'uld, much less seen one. Many of them -such as the Athosians- had also used the Stargate for themselves to visit other worlds and conduct trade.
The expressions of Karka and Avyan on seeing the Atlantis team step through told Lorne that their people had not used the Stargate. Not wanting to be mistaken for a god, a demon or anything else he wasn't, Lorne purposely and persistently made simple and obvious jokes to put them at ease. It didn't hurt any that those jokes also amused him, or that Karka's openly displayed annoyance said she was regarding him as just a man, nothing more special or terrible than that.
Avyan had still said nothing by the time he and Karka were leading Lorne's team down the hill to what Karka referred to as 'the hunter's road' to the city. When Lorne inquired about it, Karka had looked at him as if he were a simpleton, and explained that it was the road the hunters used.
She did not elaborate, but Lorne could guess that the road was used by hunters in the field to return more quickly and easily to the city with their captured prey. Road building to allow for quick travel was one of the first things the Athosians had done when they moved to Lantea. Lorne had not seen their original home, but he assumed they'd built roads there as well.
By most standards, this road barely qualified for the term. It was mostly a line carved through the forest by clearing the trees and brush from it. Though grasses didn't appear common in the valley, some had grown in scattered patches on the road. Otherwise, however, it was a path of dark soil that in some low places clearly experienced flooding at certain times of the year, though it was pretty dry now.
In their initial inspection of the planet, they had not seen the road. Then again, they had not seen Karka or Avyan either, even though Karka said she and her assistant had been studying the Stargate and the area around it for months. Somehow they'd timed their look-see of the area around the Stargate so that they just missed seeing the two young scientists.
Though he hadn't been as thorough in reading mission reports as certain other people involved in the Stargate program and Atlantis expedition, Lorne knew this was definitely not the first time that things had not been as they first appeared. But Lorne was flexible, and tended to take just about every unexpected thing that happened to him in stride, which was part of why Colonel Sheppard had wanted him for a team leader, and his second in the military chain of command in Atlantis. Doctor Weir had undoubtedly approved Sheppard's choice for much the same reason.
Lorne wasn't necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed, but in the couple of years he'd been in the Stargate program prior to joining the Atlantis expedition, he'd come to recognize that fact, which was more than could be said for the majority of people. A few bad experiences had taught him some humility, of which he'd learned even more since coming to Atlantis. But he never let either his occasional stupidity or humbling experiences get in the way of his sense of humor or relentless cheerfulness even in the face of death, both of which made a shield against the potential shock and horrors that could await on the other side of the Stargate that was very nearly impervious.
In short, he was a man capable of following orders as well as giving them, and keeping his cool under extreme pressure and in dire circumstances, as well as continuing towards a given objective even if he made a mistake or experienced devastating failure. He'd keep trying to the end, which was exactly the kind of person Atlantis needed on its team, and precisely who Sheppard wanted to serve as his second-in-command running the military aspects of the Atlantis expedition.
What all of that boiled down to was that, despite being surprised by Karka, Avyan and the unexpected presence of this road which would significantly speed up their originally planned travel time, Lorne wasn't worried about what else might be waiting up ahead that he wasn't expecting. It wasn't Lorne's habit to worry until it was absolutely necessary.
However, worry or no worry, there was still sensible caution. Though nothing about Karka or Avyan made Lorne feel uneasy or suspicious, he nonetheless directed his team to spread out in formation behind him. If any unpleasant surprises did find them, having each man several feet back from the one ahead of him, and on alternating sides of the road, reduced the chances of all of them being taken out or captured in one fell swoop.
Maybe Lorne wasn't overly clever, but something about repeated ambushes and the occasional kidnapping had left a certain mark on him that someone unfamiliar with the history of the Atlantis expedition and the Stargate program in general might describe as paranoia.
However, if he was paranoid, nobody on Atlantis seemed to have noticed, and in fact a number of them seemed to think he was still a little too confident. Here and now, neither Karka nor Avyan were picking up on it either. They had both looked at his surface calm and accepted it at face value. Most people did.
But, looking past the downward slope of the road ahead, and its upward curve at the other end, Lorne found himself looking at the outside walls of the city of the Ntsevu with some unease.
Lorne wasn't an expert in technology or culture or history, but he had a good visual memory and an eye for detail, and he could see that the walls and spires visible from the road were not unlike those of Atlantis herself, suggesting that the Ntsevu were living in a city of the Ancients.
Even though he had known that was the case before he left Atlantis, Lorne couldn't help but feel a certain... mild anxiety at sight of such a structure. He also felt a bit of a thrill, not because he found the Ancients or their cities so exciting, but because it was possible he might find something useful here, maybe even a Zero Point Module.
But, foolish as he might be at times, Lorne was wise enough to realize that -with the possibility of a great reward- there was also the likelihood of grave risk, and the very real potential for death.
Author's Note: This story is completely written. I will be uploading one chapter per day. It is potentially slightly AU, but not on purpose. Midway through the writing of this story, I was interrupted for about seven months. Because I didn't make a note as to which part of the series this is set in, I didn't actually know when I came back. I think somewhere in season 2 is likely, or early season 3. I wrote this for my entertainment, and I am publishing it here for yours. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.