The geeks were having the time of their lives. She was terribly excited by all the alien technology, and he was oohing and ahhing over the foreign marks scrawled on the wall. He'd already surmised it was some kind of temple, dedicated to a deity of great importance since it had been so heavily defended. The skeletons all wore similar scraps of tattered cloth, indicating some kind of priesthood. I told him that was very nice, but what I really cared about was getting the doors open.
Finally, he worked out that the tiny tablets he'd found with the crumbling bodies were in fact keys, and we shuffled through inches of dust down cold, rocky corridors. There were more bodies and evidence of a battle, which made me grip my weapon just a little tighter. It didn't help that they hadn't shut up yet, exclaiming at each new bit of useless machinery or fragment of paper. It was clear I'd have to be the adult on this expedition.
All the hallways and passage shafts were leading to the same place, and we finally entered a kind of antechamber, with a large covered window in one wall that must have looked out into the inner sanctum. The antechamber was crowded with dead machines, all composed of the same lightweight material that had made up the tablet keys.
Just like the Pharaohs, he said excitedly. Objects to take into the afterlife.
I said whatever, you can pick some of your favorite things to take back to the ship, but the rest will have to wait for another day, and another team. Our objective concerned what lay beyond the covered window.
He struggled with the final door, explaining that a High Priest must have sealed it, and the key had in all likelihood perished with him.
Or her, she added, just to be difficult.
In the end I got fed up with waiting, dragged him out of the way, and set explosives, ignoring his wails about carbon-dating rust spots, or something equally ridiculous.
We all covered our heads, and waited for the rush of hot air to subside.
The sight that awaited us shut even him up.
There it was. That which we had journeyed so long to find. Unneeded now, by this cold dead world, and ripe for the taking.
I spoke to the pilot, and he started the slow process of boring through the covering to the shaft that pierced the mountain's core. There were fewer bodies in here than in the hallways. Just four sprawled side by side on the ground, as if mowed down n the midst of a heroic last stand. One had a needle-thin collection of bones coiled below its ribcage. Another had some kind of transparent protective shields resting over his eye-sockets. The third and fourth were ordinary humans.
There's only one woman, she observed, pointing out the span of the hips of the lone priestess who was tucked under the arm of a man whose knee joints showed signs of wear. I heard the quiet disapproval in her voice.
I poked one of the skeletons cautiously. He frowned at me. I tried my best to look innocent.
You shouldn't defile the bodies, he said sternly. They died protecting this.
Serves them right for worshipping a piece of technology, I said. Besides, how do you know they weren't ritual sacrifices?
He very purposefully chose not to see my comment as a joke and launched into a very lengthy lecture, whose main purpose seemed to be pointing out that they'd died in battle. She intervened, but to my disappointment, agreed with him.
They were brave, she said, these priests of the Essjisii. To die protecting their planet, even though they knew it was a lost cause.
Very nice, I said, turning my attention back to the Stargate, which was very carefully being lifted out of the mountain temple where it had resided for so long.
But they're dead, and it's time for us to go. We've fulfilled the objective and found technology capable of protecting us.
She snorted quietly and he frowned a bit. They both opposed our government's decision to acquire a Stargate and use its time travel capabilities. They didn't see that our only hope of defeating our enemy was to travel to a time and destination where we would have the advantage and could eliminate the threat before it became problematic.
What if that's what killed them? She asked suddenly. What if they did what we plan to do, and they screwed everything up? What if that's what caused all this?
She gestured around the inner sanctum, with its burned and pockmarked walls.
I shrugged.
If they hadn't done whatever it was they did, we probably wouldn't be here, I told her. Maybe if we screw up, it'll bring them back. Circle of life, and karma, and all that.
She looked unconvinced. He looked faintly nauseous.
Pack it in, I told them briskly, let's go home.
We had a world to save.