Getting there, folks. I will be sorry to see the end of this, I must say.
Chapter 15Unsurprisingly, everyone was up before dawn. Several of the children saw Lorne's jumper arriving and ran to meet the visitors. Teyla had passed on the news of the impending exploration to the rest of the village. It was a rather large group of onlookers that collected, which turned out to be handy as Lorne began to offload a surprising amount of material.
"It's a scouting mission, not a new colony," Sheppard commented, watching the procession of boxes.
"Dr. Zelenka collected most of this stuff. Apparently, Dr. McKay was on the horn to him overnight and made a few requests."
"Oh, he did, did he?" Sheppard drawled, eyeing the physicist.
I watched the colonel approach McKay, who was elbow-deep in a crate. A discussion began, which got louder and more animated before ending with McKay stalking off in disgust.
"Huh." Lorne's grunt caught my attention, and the soldier grinned at me. "Back to normal, looks like."
I nodded, and Lorne's grin widened. "Kind of good to see," the Major admitted. "The rest - they were pretty worried."
"Not you?" I raised an eyebrow.
Lorne shrugged. "Me? Nah." He pulled a case down and handed it to me. "Not worried at all."
I looked at the man, remembering the flight back after the rescue. "Right," I agreed. Sarcasm wasn't only a talent of the Earthers, after all, and I was practicing it whenever I could.
"One case! One!" Sheppard hollered after McKay.
OoO
They'd compromised, the two of them. Several of the observing Athosians had been drafted into helping with some of the material that McKay swore couldn't be done without. It included several different interfaces, and a small, powerful and portable generator that had arrived two trips ago on Daedelus with a big red bow and a 'Happy Birthday Rodney, love Sam' card attached. I'd asked if Sam was his brother. It was an honest mistake. The only Sam I'd met up 'til then was male. I didn't think it justified the reaction, but then that's McKay.
Still, even though we had the extra help, a large amount remained in the jumper and McKay was casting longing glances behind us as we started to make the trek.
"No one is going to carry it, McKay," Sheppard told him unfeelingly.
"I wouldn't have foregone my beauty sleep, Sheppard, if I hadn't thought we would possibly need all of that."
"We can send some folks back if it comes to that. Quit mooning over it and come on."
"Mooning?" The indignant voice faded as I dropped back. Teyla was bringing up the rear, with a gaggle of children following.
"It's not a mission, it's a social outing," I grumbled to her. She looked up at me, calm as always.
"I am happy to see such enthusiasm," she replied, letting a small child down off her back. Leaning down to the child, she patted his shoulder. "Go find your mother," she said quietly, and straightened up.
"I have had several conversations with the Colonel," she continued. "He was most concerned, for himself and for Rodney. He had no joy in life for many days, Ronon. Simple survival was not enough for him and he was afraid that, perhaps, he would find no reason to do more than simply survive."
"McKay spoke to me. Something similar." I didn't elaborate, and she didn't ask. I wasn't surprised he'd spoken to her, though; they'd been together longer. I was just glad he'd done that. It made me wonder why McKay had decided to talk to me. Didn't think we had that much in common.
On the other hand, maybe that was why.
"Doctor Heightmeyer has said, before, that shared pain is halved, shared joy is doubled. She said it was a quote by a spider."
I glanced at her, but she was serious.
"I did not understand her reference to the origin of the saying, but the concept appears to be valid." She gestured ahead, where Lorne was chatting with Halling. Sheppard and McKay were deep in discussion, and the various Athosians who had volunteered to serve as pack animals were looking like they were beginning to regret it. It was a pleasant scene.
I grunted. It was something to think about.
"This has been a success, as well, for my people," she changed the subject smoothly. "Doctor Weir has suggested the encampment remain after you have left, to be used by others from the city in need of a 'vacation'. Having helpers for the harvest, or for planting, would be of benefit to us. It is a positive situation for all."
I nodded and admitted, "I'd come back."
Though maybe for a slightly less grim reason, I added to myself.
Chapter 16
It had taken McKay only about half an hour to get the generator hooked up, and he waved Sheppard over.
"You found it, you open it," he said magnanimously.
It was a panel very much like the ones on the hanger doors in the city, and he opened it the same way. It shuddered and jumped a bit, as it ground over the uneven floor, but before long it was open and gaping. The power supply had turned on the lights inside, those that had survived, and the huge door opened onto a landing that appeared, for all the world, to be designed like the control deck in Atlantis. The same sort of architecture, the same arrangement of stairs going down to a similar, raised area, only there was no gate there. Instead, transparent, coloured glass doors reached the height of the room.
"They loved their space," Lorne said beside me, and I glanced down. "Building this must have taken ages," the man clarified, and I nodded. Sheppard was leading McKay and Teyla down the stairs, and I followed, with the major bringing up the rear. Halling kept the rest back. Up ahead, Sheppard and McKay had reached the doors.
They slid open as the two approached. Inside, there was a diagram, familiar, and McKay frowned.
"It looks like a huge transporter," he said. "This thing could take fifty people at a time. Wonder where it originates? We've never seen anything like it on the city."
"We've never found anything like it on the city," Sheppard corrected. "Size of Manhattan, remember?"
McKay nodded, reading over the information on the walls. "Holy cow."
"What?"
McKay pointed to something that looked like a tiny diagram of the snowflake shape that generally symbolized Atlantis. "If it were fully powered, this would reach the city itself," he said, astonished. "There's a couple other places it'll go, but can you imagine how useful that would be? A back door, easy evacuation if you needed it. There have to be more of these around, somewhere."
"The cavern couldn't take more than a couple hundred," objected Lorne.
"Not more here, Major. More on the mainland. We have to find out where this thing's counterpart is on the city, and see where else they built these bunkers."
"I do not think this was a bunker, Rodney," Teyla objected. "There is no evidence of any sort of emergency food or accommodations."
"Well, maybe…maybe it was mostly a recreational center, but there's no arguing it would be a really efficient way of clearing out the city if they needed to. It wouldn't have done them any good when the Wraith were attacking, but if there was a crisis and the city was damaged or something, they could move their population fairly efficiently. I still think there must be more."
She glanced up at me, and I shrugged slightly.
"You said it had to have enough power," I observed.
"Well, yes. With what we have, we could maybe make it to…" he pointed to the map. "There. It's somewhere near the beach. Has to be a good forty miles from here."
"Could we get back?" Sheppard asked the obvious question.
"If we couldn't, we could always just shoot up a flare." McKay sounded exasperated. "Come on, Sheppard, maybe this is a - a library, or a really good restaurant."
Sheppard raised an eyebrow, and I knew we'd be going, but it couldn't be that easy. Not with McKay. "A restaurant," he stated. "That's what you think about."
"A beautiful seaside location," McKay responded sarcastically. "You'd pay extra for the view."
"Right." Sheppard stepped inside, followed by Lorne, Teyla and me. "You coming?"
"Oh. Right." McKay grabbed his weapon, his computer, and his backpack. "Yeah."
He stepped in, and Sheppard waved to Halling. "Back soon."
The doors closed.