DISCLAIMER – Stargate: Atlantis and its characters are the property of MGM/UA and associates (although in this story Shadow and Dr. Perlman are mine). I have not received compensation from any source in any form for the creation of this story. It is a work of fan fiction created solely for my enjoyment and the entertainment of others. It is not intended to generate profit in any way.

RATING – This story carries a content rating of T

ARCHIVE – If you would like to archive this story, you have my permission to do so. Please, just let me know where it is being archived.

A/N – I'm back! Thanks for all the awesome reviews you guys left me while I was gone. I certainly needed to see something to cheer me up, after the weekend I just had! Anyway, Chapter 20 is a short chapter, but I hope you will all enjoy it.

A friend of mine pointed out to me that this story is not exactly canon. Yes, I did already know that, and to those of you who are concerned about the canon-ness of fan fiction, I offer my most sincere apologies. This story contains my interpretation of characters and events, and it -is- after all, a work of fan fiction. I am writing the story that is in my head right now, OC's and all. My next one will most likely be more 'canon' than this one, so please bear with me. Thanks.

Anything in «double-angle quotation marks» represents something written in Ancient.

I have no beta. Any mistakes you may find are mine.


The Song Of Silent Rivers

20. Not Of This World

"Sheppard! Sheppard, we found dead people!"

Rodney McKay's voice preceded him across the clearing as he came toward the cottage out of which Radek, Teyla and the colonel had just emerged. Radek was not surprised to see his friend running. If Rodney had made his discovery the same way Radek had done, no doubt the Canadian had been pushed beyond the point his skittish nerves could handle without going to pieces.

Radek noticed Ronon was following Rodney at a slow, almost casual pace. He did not seem disturbed in the least at having found 'dead people'. Colonel Sheppard and Teyla appeared equally unaffected, but Radek suspected they were just hiding their feelings better than either he or Rodney were capable of doing. To his own credit, Radek thought, he wasn't running and shouting like his Canadian friend. He couldn't stop shaking, but at least he wasn't panicking.

Rodney was pink in the face and panting when he came to a stop in front of Colonel Sheppard. He looked as if he had a lot more to say than what he'd been yelling across the clearing, but was too winded to say it.

"Easy, Rodney. Take it easy," Colonel Sheppard said. "Catch your breath. Tell me exactly what you found."

While Rodney was gulping lungfuls of air, Ronon supplied, "We found a skeleton in one of the huts."

"We found two of them in this hut," said the colonel, nodding in the direction of the dwelling he, Teyla and Radek had just exited. "What do you think happened?"

Ronon shrugged one shoulder. "Don't know," he said. "They've been dead for a long time, whatever happened to them. Bones are completely clean."

"Just like the ones we found," Sheppard said. "How many of the houses did you look into?"

"Three," said Rodney, who had, apparently, finally recovered enough oxygen to talk. "The other two were deserted, but I think you need to see what we found in one of them. I think somebody's been in it recently. Other than us, I mean."

"Shadow," Radek said. He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud until he noticed Rodney's curious gaze on him.

"Well, I'd say that's probably a safe bet, judging by the artwork," said Rodney.

"What sort of artwork?" asked Teyla.

"Maps," said Ronon.

"Among other things," Rodney added. "There are a lot of drawings, too. Really detailed drawings of plants and animals, all over the place."

"I think we need to see this," said the colonel. "Show us the way."

Radek fell into step beside Teyla as they followed Ronon and Rodney across the clearing. Colonel Sheppard came along behind them, probably watching out for anything unusual. Ronon led them to the little house at the very edge of the clearing. On the outside, the structure appeared nearly identical to all the other houses in the village, and just like the first hut they'd entered, the door of this one was open. Beyond the threshold, most of the similarities ended. Radek saw the difference the moment he stepped inside.

Every available centimetre of wall space was covered in yellowing, coarse-looking pieces of paper, and every paper held a drawing. Radek saw flowers, trees, birds, cats and other strange creatures he couldn't even begin to name. There were diagrams, too, but mostly pictures. Looking around the room, Radek could see the progression of the art from childish line figures to intricately rendered images. A drawing of a leopard-like animal in mid-leap looked dangerously perfect in its detail. Radek was captivated by the lifelike image of the leaping forest cat. He did not doubt Shadow had drawn it and all the other pictures in the hut's main room. At the edge of the drawing of the forest cat there was a caption, written in Ancient that read, «Beware the spirit that eats man's bones.»

It was not a comforting message, Radek thought. Some of the other drawings were labelled similarly with warnings, though most were just pictures that spoke for themselves. Radek recognized a few of the images from Shadow's 'survival guide'. It appeared as though she'd been reproducing some of the artwork she had originally done here.

Radek let his gaze travel around the room once again. Near the doorway that led into one of the two back rooms, he noticed a picture that was unlike any of the others. The drawing showed two people, a man and a woman. The man was clearly older. He had curly hair and a kind expression on his face. The woman, unmistakably, was Shadow. A bird perched on her shoulder and she held the man's hand. The writing at the bottom said «For Remembrance»

Radek went up to the picture of Shadow and her father so he could look at it more closely. It was the only depiction of humans among all the artwork in the place. Radek was amazed at how exact a likeness Shadow had created of herself, and he could only assume the image of her father was equally accurate. He reached out with a forefinger and gently traced the edge of the drawing. The paper felt brittle and rough against his skin. He could imagine Shadow's delicate little hand holding her writing instrument, stroking each perfect line across the page with an artist's care. What had she been thinking when she'd created an image of her father 'for remembrance'? A lump threatened to form in Radek's throat when he contemplated it.

He turned away from the portrait of Shadow and her father to discover that his friends were similarly engaged in studying the various pictures. Rodney, predictably, was peering at the diagrams which Ronon had described as maps. Colonel Sheppard was staring at the leaping forest cat.

"Wow…these are amazing," Colonel Sheppard was saying. "This cat looks just like the one Shadow drew for us. I sure as hell wouldn't want to meet up with one of these for real."

"It might be interesting," Ronon said.

"For who? You or the cat?" Rodney asked, without looking away from what he was doing.

"Who do you think, McKay?" Ronon asked. He made a feral grin that Rodney, whose back was toward him, did not see.

Rodney made a disgruntled snorting sound in response to Ronon's comment, while Colonel Sheppard appeared to be trying hard not to laugh at the exchange. The colonel recovered his composure quickly, though, and asked, "So, Ronon, did you and Rodney happen to notice any drawings or writing in the other two places you checked?"

"No," Ronon said. "We didn't poke around, though. Might've been some hidden away where we couldn't see it, but there was nothing obvious."

"Okay," Sheppard said. "Did you look into the back rooms when you were in here the first time?"

Ronon shook his head. "When we saw this room, McKay said we should tell you right away."

"That's fine. We can check them out now." The colonel turned his attention to Rodney. "Hey, McKay, do you think you can tear yourself away from the maps for a minute?"

"These are written in Ancient," Rodney said, not paying attention to Sheppard in the slightest. "What do you think 'place of worship' means? Do you think these people worshipped the Ancients?"

Sheppard shook his head in the manner of a parent amused by a child. "Never mind. We'll let you know if we see anything more interesting than the maps."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

John had to say he was amazed. As soon as he'd seen the artwork papering the walls of the main room of the house, he'd known this had been the place where Shadow had been living. The drawings were unmistakably hers, and the self-portrait had only served to confirm that fact in his mind. It was also easy for him to see that someone had been in the hut recently. The table and stools and earthenware were relatively free of dust. The woven rug on the floor looked cleaner than the previous one John had seen.

On the table there was a clay bowl that contained the remains of some sort of food around which an insect idly buzzed. Next to the bowl were some things that looked like sticks of charcoal. They were of varying lengths and sharpened to fine points on the end. John guessed they were writing instruments. He hadn't seen anything like these in the other hut.

Another difference that caught John's attention was the fact that the two doorways that led into the back rooms were covered by curtains of woven fabric just like the rug on the floor. The drapes were faded and threadbare, but still concealed whatever might be in the two rooms. Whoever had put them there, John decided, was concerned with privacy to some degree. That made John all the more curious to know what was back there.

While Rodney continued to study the drawings on the wall and Ronon stayed with the Canadian in the main room, John ventured toward the first of the two curtained-off rooms. Radek and Teyla went to investigate the second one.

John pushed back the woven curtain and stepped into the little room. The instant he crossed the threshold, he knew this place was unlike any other location in the village. One entire wall contained shelves that were lined with jars and pots. Most of the containers were made of clay, but near the top of the shelves John's eye detected the telltale sparkle of sunlight reflecting on glass. Beside the glass vials was a metallic container. It didn't take an anthropologist to know metal and glass vessels weren't part of this society's craftsmanship. These had to be from somewhere else; another world. No wonder their owner had been trying to conceal them.

John scanned the room and saw a crude mattress and a small table. There were more of the charcoal-like sticks on the table. In the far corner of the room, John noticed a large wooden box which was partially obscured by a woven cloth. John went over to it and removed the fabric. The box was not latched, so John carefully raised the lid and peered inside.

The box was filled with books. John told himself he really shouldn't have been surprised by that, but he was surprised anyway. A few of the books looked like something this world might have fashioned, with yellowed, rough paper and crude binding that appeared as if the pages had been loosely sewn together with cord. Most of the texts, however, looked as modern as anything Earth could have produced. John picked up a few of the topmost books to see what was underneath. He expected more texts and papers, and he did find those, but he also discovered something that was as out-of-place on this planet as he could ever have imagined.

A data tablet, was his first thought when he saw the object. It looked uncannily similar to the one Rodney was always lugging around with him. Whatever the thing was, it was definitely a machine. John put the books down and lifted the device from the box, deciding right away that Rodney and Radek needed to see it. Those two brains could figure out what the device was for, if anyone could.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

This is Shadow's room, Radek thought.

The room that lay beyond the woven curtain couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a child's bedroom. The mattress was covered with a woven blanket, faded now, that had once been brightly-striped with red, orange and green. On the mattress were three rudimentary rag dolls made of the same sort of woven fabric as the curtain on the door. There were more pictures on the walls, similar to the ones in the outer room. A shelf contained folded material that might have been clothing.

Under the window, Radek saw a small table where a clay pot rested. The pot was filled with the rose-like flowers he'd admired on his first visit to this world. The cherry-coloured blossoms had withered but they hadn't yet become completely dry, which led him to believe the flowers hadn't been there long. Perhaps Shadow had picked them a day or two before she'd stepped through the 'Gate and into Atlantis. The beautiful, wilted flowers reminded Radek painfully of Shadow. They would have been exotically lovely to behold at first, but plucked from their natural environment they were slowly, inexorably dying.

He turned away from the clay vase, unable to bear the sight of it any longer. He found Teyla watching him. The Athosian woman was holding something in her hands, and when he gave her a curious look, she offered the thing to him. Radek took the object from her and saw that it was a small toy made of an extremely soft fabric. It was in the likeness of some sort of animal that might have been a dog if it had been an Earth creature. The fabric was green.

"That," said Teyla, "is not of this world."

"No, it isn't." Radek had to agree as he studied the soft, green toy. The stitching was perfect, no doubt done by a machine. It was far too advanced to be from this village, judging by the evidence they'd seen so far. Radek rubbed his thumb along the floppy ear of the green toy animal. "Where did you find it, Teyla?"

"It was by the door," Teyla said, and pointed to a small woven basket. "In there."

Radek hadn't noticed the basket when he'd entered the room. It was utilitarian in its design, completely incongruous with the green toy it had held. He said, "Now, I think the question we should be asking is what world is this from?"

"Perhaps," said Teyla, "A better question would be, what is it doing here?"

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

John led his entire team outside, and now they were all sitting or standing in front of the hut that they'd come to think of as Shadow's house. Rodney had taken the map from the main room and had given it to Ronon and Teyla. John had given the device he'd found to Radek. Now, Radek and Rodney were busily engaged in trying to figure out what the machine was for.

John had already looked at the map and felt he had a good idea of where to find the Ancient structure, so he left Ronon and Teyla to study it. He wandered over to where the two scientists sat next to each other on the grass. John noticed how well Rodney and Radek could get along when they had a puzzle to solve together. There was no hint of the brotherly squabbling John had been forced to put up with from them earlier. John could hear them talking quietly but excitedly, heads close together, finishing each other's sentences. They were a great pair, those two, no matter how much Rodney might deny even liking Radek and no matter how much Radek complained that Rodney was the sole cause of his recurring headaches. John could recognize true friends when he saw them.

John knelt on the grass near the two scientists and tried to see what they were doing with the device.

"Hey, guys," he said. "Any progress?"

Rodney looked up at him, clearly annoyed at having been interrupted. "Oh, yes, we're making progress by leaps and bounds, Colonel," he said. "Can't you tell? We're practically ready to reverse engineer the thing and build a new one. Who knows? In the process of doing that, we might even figure out how to turn it on."

"Rodney—" Radek interjected.

"What?" Rodney snapped. "You don't know how to turn it on, either."

"It needs power source," Radek said. "You can't turn on machine that has no power."

"Do you think I don't already know that?" Rodney said. "All I'm saying is that you have no idea how to turn it on, even if it did have power."

"Is intuitive device, Rodney. Of course I know how to turn it on. Do you see this depression right here? Is most logical place to put a power switch, so this is most likely how to turn the device on. I can even speculate about what it is for. I think it's—"

"A recording device. I know. That's what I think it is, too. It looks a lot like our data—"

"Yes, yes our data tablets. Perhaps it belonged to the person who created Shadow. Perhaps all the answers we are looking for are right here. All we need to do—"

"We have to take it back to Atlantis," Rodney finished.

John couldn't help gawking at them, amazed as always by the free flow of their exchanges with each other. "So," he said. "I guess you have made some progress, then. One of you can bring that device along. We've got an Ancient structure to locate, remember? Come on, and we'll see if we can find the rest of the technologically advanced stuff around here. We might even discover something that'll power your device."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It seemed to Radek that finding Shadow's village hadn't really provided many answers. All it had done was pose more questions.

Before leaving the settlement, they'd looked into a few more of the huts, but had found nothing out of the ordinary. They hadn't seen any more skeletons, neither had they discovered any more out-of-place objects or devices. It seemed that Shadow's house was the only one that contained anything which was otherworldly in nature, which begged the question of where Shadow and her father had come from. If they hadn't suspected as much before, it was fairly obvious now that Shadow and her father had not originated here. Perhaps the tablet device would be able to provide them with some answers. Radek had placed it and the green toy in his backpack to take back to Atlantis with them. Radek reasoned that he didn't necessarily need to bring along the doglike plush animal, but he thought Shadow might like to have it if – no, when – she woke up. Maybe his friends would think the gesture was sentimental on his part, but Radek didn't care.

The skeletons were another mystery entirely. In all the houses the team had examined, they'd only found three skeletons. There had to be more than three people in the village, so the question remained about where the rest of the villagers had gone. Ronon had said it was unlikely the Wraith had captured them all, though he did admit it was a remote possibility. Radek didn't even want to speculate about what had happened to them. He knew it had to be something gruesome, and he didn't like to think about that.

Instead, he concentrated on the map as he walked along beside Colonel Sheppard. The drawing was not as accurately rendered as Shadow's other artwork, but it gave the basic description of the area surrounding the village. A spot just beyond the village was marked as «Place Of Worship» and beyond that was «Hidden Place Of The Ancestors». Radek was just as curious as the others about what the place of worship might be. It wasn't far from the village, so he supposed they would all know soon enough.

TBC
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A/N #2 – gah! My dad and I had the weekend from hell. We went to visit my brother over the weekend and on Saturday somebody broke into my dad's vehicle and stole my handbag -in broad daylight- right in front of the hardware store where my brother's best friend works. I lost my cell, my prescription sunglasses, credit & debit cards, ID, keys…everything. So, I spent part of Saturday calling all my service providers to report my cards & phone stolen. The police were singularly unhelpful when I went to see them. Then, to make matters worse, my dad lost his keys and we could not get into the truck on Sunday. When we finally got home late yesterday my dad discovered his refrigerator (less than 2 years old) had died over the weekend and all his food was ruined. I had to help him clean the fridge and then had to stay here today until a repair man came. Repairman didn't show up…big surprise there. :P

So you can see how my time's been going. However, staying here all day gave me a chance to write a little and get my mind off things. It's nice to be able to escape into fantasy land for a while. Anyway, I should be able to post the next bit on the story soon. I promise I won't keep you waiting too long! Cheers!