John split his attention between watching the guards as they trudged toward the mine entrance and studying the valley. The sun was behind the 'gate when we arrived, John thought to himself as the sun set in front of them. That meant the 'gate had to be somewhere behind them. He glanced back at the hills behind the prisoner building. The question was, how far.
"Rodney?" Teyla said from behind him. "Are you all right?"
John glanced behind him and saw the look of panic on Rodney's face as he slowed to a stop several paces from the mine entrance.
"No. No, I'm not," Rodney replied in a whisper. He swallowed hard and glanced at John.
John knew it was the claustrophobia as much as the threat of radiation exposure that made Rodney hesitate. He also knew the guards wouldn't care one way or the other. "You said yourself that the mine has been here for thousands of years. It's not going to come down in the next few hours. Let's just get this over and done with."
Rodney grimaced but shuffled along as John followed the rest of the prisoners into the mine.
A short tunnel braced with thick beams of wood opened into a vast cavern. Lanterns attached to the wooden columns holding up the mine roof lined the walls at regular intervals, and two tunnels led out of the back of the cavern.
A line of metal track encircled the cavern with several rail carts made of rough planks of wood with a wooden handle on one side stood along the track. Piles of dark rock filled some of the carts while others were empty. More track led down each of the tunnels.
John felt Rodney's hand on his back and heard McKay's breathing hitch as the wooden beams above them creaked and groaned and looked up.
Maybe it wasn't such an irrational fear, after all, John thought to himself. The wood creaked again, and John felt his stomach clench in anticipation of the ceiling coming down on top of them.
He heard Rodney muttering something about a field, glanced behind him, and found McKay standing with his eyes closed and his hands clenched as he muttered under his breath.
"It'll be fine," Sheppard said, trying to convince himself as much as Rodney. "The mine has been here for thousands of years, remember."
"That's not nearly as comforting as you think," Rodney replied, opening his eyes. He glanced up at the roof of the cavern and then back toward the mine entrance.
"Against the wall," a guard ordered. "Move."
One of the guards walked down the line of prisoners, shoving people against the wall. John grabbed Rodney's arm when he stumbled over the track and fell against him. Ronon growled low in his throat, and John shook his head.
"Not yet," he muttered from the corner of his mouth as another guard walked along the line of prisoners, pulling out random people, including Teyla and Brandt.
"Carts," the guards ordered and pushed the chosen group of men and women toward the line of rail carts loaded with ore waiting near the mine entrance.
John grimaced as Teyla stood behind one of the carts in the line. He knew Teyla was more than capable of taking care of herself, but he didn't like the idea of his team separated, especially when he didn't have enough information to help if something were to happen. However, since there was little he could do about it, John told himself it would give Teyla a chance to find out more about the mining operation, which could only help their plans to escape.
Teyla grasped the wooden handle for her rail cart and waited as the cart at the front of the line started moving. When Brandt grunted, and his cart started rolling along the metal rail, Teyla gave John a furtive look, and John pointed to his eye. Teyla nodded once in reply, then gritted her teeth as she heaved against the loaded cart and followed Brandt out of the cavern.
Once the rail carts disappeared, another guard walked along the remaining men and women, separating them into two groups. John, Rodney, Ronon, and Graime were in one group. Alman and Sera, however, ended up in the other group.
"Section C," the guard said to John's group and pushed them toward the left-hand tunnel leading out of the cavern.
The wooden support beams were farther apart in the new tunnel. John couldn't make out much in the poor light other than the rough stone walls, and he felt Rodney's hand on his back as they walked along the passage.
"Not good. Not good," Rodney muttered under his breath, and John heard him panting.
"Calm down," he hissed. "The guards aren't going to care if you hyperventilate down here."
John suspected he was getting glared at, but he also noticed Rodney trying to take deeper breaths.
"Section C?" Ronon asked Graime as they walked.
"Older part of the mine," Graime replied.
"How old?" Ronon asked.
Graime shrugged. "No one knows. The problem is, it's not very safe."
"It's a mine, no part of it is safe," Rodney muttered, but John didn't think anyone else heard him.
"The supports are rotting," Graime continued. "There have been a few rockfalls, and there's something wrong with the air. It gets harder to breathe the longer you work down there."
"This just keeps getting better and better," Rodney grumbled, and John silently agreed.
Graime glanced at the guard several paces behind them, then added, "We had hoped the section was finally played out, but just when it looked like the section would be closed for good, one of the crews hit a new seam of ore. The guards sent for the overseer, and he decided to keep the section open."
"Overseer?" John asked.
"I've never seen him," Graime said with a shrug. "No one even knows his name. Everyone just calls him 'the overseer'."
The tunnel opened into a small cavern a few minutes later. John heard Rodney's sharp intake of breath and noted the sagging wooden beams overhead and the rusted, metal track for the rail carts along one wall.
"Get to work," the guard ordered, pointing to the pile of tools in the middle of the cave.
John picked up one of the shovels and pursed his lips. The short handle of rough wood meant he would be bent almost double as he tried to scoop up the ore lying on the ground. As an added insult, the shovel's head was flat and narrow, not to mention shallow.
"This isn't a shovel. It's a torture device," Rodney said as John passed him the shovel and picked up another one.
The men and women with them broke into smaller teams and scattered to various sections of the cave.
"So, where do we start?" John asked Graime.
Graime gave him a startled glance, then took one of the pickaxes and led the way over to the far wall of the cavern. "This is the ore seam," he explained, pointing to a broad layer of dark rock sandwiched between two other layers of greyish material. "We'll break it out of the wall," he pointed between himself and Ronon, holding another pickaxe, "you two load the ore into the carts."
John nodded, picked up a shovel-full of ore lying on the ground nearby, and dumped it into the waiting rail cart. Rodney followed suit, and they quickly worked out a system where they took turns scooping up the rock.
As John expected, it didn't take long for his back and arms to start aching from the strain of lifting the heavy ore and the awkward position he had to use, thanks to the short shovel handle. He had a few calluses on his palms from handling various weapons, but it wasn't long before blisters started to form on his palms and then break.
Their only reprieve from the work was when they filled one of the carts. A slow but steady stream of prisoners pushed the full carts out of the cave, and they usually had a few minutes to catch their breath while waiting for an empty cart to return.
"My hands will never be the same again," Rodney groused as another full cart left the cave. He hissed in pain and clenched his hands into loose fists.
John showed Rodney his palms. "Yeah," agreed. "How bad are yours?"
"Not as bad as the burns, but still …" Rodney held out his hands, palm up.
John grimaced when he saw the bloody sores where the blisters had formed, broken, and the skin was then scraped raw by the rough shovel handle.
"Tear off a piece of your shirt," John said in a low voice as he tore a strip off the bottom of his t-shirt and tied the material around his hand. "Use it to protect your hands."
Rodney nodded and awkwardly covered his palms with a piece of his shirt.
John heard another cart rattling down the track in their direction. "Just in time," he muttered as another prisoner entered the cavern pushing an empty cart.
The work was gruelling, and John soon lost track of everything around him except the grunting of Graime and Ronon, as they dug the ore out of the walls, the thump as the ore hit the ground, and the scrape of his shovel and McKay's as they loaded the rail carts.
John had lost count as yet another cart disappeared down the tunnel. He tried to stretch the cramps out of his back and studied the rest of his team while they waited for another empty cart to appear. All of them were dirty, the grey dust from the surrounding rock sticking to the sweat on their arms and faces.
John's back and shoulders ached, and the faint itch at the back of his skull told him Rodney wasn't in much better shape. He glanced at McKay sitting on the ground with his back braced against the wall. His chest felt tight, and John heard Rodney wheezing as he picked at the scrap of cloth wrapped around the palm of his right hand. He looked over at Ronon and Graime and saw both breathing heavily, and they looked as exhausted as John felt.
"Ronon?" John asked as Dex dropped the pickaxe on the ground and flexed his hands.
"I'm fine," Ronon replied. "Better than him." He pointed at Rodney.
John glanced down at McKay, who looked for all intents and purposes to be asleep. John checked the tunnel, making sure there wasn't a guard, then knelt next to Rodney.
"Hey," John said in a low voice and shook Rodney's shoulder.
"Hmm?" Rodney replied, opening his eyes.
"How're you doing?" John asked and frowned when he caught the dull look of Rodney's eyes.
Great, John thought to himself as he squeezed Rodney's shoulder. Was it just the back-breaking work? he wondered. Or something worse. "How bad -" He started to ask but was interrupted by Ronon.
"Someone's coming," Ronon said and stood next to John, gripping the pickaxe in his hands. "And it's not another cart."
John looked around the mine and noticed everyone else in the cavern had stopped working and stared at the tunnel entrance. John pulled Rodney to his feet and kept one hand on McKay's arm until he found his balance.
Three of the guards walked into the cavern and glared at the prisoners. "Tools on the ground," one of the men ordered.
The men and women dropped their tools in a pile in the middle of the cave and stepped back against the mine walls. John glanced around, found Rodney's discarded shovel near the track for the rail carts, added their shovels to the growing pile, and stepped back. Ronon hesitated for a moment, then dropped the pickaxe next to the shovels.
"Move," the guard ordered once the tools had been collected and counted.
John, Rodney, and Ronon joined the rest of the prisoners as they shuffled back through the tunnel to the first cavern. As they entered the larger cavern, John saw Teyla seated against the wall eating something out of a bowl. He saw the scraps of cloth wrapped around her hands and the tattered bottoms of her trousers where she had scavenged the material, but he blew out a breath of relief that she appeared to be more or less all right.
She looked up as John's group entered the large cavern and nodded at him.
John nodded back and followed the rest of the prisoners as they lined up for food.
"Oh, thank god," Rodney muttered under his breath once they were in line.
A guard ladled something from the cauldron into a wooden bowl and handed the bowl to McKay along with a chunk of bread. He waved Rodney along the line, filled another bowl, and handed it to John.
John took the offered food, led Ronon and Rodney around the cave where Teyla waited, and sat next to her.
"All right?" he asked in a low voice as one of the guards walked past carrying a bucket and a dipper.
Alman took a drink from the ladle, then offered it to Rodney, who made a face but drank from the refilled ladle. He handed the dipper to Ronon and went back to wolfing down his food.
"I am tired and sore," Teyla replied once she and John both had a few swallows of water and the guard had moved on. "But otherwise, I am fine."
John nodded, and since the guards hadn't given him anything like a spoon, he dipped the bread into the bowl and bit off a piece of the sopping mass. A few chunks of meat and some sort of root vegetable floated in the thin, tasteless broth, but after hours of hard labor, anything would have been welcome. John glanced at Rodney and Ronon and saw both had finished their watery meal and were soaking up the last dregs with a bit of the bread.
"I don't suppose we can ask for seconds," Rodney said with a longing glance at the guards carrying the cauldron out of the mine.
John smiled, but he was relieved to see McKay looked more alert after eating.
A few minutes later, the guards led them out of the mine. John was surprised to see the sun rising in front of him.
Short days, he reminded himself.
"Seven hours," Rodney muttered behind him. "We were in there for seven hours. Remind me not to get any x-rays for the next decade."
John smiled to himself but knew they couldn't spend much more time in the mine. Beckett would probably be able to do something for any short-term exposure, but if they were forced to work in the mine for weeks … John grimaced when several of the prisoners started coughing. They needed to escape, sooner rather than later. Before any more prisoners died, and more importantly, before anyone else from the city fell into the same trap.
"Congratulations," Graime said once they were back in the prisoner building. "You survived your first day in the mine." He glanced down at Rodney's wrapped hands with a sniff. "More or less," he added and walked over to Alman. "Maybe you aren't as useless as I thought."
"What was that all about?" Rodney asked and winced as he tried to move his fingers.
"Don't worry about it," John replied.
John gave Ronon a significant glance and jerked his chin toward the far corner of the room. Ronon nodded and grabbed Rodney's arm when he started to sit down next to Alman and Graime.
"Do you mind?" Rodney complained as Ronon tugged him toward the corner where John and Teyla waited.
Rodney collapsed on the pallet next to John, and Sheppard watched as the guards hustled the other group of prisoners out of the building.
"Colonel?" Teyla said once the double doors were closed and John heard the heavy bar barricading the door clunk into place.
"Not now," John replied with a glance at the men and women settling on the nearby pallets.
It didn't take more than thirty minutes for the remaining prisoners to fall asleep. John glanced around the room, making sure no one could eavesdrop in their conversation, and nodded to Teyla.
"Were you able to learn anything?" John asked Teyla, and Ronon elbowed Rodney awake.
"What?" Rodney grumbled as he sat up with a groan.
"As you suspected," Teyla said with a glance at Rodney, "the large stone building is a refinery for the ore."
Rodney nodded. "For how much that rock weighs," he said, curling his fingers into his palms, "there isn't that much usable uranium in the raw ore, and their refining method is crude. From the smell, I'd say they are probably using some sort of alkali slurry to separate the uranium from the rest of the rock and then drying it in some sort of kiln. I doubt they have the tech level to enrich -"
"Not important," Ronon interrupted, and Rodney glared at him.
John held up a hand to stop the argument even as McKay opened his mouth. "What else?" he asked Teyla.
"Guards watch the workers moving ore from the mine to the refinery," Teyla replied. "There is someone stationed every few feet along the track, and they have a view of the mine entrance, the refinery, and this building."
John grimaced. "That's going to complicate any plan to simply make a run for it. We're going to need a distraction."
"Blow up the mine," Ronon suggested, and Rodney snorted.
"With what?" Rodney retorted. "Did you see anything in there that would explode? Never mind all of the people that would be trapped." He shuddered. "Besides," he added with a glance at John, "that would throw even more radiation into the atmosphere. Not a good idea."
"We'll think of something," John said. "Something that won't endanger these people." He glanced around the room and felt his jaw tighten. "Whatever we do, we have to take them with us."
"You're not serious?" Rodney exclaimed. "We're going to be lucky to get ourselves out of here, and you want to take all of them too?" He waved a hand around the room.
John elbowed him in the side as a few of the men and women closest to them stirred. "Keep your voice down," he admonished. "We aren't leaving these people here. End of argument."
"Fine." Rodney blew out a breath. "What are we going to do?"
"Still working on that part," John admitted. "But if we do this right, we'll be able to shut down the mine, send all of these people back to their homes, and put a spike in whatever Cowen plans to do with all of this uranium. Not a bad day's work, if you ask me."
"I might be able to do something inside the refinery," Rodney said. "But I'd need -"
"Shh!" John said, holding up a hand. He heard the clunking noise outside the door again and motioned toward the pallets. "Someone's coming," he hissed.
John laid down on his pallet and watched through slitted eyelids as three guards opened the door and walked along the row of pallets, clearly looking for something. The guards came closer to their end of the building, and John closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep.
A few seconds later, he felt someone kick him in the leg.
"Hey," John growled and tried to sound as if the guard had woken him from a sound sleep.
"Get up," the guard ordered. "You're wanted."
"What's going on?" Rodney asked as he sat up. "Where are you taking him?"
"This doesn't concern you," the guard said, kicking Rodney in the side as he pulled John to his feet.
John heard a low growl and caught Teyla from the corner of his eye as she rested a restraining hand on Ronon's arm.
"It's fine," John said with a pointed glance at Ronon and then Rodney and Teyla. "Maybe someone wants some pointers on shovelling ore."
"Move," the guard ordered and pushed John from behind.
"Someone want to tell me where we're going?" John asked as they left the prisoner building.
"You'll see," the lead guard replied.
John studied the area in front of the building and the refinery, looking for weaknesses as they walked. He didn't have time for more than a quick survey as his guard detail led him not toward the mine or the refinery but the other end of the valley.
They hadn't gone very far when John spotted the path leading up into the hills behind the prisoner building. The track was hard-packed dirt with a set of deep ruts at the edges.
Has to be the way to the 'gate, John decided. Okay, you have a way out, he thought as the guards pushed him toward the stream. All you have to do now is get to it. He nodded to himself and memorised where the path was in relation to the rest of the mining camp.
The guards followed the stream as it bent around a large boulder, and as John came around the corner, he saw a second waterfall cascading down the side of the valley. The two separate streams met and formed a lazy river that gently flowed out into a broad grassy plain.
A village of wooden and stone houses backed by fields of some sort of grain stood on one side of the river while a herd of animals that looked remarkably like cows and goats grazed on the other side.
An island had formed between the two streams, and John stared at the ornate house sitting in the middle of the island surrounded by low-cut grass dotted with shrubs and fruit trees. An arched wooden bridge crossed the stream leading from the mine, and a stone path cut through the low grass, leading from the bridge to the front of the house.
John followed the guards over the bridge and up the path to the door of the house. One of the guards climbed the two wide steps leading up to the door tugging John along with him, pulled a rope hanging next to the door, then joined his fellows waiting on the stone path.
John was still trying to figure out why he'd been left alone on the doorstep when the door opened, and a tall man with short-cropped dark hair and wearing an immaculate uniform of the same green and brown colors as the guards glared down his nose at John.
John looked down at his dusty, dirty t-shirt and trousers and tried to discreetly brush off some of the grime as the man spoke to the guards.
"You are dismissed," the man ordered the guards.
"Should we wait -" the lead guard started to ask, and John was surprised to hear the subservient tone in the man's voice.
Whoever lived in the house had the guards cowed as much as the prisoners, he realised.
"I said you could go," the man in the doorway interrupted. "You will be sent for if your presence is required."
The guard bowed at the waist and backed up. Once he was a few steps down the path, he turned, motioned to the rest of the guard detail and led them back over the bridge.
The man stood back from the door and gave John a look of distaste as he waved Sheppard into the house. John stepped inside and tried to hide his surprise as he looked around.
The house's interior was light and airy. A glass dome capped an atrium that rose two stories just inside the front door. A sweeping double staircase opposite the door led to a second-floor balcony backed by a large stained-glass window. A pair of comfortable chairs sat in the space between the two staircases.
John grimaced as he mentally compared the elegance of the house to the hovel afforded to the prisoners.
"I don't suppose you want to tell me what's going on?" John asked. "Your pals," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the door, "weren't very talkative."
John saw the brief look of distaste on the man's face as some of the grey dust flaked off his t-shirt, and he smiled to himself.
"The overseer wishes to see you," the man said as he closed the door. "This way," he added and led the way down a hallway.
John took his time as he followed the doorman, gazing at the paintings hanging on the walls and peering into the few open doorways along the hallway. Deep, leather chairs and shelves of books lined the walls of one of the rooms. The smell of wet dirt and the sweet fragrance of flowers wafted from another room. John glanced into the room across from the library and saw flowering plants of varying sizes as well as two large, gilded bird cages hanging from the ceiling. Songbirds chirped and flitted around the cages, and John wondered if the sound was supposed to be pleasing or some subtle form of torture.
The doorman continued down the hall, and John hurried to catch up. A large mirror hung from the wall at the end of the hall. The door to the left of the mirror stood open, and John saw a small room with a utilitarian desk. The door to the right was closed. The doorman stopped in front of the closed door, gave a discreet knock, paused, then opened the door.
"The man you requested from the camp," he announced and motioned John into the room.
John pursed his lips as he walked into the room. A desk carved from colorful wood and polished to a high finish stood to his left, backed by a pair of wide glass doors that looked out at the waterfall. A high-backed chair faced away from him, and two more chairs sat in front of the desk. A shelf to the right of the desk held an assortment of bottles and glasses.
"Thank you, Hollum," a voice said from the chair behind the desk. "That will be all."
Hollum bowed, backed out of the room, and closed the doors with a quiet snick.
"So you are the infamous Major Sheppard," the voice said as the chair slowly spun around.
A woman with short, dark hair stood and walked around the end of the desk. She was almost as tall as John, and the long embroidered vest she wore over a long-sleeved shirt and black trousers accentuated her height.
John wasn't sure which surprised him more: that the voice belonged to a woman or the fact that she knew his name. "I don't know about infamous," John said. "And it's Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard."
"My apologies, Colonel," the woman replied with a mock bow as she circled John. "It seems my source of information wasn't entirely accurate."
"And who would that be?" John asked, turning to keep the woman in front of him.
"That would be me," a new voice replied, and a man stood from one of the chairs in front of the desk.
John knew his surprise was evident in his expression even as he clenched his hands into fists. "Kolya," John said in a low growl.
"How nice to see you again, Colonel," Kolya replied, emphasising his rank. "Tell me, how is Doctor McKay?"