John imagined himself flying upward, higher and higher until the blue darkened to indigo in the upper atmosphere and then altered into the jewelled black of a high orbit. What would he see from such a position? Circling the globe, would he see the reason for the change in the weather patterns? Was it just the natural, inevitable heating of the worldwide system, that could mean an end to the forest-dwellers' way of life? And what would they find in the mountains? A dripping cave wherein had once dwelt a card-carrying, cauldron-toting, spell-weaving witch? Or perhaps a ZPM-laden, genuine Ancient outpost. John knew that no matter what secrets the mountains held, he and his team would track them down.
Chapter 1
To anyone unaccustomed to such a sight, Teyla thought, the beauty on display would be breath-taking; the deep, purest blue of the oceans and the wonderful variety of vibrant greens and soft browns and greys of the land, highlighted and hazed with cloud formations of intricate stipples and swirls. The planet turned slowly, inexorably, with ineffable majesty.
"Anyone hungry?
"Sure. I could eat."
Teyla smiled at the contrast between the sublime and the mundane, and turned her attention to her three teammates.
"Unbelievable!"
"What, that I'm hungry or that Ronon's sharing?"
"Not that! Although, yes, my blood sugar is getting a little low, now you mention it. Is there cake?"
"I don't know, Rodney. What's unbelievable?"
Rodney screwed himself round in the Jumper's co-pilot's seat. "Ronon, is there cake? What's unbelievable," he said, turning back toward John, "even, one might say, inconceivable, is that this place," he waved at the offending planet, "doesn't have a name!"
"Yeah, there's cake," came Ronon's voice from the rear compartment. "What sandwiches do you want?"
Teyla considered her sandwich choice and cultural issues simultaneously.
"The people of the forest do not see the need to refer to their planet as a whole, Rodney. I would like chicken salad, please, Ronon."
"Turkey! Dibs on the turkey! Yeah, they don't even name local stuff, McKay. They just say 'the forest', 'the mountains' and so on."
"Is there a cholt, Ronon? I asked the kitchen staff to make me a cholt, so if there is, that's mine!" yelled Rodney. "So, what do they say if they go off-world: 'Hi, my name's Tam, I'm from the forest!'? Ridiculous!"
"What the hell's a cholt, Rodney? Sounds like some kind of disease!"
"It's cheese, helg-ham, onion, lettuce and tomato-thing."
"Tomato-thing?"
"You know, the thing that's like a tomato!"
"Do you mean the inza fruit, Rodney?" said Teyla, enjoying the familiar inanity of her team's conversation.
"I still say it should have a name! Yes, inza, that's the one. What name did they put on the trading agreement, Teyla?"
"The agreement was in the name of the farming co-operative. Thank you, Ronon."
"Better no name than a stupid name," said Ronon. "Heads up!"
"Thanks, Ronon." John caught his wrapped sandwich one-handed.
"Ow! You didn't have to throw it!" Rodney rubbed his head and began to unwrap his sandwich. "Although, I suppose, given that they don't seem to care much about dates, or even the time of day, maybe it's not surprising. I mean, there isn't even a clock at the Helg. Not one!"
John swallowed his mouthful. "No! And no clocks means no closing time!"
"There's no point pretending to be a party animal, Sheppard. We all know you can't hold your beer," smirked Rodney.
"Don't dish it out if you can't take it, McKay!" John responded. "Hey, Ronon, you said there was cake - there any seeds in it?"
"Oh ha ha, Sheppard, you're so funny!" Rodney shifted uncomfortably in his seat, recalling the recent incident involving his consumption of nearly half of a large seed-laden cake meant for new helg mothers, and its unfortunate effects on his digestive system.
"How will we carry out a survey of the planet's weather?" Teyla intervened, before the sniping descended further toward the level of children who were too young to learn to hunt, which in Athosian culture, was very young indeed.
"We should look at coastal areas," said Rodney, grimacing. "For evidence of storm damage and flooding. How much onion did they put in this thing?" He opened his sandwich and peered at the contents. "I gave strict instructions that the onion should be thinly sliced. Look at this! Do you call that thinly sliced?" He held up a large chunk of onion for inspection.
"What about sea levels? Sea levels rise when there's global warming, don't they?" asked John.
"Perhaps if you had not addressed Airman Collins as 'Airperson, cook or whatever,' he might have been more responsive to your request, Rodney," said Teyla, dryly. Ronon snorted and they exchanged amused glances.
"They should be pleased that someone's inventing new sandwich combinations!"
"Rodney? Sea levels?" repeated John, crumpling up his wrapper and hurling it vaguely in the direction of the rear compartment. He looked guilty under Teyla's glare. As well he should, she thought.
"Yes, of course sea level measurements would be useful, except, oh yes, we haven't got any from previous years to compare them to and, bearing in mind the locals' attitude toward naming and measuring things, I think that'll be an unqualified 'no' from them too!"
"Rodney!" said Teyla, quellingly.
He subsided, grumbling about too much onion and his delicate digestion.
"Okay, folks, heading back into the atmosphere," said John. "Prepare for a smooth ride, because Zelenka spent all week servicing this thing!"
Everybody ignored Rodney's 'humph' of disbelief.
Teyla looked around at her team, with a sense of satisfaction; they had spent just under two weeks at the Happy Helg, recuperating from their previous mission, and had all been impatient for Colonel Carter's approval to return to active duty. They had each found their own ways of healing in body and mind; Teyla had enjoyed the tranquility of the forest and the day-to-day calm routine of the pub and its comings and goings. Ronon had spent a lot of time helping out on the surrounding farms; he had told Teyla that, in repairing boundary walls, he must have lifted a thousand rocks, and had flexed his arms to show off his newly strengthened muscles. Rodney, as far as Teyla could tell, would have simply eaten and slept his vacation away, if it hadn't been for the insistent demands of Boudicca and the two prissets, Sharpie and Chaser, whose favourite technique was to bump up against the underside of Rodney's hammock, until he agreed to take part in some energetic play; they knew he needed the exercise, even if he didn't.
John had been the most amusing to watch, Teyla reflected, once he had recovered from the unfortunate incident caused by Ronon's flashback, and when he had relaxed into his vacation enough to set aside some of his responsibilities for a while. He was rarely still, and watching his antics dressed in a series of lurid pairs of shorts and increasingly disreputable t-shirts, Teyla got an inkling of what he must have been like as a boy, and how much he must have tried his mother's patience. He swung on his hammock until it broke, and then he found some rope, climbed a tree, tied it to a branch, and launched himself, flying from the edge of the forest and out over the slope, whooping and calling to Rodney to come and join him; Rodney didn't. Teyla had been in the kitchen with Lil, enjoying a vigorous and satisfyingly violent dough-kneading session, when John appeared sheepishly on the threshold, various minor injuries to be attended to that had been incurred when the rope had frayed and snapped.
He had then learnt to ride on Tayko, the young helg, who was as much a daredevil as John. In fact, they seemed to encourage each other to new heights of daredevilry and John had fallen off so many times that Lil had finally called an exasperated halt and told him that if he must ride, he could sit on Franca as she pottered about the yard with her twelve new helgets. Sneering at such a tame occupation, John had sulked around the pub, looking bored and forlorn, dressings on knees and elbows, until the local wives' group arrived to sit in the parlour with their babies, while children from toddler age upward played outside. Teyla, somebody's baby on her knee (she had given up trying to match babies to mothers as they crawled around her feet) had heard John, through the open front door, organising the children into football teams and teaching them the game. Teyla had taken the baby to the window (trailing chunks of pickled egg dropped from chubby hands) and had been in time to see Handa, a menacing adolescent redhead that Teyla remembered from the winter, throw herself wholeheartedly into the art of tackling by bringing John crashing to the ground. He had been both winded and impressed and she, recognising a kindred spirit, had been painfully audible during the rest of the vacation, challenging, if not ordering John to 'climb this', 'run there' or, occasionally (and Teyla hoped he hadn't), 'shoot that'.
John glanced over his shoulder at Teyla while he guided the Jumper into the upper atmosphere and grinned, his boyish excitement at being back on the job shining through his reassumed command responsibilities. Teyla returned his smile.
oOo
Through the mental link provided by his ATA gene, John felt the little ship increase its power output in order to push its way back into the planet's atmosphere. With a little mental nudge, he asked it to scan for storm centres and display them on the HUD.
The team's primary mission objective was to investigate the mountain range nearest to the Gate for any evidence of Ancient facilities, based on the locals' inherited knowledge told through a children's tale. The story concerned a 'witch' who lived in the mountains, who had created creatures called grenza, which were meant to act as guardians to the population; the experiment had gone awry, and the grenza had turned out to be homicidal monsters. John remembered his painful, up-close-and-personal encounter with one of the creatures during the previous winter and hoped they didn't meet any in the mountains which, unfortunately, were their home turf. Anyway, Carson had found markers in the grenza's DNA indicating that they had indeed been artificially created, and so it seemed worth investigating.
The secondary mission objective, to look for signs of, and potential reasons for global warming, was the result of the extreme weather changes noticed by the inhabitants over the last several years, not least the recent severe drought, which was beginning to pose a serious threat to their livelihood.
"That seems like a lot of storms, but it could be normal," remarked Rodney, studying the display. "Go in closer, along that coastline," he said, pointing at the screen.
John guided the Jumper to the southern tip of the main, large continent and descended until they could see more details and the shape of the land.
"That bay," said Rodney. "Zoom in on that."
The display changed and a large area of flattened coastal forest was revealed, brown with mud where a huge volume of water had drained back into the sea.
"Looks like a tidal wave hit it," said John.
Ronon and Teyla got up and stood behind them.
"Is this area inhabited?" asked Teyla.
"No," Rodney replied. "There are no human life signs registering and someone would have survived, I think. Let's have a look at that delta further north."
The display changed, revealing signs of major flooding, and as they studied the length of the coastline, they encountered more and more signs of extreme weather conditions.
"I'm not flying anywhere near that," said John, turning the Jumper to face the ocean. A huge storm front loomed on the horizon, towering black clouds piled high, their ragged edges streaming and flickers of lightning visible in their depths. John pulled the Jumper away and back into the upper atmosphere. "D'you spot any reason for all this, McKay?"
Rodney looked at the HUD and then at his laptop, tapped a few keys, frowned and looked at the HUD again. John waited.
"McKay?"
"In short, yes and no," said Rodney. "Yes, in that, taking the available evidence into account, I postulate that the weather events are indeed a result of global warming, which is itself due to relatively high concentrations of methane in the atmosphere. But no, in that I have no working theory to explain the presence of such concentrations."
"Methane? You'd be able to smell that, wouldn't you?" asked John.
"No. You're thinking of methane in the form of marsh gas or animals'... er... 'emissions' when it's mixed with other things. Methane itself is odourless."
"So, what do we do?" Ronon asked.
"Do? Nothing!" said Rodney, bitterly. "Might as well break out the cake!"
"Rodney!"
"Look, if a planet's heating up naturally, there's nothing we can do, is there? And, unless we come across evidence to the contrary, we have to assume this is natural. It's not as if we've discovered a previously hidden industrial nation, pumping out huge amounts of greenhouse gases, is it?"
"Wouldn't be the first time!" said John, thinking of the Genii. He looked at Rodney, unhappily tapping at his laptop, and knew his dismissive tone was a front, hiding his worry and sense of helplessness. If the inhabitants were under serious threat, then Atlantis would help; but if that help took the form of evacuation, their tight-knit community and their culture would probably not survive the displacement; and as for the animals...
John turned around in his seat, but Teyla had anticipated his request.
"Thanks, Teyla," he said, taking the chunk of cake. Rodney ate his with his usual dispatch, but his mouth drooped and his frustration was palpable.
oOo
Hard country, thought Ronon, who knew what it was like to try to live off such land; hard, even in this world's summer, and in winter? Not a chance.
Sheppard was guiding the Jumper along the western side of a broad gap that ran roughly north-south through the centre of the mountain range. Flying above the mountains, no energy readings or visible signs of Ancient activity had been detected and so they had agreed to try a close-up inspection of the gap, as being a likely route to have once been used, even ten thousand years ago. They had begun in the foothills and then flown on, further into the harsh landscape of the high mountain range. Ronon, hovering over the dialling panel, narrowed his eyes as he noted the sheer, rocky slopes, nearly bare of vegetation, that rose up either side of the natural break in the mountain range, a sheen of faded green in the base of the valley suggesting a scant covering of short alpine grasses bordering a stream. Only the very tips of the highest peaks were snow-clad, which seemed wrong for this landscape; the permanent snowline should be lower than that.
"Are you definitely scanning for traces of naquadah?" Rodney asked, sharply.
"Yes!" said John. "Look!" He pointed at the HUD.
"Hmm..." said Rodney, unconvinced. "If you'd let me fly it'd pick up exactly what I'm looking for. It's too busy swooning over your genuine Ancient gene to pick up any subtleties."
"Swooning? Here's a word for you, McKay: anthropomorphism!"
"Huh!" Rodney scoffed. "You've been reading the dictionary, haven't you? Think you can beat me at Scrabble? No chance!"
"You get seven letters in Scrabble, Rodney. You couldn't make anthropomorphism even if someone'd already put morph." John steered the Jumper in a series of smug little wiggles to follow the shape of the mountainside.
"Subtleties, Sheppard!" insisted Rodney. "You've just thought, 'Scan for naquadah,' haven't you? If I was flying it'd know exactly what I'm after, i.e. complex compounds of naquadah and its isotopes in the forms used by the Ancients that made their architecture uniquely durable!"
Ronon didn't think Sheppard would let McKay take over; not in this environment, miles from anywhere; and the manoeuvring to follow the line of the slope and into the entrances of adjoining valleys was pretty tricky.
"Only we could search all day, no, all year like this and not find anything, whereas..."
"Alright! I get it!" John banked the Jumper into a curve to take it away from the mountainside. "Here. Take the stick, configure the sensors how you want, and then I'll take it again."
"Oh. Yes. Good plan." Rodney slid into the pilot's seat as John slid out, placed his hands on the controls and screwed up his face in concentration.
"Eyes open, McKay!'
"Yes, right, open now!"
The HUD began to superimpose a tracery of fine lines over the landscape before them, shading areas in a multitude of different colours.
"What's that mean?" asked Ronon.
"Lots of different things," replied Rodney. "Radiation of various types, emissions of radon gas, density, any formations unlikely to be natural etc, etc. More things than could be dreamt of in a humble pilot's philosophy!"
"Yeah, fine, Hamlet, keep your eyes on the road."
Rodney corrected his course, which had veered too close to one of the sheer sides of the valley.
"We don't have to hug the slope and do a visual, either, just sweep along the centre," said Rodney, with satisfaction.
"What are they?" asked Teyla.
Ronon peered at the two small, densely curlicued areas of lines on the HUD and then adjusted his focus to see through to the real landscape. Grey on grey met his eyes and he could see nothing until Rodney homed the Jumper in on the area and he caught a brief glimpse of what looked like two stone cairns, before they passed over. Rodney brought the Jumper round again in a broad arc until the dense clumps of highlighted red were visible again; two heaps of stone, close together, aligned in the direction of the pass. They sat on a gently-sloped area between the stream and the steep rise of the valley wall.
"Hmm... Let me just..." The display changed again and a faint trail could be seen leading away from the objects and into the mountain range. "Some kind of markers!" said Rodney excitedly. "For a path leading off the main route."
"Let's land and take a look, said John. "Take her down, Rodney."