Chapter 5
As the team trudged through the heavy snow it became obvious how much trouble they had gotten themselves into. The sun was dropping rapidly and clouds growing overhead were threatening to snow. They had no winter clothing, and though they had their emergency survival packs, what good were they to stave off freezing to death? Yet it was also very true that they had no other choice.
Taking turns at point and stepping in each other's footprints to make the going a little easier, the four friends tried to keep their minds off the cold by brainstorming over what had put them in their current situation: that stupid device.
"The readings I got from it were astronomical," Sam said, once again amazed by what another raced had accomplished. It somehow never failed to surprise her, no matter how many times they ran into advanced technology, just how much more Earth could eventually accomplish for itself in several hundred years. "Its power source must either be buried in the ground underneath it, or it must be very small and very efficient in order to generate that much energy."
"I don't think it was ceremonial at all…" Daniel mused, "Or at least I doubt it was meant to be. If any of what I managed to translate was right, it has something to do with the planet's history."
"What the hell does that have to do with a lake and a ton of snow that showed up outta no where?" Jack had been growing increasingly cranky as they made their slow progress to the ruins and he was at his worst by now. No one knew better than his team what Jack thought of freezing to death.
"I have no clue. Maybe if I could have translated more of it…" Daniel said, his tone becoming accusatory.
"Well maybe if you hadn't gone and touched it…"
"It is possible that something else triggered the device O'Neill." Teal'c said, wisely cutting off Jack's rebuke.
"Teal'c's right, sir. It could have been activated by any number of things. Our being here when it happened could have just been a bad coincidence."
"I don't believe in coincidence, Major." Jack said gruffly.
"Oh really?" Daniel asked sarcastically. "Then what do you call that time when I found the quantum mirror? If I hadn't been sent to that particular version of Earth we wouldn't have known Apophis was coming after us until it was too late."
"That was a fluke. A lucky fluke, but still a fluke."
Daniel just shook his head dismissively. He knew it was pointless to argue with Jack's illogical and personal form of logic. Besides, it was too damn cold.
They dragged themselves along for some time in silence having run out of ideas, with the exception of Jack's unintelligible but obviously bad tempered muttering. They were all very cold. Sam's instruments read 35 degrees and dropping, but she didn't say so. She knew what the Colonel's response would be only too well.
"It's cold! It doesn't take one of your doohickeys to tell me that, Carter!"
She'd wait until asked, or until she had good news. Like the fact that they were getting close to where there should be a pass through the mountains that should lead them directly to the city.
"The city should be only three or four more clicks away, sir. There is a mountain pass up ahead that should take us straight there."
"Good. My socks are just about frozen solid in my boots." Jack said, fighting down the ugly urge to start blaming Daniel for their position again.
Daniel looked up at the small mountain range that loomed above them in the growing twilight about a mile away. "Um, correct me if I'm wrong, and I really hope I am, but doesn't snow have a nasty habit of blocking mountain passes?"
Jack's head whipped around to stare at him, daring Daniel to continue with that line of thought as though the thought itself would block the passage.
"It is possible," Sam said, feeling herself melt under the glare the Colonel had now turned on her, but it was her duty to tell the truth, good or bad. "We're going to just have to hope that whatever civilization made the city and the device will have come up with a way to keep the passage open."
"Well if we were dealing with the Asgard or the Ancients, I wouldn't have a problem with that." Jack grumbled loudly, getting that bad premonition all over again. "But what happens if there's no way through?"
Sam looked away, worry blemishing her features.
"Yeah, I figured as much," he muttered.
Why couldn't things ever go right? Where is that tropical paradise planet when you need it?
They continued on in silence as the ground continued in a slow incline, each team member daydreaming of something very warm. When they reached the foot of the mountains they had to focus themselves once again.
"This doesn't look good." Daniel said.
A hefty eight or so feet of snow was piled at the entrance of the pass, and the mound grew taller as it continued on towards where the city was.
"The pass is thoroughly blocked. The U.A.V. did not find any signs of an alternate way to the city." Teal'c said.
"I don't believe this…You mean to tell me that I'm going to have to go through the whole freezing to death thing again?" Jack moaned. Then suddenly his face lit up.
Oh great, Sam and Daniel thought to themselves, yes, this is the perfect time for him to lose what's left of his mind.
Teal'c merely raised an eyebrow as he watched Jack turn to him. "Gimme this a minute," Jack muttered as he took hold of Teal'c's staff weapon. Unsure of what Jack was up to, Teal'c hesitated a moment, but then relinquished the weapon.
Jack then marched over to within a few feet of the snow piled in the mountain pass, aimed into it, and fired. He fired, again, and again, and again…
"Jack?" Daniel asked, shouting over the sound of the weapon's fire as it echoed off the mountains and the dense forest. Jack kept shooting at the snow, melting it and creating great puffs of steam, as if doing so was its punishment for being in their way.
"Jack! You don't seriously think you're going to melt our way through, do you?"
Jack suddenly stopped and, still toting Teal'c's staff, walked forward to peer through the hole he had made.
"Looks like I don't have to," they heard him say as his voice echoed.
The hole that Jack had created was large enough for a man of Teal'c's size and bulk to easily fit through. Through the hole was a long tunnel that looked to be several miles long, and wide enough to allow five people to walk side-by-side without touching the walls. The walls themselves seemed to be made of snow, but the tunnel was well lit. The snow itself was glowing like a hall of white neon lights that one might find at an amusement park. One by one they climbed through the hole, amazed at their luck. Once again, something had been discovered through Jack's frustration and lack of patience.
"Wow. This is amazing. There must be some kind of force field here." Sam reached out experimentally to touch the wall. What her hand felt was a warm, gentle pressure, like when someone tries to bring two positive ends of two different magnets together. The harder she pushed, the more she felt the invisible resistance. Visibly, her touch caused the glowing wall to glow brighter with a white hot light.
"Yeah, that's a force field alright." Jack said, with the edge now gone off of his temper.
"It seems to be holding the snow back with a combination of force and heat. I don't understand why the thermo-scan on the U.A.V. didn't detect this." Sam said in awe.
"It is possible that the force field was not active when the U.A.V. passed over this area," Teal'c pointed out. "Perhaps it is able to detect the outside temperature and activates when there is snow present."
"It's certainly much warmer in here," Daniel murmured, hardly believing how their luck had turned. It was a comfortable 70 degrees and they slowly began to thaw out. Fingers regained their full function. Toes and noses could be felt again.
"Well, let's set up camp here for the night," Jack said, waving them in a few more yards away from the entrance. "Boots on, but a fire shouldn't be a problem."
As the darkness grew outside the team ate a meager meal of army rations in silence, and then Jack and Sam settled down to sleep with their faces covered against the brightly light walls as Teal'c meditated and Daniel, who flat out refused to have it any other way, took first watch.