Part 6
He could smell dust and rock. He could smell the cold.
That forced him to pause.
Cold did have a distinctive odor. Not like coffee or tea. Not a flavor that his nose could fool his tongue into tasting---the cold held its own peculiar odor.
It was---cold.
Then memories cascaded down on him, out of order, out of time. Flashes really; Rodney yelling at him to run; Lieutenant Wells bleeding; Teyla telling him about the diabolical Snow Yeti. Beckett shuddered at that memory. A silent marine he couldn't put a face or name to; Sheppard asking him questions about who was killing whom?
Then an explosion.
Rodney and he running into one another.
Beckett rubbed at his head. It was dark. Oppressively dark. He was lying on his stomach. The floor was sandy. He rubbed at his face and discovered the bandages. The ice fields came flashing to the forefront, the struggles and loss of members from SGA-6. The taste of fear and terror bubbled forth and lingered for a bit before seeping away.
C4. Rodney had shouted about C4.
Rodney.
Carson called for Rodney. A weak rasp escaped. It sent searing sharp pain through his pharynx and larynx. Everything back in his oropharnyx hurt. He swallowed finding the action both difficult and painful. Memories concerning that injury remained elusive.
Beckett wiggled his toes and fingers, cautiously rolled his ankles and wrists and worked his way up his limbs.
Nothing seemed broken. He took a few test breaths, wiggled his shoulders, cautiously rolled his neck. So far so good.
The doctor called for Rodney again. His voice was ineffective. The lack of sound infuriating.
Carson lay belly down in the sand and listened.
Rock, dust and dirt settled around him. He could feel dust gently land and coat his bare face.
Where was Rodney?
Beckett reached blindly with a mittened hand, sweeping it in front of himself in a tight arc, skiffing the sand, searching blindly. He finally hit a solid boot.
Beckett inched forward and was relieved that the boot was attached to a lower leg, that remained attached and relatively aligned with an upper leg, then hip, pelvis, torso, shoulders, neck and head. All the major bits and pieces seemed to be in place.
Quick, educated hands, that didn't need working eyes, easily examined the body on the ground.
It was Rodney. No major horrible breaks. No major misalignments or dislocations. A lower limb, patient's right, didn't feel correct, a touch too swollen. A left proximal humerus gave a little more leeway than it should. All inconvenient, none directly life threatening.
Indirectly---that was another story.
Beckett ran his fingers under McKay's hat. His fingers came away tacky with warm, thick fluid. Carson gently palpated the wound. No 'step off' depressions. Rodney had a head wound. Superficial. The skull felt intact.
If the man kept smacking his skull around like he did, he would knock himself back a few IQ points and join the just 'above' average intelligence world.
Carson couldn't rule in or out unseen hemorrhage and it worried him. But he wouldn't borrow trouble. They apparently had enough already.
McKay began to slowly vocalize, incoherent gibberish. As his moans became more articulate, he began moving his arms and legs, scratching them in the sand and inadvertently pushing small rocks aside.
Beckett tried speaking to him, gently restraining him, as was supposed to be done with someone returning to consciousness. His voice failed him.
Carson suddenly became sharply impatient with his own condition, damning his temporary blindness and his inability to talk. His anger quickly dissipated with the sound of Rodney's voice.
"Sheppard?" McKay slurred. He moved again, trying to sit up but met resistance. "Ohh, God, Colonel what have you gotten us into now?"
Beckett smiled in the utter darkness and carefully shook his head. He gently tapped McKay's masked face and again rasped.
"Carson?" Rodney asked. Beckett smiled half heartedly, relieved that McKay was oriented and articulating. Well articulating at least.
He couldn't see McKay open his eyes and blink. Beckett couldn't appreciate the evenness of the dilated pupils. Or the furrow of concern, Rodney displayed as he assessed his own environment.
Carson couldn't make out the soft glow of the dropped flashlight that lay just at Rodney's mittened fingertips. The doctor couldn't distinguish the soft shadows that played against the tunnel's walls.
Carson didn't see the giant boulder that rocked precariously just a few yards above him and Rodney on a ledge too small and too fragile to support its weight and shape.
"Move!" Rodney hollered and pushed upward. He flipped Carson over to the left, against the far wall, throwing himself on top of Beckett, just as the giant boulder broke free and dropped to the ground where they had just lain.
It landed with a dull thud, displacing a small wave of sand.
It missed their flashlight by mere inches.
Carson floundered, lost in the sudden change in position. His world turned upside down and unsettled.
Rodney kept Beckett pinned to the ground and rested his head on the physician's shoulder, trying to catch his breath, willing his heart to slow down, and pray he didn't see the violent return of his porridge.
McKay couldn't help his own trembling. He knew he had to be shaking. He could feel it from his leg to his shoulder.
He appreciated the soft, hesitant mitten hand that reached up and awkwardly pat his back in comfort.
This had to be Sheppard's fault somehow.
McKay kept his forehead on Beckett's shoulder for just a moment longer before sitting up.
His right leg protested sharply and immediately. He cried out and flopped back down onto Beckett.
Parkas puffed and billowed.
Carson, unseeing and unprepared for the move, rasped in surprise and jerked away, bringing up a knee. He twisted in the sand.
McKay jarred his shoulder and also recoiled trying to untangle himself from the physician. An unseen knee struck his lower leg. Bruised and swollen muscles contracted and brought agony to his limb. He cried out.
Beckett, unable to see, but definitely intuned to sound, recoiled again, fearing unknown danger, grabbed for McKay to shove his friend behind him and away from whatever sparked the panic.
Carson's forearm clothes-lined the bridge of Rodney's nose.
"Ow! Ow! Stop it. Stop it." McKay swatted Beckett's hand away.
Beckett rasped a question.
"No. No. Of course I'm not alright." McKay twisted slowly and painfully to the side. He moved himself into a sitting position beside the physician. Carson carefully scooted upright. He tried to rest back against the unseen wall, mis-judged where it was and fell back into the sand, flailing his arms and legs.
Rodney shook his head and scooted clear of the floundering limbs. Carson was a smart guy, as far as medical people went, he'd get himself figured out.
Beckett sat up and this time felt for the wall, re-adjusting his spot and then carefully leaned back into it. He rasped again.
"C4. He tried to blow us up with C4."
Beckett merely nodded. He then looked in the general direction of Rodney and rasped yet another question.
Rodney sighed. He found it unnerving that Carson spoke to him but didn't quite 'look' at him. His questions were getting annoying too. "I don't know where Teyla is."
Beckett furrowed his brow, shook his head and rasped a question again.
McKay waved his good hand in the air, "I already told you," Rodney said and then stated slowly and loudly, "I don't know where Teyla is." He leaned forward and scrutinized the doctor. McKay took his mitten off with his teeth and snapped his finger next Beckett's head.
Carson swung around attempting to bat McKay's hand away but missed.
"Just making sure you can still hear me." McKay then muttered, "I don't like repeating myself."
Beckett huffed in exasperation and rasped again, with a touch of impatience.
McKay tossed his hands in the air. "I--Don't---Know---where---Teyla---is." McKay spoke one deliberate word at a time.
Beckett growled.
"We haven't got time for twenty questions. Its time we find out where this tunnel goes."
Carson rubbed at his head and rasped a question.
"Colonel Sheppard and Ronon will never find us in here. Besides for all we know he might have booby trapped the camp."
Beckett flopped his hands in the air with exasperation and rasped again, with more pointed urgency.
"Colonel Sheppard! And Ronon! Won't! Find! Us!" Rodney shouted. He rubbed at his shoulder in despondency. "Geez, I thought your hearing was supposed to be improving."
Carson threw his hands into the air and struggled to his feet. He promptly smashed his head into a low over hang. He dropped back to the sand, curling onto his side and clutched at his head, groaning.
"Oh, watch out of that outcropping," McKay winced.
The scientist waited a moment watching Beckett roll back and forth in the sand clutching the top of his hooded head.
When Carson finished McKay leaned forward. "Hold still for a moment." He adjusted the gauze bandages that were askew on Beckett's face.
Carson tried to squirm away from the thick mittened, fumbling hands that scratched at his face and sensitive eyes.
"Oh, quit being such a baby," McKay complained. "Hold still." He rubbed the gauze smooth with his palms. "There. You'll probably survive your injuries. Me? Probably, not so much." McKay delicately fingered the side of his head. He whimpered when his mittens came away darkened with small spots of blood. Why did these things have to happen to him? He deserved better….he really did.
He worked his way to his feet and brushed sand from his clothing. "Can you take the pack?"
Beckett merely nodded and cautiously climbed to his feet. Once standing he remained still and waited.
Rodney took a few steps, delicately bent down and scooped up the flashlight. His head suddenly swam. He fell into the wall, leaning against the stone with his good shoulder, waiting for the sudden haphazard undulation of the shadowy world around him to stop. Nausea swirled in with the tides of dizziness.
Favoring his injured leg and shoulder, McKay pushed off the wall and took a hesitant step forward. He straightened carefully, testing his stomach and with a muffled moan, he headed a few feet deeper into the tunnel. McKay stopped with a pained sigh when he noticed Beckett didn't follow.
"Well, come on," McKay whispered with a touch of impatience. The scientist delicately turned and watched somewhat dismayed as Carson was about to take a bold step right into the pack.
"Wait, wait. Here I come." Rodney kept a hand to his head and limped back toward Beckett. With unsteady movements, and questioning the intelligence of bending over, he directed Carson's hand toward the dropped backpack.
McKay made to straighten up and was hit with severe vertigo and nausea. "Oh no…not good, not good." He felt the color drain from his face and a cold sweat dampened his skin. Suddenly shaky legs folded and Rodney found himself sitting hard on the ground, with no true sense of up or down.
"No..no…no." Rodney muttered softly to himself. His mouth filled with saliva, which he allowed to string from his mouth, fearing that if he should swallow, his stomach would return its contents violently and abruptly.
He felt a gentle hand on the back of his head carefully ease his head forward and between his bent knees. His hood was pulled back and hat removed. The brisk air stung his suddenly sweating scalp. Blunt fingers moved delicately along his hairline, once again feeling the cut. The wide elastic straps that secured his oxygen mask were moved slightly out of the way. The movement pulled on the stiff, tacky hairs that were glued to them.
"Ow! Carson, quit it." McKay weakly batted the offending touch away. Beckett's hand disappeared. Rodney heard his pack open and listened as the physician rummaged through it, searching its contents by touch.
"Here give me that, you won't find anything." Rodney weakly jerked the bag from Carson's hands and deftly dug the small medical kit out from the very bottom of his bag. He held it away from Beckett's imploring hands. "I re-arranged it. It's in better order now. Makes much more sense than the way your cronies had it put together." McKay muttered.
Carson groaned in frustration and sat back on his heels waiting with a touch of impatience.
"I don't know how that scrambled brain of your works, but the way you had my first aid kit set made absolutely no sense, no sense at all." Rodney spoke quietly to himself, "never would have found anything in here in a time of emergency."
Beckett rasped hotly in return. Pained seared his throat.
"No, I didn't arrange it alphabetically, though it was a thought." McKay snarled.
Carson sighed and pulled the first aid kit away from McKay's hands. The astrophysicist harrumphed but kept quiet as Beckett quickly ran his hands lightly over the supplies. Rodney wasn't terribly surprised when Carson deftly picked out some 4X4's, rolled gauze, and after a false start, antiseptic.
"Give me those." McKay grabbed the sponges and antiseptic with shaking hands and applied them to his own wound. He held them in place while Beckett quickly and efficiently secured them with the gauze and strips of tape. Rodney grabbed a packet of Tylenol and thought about taking them.
His stomach rolled in rebellion. He pocketed the bubble package instead.
"You need anything?"
Beckett simply shook his head and settled back in the sand, bringing the medical duffle onto his lap.
McKay sat with his head still down near his knees, hoping for the return of equilibrium.
He watched surreptitiously as Beckett re-ordered the medical kit and then shoved it back into the pack, keeping it near the top.
"Do you have oxygen?" Rodney noticed Beckett's face. His cheeks and chin were hidden under the neoprene but no oxygen appeared connected to it.
Beckett slowly shook his head.
"You should have mine." Rodney tried lifting a heavy hand but Beckett stopped him with a gentle hold and shook his head.
McKay scrutinized his friend for a moment and then nodded understanding the logic behind Beckett's refusal. Rodney was their best hope in getting out of this mess. He needed his brains running on all cylinders.
Rodney didn't like it, not the guilt associated with keeping the oxygen, not the weight of responsibility and not the added crunch of pressure to find the others.
Being a genius really was a hardship.
Carson rasped a quiet question.
Rodney sighed tiredly, "As I said earlier, no one is going to find us here, except maybe that lunatic."
Carson rasped again, sounding a little more impatient and frustrated.
"I said," Rodney repeated with a bite of impatience, " No. One. Is….oh, forget it." McKay climbed to his feet, keeping one hand flush to the wall. "Come on lets go." He reached down and guided Beckett up, shoving the doctor's discarded mittens into his chest. He waited impatiently as Carson fumbled them on.
"Here, you have to carry this." McKay guided the physician's hands back to the pack.
Carson struggled with it to his shoulders, the bulky parka hindering his efforts. With Rodney's help they managed to snap the buckles without snaring Beckett's coat.
"Okay, let's go." McKay took only a half step before stopping. Carson stood completely still.
"Right." McKay was suddenly at his side, tapping Beckett's arm. Carson lifted a mitten hand and placed it on Rodney's shoulder.
"Ow, ow, not that one. The other one. The other one." Rodney winced and fought the urge to just sit down and wait for the others to find them. That could be an eternity.
His head hurt, he was nauseated, dizzy and didn't think he had the strength to walk a few yards let alone trek aimlessly through a maze of tunnels dodging impending doom. But Teyla was missing, probably hurt; Sheppard was invariably lost and dragging Ronon around with him, wandering aimlessly under the pretense of knowing exactly where he was; and then there was Carson, just standing there like a kicked puppy, waiting for direction.
McKay gave a delicate but heavy put upon sigh. It was difficult always having to be the one to pull the rabbit out of the hat and save the day…or at the very least find Sheppard.
Carson muttered an apology and gingerly placed his hand on McKay's left shoulder.
"You ready?"
Beckett merely nodded.
McKay sighed despondently, "Yes, yes, just me and Joseph Plateau."
Carson grunted and shook his head.
With flashlight in hand, McKay directed them in a weaving fashion further into the tunnel.
The light bobbed with every limping step Rodney took. The beam barely penetrated the darkness. The blackness slightly diluted to grey but deep blackness snugged the periphery of light like a living breathing thing.
With Beckett attached to his shoulder like a prison march, Rodney led them further from their demolished camp. Darkness quickly enveloped their trail, curtaining them off from any visible retreat or encroaching danger.
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The colonel narrowed his eyes and stared in the general direction they had just come. He and Dex had not been gone more than 15 minutes and traveled only a short distance.
They had not found a suitable place to make their way up over or through the ridge. It was beginning to look more and more like they would have to lead Beckett up along the narrow path they had traversed earlier. It would be tricky but manageable.
The colonel didn't want to waste any more time looking for an easier route. Time was going to be tight. If they pushed for the gate now, if the weather held, if they didn't trip across any Yetis, snow or corn or otherwise, and if they didn't run into trouble like Lieutenant Wells, they just might make the gate before the sunset.
Sheppard turned in a tight circle, searching the enclosed space with a hopeful but jaundiced eye. They were wasting daylight.
"Let's get back to the…." The colonel started to say but suddenly stopped when the ground shook.
Small aggregates of snow, ice and rock rolled free from the looming glaciers and rocks.
Sheppard's arms flashed out as he struggled to keep his balance. Ronon mirrored his actions.
The motion stopped as abruptly as it began.
The two stared at one another. Both were masked by their oxygen, goggles and hats.
"Quake?" Dex asked. His voice sounded calm over the tiny radio.
Sheppard narrowed his eyes behind his goggles. He thought for a moment, and then felt a second less intense shake.
It was focused. Pin point.
"Explosives," he muttered, his mind traveling a hundred different avenues.
"C4!" he shouted and took off sprinting toward the cave. The bulk and weight of his gear foiled his speed. It shaved his natural agility.
Ronon paced him a step behind, neither gaining nor losing ground. The Satedan could dust the floors of Atlantis with Sheppard when it came to speed and distance running, there was no doubt, and the Colonel was no fool to think otherwise. However, safety came in numbers. To protect the others, they had to remain alive. To peel McKay and Beckett from whatever trouble those two embroiled Teyla into, Ronon and Sheppard had to work together.
One outrunning the other would jeopardize more than any one individual may win.
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Rodney stuttered a stepped, dragging a toe through the sand. His gait faltered. He consciously tightened his grip on the flashlight. It seemed as if he could feel every muscle in his forearm contract. It felt as if lead ran through his veins.
He had thought that the fatigue that rolled his shoulders, dropped his chin and slouched his neck and drummed his head was due to hunger. Low blood sugar. He knew himself to be hypoglycemic even though the medical community, especially Carson, simply placated him. He was familiar enough with the signs of hypoglycemia. They weren't terribly life threatening and it was easy to fix. The power bar he had choked down only twenty minutes ago should have rectified the situation. His step should have sprung back by now. He should have felt the energy electrify his blood, or at least beat back the smothering tide of fatigue.
With an increasingly unsteady step, Rodney shuffled forward, leading Carson.
He put a mittened hand out to run along the tunnel's wall. His head swam as his stomach flip-flopped like a gymnast's floor routine. He felt lightheaded and dense. For a moment, McKay wondered if this was how the mundane average person felt every day. Was this how slow the ordinary thought process worked in the average person? Like analog or dial-up for a modem.
The powerbar should have worked. Dreadful food really; gummy, sticky, but easily digestible and saved him the time from having to stop what he was working on for a sit down meal. Still Powerbars and their ilk could use some improvement in texture, taste and chewability. They could use an overhaul.
He staggered a step, putting more weight on his injured leg than it could bear. He hissed shutting his eyes for a bit. The oppressive headache tightened with every beat of his heart, and corkscrewed spirals of pain from his neck to eyeballs.
He was going to be sick. It would hurt on more levels than he thought he could tolerate.
"Rodney?"
Carson's distorted voice grated on his nerves. The physician's hand on his shoulder felt like a hundred kilos of lead. The very pressure intensified the tireless ache that crushed his head.
"Rodney?"
McKay staggered again. He felt short of breath as if a great band tightened his torso. He couldn't get enough oxygen.
Rodney fell against the tunnel wall. His arm folded and his injured shoulder banged into the unforgiving rock. He cried out, his voice weak. Rodney stayed upright and curled inward, trying to raise his good hand to grasp at his injured shoulder.
He couldn't find the strength. He couldn't find the breath. He pawed at the neoprene mask that suffocated him.
Rodney staggered another step, and then a third, before going down to one knee, then two. The crushing weight of Beckett's hand left his shoulder.
He couldn't catch his breath. He couldn't breathe.
The flashlight rolled from suddenly lax fingertips. The small beam highlighted the track covered sand. Bear tracks from the outline or Cornelius Klondike's abominable snowman. No gold here.
Rodney's mind swirled in a dense fog.
McKay pitched forward, face turned to the side, staring at the darkened granite wall and the up close outline of a clawed foot track. A back foot from the looks of the print. He had read about animal tracks as a child. It had held his interest about as well as a screen door held water. But he remembered the images.
Unusual bear tracks. A big one….the tracks looked bi-pedal. A circus bear, perhaps, or a snow yeti.
He heard Carson call his name a few times. Beckett sounded far away and worried.
McKay was worried too. Bear tracks in a dark cave plus their run of luck equaled trouble. Circus bears were notoriously unkind, snow yetis too. A bad, bad combination.
Someone should warn Carson.
Rodney's head hurt, his chest hurt. He couldn't seem to breathe. Maybe it was time for him to change oxygen bottles.
McKay's head swam. The flashlight was dimming or his brain was shutting off. Neither one very good.
He heard Beckett call him again. More worried, more concerned. He hoped Carson didn't wander off and get lost.
The crushing pain in Rodney's head deluded any ache in his shoulder or leg. It felt as if a giant hand was squeezing his brain like one would a lemon into sweetened tea.
Not good. Not good at all.
Rodney let his eyes roll just as he felt Carson blindly reach for his shoulder.