“We’ll give them a couple more hours before we panic,” he said. “But I want a full crew working on getting that gate opened again, and I want a second team on alert to be ready at a moment’s notice. Get Major Lorne to handle it.” He paused, then added, “And see if we can dig up anything else on Admah. I’m beginning to dislike this situation.”
He turned back to his work. Zelenka stood in the doorway a moment longer, as if he might say something further, such as reminding the Commander that he wasn’t an errand boy. Woolsey kept his gaze firmly fixed on the paperwork he was processing, and eventually Zelenka took the hint.
When the doorway was empty, he glanced up and stared thoughtfully into the blank space for a few moments, then returned to his reports.
Major Lorne gathered a second team in a ready room just off the main control area. They spent their time inventorying equipment cases, checking their weapons, and chatting quietly. No one showed any particular concern, but the tension in the air was thick. The longer they went without word from Colonel Sheppard, the thicker it grew.
Zelenka had his own team gathered around a group of computer consoles. They had several screens open at once. One scanned for any type of radio or communication signal from the gate, concentrating primarily on weeding out static from the last moments the gate had been open to see if something had been missed. The rest of the personnel were divided between those running a variety of searches on the exhaustive data in Atlantis’ databases, seeking any mention of Admah — good or bad — and a frantic team trying to open the gate back to the city. Very little had surfaced, and what they’d found was open in yet another window being translated.
“Here’s something,” said a young woman, Doctor Quint, tapping the screen.
Zelenka leaned closer. “What is it?”
“It’s another of the same sort of isolated reports we’ve been finding,” Quint replied. “Travelers visited Admah, and they never returned. The translation isn’t complete, but in this report it says that there was a malfunction with the gate itself. They were unable to send anyone through to search. It’s just like now, isn’t it? They continued to try for some time, but they never managed to reopen the gate to Admah. Their people were never heard from again.”
“I think we just discovered the meaning of that warning we ignored,” Zelenka said, feeling his heart sink. “Keep searching. There has to be someone who took the time to study this. I can’t believe they lost an entire group of their own people and all it received was a simple warning label.”
Quint went back to her computer screen and Zelenka turned toward the gate. He thought about Rodney, on the other side of that portal. The two men were at each other’s throats constantly, Rodney going on about how much smarter he was than the rest of the universe, and Zelenka trying to ignore him. He never argued the exact point, because it was very likely true. Arrogant, socially inept, and rude, Rodney was possibly the most brilliant man Zelenka had ever encountered. Still, no amount of intelligence granted the right to lord it over others, and there was a certain lack of common sense that accompanied Rodney’s brilliance — evidenced in actions like the one that had erased the warning about the Admah Gate — that grated on Zelenka’s nerves.
The missions rarely fell to Zelenka. Rodney had more experience, but that came in many cases from greater courage. Zelenka had signed on as a scientist, not an adventurer. He preferred to remain in the lab and provide support. Rodney plowed into things at full speed and, more often than not, his presence was crucial to a mission’s success. Zelenka felt a certain amount of personal guilt connected with the role he’d chosen, and with his reluctance to take the plunge into adventure. At times like this, he felt that guilt most strongly.
“Where are you Rodney?”
The gate, and the radios, held their silence.
Chapter Nine
The room they entered was chaotic. Rather than the bright even lighting they were used to in Atlantis, lanterns and strings of track lighting broke the huge room into smaller areas, making it look like some sort of weird alien bazaar. They stopped in a foyer, separated from the main room by beaded curtains that glittered like droplets of water in the low, flickering light. There was something overwhelming about the sights, scents, and sounds that assaulted them, and none of them was in a hurry to cross the threshold.
Saul smiled at them as they took it all in — or attempted to. “What do you think?” he said. “Am I correct in guessing it is somewhat different to Atlantis?”
Rodney glanced down at his scanner, frowned, and then turned to Saul. “You do know that your moon — uh, city — has jumped out of orbit?” he said. “Unless my calculations are wrong, in fact, and they never are — or almost never — you have less than a week before the sun is too close to allow for any means of escape, even assuming the city has an operational star drive.”
“You don’t waste any time on pleasantries, do you?” Saul said with a chuckle. “If it eases your mind in any way, we are well aware. We’ve had a lot of time to work on the star drives. If memory serves, your city sank beneath the waves…many years ago. We have been here all along, and though we choose to spend a great deal of our time entertaining ourselves, we have not been completely idle in scientific advance. Some might say we’ve been here a bit too long. You seem to forget, Dr. McKay, that while you have a working knowledge of the star drive, my people built it. And we have made modifications. By embedding anchors into the bedrock of the planet’s surface, we’ve merged the city and the moon. Modifications to the star drive have enabled us to — ”
“Fly the entire thing as if it was a starship,” Cumby cut in.
Rodney glared at him, but Saul nodded and smiled. “Exactly. We are able to change the orbit of the planet itself — even to fly it to a new location, or remove it from orbit completely. We could explore the galaxy.”
“Yes, very Space 1999.” When Saul looked perplexed, he added, “So you decided to test it by driving into the sun?” He made no attempt to hide the sarcasm or the frustration in his voice. “Of all the possible uses for such technology, you chose mass suicide?”
“There is nothing to be concerned about,” Saul said, waving the comment aside. “You’ll have to trust me when I tell you that we know exactly what we’re doing. Now, come. I want to introduce you to some of the others. It’s been a long time since we had any company and you, Dr. McKay, are putting a damper on the party.”
Saul stepped forward and swept the curtains aside.
The room beyond was much larger than Rodney had first imagined. In fact, it was more a long string of small rooms, segmented off by low walls, architectural constructions of every sort, shape, and variation of light. There were fountains that bubbled with liquid of varying hue, flickering in the corners and along the walls. There were acoustically divided alcoves, and a variety of music floated out from within them, soft and muted so that each melody and harmony blended subtly with those from the other rooms.
To the right, on a slightly raised platform, a woman danced. There was a man seated on a stool beside her, bent over an odd stringed instrument. It vaguely resembled a guitar, but it had three necks. The musician’s hand flowed from one to the next, and by some trick of electronics, or acoustics, the notes from whichever strings he left lingered as he plucked the next into life. The woman wore only the sheerest of gowns, and she danced seductively, her eyes closed and her lips provocatively parted. Those gathered nearby watched, but the musician never looked up.