“The Koan,” Dorane said with a grimace of distaste. “I had hoped they were dead, after all this time. Yes, the communications system is there.” He didn’t look or gesture or anything else, but a metal section of the wall slid aside, and a light flickered on, revealing a cubby with a circular console. It looked a little battered, not as pristine as the Ancient equipment in Atlantis, but John could see lights and readouts blinking on as the system powered up. “We are safe enough in here. All entrances to this lab area are sealed blast doors.”
“So you really are an Ancient?” Kavanagh said, getting to his feet and stepping up to the console. “You lived in Atlantis?”
“I don’t think of myself as ancient,” Dorane said, a little bemused as Kavanagh beat McKay to the console and took a seat there. “I did live in Atlantis, very long ago.”
“Do the Koan go up on the surface?” Teyla asked, watching Dorane carefully. “We had seen no sign of them before this.”
Dorane gestured helplessly, shaking his head. “They were nocturnal creatures and didn’t go to the surface during the day, but that was when they first came here.” He looked bleakly at John. “I thought their species would have died off by now.”
John nodded, relieved. It wasn’t midday yet, and Corrigan and the others would be outside, searching through the ruins; that gave them a little time. He said, “Kavanagh, if you can’t get them on their headsets, try to call the jumper.”
Dorane looked up, lifting his brows. “The what?”
“The ships that can dial the ’gate.” McKay made gestures indicating something vaguely square.
Dorane lifted his brows. “Ah, you have a gateship from Atlantis.”
McKay threw John a dark look. “I told you we should have called them gateships.”
. “Nobody cares,” John told him firmly. He answered Dorane, “That was the only way to use your Stargate. The dialing console isn’t there anymore.”
Dorane shook his head, smiling in bitter amusement. “I wondered why I had no visitors. I had begun to fear that the Wraith had eliminated all human life in this galaxy.” He hesitated. “As I said, I have lost track of the time. How long has it been?”
“It’s been ten thousand years,” McKay told him. “We have no idea what happened to the Ancients after they went to Earth. We have theories that they either died out or ascended at some point after that time, but there’s no proof.” Dorane looked up, startled, and McKay winced in sympathy. Low-voiced, he added to John, “This is a little awkward. I can see now why Elizabeth usually wants to handle anything more complicated than ‘We come in peace and would like to trade with you for food and/or ZPMs.’”
Dorane was staring at nothing, shaken. He looked weary and old. “I see,” he said finally. He shook his head and looked up, obviously making himself smile. “Then you are…our descendants. The children of my people.”
“In a way. Some of us more than others.” McKay asked Dorane, “Did the Ancients — your people — build this place? We thought it resembled an Ancient meeting place and repository in our own galaxy.”
“Yes, we were building it with the help of the Thesians. They had agreed to be the caretakers of it, and they came from their own world to build a colony here and to aid us in constructing our athenaeum,” Dorane explained. He looked away, his jaw set. “Then the Wraith came.”
Teyla nodded in resignation, and John exchanged a grim look with McKay. The Wraith always came.
“But why did you stay here?” Kolesnikova asked in the sudden silence. “After the attack, I mean. You didn’t know the dialing device was gone, so you never tried to leave? Were all the puddlejumpers — gateships — destroyed?”
“They were destroyed. But it didn’t matter. I had nowhere to go,” Dorane said simply. “The last message I received from Atlantis was that they were also under attack and could not come to our aid. I knew they meant to abandon the city if the Wraith’s advance continued. After the attack, when they never came here or tried to communicate, I knew they were gone.” He shrugged, glancing at Kolesnikova with a smile. “I know it sounds odd, and perhaps I am odd, after this long time of sleep and waiting. But if I didn’t go to Atlantis, I couldn’t find them dead. I could think of them as safe, somewhere.”
Kolesnikova nodded slowly. John thought he understood what Dorane meant, it just wasn’t a course of action that would ever have appealed to him, under any circumstances. Kolesnikova asked suddenly, “Why didn’t you ascend?” Dorane stared at her, startled, and she actually blushed a little. “I’m sorry, but we know many of the Ancients ascended, either before or after leaving this galaxy.”
Dorane hesitated, and John squashed the urge to intervene. It was probably a very personal question to ask on short acquaintance, but he thought they needed to know the answer. Then Dorane smiled, a little bemused. “I preferred to live and hope.” He shrugged. “Hope that my people would return with a way to destroy the Wraith, that I could reclaim this world, all our work here.” He added ruefully, “And I was given to understand that Ascension can be rather…dull. Not that my life here has been terribly exciting.”
“Major, I’m not getting any response from the jumper,” Kavanagh said, brow furrowed as he glanced up at John. “Or from their radios.”
“Are you on the right frequency?” McKay demanded, stepping up behind Kavanagh to get a look at the board.
“No, I thought I’d just try a random frequency.” Kavanagh glared. “Of course I’m on the right one.”
“Crap,” John muttered. He told Kavanagh, “Keep trying,” then asked Dorane, “Is there another way out that doesn’t involve going through that blast door into the tunnels? I need to get back up to the surface and warn our people.”
“Yes, yes. This way.” Dorane pushed himself up, accepting a helping hand from Kolesnikova, and started out of the room.
John headed after him with Teyla, Kolesnikova, and McKay following while Kavanagh stayed on the com system. John was going to take Teyla with him, and let the others stay behind to work on Dorane. Though the man seemed glad enough to see them, John thought Dorane was still a little confused, and probably suspicious of their motives. John didn’t want to screw this up; if they wanted Dorane’s help, they needed to make it clear they were intending to rescue him, not drag him off against his will.
John stopped to briefly update Ford on the situation, and when he caught up with the others again McKay was asking, “Just what are these Koan? Do they live down here in the tunnels? They showed up rather abruptly.”
“They are an alien species, barely sentient, but clever, and they can be vicious,” Dorane said, as he led them down a passage behind the stasis chamber, under more of the giant pipes, to where a metal wall met rough rock. He stumbled, and took the arm Teyla offered him with a grateful glance. “They were brought here from their world by the Wraith, to infiltrate our defenses from underground.” He shook his head in exasperation. “I thought they would have died out by now. The last few times I went out to explore, there was no sign of them. I used this passage, so it should be safe. The access shaft is straight down it, at the very end.”
Dorane stopped at a metal door, set deep in the stone. Mold and damp had crept in around the edges. As Dorane touched the control and the door slowly started to slide upward, John asked, “Do you have any idea how they managed to appear out of nowhere?”
Dorane shook his head. “They did the same to us, when they first attacked. I think the Wraith must have given them something to jam our scanning equipment, but surely the device cannot still exist.”
McKay, in the act of handing the life sign detector to John, paused and they exchanged a weary look. “Oh, that’s just great,” McKay said, “Take it anyway — if the others are away from the jumper—”