"What a picturesque spot," Alvar's sarcasm practically dripped from his words as we crossed the city limits. "You'd have to be a real psycho to set up shop here."
An ear-splitting clap of thunder rumbled across the sky. A flash of lightning filled everything with light, scattering the reigning darkness for a moment and illuminating the walls of the buildings around us.
Gloomy, despite the light plaster finish between massive timber frames, the houses in particular — and the whole medieval town — looked like they were cut from a Tim Burton movie.
Crooked cobblestone streets. Two- and three-story stone houses alongside the local version of half-timbered construction. Wooden ones, frankly rotted through in the local fog and insane humidity. Bare, withered trees reaching their clawed branches toward passersby. A crude staircase leading into one of the houses practically screamed that it hadn't known the shoes of any resident in a long time.
A ruined city.
The cliffs looming over us in the distance only amplified the pressure on the psyche. I'd have to agree with Alvar — this is quite a place to live.
"Maybe we came at a bad time," I suggested after another thunderclap boomed overhead.
"When Charin gave me the address of the planet the Taken came from, I came here once," Teyla admitted. She usually looked braver, and her voice wasn't usually so subdued. But apparently the atmosphere was depressing even her. "And it was the same here..." she paused, like she was searching for words. "Gloomy. And uncomfortable."
"And deserted," Ihaar added, following us. The Chief Engineer kept his eyes fixed on the scanner monitor, as if afraid to miss any mark on the screen. But from the way he looked around fearfully at every boom in the sky, it was clear he just needed something to focus on so he wouldn't give in to panic.
Just like me.
Icy chills from this place practically never left my body. Even Alvar, trying to seem cheerful and confident, kept shuddering. This place literally inspired fear.
"The city looks intact," I noted as we passed several houses. "Apart from the knocked-in doors, broken windows, traces of soot," I pointed to the remains of a couple of carts that had burned next to a house wall. "It looks like everyone just left, not like they were wiped out by Wraiths."
"Charin said some survived," Teyla reminded me.
"The people who lived here clearly aren't technically advanced enough to pose a threat to Wraiths," Alvar noted, walking up to the wall of another house. He examined the pockmarks on it for a while, then came back to the group. "Thought they might be bullet holes, but no. The plaster just crumbled with age."
"I wouldn't recommend going into the houses," Ihaar said, running his scanner in front of one of the buildings. "It's strange they've held up this long at all, considering the people who lived here died years ago. Given the humidity and other conditions, this is a frankly lousy place to live and a headache for anyone who was supposed to maintain them."
"The drone showed no more settlements here," I reminded them, referencing the report from the jumper crew. The technicians on it were still doing a flyover of the planet, but the data already spoke for itself — the life here clearly had nothing to do with the concept of "sentient." Wild animals, some birds, maybe rodents and other vermin. But no people. And no trace of any culture living beyond this settlement. "And it's barely possible to get out of this valley. Without a spaceship or climbing gear, I mean."
"Doesn't this principle seem familiar to you?" Alvar asked as we crossed from one street to another. There were only three streets total. Which was already a lot for a settlement of thirty houses.
I licked my dry lips.
"Painfully familiar," I admitted, looking around. "Ihaar, did you find any energy traces?"
"Very faint ones," he said, waving toward some truly ancient ruins on the western side of the settlement. The only notable thing there was a bunch of stone ruins crumbled by time, bordering a dense forest on one side and coming right up to the cliffs on the other. "In that direction. Since there's nothing here that could generate energy, even by the most primitive methods, I think that's what we're looking for."
"Moving out," I ordered. "Alvar first, then Ihaar. Teyla and I will take rear guard."
The Ermen raised his assault rifle and moved along the edge of the city with a slow, creeping step, looking around. Even though I'd told everyone at the briefing that the Earthlings hadn't found a single living soul on this planet in the known events, the former commando never relaxed.
And honestly, given the realities diverging from what I knew about this galaxy and the people living in it, we should all be following his example.
"Thank you," Teyla said, barely audible but knowing her words would reach me.
"For what?" I didn't understand.
"For coming here with me," Emmagan said. "When I came here myself, I couldn't last half an hour."
"Good thing you had the sense to requisition a jumper on Atlantis," I laughed grimly, looking back toward the spot we'd left behind ten kilometers ago. "Otherwise it would've been very hard to get back."
"That's true," Teyla shuddered, realizing she might not have made it back if she'd come on foot. "Alvar said this place should look familiar to you. What did he mean?"
"Proculus," I answered, feeling a hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach.
"And what's there?"
"Almost exactly like here," I admitted reluctantly, looking around. "I'd guess we're in the crater of a long-extinct volcano. The cliffs around us are too high for anyone to climb out. The Gate is installed at the edge of this lovely," I flinched as an even louder thunderclap than before boomed, "valley. There's no Dialing Device. Just a Habitat that lets people survive, if they can. And we know the Wraiths were active in this place."
"You think they built this city for the locals?" Teyla asked, glancing over her shoulder at the ruins behind us.
"Wraith altruists?" I laughed. "No, Teyla. I think the Taken aren't one specific stable human civilization. They're a bunch of people who ended up on this planet one way or another. And they built their own houses."
"So," Ihaar turned around with a crooked grin, "you're saying the hypothetical Wraiths gathered hypothetical people from several hypothetical planets, hypothetically brought them here, and gave them hypothetical tools to build themselves a whole town?"
"Too many hypotheticals," I winced. "But yes. Because that's the only way I can explain why there are houses of three architectural styles in one town."
Ihaar raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Oh, aren't they all the same?"
Seriously?
"Are you a scientist or what?" I asked. "You scanned the houses! Some are made of stone, others are post-and-beam with filler in between, and others are just built from wood. That's three different approaches to construction, three different levels of technological progress. And there are three streets in the town too. On each one, one type of building dominates, but others are also present. That tells me that at some point, three groups of people lived here who weren't too keen on sharing knowledge with each other and, despite their unity, wanted their communities to be distinct in one key way — their world of origin."
Ihaar, still walking backward, hiccupped in surprise.
"And you figured that out just by looking at the houses?" Teyla asked.
"It seemed logical to me," I shrugged. "If it were one people, one community, why would the houses be built differently? If the house type — stone, half-timbered, or log cabins — indicates class stratification, then who let them get mixed together? If it was one or two weak mayors, then why weren't the buildings torn down later? We saw there was no battle here — everything's decently made for its level. So the people here got along with each other, since there were no gallows. From that, I draw only one conclusion: there was something they lived together for."
"And what was that?" Teyla asked.
"Survival instinct," Ihaar suggested. "If the Wraiths dumped them here by force, no matter how much they argued with each other, they'd still have to unite to survive. Right, Mikhail?"
"Something like that," I answered dryly.
I didn't think it was right to voice my hypothesis yet. Because there was no evidence.
Except logic.
An isolated biome capable of sustaining human life. Houses to live in, rest, raise children. At least three different peoples stranded here...
And Wraiths trying to make humans tastier.
Besides, if I'm right, the Wraith lab is right next to the city. And the entrance is at ground level, if the show is to be believed. Which is pretty dangerous for a Wraith traveling on foot, isn't it? And completely stupid from its perspective, to travel on a planet like that without a Dialing Device. The locals could always stick a pitchfork in its side.
The most likely reason for the missing Dialing Device is the Wraith using a Dart. But the Earthlings didn't find anything on the planet except an abandoned lab and a Wraith "flash drive." Not even a second floor... ah, screw it. It's unlikely the show would've shown anything that didn't affect the necessary plot. And how would the presence of a second-third-hundredth floor in an abandoned Wraith base affect it? I think it wouldn't at all.
And I need to stop thinking about the events I know as if they contain self-sufficient answers. What I knew, or thought I knew, doesn't adequately match reality.
Either it's an alternate universe, not the one I saw in the show, or the known events only scratched the surface.
"This is it." We reached the base of the cliff. Ihaar poked a finger at the patch of rock in front of us. "Energy traces lead in there."
"But you didn't find a passage through solid rock?" Alvar asked, touching it for confirmation. "Looks like regular stone."
"Not exactly," I corrected him, looking at Teyla. "You need to touch it and push against it with your whole body."
"You're saying she can walk through stone?" Alvar was surprised.
"Or rather, this stone is mostly camouflage that only fades for someone carrying Wraith genes," Ihaar immediately caught my meaning. "That makes sense if you want to hide your lab's location from the natives. Even if they know where you passed through the stone, they can't do it themselves. Well," he hesitated, looking at the Athosian woman who'd approached the cliff, "until you splice your own DNA into them."
"When I get inside," Teyla looked at me warily, "how do I open the passage for you?"
"The camouflage will probably drop for a while," Ihaar suggested. "And we'll go in."
"Just think about getting out," I advised.
"Well, that works too," the Ancient agreed, ignoring the Ermen's chuckle.
"Alright." Teyla turned to face the patch of cliff, hanging her rifle on her chest. Spreading her arms, she touched the lifeless, impenetrable-looking surface. "I'll do it."
The moment she shifted her weight, the stone in front of her shimmered. It rippled like water, as if she'd thrown an object into a pond.
The next instant, light appeared under her hands, and she lurched forward against her will. At one point, my eyes caught how effectively the Ermen uniform accentuated the slimness of her figure in certain places.
And then Teyla vanished, passing through the stone.
"If I'd known this trick for getting rid of a woman five years ago, I wouldn't have had to get married," Alvar snickered.
"Agreed," I nodded. "David Copperfield and his walk through the Great Wall of China have nothing on this."
Teyla reinvents the trick of the great — but non-street — magician.
"You have people on Earth who walk through walls?" Ihaar was surprised.
"Of course," I said without flinching. "Don't you have them?"
"No," the Ancient gulped.
"Weird," I sighed. "You just need to get people running fast enough and dress them sturdy enough. Though, I once read a book about a boy who ran hard enough to walk through a wall into another world."
"Wait, what?" Ihaar was horrified. "Did that child have Lantian Sublight Engines and a ZPM?"
"No, what gave you that idea?"
"Because to achieve that kind of speed, a material object that isn't a particle — like a photon — would need an unimaginably powerful energy source and the most advanced Sublight Engines I know!" Ihaar explained. "And even then, it's unlikely the speed would actually be the Speed of Light, not just close to it. Because the greater the speed, the greater the object's mass, and the more energy you need for acceleration! That's why we use hyperdrives! You can exceed the speed of light through linear acceleration, but the cost would be unimaginable! Which of those did the boy have?"
I honestly searched my memory.
"A luggage cart."
Ihaar looked at me like a man whose life values had just been shattered.
"Maybe his speed was boosted by his experience with a huge bearded guy who told Harry he was a wizard," I took pity on Ihaar, whose eyes showed the ruins of his knowledge about the fundamental laws of nature.
"You're saying he was running from this..." he furrowed his brow. "What was it you said? Ah! Oh!" His face lit up. "That boy Harry of yours — he was running from a pedophile, right? Technically, you could argue that the body's hidden reserves could give him a speed boost, but it's unlikely..."
Now it was my turn to freeze up like Windows Millennium when connecting an augmented reality headset. I'd never really thought about whether Hagrid had a secret interest in showing kindness to children, regardless of gender. Though, on the other hand — boy, girl — what difference does it make?
"I don't think he was interested in children in that sense," I winced. "That guy preferred spending time with animals..."
"A zoophile?" Alvar asked. "Why are you looking at me like that? It's the only explanation for why an adult man would spend more time with animals than people."
The shimmering of the stone saved me from having to answer the question. Shimmering with a violet light, the patch of rock literally dissolved, revealing a slightly tense Teyla.
It's magic, Teyla!
"Not a bad trick," Alvar approved of the disappearance of an entire section of cliff.
"What happened?" the Athosian looked at me. "I went through the stone and ended up in a corridor. Then I started looking for a way out, like you warned me, and then the stone disappeared!"
"It's magic, Teyla." I smiled, showing her I was just joking. "Ihaar, want to give a scientific explanation?"
"Do I look like a walking database to you?" he grumbled. "I'd need to see the projector of this barrier to understand if it was molecular deconstruction, or a dense hologram, or if it's not a device but a physical property of certain natural elements..."
"You can theorize later!" Alvar cut him off, squeezing past him and Teyla into the corridor behind her. Raising his rifle in front of him, he took control of the space. "I see a corridor. Looks like the ones on the Wraith ship when I was captured."
I peered inside.
"Yeah, this place was definitely built by Wraiths. Moving. You first, me and Ihaar behind you, Teyla brings up the rear."
A corridor inside the Wraith lab.
In the show, there were no scenes of the Earthlings searching the Wraith lab. And that could mean anything — from a long, monotonous fight for every meter to a boring walk through a long-abandoned facility. The last thing I wanted right now was to send Teyla ahead — we don't need any suddenly activated hidden Wraith mechanisms.
But if we've triggered some kind of alarm here, it would be best for Teyla to stay close to the exit so she can sense any approaching Wraiths first. The Earthlings never came back to this planet for some reason, right? If there's no threat here, an abandoned Wraith base and a reasonably preserved town could be a backup planet. All you'd need is to leave a jumper and a power source.
The search took a long time. As I suspected, there wasn't just one floor here, or even two. A full ten levels of various kinds, with lots of compartments. And everything looked like the owners of this place had left in perfect order, never finishing their work.
Or maybe they just forgot to untie about ten people from their lab tables, and they died and decomposed. Interestingly, there's no smell of decay here — no mustiness, no humidity... the Climate Control definitely survived and is supplying the whole complex with very fresh, oxygen-rich air.
Until now, I thought the Wraiths didn't just abandon their planets for no reason. But apparently, they were disgusted by this place where their kin had conducted their own version of eugenics experiments. Because I can't immediately find a reason why this place wasn't destroyed.
"So, anyone have any news?" I asked when we finally finished searching the ancient Wraith shelter. The group, working in pairs, gathered in a large hall that had been designated in advance for this purpose.
What function this room served for the Wraiths was unknown, but at least there were no vivisection tables, nightmarish equipment resembling dissected internal organs, or skeletonized remains. It was suitable for sharing information.
"Actually, yes." Ihaar walked up to a metal table rooted to the floor and started pulling various items out of his backpack. "Teyla and I searched several labs."
"And we found a hangar," I boasted. "And yes, there are no Darts in it. Completely empty, not even equipment."
"Then what makes you so sure it's a hangar?" Ihaar asked.
"What else could a room the size of a hangar be, located at the edge of the cliff with camouflaged exits from the inside?" Alvar clarified. "Those stone trick doors have a purple glow from the inside. And if those aren't camouflaged exits, I'm out of ideas."
"Oh, right, that's them," Ihaar nodded. "Teyla and I found about ten exits like that. Both into the valley and beyond it. I think the base is built into the rock, and the Wraiths could get to both sides of the cliffs without any trouble from here. Or rather, one Wraith."
"Only one Wraith worked at this base?" Alvar clarified.
"Yes, and a very smart but very insane one at that." Ihaar pulled out a Wraith data storage device from his backpack. "It's a kind of data storage device. Like a memory crystal. I pulled it from the main console."
"And what's on it?" Alvar asked.
"We only skimmed the records," Teyla said. "The Translation Program couldn't process the full volume of data."
"But what we have is already enough," Ihaar said. "Mikhail was right — the Wraiths conducted experiments on people who later became part of Athosian society. They're probably on other planets too, but that's not the point."
"Of course," Teyla laughed bitterly. "You don't get to find out that you're actually part Wraith. Among the people of Pegasus, they kill for that. The Taken left a bad reputation behind. And nobody wants that to happen again. Wraith DNA drives people mad..."
"Well, you don't seem insane to me," I assured her. "And I don't think a tiny bit of Wraith DNA makes you or anyone else a psychopath."
"I'm not a biologist or a geneticist, but I tend to agree with Mikhail," Ihaar said, setting up his laptop on the table. It took him a couple of seconds to connect the Wraith data storage device to it through an adapter. "I'd bet that those Taken who went on killing sprees were originally a bit unhinged. Or maybe more than a bit. They worshipped the Wraiths and therefore participated in the experiments."
"What, excuse me?" I asked.
"You didn't know," Ihaar stated.
"No, I knew there were those in the galaxy who worship the Wraiths, but I didn't know the Taken were among them."
"Wraith followers are one of the most despised categories of people in Pegasus," Teyla told us. "Serving the Wraiths gets you killed on the spot."
"What a fun society you have," Ihaar shuddered. "Anyway, from what I've learned, it follows that Mikhail was right. The Wraiths brought three groups of people here — their admirers from different worlds."
"The Wraiths?" Alvar repeated. "You said it was one Wraith."
"There were many of them at first," Ihaar said. "One scientist and several soldiers. But they're mentioned at an inventory level, so technically, one Wraith ran everything here. You know, Chaya's Translation Program is very effective. Without it, I would've missed all these nuances of the Wraith language. Their symbols can hide two or even three meanings."
"Skip the details," I asked. "What did you learn?"
"This base was built by one of the Hives at the height of the war with Atlantis," Ihaar said. "They interrogated captured Lantians here, as well as representatives of the lesser races. At some point, the Wraiths started using Feeding as a method of extraction, rewarding Reverse Feeding for valuable information. The Hives worked together back then, and this data went to all of them. But over time, the Ancients became fewer and fewer. The war ended, the effective food vanished. This Hive took heavy losses fighting over the Feeding Grounds. Only one Scientist-Biologist survived, who fled to this base. As I understand it, he didn't tell the other Wraiths about it. Basically, he brought groups of followers who worshipped his Hive here."
"Made a food reserve," I understood.
"And he also wanted to develop something that would let him join a new Hive," Ihaar said. "For some reason, that was important to him."
"A Wraith afraid of being alone," Alvar laughed. "Fun."
"It's more of a social or biological need," Ihaar said. "It seems they're used to living in packs..."
"Hives," I corrected him. "Like the insects they evolved from."
"Maybe," Ihaar waved dismissively. "I'm not a biologist..."
"Can you continue?" Teyla said, pain in her voice. "I want to know everything."
"It'll take time to decode the entire storage device," the Chief Engineer warned. "For now, this is just general data..."
"Ihaar!" I snapped at the Ancient.
"This Wraith got the idea that, since the Ancients' DNA was already lost — they were either wiped out or gathered up and fed on — why not try to increase the 'caloric value' of humans by inoculating them with part of the Wraiths' DNA," the engineer said. "Here," he jabbed a finger at the screen, where there were thousands of symbols, "is a lot of data on human physiology. But, as I understand it, the Wraith's goal was specifically to enhance human mentality. It has to do with the fact that during feeding, Wraith care not only about life force, but also about sensing their victim's emotions. The Ancients were more mentally developed, so their minds gave the Wraith pleasure when feeding. Simple humans haven't gone through that evolutionary stage. Essentially, if the records are correct, after the war with Atlantis, the Wraith only left the most primitive societies alive."
"They eliminated the threat of armed resistance while they were still strong," I realized. "And then what? We know he got some kind of result."
"He got it, and decided to contact his kin to show them the results of his actions. He invited them to the culling... And everything didn't go according to plan," Ihaar grinned. "It seems the other Wraith didn't appreciate what had happened. I think they killed the Wraith and his soldiers, and captured and devoured the humans. But right here," he pointed to several lines of symbols, "there's an indication that the Stargate was activated during the selection. It's likely that some of the Taken managed to escape to another world one way or another. And from there, they spread out across the galaxy."
"Why didn't the Wraith find this place?" I asked.
"The scientist never brought them here," Ihaar shrugged, pointing at the monitor again. "If we didn't have the super-sensitive Lantian scanner, we wouldn't have found it either. And Wraith scanners are far behind ours, even at their peak. There's no data here indicating anyone entered the base except for the Wraith who were part of his team and us."
"The base tracks everyone who enters it?" Alvar tensed up.
"Yes, it's a decent security system," Ihaar confirmed. "It just doesn't report to anyone. The transmitter is disconnected, and has been for a very, very long time. It literally dried up and decayed over time."
"And who would it report to, since the Wraith scientist was always here and his Hive Ship was destroyed," I realized. "How powerful is the energy source here?"
"How powerful can thunderstorms get?" Ihaar asked.
"This base runs on lightning?" I asked in surprise.
"Yes," the engineer nodded. "Around this valley, but on the other side of the cliffs, hundreds of sensors are scattered, as well as lightning rods. They capture the charges and transmit them to organic capacitors. Those then convert it into suitable power for the base."
"Ingenious," I acknowledged. "Is the system still working?"
"Part of it is. But over the years, the high-voltage lightning discharges have thoroughly fried the lightning rods, so things aren't as good here as they could be. I suspect the Wraith either searched for this planet for a long time, or they themselves did something to its weather. It can't be constantly striking lightning here, can it?"
"Maybe it can," I suggested, touching my radio. "Jumper, everything okay over there? The local lightning is very dangerous."
"Mikhail, we're holding a high orbit, scanning the planet," the pilot reported. "The lightning is indeed a problem, but we found a quiet spot to get into space. The atmosphere is literally charged with electricity. It's interfering with the scan, so we had to boost the sensors."
"Find anything?" I asked.
"Does a small but extremely rich naquadah deposit count?" the pilot asked.
"Very much so," I assured him. "Come back, it's time to report the news to Atlantis."
"We'll be there in ten minutes," the pilot assured me. "I just need to drop a satellite in orbit first."