WIP: "Pillars Of The Sky"
sg_fignewton wants Gen, and I'll treat her to a double whammy o' fic tonight and post you all a chunk of my largest WIP to date.
"Pillars Of The Sky" is set in my "Into The Black" 'verse, with the Black team from "Ripple Effect"
This is a Sam POV story, set some months after the invasion and destruction of Earth by the Ori. The Prometheus escaped with 526 people on board, and there are several thousand more people scattered throughout the universe, but overall it's pretty bleak looking for humanity.
It's apocafic - but LONG plotty action/adventure fic with an apocafic background.
This preview snippet occurs about 6000 words into the fic. The Prometheus has found a planet with evidence of a vast civilisation that now lies in ruins. One city appears to have a working shield and large power source, but the technology prevents them from beaming in close to the site.
O'Neill and Landry have ordered SG-1 (Cam, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel) to hike in on foot and investigate the ruins and try to find the power source of the shield and any other advanced technology that they can either trade or use against the Ori.
Currently this fic is in the 17,000 word range - and will probably settle in to maybe 30,000 overall. This is unbetaed and in the present tense (which I am still wavering on, believe it or not :P) And it will probably undergo substantial revision when I finish and get to the beta stage.
Enjoy!
**
As they climb past the tree line, Cam insists on a rest break to re-hydrate. Sam sips at the tepid water in her canteen, careful to ration it so it will last; there is no guarantee they will find a potable water source despite the streams that run through the valleys.
Teal’c and Daniel consult the aerial survey map together, pointing out areas of concern and discussing alternative routes should they be needed. She listens to them absently; if she tries hard enough she could almost think this was a routine mission but mostly she’s enjoying the way that they approach the problems together - just like old times.
Cam is seated on a large flat rock that is overgrown with some kind of lichen. He rests his elbows on his knees and traces a figure-eight in the loose shale with one booted foot. He consults his watch regularly; impatient to begin moving again but waits out the full ten minutes he has allotted for this rest period. She knows he’s being careful not to push them but she sees his relief at finally being able to do the job he has trained for; out of all of them he has taken the re-adjustment to their new life the hardest. He jumps to his feet as soon as the alarm on his watch beeps and they resume their slow ascent.
The crest of the ridge comes to a sharp point, almost like a razor’s edge cutting the sky. They can see the entire valley below them, the patchwork array of their tents laid out like a colorful carpet. Cam tugs at Sam’s sleeve and points to the other side; the descent to the ravine looks treacherous. It falls away in a sheer face of rock before resuming as a steep assemblage of tumbled boulders that continue down into the fog. He tosses a handful of pebbles over the side and they skitter against the rocks making faint sounds that echo briefly back to them.
The ruined city is shrouded in mists halfway up the opposing side of the ravine. It clings to the side of the cliff wall, like a limpet on a rock. She can make out several spires that glint in the sunlight and the faint pearlescent outline of the shield as it shimmers in the moving air.
She unclips her pack and begins to separate the ropes and harnesses from their other supplies. She leaves Cam to begin hammering in an anchor point so they can rappel down the rock face and readies the rest of the team, checking the fit of the climbing harnesses on Daniel and Teal’c. She has Teal’c check her own; turning around so he can tug at the woven mesh of the straps to make sure it is secured and snug against her body.
Cam clips himself into the rope, and disappears over the edge, rappelling down to the relative safety of a ledge far below. She waits for his signal before re-checking the belay device clipped to Daniel’s carabiner and waving him off.
She is the last to descend, rappelling downward in one smooth movement, rather than the more showy jumps that Cam prefers. She unclips herself at the bottom and looks back up to where the rope disappears to the anchor point.
‘That’s going to be hell on the way back,” she comments; her legs already aching from the climb. The thought of having to self-ascend that distance is unpleasant to say the least. But they have now covered more than half of the distance required to reach the city and there seems no sense in turning back now.
Cam regards the roiling mists with a wary eye, they linger on the slopes of the ravine, which is still shadowed from the sun; to continue blindly could be perilous - equally so to stay. He depresses the button on his radio to confer with General Landry but receives only static in reply.
“Must be the shield,” Sam says. “We kind of expected that radio communication would probably be a problem once we got closer.”
He consults with her, weighing their options until interrupted by a shout from Teal’c. Sam follows the line of his arm to where he is pointing.
Five hundred feet below them, a thin arcing bridge spans the ravine.
She pulls out her field binoculars and focuses them on the narrow structure. It’s hard to make out and appears as delicate and as insubstantial as a spider web strung with droplets of water. She studies its fine-spun fretwork with an admiring eye; it is the work of a superior engineer, an intricate network of braided cables of wire that suspend a narrow walkway. She claps Teal’c on the shoulder and congratulates him on his eagle eye.
Daniel has borrowed her binoculars and seems equally fascinated by the bridge. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he marvels.
Cam chivvies them along, eager to reach it and inspect it for himself.
Twenty feet above the platform where the first pylon of the bridge rests, they encounter steps. Daniel kneels and passes a reverent hand over the smooth surface of the stone.
“These were cut into the face of the rock itself and then capped with this white stone,” he tells them. “Look, no mortar was used but you still can’t get even a knife edge into the joins.” He pulls out his knife and demonstrates. “It’s absolutely amazing but why go to the bother with so few of them? This is hardly a convenient pathway if you have to climb all the way down here.”
“I think I can answer that for you.” Cam kicks at a few of the larger boulders that have obscured the pathway. “It looks like there may have been a landslide a fair while ago.”
“It makes sense,” Sam says. “They may even have cut a tunnel through the mountains to save having to cross through the pass.”
“Pity it’s not still there,” Cam muses, “but at least we can cross via the bridge, it’ll save us at least two or three hours; that is if it’s still structurally sound.” Leading the way, he strides down the wide and shallow steps that curve down toward the stone platform
Daniel reluctantly leaves his examination of the steps but takes a moment to scrawl some notes into one of his ever-present notebooks.
The bridge is even more impressive at a close distance; it arcs in a single span across the ravine and despite its seemingly insubstantial construction, is exceedingly stable. The woven cables re-enforce one another in an interlocking framework that gives the bridge a tensile strength that is carried across its entire length.
Sam approaches the anchoring pylon which towers above her head. “The whole thing seems to be made from some sort of alloyed metal, even the braided cables” she says, reaching out a hand to touch it.
“Wait!” Daniel exclaims. “There might be some sort of warding or guard, don’t touch it.”
She lowers her hand reluctantly. “There’re a few symbols that I can see here, on the right hand side.”
Daniel joins her, noting the strange flowing script that is chased into the metal.
“Can you make it out?” Cam asks.
“Give me a moment.” Daniel shoots him a half-annoyed glance and returns to looking over the writing. “It’s not any of the Goa’uld dialects but it seems to be based on Pahlavi: one of the ancient Persian scripts. See how there’s Aramaic elements preserved within the structure of the sentences?”
“I wouldn’t have a clue.” Sam grins at him.
“It’s a little bit like hieroglyphics. As well as having a phonetic component, some symbols are also ideograms, meaning they stand in for concepts or ideas.”
“So, any of it make sense then?” Cam asks again, clearly enjoys pushing Daniel’s buttons.
Daniel rolls his eyes. “Well, here and there. I can understand bits and pieces but not knowing anything about the culture that developed this system, I can hardly even make a guess as to what they regard as being symbolic.” Cam continues to stare at him in a way that reminds Daniel of Jack in his most persistent moments, he sighs. “So, to answer your question - no. I’d need at least a couple of days to go over it all and cross-reference the other artifacts.”
“So, gimme the Cliffs Notes version,” Cam gives a sly smile. “There’s nothing there that spells out ‘Danger, Will Robinson,’ is there?”
“Well, not implicitly, but-”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Cam cuts him off smoothly. “I want to check out this city.” He gingerly slides one foot forward until it rests on the metal surface of the bridge. “See, no instant death rays. I’d say our luck is looking good.” He glances back over his shoulder and winks at Daniel, who instantly glares back at him.
“Let’s go, then,” Sam urges them, keen to avoid any further needling discussion. She steps out onto the bridge and is momentarily assailed by a feeling of vulnerability. Although the bridge is a good two feet wide, she can still see the perilous drop to the bottom of the ravine. She knows she is safe, that she can’t fall but the wind that buffets against her gives the unnerving feeling of being pushed toward the edge of the path and almost certain death.
“You okay?” Daniel asks; a hand at her shoulder, concern on his face.
“I’m fine,” she assures him. “It’s just the wind.” She pulls herself together and forces herself to keep going. She concentrates on Cameron’s feet and the comforting presence of his back in front of her. She screens out all awareness of the chasm on either side of the narrow walkway and after a few minutes is able to look up at the city that is looming ahead of them.
Mist still clings to the buildings in places; the wind parts it from time to time making it translucent enough to make out details. It’s a city of stone and metal; the same alloy that made the bridge is wrought into fantastical spires and elaborate forms. She can see that the shield surrounding the city walls has not prevented the stone from crumbling in places and some areas look overgrown with gardens that have been left untended for millennia.
As they get closer she can see the shield a little better; it covers the city like a protective dome but seems to still allow organic materials through. It’s barely detectable most of the time but every now and then it flickers into existence. She observes several birds of prey fly through unharmed as they swoop down below her line of sight.
This phenomenon puzzles her, at first she had thought it was the nature of the shield itself; that it only appeared when triggered by attempts to breach it but now that she sees it close-up she’s not so sure. The shield seems erratic, almost as though its power source was failing or it was damaged and malfunctioning somehow.
She mentions her concerns to the team when they reach the other side of the ravine. Cam frowns, concern clear on his face. “Where is the power source located?”
“Deep within the city as far as I can tell, it’s probably deep underground and beneath the most fortified structure if it was used for defensive purposes,” she replies. “I can’t really get any good readings from outside the shield wall, there seems to be some kind of static that’s interfering with my instruments.”
“The Prometheus could not take a proper survey either,” Teal’c recalls. “Perhaps it is the shield itself that produces this interference.”
“That’s quite probable, Ancient shielding produces similar results,” she says, glancing at the small device in her hand. ‘I guess we won’t really know if we can get through it until we try. Disabling the shield might prove problematic though if we can’t.”
Teal’c walks up to the edge of the shield and puts out a cautious hand. The shield flashes briefly around him but doesn’t hinder him from moving forward.
“I have suffered no ill-effects from the encounter, Colonel Carter,” Teal’c says once he has crossed to the other side. “It also appears that the shield will allow our weapons entry as well.” He inclines his head toward his staff weapon.
“Well, I guess that answers that question.” Cam quips. “Maybe this shield was meant more for aerial defense. I’d like to see a standing army try to assault this place, it’d be next to impossible.”
“Maybe an energy weapon would do it,” Sam gives a significant look to Teal’c and he raises his staff weapon and fires it into the air at the shield. A shimmering wave ripples outwards as the blast is absorbed and dissipated into the shield.
A small frown creases Sam’s brow. The nature of the shield is even more puzzling as it had allowed the staff weapon through unchallenged but stopped an actual attack. It didn’t seem useful if the city could still be breached on foot. Although Cam had a good point about the defendable location it wasn’t entirely impossible to approach.
They walk to the gated entrance to the city. A watchtower stands on either side of the massive doors and smaller defensive posts run around the entire length of the wall. The roof of the tower on the left has caved in but the wall is still intact, it was solidly built; the outside sheer and polished smooth so as to offer no purchase to any assailant hoping to scale its heights.
The doors to the city are wide open. Daniel points out that historically this was how a similar fortress city on Earth would normally have appeared. The gates would only ever have been closed if the city was under siege or in times of disasters like plague or famine.
A great block of stone is set into the lintel of the gate, decorated with a frieze carved in relief. Sam can make out more of the same carving script that had adorned the metal pylon of the bridge. “What does it say?” she asks Daniel.
“It’s the name of the city,” he tells her. “It says ‘city under the sky’, or maybe ‘place that dwells beneath the firmament’, if you were to be more poetic about it.”
“What about the central symbol?” She points to the apex of the gateway. The carved sigil in question is two interlocking rings, one of which appears to be twisted in on itself. It reminds her of a Venn diagram.
“That, I’m not too sure about. It might be heraldic. Teal’c, you seen that before?”
Teal’c shades his eyes and studies the sigil. “I have not,” he states gravely. “It is not a symbol of the Goa’uld.”
**
They pass between the city walls and make their way down the main thoroughfare. The streets are paved with the same white stone that had capped the steps on the other side of the ravine but the joins here have been invaded by small stubborn plants whose roots have buckled the once even surface.
The whole city has an air of genteel decay, like the parlor of her great aunt’s house. It’s as though everything has been arranged just so and then left alone to the vagaries of time. She can see the faded beauty around her but instead of feeling nostalgia, all she can dredge up is a vague sense of melancholy.
‘Where to?” Cam looks to Sam for direction.
She consults her device again. “It’s still just static, I can’t make anything out. Maybe we need to get further away from the shield.”
“You sure you put batteries in that thing?” At her narrow eyed stare he holds up his hands in mock surrender.
“Maybe if we make our way to the main plaza and decide from there,” Daniel suggests.
“And which way would that be?”
“I’d say we should keep following this road and chances are we’ll come across it.”
“And I say I should climb the tower and have a look-see.” Cam bounds toward the base of the tower, one hand resting cautiously on his weapon. “Looks safe enough, I’ll point you the direction when I get to the top.” He disappears through the darkened entranceway with a wave of his hand.
Daniel trades glances with Sam. “You do remember this is a man, who gets lost driving to Colorado Springs on a regular basis, don’t you.”
She laughs. “I think he does it on purpose; just to keep you on your feet.”
“You know he rings me every time for directions. It’s like Jack never left isn’t it?”
“Sometimes,” she smiles, a little sadly but she brushes the thought aside. Daniel still notes it but she has a feeling he puts it down to his referring to home in the present tense.
Cam hollers from the top of the tower at them: “That way!” and waves his arm about like a lunatic.
“What? Mitchell, I can’t tell what you’re pointing at.” Daniel cups his hands around his mouth to yell back.
“It’s over there!”
Sam shakes her head and laughs, Teal’c also looks rather bemused.
“Did you see it?” Cam is so excited that he is almost hugging himself as he exits the tower.
“See what?” Sam indulges him.
“I pointed to it, it’s as clear as anything from up there.”
“So, which way then?” Daniel asks pointedly.
“Up the main road and then to the right.” Cam smiles as he admits this, earning a grin from Daniel. “And no ‘I told you so’ from you,” he warns. He takes the lead, hurrying past the crumbling buildings and ignoring Daniel’s protested requests to stop and examine some of the more interesting looking ones. “We’ll look at them if we have time on the way back,” he promises.
Even to her untrained eyes, the city seems extremely organized. The houses and buildings are arranged in neat rows and even through the tarnish of age, the decorative metal still gleams. It is incorporated into almost every element of the architecture; flowing organic lines that are spare and pleasing to the eye.
“We’re still in the fancy part of town,” Cam tells her, having fallen back to walk beside her. “The buildings up this way are mainly stone, but I could make out other parts of the city that have crumbled away into practically nothing.”
“They were probably tenement buildings made of wood,” Daniel says over his shoulder. “There’s an abundant supply of trees in the valleys and despite their strange appearance they burn just as well as the ones back home. They’d probably make good building material as well.”
“It’s remarkably preserved, if you’re right about it having been abandoned two thousand years ago,” Sam observes. “Even if it hadn’t been exposed to the natural elements, I think I would have expected it to be in a greater state of decay.”
“It’s odd,” Daniel agrees, “I can’t explain it, except to say it might be the materials and methods they used in construction. After all there are, were,” he corrects himself, “bridges and buildings built by the Romans that were still used in modern times.”
She nods, biting her lip thoughtfully. “I guess we’ve come across plenty of worlds where there is a high level of technology in some areas and they live relatively simply in others. The thing that bothers me the most is that there’s still nothing that would explain why they left, either.”
“So far, apart from the shield, there really hasn’t been anything that would point to this society being particularly advanced,” Cam points out.
“Perhaps advanced technology is hidden, Cameron Mitchell. Although I agree that it is strange to see this city abandoned,” Teal’c says evenly. “We should look into one of their dwelling places; as such a location may provide some of the answers which we seek.”
Daniel looks mildly triumphant at this and points out one of the larger buildings. “That one looks as good as any. It’s more intact than some of the others.” He mounts the steps and pushes at the door, which groans but gives way under steady pressure; swinging inwards.
Cam frowns slightly. “Keep it quick, then. We’ve got about three more hours before we have to head back and I’d rather we found the power source of the shield.”
Sam keeps her hand on her P-90 as she makes an initial sweep of the ground floor. “I don’t think the upper storey looks as stable,” she advises. “The stairs have rotted away as well.”
Teal’c bypasses her along with Cam. They move forward into the back half of the house, their booted feet oddly quiet on the floor, though it appears to be made from stone.
The house is also eerily silent and as she inspects the interconnecting rooms, she can see piles of what look like the remains of rotted furniture and absurdly enough; books, that are still sitting on a metal and glass table. She reaches out a tentative finger to touch one and is startled as it crumbles away to dust.
“It’s incredible,” Daniel says as he comes to stand next to her. “It’s as if they just all vanished overnight. This whole city is a kind of time capsule for a whole race of people.” He touches the table gently. “Anything organic is nearly gone but almost everything else remains.”
Sam shivers. The abandoned building reminds her of pictures she has seen of Pompeii. A whole city preserved by the ash of a cataclysmic volcano, but her people killed and scattered. She almost expects to come across the bones of people huddled together in their last moments.
“Colonel Carter, you should come and see this.” Teal’c hovers in the open archway to another room. “Cameron Mitchell is of the opinion you will know its function.”
She follows him through several narrow passageways to a chamber near the rear of the house. Cam is standing in front of a strange-looking metal apparatus that is mounted on the wall. He motions her forward and stands to one side.
She follows the twisting and convoluted tendrils of metal with her eye; it seems made expressly to house the box-like device which sits at the center. She dismisses the mounting as mainly decorative but appreciates the workmanship that must have gone into creating such a delicate looking thing.
The box intrigues her; there are seven white crystals arrayed in an arc above a square of black polished metal. She steps forward for an even closer look; the black metal looks almost liquid, as if it would swallow her hand if she touched it.
“What is it?”
“I have no idea.” She lets out the breath she has been unconsciously holding. “Maybe it’s some kind of central control panel for the house.”
“Well, I think we can put away the ‘primitive society protected by a further advanced race’ theory,” he says.
“Absolutely, whoever made this, made it in the same style as the architecture they favor. Look at all those sinuous lines and interlocking filaments, it’s the same as the bridge.”
“I sent Teal’c to check if any of the other houses have any,” Cam tells her, as he paces to the other side of the room to regard the device again from a distance.
“So, what did I miss?” Daniel enters the room and immediately notices the device, coming over to inspect it with an appraising eye.
Sam fills him in. “I think it might be some kind of regulator for energy in the house, then again it could be a communicator, I just don’t know. Won’t know really, until I can pull one apart and try to make it work.”
“Are you sure this one doesn’t work?”
She bites her lip. “Good point, after all Ancient technology is hardly unable to function, even after several millennia.”
She touches each of the crystals in order: nothing happens. She then tries different combinations to little effect. It isn’t until she brushes her fingertips across the black square of metal that the device suddenly hums to life. A liquid blue ripple appears in place of the square and the crystals light up, giving a soft ambient glow to the room.
They all step backwards; startled by the immediacy of the reaction the instrument has made to her touch.
Teal’c re-enters the room and eyes the glowing panel with cautious enthusiasm. “All of the houses I have inspected contain a similar device to this one,” he announces. “The metal surround differs but the central section remains the same.”
“What is it doing?” Daniel asks, leaning in to peer at the still rippling square. “You know what that looks like-”
“It’s not an event horizon,” Sam informs him, checking her own device’s display as she holds it nearer to the crystals, “even if it looks uncannily like one. It’s definitely drawing power from somewhere but I still have no idea what it is for.”
“Would it have something to do with the shield?”
“I’d say it’s unlikely, if every house has one. It’s probably something pretty universal like I said; either for communication or regulating power.”
“Well, we’ll make a note of it and get a team together to bring one back to the base camp later,” Cam says; reluctantly deciding to move on to their initial objective. “In the meantime we have a shield generator to locate.”
“Shouldn’t we turn it off?” Daniel asks.
Sam taps the shimmering square with her index finger and it shuts off, the glow winking out of existence in an instant. She pulls out her digital camera and takes several photos, recording every aspect of the device to study later at her leisure.
"Pillars Of The Sky" is set in my "Into The Black" 'verse, with the Black team from "Ripple Effect"
This is a Sam POV story, set some months after the invasion and destruction of Earth by the Ori. The Prometheus escaped with 526 people on board, and there are several thousand more people scattered throughout the universe, but overall it's pretty bleak looking for humanity.
It's apocafic - but LONG plotty action/adventure fic with an apocafic background.
This preview snippet occurs about 6000 words into the fic. The Prometheus has found a planet with evidence of a vast civilisation that now lies in ruins. One city appears to have a working shield and large power source, but the technology prevents them from beaming in close to the site.
O'Neill and Landry have ordered SG-1 (Cam, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel) to hike in on foot and investigate the ruins and try to find the power source of the shield and any other advanced technology that they can either trade or use against the Ori.
Currently this fic is in the 17,000 word range - and will probably settle in to maybe 30,000 overall. This is unbetaed and in the present tense (which I am still wavering on, believe it or not :P) And it will probably undergo substantial revision when I finish and get to the beta stage.
Enjoy!
**
As they climb past the tree line, Cam insists on a rest break to re-hydrate. Sam sips at the tepid water in her canteen, careful to ration it so it will last; there is no guarantee they will find a potable water source despite the streams that run through the valleys.
Teal’c and Daniel consult the aerial survey map together, pointing out areas of concern and discussing alternative routes should they be needed. She listens to them absently; if she tries hard enough she could almost think this was a routine mission but mostly she’s enjoying the way that they approach the problems together - just like old times.
Cam is seated on a large flat rock that is overgrown with some kind of lichen. He rests his elbows on his knees and traces a figure-eight in the loose shale with one booted foot. He consults his watch regularly; impatient to begin moving again but waits out the full ten minutes he has allotted for this rest period. She knows he’s being careful not to push them but she sees his relief at finally being able to do the job he has trained for; out of all of them he has taken the re-adjustment to their new life the hardest. He jumps to his feet as soon as the alarm on his watch beeps and they resume their slow ascent.
The crest of the ridge comes to a sharp point, almost like a razor’s edge cutting the sky. They can see the entire valley below them, the patchwork array of their tents laid out like a colorful carpet. Cam tugs at Sam’s sleeve and points to the other side; the descent to the ravine looks treacherous. It falls away in a sheer face of rock before resuming as a steep assemblage of tumbled boulders that continue down into the fog. He tosses a handful of pebbles over the side and they skitter against the rocks making faint sounds that echo briefly back to them.
The ruined city is shrouded in mists halfway up the opposing side of the ravine. It clings to the side of the cliff wall, like a limpet on a rock. She can make out several spires that glint in the sunlight and the faint pearlescent outline of the shield as it shimmers in the moving air.
She unclips her pack and begins to separate the ropes and harnesses from their other supplies. She leaves Cam to begin hammering in an anchor point so they can rappel down the rock face and readies the rest of the team, checking the fit of the climbing harnesses on Daniel and Teal’c. She has Teal’c check her own; turning around so he can tug at the woven mesh of the straps to make sure it is secured and snug against her body.
Cam clips himself into the rope, and disappears over the edge, rappelling down to the relative safety of a ledge far below. She waits for his signal before re-checking the belay device clipped to Daniel’s carabiner and waving him off.
She is the last to descend, rappelling downward in one smooth movement, rather than the more showy jumps that Cam prefers. She unclips herself at the bottom and looks back up to where the rope disappears to the anchor point.
‘That’s going to be hell on the way back,” she comments; her legs already aching from the climb. The thought of having to self-ascend that distance is unpleasant to say the least. But they have now covered more than half of the distance required to reach the city and there seems no sense in turning back now.
Cam regards the roiling mists with a wary eye, they linger on the slopes of the ravine, which is still shadowed from the sun; to continue blindly could be perilous - equally so to stay. He depresses the button on his radio to confer with General Landry but receives only static in reply.
“Must be the shield,” Sam says. “We kind of expected that radio communication would probably be a problem once we got closer.”
He consults with her, weighing their options until interrupted by a shout from Teal’c. Sam follows the line of his arm to where he is pointing.
Five hundred feet below them, a thin arcing bridge spans the ravine.
She pulls out her field binoculars and focuses them on the narrow structure. It’s hard to make out and appears as delicate and as insubstantial as a spider web strung with droplets of water. She studies its fine-spun fretwork with an admiring eye; it is the work of a superior engineer, an intricate network of braided cables of wire that suspend a narrow walkway. She claps Teal’c on the shoulder and congratulates him on his eagle eye.
Daniel has borrowed her binoculars and seems equally fascinated by the bridge. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he marvels.
Cam chivvies them along, eager to reach it and inspect it for himself.
Twenty feet above the platform where the first pylon of the bridge rests, they encounter steps. Daniel kneels and passes a reverent hand over the smooth surface of the stone.
“These were cut into the face of the rock itself and then capped with this white stone,” he tells them. “Look, no mortar was used but you still can’t get even a knife edge into the joins.” He pulls out his knife and demonstrates. “It’s absolutely amazing but why go to the bother with so few of them? This is hardly a convenient pathway if you have to climb all the way down here.”
“I think I can answer that for you.” Cam kicks at a few of the larger boulders that have obscured the pathway. “It looks like there may have been a landslide a fair while ago.”
“It makes sense,” Sam says. “They may even have cut a tunnel through the mountains to save having to cross through the pass.”
“Pity it’s not still there,” Cam muses, “but at least we can cross via the bridge, it’ll save us at least two or three hours; that is if it’s still structurally sound.” Leading the way, he strides down the wide and shallow steps that curve down toward the stone platform
Daniel reluctantly leaves his examination of the steps but takes a moment to scrawl some notes into one of his ever-present notebooks.
The bridge is even more impressive at a close distance; it arcs in a single span across the ravine and despite its seemingly insubstantial construction, is exceedingly stable. The woven cables re-enforce one another in an interlocking framework that gives the bridge a tensile strength that is carried across its entire length.
Sam approaches the anchoring pylon which towers above her head. “The whole thing seems to be made from some sort of alloyed metal, even the braided cables” she says, reaching out a hand to touch it.
“Wait!” Daniel exclaims. “There might be some sort of warding or guard, don’t touch it.”
She lowers her hand reluctantly. “There’re a few symbols that I can see here, on the right hand side.”
Daniel joins her, noting the strange flowing script that is chased into the metal.
“Can you make it out?” Cam asks.
“Give me a moment.” Daniel shoots him a half-annoyed glance and returns to looking over the writing. “It’s not any of the Goa’uld dialects but it seems to be based on Pahlavi: one of the ancient Persian scripts. See how there’s Aramaic elements preserved within the structure of the sentences?”
“I wouldn’t have a clue.” Sam grins at him.
“It’s a little bit like hieroglyphics. As well as having a phonetic component, some symbols are also ideograms, meaning they stand in for concepts or ideas.”
“So, any of it make sense then?” Cam asks again, clearly enjoys pushing Daniel’s buttons.
Daniel rolls his eyes. “Well, here and there. I can understand bits and pieces but not knowing anything about the culture that developed this system, I can hardly even make a guess as to what they regard as being symbolic.” Cam continues to stare at him in a way that reminds Daniel of Jack in his most persistent moments, he sighs. “So, to answer your question - no. I’d need at least a couple of days to go over it all and cross-reference the other artifacts.”
“So, gimme the Cliffs Notes version,” Cam gives a sly smile. “There’s nothing there that spells out ‘Danger, Will Robinson,’ is there?”
“Well, not implicitly, but-”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Cam cuts him off smoothly. “I want to check out this city.” He gingerly slides one foot forward until it rests on the metal surface of the bridge. “See, no instant death rays. I’d say our luck is looking good.” He glances back over his shoulder and winks at Daniel, who instantly glares back at him.
“Let’s go, then,” Sam urges them, keen to avoid any further needling discussion. She steps out onto the bridge and is momentarily assailed by a feeling of vulnerability. Although the bridge is a good two feet wide, she can still see the perilous drop to the bottom of the ravine. She knows she is safe, that she can’t fall but the wind that buffets against her gives the unnerving feeling of being pushed toward the edge of the path and almost certain death.
“You okay?” Daniel asks; a hand at her shoulder, concern on his face.
“I’m fine,” she assures him. “It’s just the wind.” She pulls herself together and forces herself to keep going. She concentrates on Cameron’s feet and the comforting presence of his back in front of her. She screens out all awareness of the chasm on either side of the narrow walkway and after a few minutes is able to look up at the city that is looming ahead of them.
Mist still clings to the buildings in places; the wind parts it from time to time making it translucent enough to make out details. It’s a city of stone and metal; the same alloy that made the bridge is wrought into fantastical spires and elaborate forms. She can see that the shield surrounding the city walls has not prevented the stone from crumbling in places and some areas look overgrown with gardens that have been left untended for millennia.
As they get closer she can see the shield a little better; it covers the city like a protective dome but seems to still allow organic materials through. It’s barely detectable most of the time but every now and then it flickers into existence. She observes several birds of prey fly through unharmed as they swoop down below her line of sight.
This phenomenon puzzles her, at first she had thought it was the nature of the shield itself; that it only appeared when triggered by attempts to breach it but now that she sees it close-up she’s not so sure. The shield seems erratic, almost as though its power source was failing or it was damaged and malfunctioning somehow.
She mentions her concerns to the team when they reach the other side of the ravine. Cam frowns, concern clear on his face. “Where is the power source located?”
“Deep within the city as far as I can tell, it’s probably deep underground and beneath the most fortified structure if it was used for defensive purposes,” she replies. “I can’t really get any good readings from outside the shield wall, there seems to be some kind of static that’s interfering with my instruments.”
“The Prometheus could not take a proper survey either,” Teal’c recalls. “Perhaps it is the shield itself that produces this interference.”
“That’s quite probable, Ancient shielding produces similar results,” she says, glancing at the small device in her hand. ‘I guess we won’t really know if we can get through it until we try. Disabling the shield might prove problematic though if we can’t.”
Teal’c walks up to the edge of the shield and puts out a cautious hand. The shield flashes briefly around him but doesn’t hinder him from moving forward.
“I have suffered no ill-effects from the encounter, Colonel Carter,” Teal’c says once he has crossed to the other side. “It also appears that the shield will allow our weapons entry as well.” He inclines his head toward his staff weapon.
“Well, I guess that answers that question.” Cam quips. “Maybe this shield was meant more for aerial defense. I’d like to see a standing army try to assault this place, it’d be next to impossible.”
“Maybe an energy weapon would do it,” Sam gives a significant look to Teal’c and he raises his staff weapon and fires it into the air at the shield. A shimmering wave ripples outwards as the blast is absorbed and dissipated into the shield.
A small frown creases Sam’s brow. The nature of the shield is even more puzzling as it had allowed the staff weapon through unchallenged but stopped an actual attack. It didn’t seem useful if the city could still be breached on foot. Although Cam had a good point about the defendable location it wasn’t entirely impossible to approach.
They walk to the gated entrance to the city. A watchtower stands on either side of the massive doors and smaller defensive posts run around the entire length of the wall. The roof of the tower on the left has caved in but the wall is still intact, it was solidly built; the outside sheer and polished smooth so as to offer no purchase to any assailant hoping to scale its heights.
The doors to the city are wide open. Daniel points out that historically this was how a similar fortress city on Earth would normally have appeared. The gates would only ever have been closed if the city was under siege or in times of disasters like plague or famine.
A great block of stone is set into the lintel of the gate, decorated with a frieze carved in relief. Sam can make out more of the same carving script that had adorned the metal pylon of the bridge. “What does it say?” she asks Daniel.
“It’s the name of the city,” he tells her. “It says ‘city under the sky’, or maybe ‘place that dwells beneath the firmament’, if you were to be more poetic about it.”
“What about the central symbol?” She points to the apex of the gateway. The carved sigil in question is two interlocking rings, one of which appears to be twisted in on itself. It reminds her of a Venn diagram.
“That, I’m not too sure about. It might be heraldic. Teal’c, you seen that before?”
Teal’c shades his eyes and studies the sigil. “I have not,” he states gravely. “It is not a symbol of the Goa’uld.”
**
They pass between the city walls and make their way down the main thoroughfare. The streets are paved with the same white stone that had capped the steps on the other side of the ravine but the joins here have been invaded by small stubborn plants whose roots have buckled the once even surface.
The whole city has an air of genteel decay, like the parlor of her great aunt’s house. It’s as though everything has been arranged just so and then left alone to the vagaries of time. She can see the faded beauty around her but instead of feeling nostalgia, all she can dredge up is a vague sense of melancholy.
‘Where to?” Cam looks to Sam for direction.
She consults her device again. “It’s still just static, I can’t make anything out. Maybe we need to get further away from the shield.”
“You sure you put batteries in that thing?” At her narrow eyed stare he holds up his hands in mock surrender.
“Maybe if we make our way to the main plaza and decide from there,” Daniel suggests.
“And which way would that be?”
“I’d say we should keep following this road and chances are we’ll come across it.”
“And I say I should climb the tower and have a look-see.” Cam bounds toward the base of the tower, one hand resting cautiously on his weapon. “Looks safe enough, I’ll point you the direction when I get to the top.” He disappears through the darkened entranceway with a wave of his hand.
Daniel trades glances with Sam. “You do remember this is a man, who gets lost driving to Colorado Springs on a regular basis, don’t you.”
She laughs. “I think he does it on purpose; just to keep you on your feet.”
“You know he rings me every time for directions. It’s like Jack never left isn’t it?”
“Sometimes,” she smiles, a little sadly but she brushes the thought aside. Daniel still notes it but she has a feeling he puts it down to his referring to home in the present tense.
Cam hollers from the top of the tower at them: “That way!” and waves his arm about like a lunatic.
“What? Mitchell, I can’t tell what you’re pointing at.” Daniel cups his hands around his mouth to yell back.
“It’s over there!”
Sam shakes her head and laughs, Teal’c also looks rather bemused.
“Did you see it?” Cam is so excited that he is almost hugging himself as he exits the tower.
“See what?” Sam indulges him.
“I pointed to it, it’s as clear as anything from up there.”
“So, which way then?” Daniel asks pointedly.
“Up the main road and then to the right.” Cam smiles as he admits this, earning a grin from Daniel. “And no ‘I told you so’ from you,” he warns. He takes the lead, hurrying past the crumbling buildings and ignoring Daniel’s protested requests to stop and examine some of the more interesting looking ones. “We’ll look at them if we have time on the way back,” he promises.
Even to her untrained eyes, the city seems extremely organized. The houses and buildings are arranged in neat rows and even through the tarnish of age, the decorative metal still gleams. It is incorporated into almost every element of the architecture; flowing organic lines that are spare and pleasing to the eye.
“We’re still in the fancy part of town,” Cam tells her, having fallen back to walk beside her. “The buildings up this way are mainly stone, but I could make out other parts of the city that have crumbled away into practically nothing.”
“They were probably tenement buildings made of wood,” Daniel says over his shoulder. “There’s an abundant supply of trees in the valleys and despite their strange appearance they burn just as well as the ones back home. They’d probably make good building material as well.”
“It’s remarkably preserved, if you’re right about it having been abandoned two thousand years ago,” Sam observes. “Even if it hadn’t been exposed to the natural elements, I think I would have expected it to be in a greater state of decay.”
“It’s odd,” Daniel agrees, “I can’t explain it, except to say it might be the materials and methods they used in construction. After all there are, were,” he corrects himself, “bridges and buildings built by the Romans that were still used in modern times.”
She nods, biting her lip thoughtfully. “I guess we’ve come across plenty of worlds where there is a high level of technology in some areas and they live relatively simply in others. The thing that bothers me the most is that there’s still nothing that would explain why they left, either.”
“So far, apart from the shield, there really hasn’t been anything that would point to this society being particularly advanced,” Cam points out.
“Perhaps advanced technology is hidden, Cameron Mitchell. Although I agree that it is strange to see this city abandoned,” Teal’c says evenly. “We should look into one of their dwelling places; as such a location may provide some of the answers which we seek.”
Daniel looks mildly triumphant at this and points out one of the larger buildings. “That one looks as good as any. It’s more intact than some of the others.” He mounts the steps and pushes at the door, which groans but gives way under steady pressure; swinging inwards.
Cam frowns slightly. “Keep it quick, then. We’ve got about three more hours before we have to head back and I’d rather we found the power source of the shield.”
Sam keeps her hand on her P-90 as she makes an initial sweep of the ground floor. “I don’t think the upper storey looks as stable,” she advises. “The stairs have rotted away as well.”
Teal’c bypasses her along with Cam. They move forward into the back half of the house, their booted feet oddly quiet on the floor, though it appears to be made from stone.
The house is also eerily silent and as she inspects the interconnecting rooms, she can see piles of what look like the remains of rotted furniture and absurdly enough; books, that are still sitting on a metal and glass table. She reaches out a tentative finger to touch one and is startled as it crumbles away to dust.
“It’s incredible,” Daniel says as he comes to stand next to her. “It’s as if they just all vanished overnight. This whole city is a kind of time capsule for a whole race of people.” He touches the table gently. “Anything organic is nearly gone but almost everything else remains.”
Sam shivers. The abandoned building reminds her of pictures she has seen of Pompeii. A whole city preserved by the ash of a cataclysmic volcano, but her people killed and scattered. She almost expects to come across the bones of people huddled together in their last moments.
“Colonel Carter, you should come and see this.” Teal’c hovers in the open archway to another room. “Cameron Mitchell is of the opinion you will know its function.”
She follows him through several narrow passageways to a chamber near the rear of the house. Cam is standing in front of a strange-looking metal apparatus that is mounted on the wall. He motions her forward and stands to one side.
She follows the twisting and convoluted tendrils of metal with her eye; it seems made expressly to house the box-like device which sits at the center. She dismisses the mounting as mainly decorative but appreciates the workmanship that must have gone into creating such a delicate looking thing.
The box intrigues her; there are seven white crystals arrayed in an arc above a square of black polished metal. She steps forward for an even closer look; the black metal looks almost liquid, as if it would swallow her hand if she touched it.
“What is it?”
“I have no idea.” She lets out the breath she has been unconsciously holding. “Maybe it’s some kind of central control panel for the house.”
“Well, I think we can put away the ‘primitive society protected by a further advanced race’ theory,” he says.
“Absolutely, whoever made this, made it in the same style as the architecture they favor. Look at all those sinuous lines and interlocking filaments, it’s the same as the bridge.”
“I sent Teal’c to check if any of the other houses have any,” Cam tells her, as he paces to the other side of the room to regard the device again from a distance.
“So, what did I miss?” Daniel enters the room and immediately notices the device, coming over to inspect it with an appraising eye.
Sam fills him in. “I think it might be some kind of regulator for energy in the house, then again it could be a communicator, I just don’t know. Won’t know really, until I can pull one apart and try to make it work.”
“Are you sure this one doesn’t work?”
She bites her lip. “Good point, after all Ancient technology is hardly unable to function, even after several millennia.”
She touches each of the crystals in order: nothing happens. She then tries different combinations to little effect. It isn’t until she brushes her fingertips across the black square of metal that the device suddenly hums to life. A liquid blue ripple appears in place of the square and the crystals light up, giving a soft ambient glow to the room.
They all step backwards; startled by the immediacy of the reaction the instrument has made to her touch.
Teal’c re-enters the room and eyes the glowing panel with cautious enthusiasm. “All of the houses I have inspected contain a similar device to this one,” he announces. “The metal surround differs but the central section remains the same.”
“What is it doing?” Daniel asks, leaning in to peer at the still rippling square. “You know what that looks like-”
“It’s not an event horizon,” Sam informs him, checking her own device’s display as she holds it nearer to the crystals, “even if it looks uncannily like one. It’s definitely drawing power from somewhere but I still have no idea what it is for.”
“Would it have something to do with the shield?”
“I’d say it’s unlikely, if every house has one. It’s probably something pretty universal like I said; either for communication or regulating power.”
“Well, we’ll make a note of it and get a team together to bring one back to the base camp later,” Cam says; reluctantly deciding to move on to their initial objective. “In the meantime we have a shield generator to locate.”
“Shouldn’t we turn it off?” Daniel asks.
Sam taps the shimmering square with her index finger and it shuts off, the glow winking out of existence in an instant. She pulls out her digital camera and takes several photos, recording every aspect of the device to study later at her leisure.