STARGATE UNIVERSE: Air (5 page)

“We also know you are not currently employed and that your mother’s medical coverage is an ongoing issue.” Eli gave a shallow nod to that, thinking of the pile of bills back on the kitchen table. The staff HMO plan at the Fine Dine wasn’t exactly up to much. “We’re going to see that she gets the best care available while you’re gone,” Rush concluded.

Eli weighed the paper in his hand. It suddenly felt like it was made of lead. “How do I know this isn’t something freaky? Like, maybe you and that General guy drugged me, messed with my head?” He thought about his mother and something twisted in his chest. “Are you people for real?”

The other man nodded toward the window. “This is as real as it gets, Eli.”

He held up the papers. “And if I don’t sign? What? You erase my memory?”

“Something like that.” Rush smiled at him, and it wasn’t reassuring. “Let’s just say it’d be easier if you did sign it.”

Eli sighed and found the spot where his signature was supposed to go. He scrawled it in and handed the papers back to Rush, before looking down.

Abruptly, the state of his wardrobe became clear to him. He pulled at his pajama bottoms and gave Rush a sheepish glance. “Can I get some pants?”

CHAPTER TWO

Unnoticed by all but a very small percentage of the Earth’s population, the starship
George S. Hammond
left orbit, passing behind the far side of the moon before charging into the other-dimensional realm of hyperspace.

Eli had insisted on being allowed to watch it happen, despite pointed suggestions from Doctor Rush that he take “the whole space thing” one step at a time. Once he’d gotten past the kidnap-abduction bit, though, Eli was starting to warm to the idea of being chosen for something this cool. And the great thing was, he hadn’t had to get to it the hard way like the Air Force types he encountered around the ship, men and women who’d clearly footslogged and fought their way up to getting a posting aboard the
Hammond
, one of — so he’d been told — a handful of advanced interstellar spacecraft that were now in service protecting humanity from the dangers out there in the dark. Eli hadn’t gotten around to asking exactly what those dangers might be, because he wasn’t really sure he wanted to know.

He concentrated on the cool stuff. Watching the ship hit hyperdrive was incredible, as space melted away into a tunnel of blue-white energy and the speed of light shattered like glass. Somewhere, Albert Einstein was foaming at the mouth.

They didn’t let him wander all over the place, though. He had a small cabin to himself, and some USAF flunky had shown the foresight to have a bag of his clothes sent up before they broke orbit. He’d asked if he could see the bridge and they’d said no. When he asked one of the crew if they had a holodeck, the guy had nodded gravely and then given Eli directions that took him to the female washroom. It had been, in retrospect, a dumb question.

But it was still very cool. It was like that movie,
The Last Starfighter
. He’d been picked for his gamer prowess to help save the world. The secret dream of every player since someone dropped the first quarter on
Space Invaders
.

At least, he hoped it was that. On some level, he was still holding away the fear that at any moment, the walls would retract and he would find himself on some hidden camera show called
How Gullible Are You?

And just when he was wondering what he’d be doing all the way to planet whatever, Rush sat him down with what could only be described as a library of educational movies, which were not a lot different from the ones he remembered from fourth grade — only with the added complication of being Mega-Ultra Top Secret.

There was that line in
Star Wars
where Ben Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker that he’s taken his “first step into a larger world”. Eli understood exactly what he meant now, as the information films started to unfold, showing him stuff he’d never dreamed could be real. And it was clear that Old Obi-Wan had forgotten to mention that the first step was a real doozy.

On the screen, a bookish guy in spectacles walked through the concrete corridors of a military facility, the blunt Fifties nuclear-scare design mingled in with modern-day tech retrofitted over the top.

“
Hello,
” he began warmly, in the time-honored tradition of all educational film narrators, “
I’m Doctor Daniel Jackson…
”

“And you might remember me from such other instructional videos as ‘
Help! I was Abducted by the Air Force!
’ and ‘
Outer Space is Rad!
’” Eli laughed out loud at his own joke, disappointed that there was no-one else in the room to appreciate his wit.

Jackson was now standing in front of a big metal ring with a ramp leading up to it. “
Behind me is a Stargate. Found in Giza, Egypt in 1928, we now know it was originally built by an alien race who we call ‘the Ancients’, many millennia ago. Over the next few hours we’ll be touching on some of the things you need to know about this incredible technology and the universe of possibilities it has opened up for humanity
.”

The next few
hours
? First spaceships and now alien artifacts? Eli began to wonder what he’d agreed to when he signed that paperwork. “Probably should have actually
read
it first,” he told himself.

As the narrator went on, Eli’s attention became locked on the man’s explanations. The more he heard, the more he was sucked in. Jackson explained the nature of the 39 symbols around the curves of the Stargate, each representing constellations as seen from Earth, and how the device used a seven symbol address to open up an interstellar wormhole across the Milky Way, capable of sending people and objects hundreds of thousands of light-years in seconds. Forget the starships and hyperdrive; this was like a subway system for the whole galaxy.

“
The first six symbols lock down a point in space
,” continued Jackson, who never once seemed to lose enthusiasm for his subject, “
while the seventh represents the point of origin
.”

On the screen the chevrons around the ring flashed orange-red and locked in place. Eli wasn’t sure what he thought would happen next, but it certainly wasn’t a thunderous whoosh of noise and an explosive plume of what first seemed like liquid silver. His eyes bugged. “Whoa.”

“
An unstable energy vortex emerges from the gate and settles into the event horizon or ‘puddle’ as we like to call it
,” noted Jackson, with a grin. “
Later, it was discovered that using an eighth symbol would actually dial another galaxy, like the addition of the prefix numeral one to a long distance phone call
.”

Eli used his fingers to mime a phone at his ear. “Ring ring. Intergalactic Pizza, can I take your order, please?”

Each time he thought he’d seen all the recordings had to offer, Doctor Daniel Jackson reappeared with something else to tell him, but after a while Eli began to feel beaten up by the sheer volume of information that was being thrown at him, without even a moment’s pause to process it. He was like a boxer, slammed one too many times around the head, only here it was mind-busting ideas and the general level of sheer
you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me
that was wearing him down.

If crossing the gaps between galaxies wasn’t enough, Jackson was now talking about a
ninth
chevron that could take them still further, and some of the data Eli glimpsed on the screen seemed a lot like the code he’d cracked in the game. “
It is believed an unprecedented amount of power is required to reach the mysterious destination,
” said the scientist. “
Icarus Base was established on a planet discovered two years ago to have a uniquely powerful core made of a mineral called naquadria. The entire purpose of the project is to hopefully one day dial the nine chevron address found in the Ancient database.
”

Eli rocked back in his seat and buried his hands in his pockets, still trying to process it all. His fingers touched the worn plastic of his cell phone and he drew it out and looked at it. The device was totally useless to him, but he hadn’t been able to leave it in his cabin, as if on some level holding on to the stupid thing was keeping him connected to Earth, and to his mother. He closed his eyes and sighed.

Marion Wallace grabbed the phone off the kitchen wall after the second ring and held her breath. “Eli?”

“
Hey, Mom. How are you?
”

“Okay. Work was busy, as usual.” She stopped, catching herself before she launched into her regular daily round of bitching about her day at the Fine Dine and all the small indignities she suffered there. She missed not having Eli there to hear them out.

She thought about when she’d come home the day before, the day he missed the interview, and found a very polite young lady from the military waiting at the front door. She’d had some things to tell her, and a check for a large sum of money.

“Where are you?” Marion asked. At first she was afraid that Eli had done something wrong, maybe got mixed up with bad people in one of those game things of his. She’d heard on the news that terrorists used those chat-rooms and on-line games to meet and talk about hurting people. The polite young lady has assured her it was nothing like that, as she gathered up a bag of Eli’s stuff.

When he replied, there was a strange crackling echo around his voice, like you got when someone was making a transatlantic phone call. “
It’s top secret.
”

She heard the sadness in his voice. “Eli…”

“
I’m serious, Mom. I can’t tell you anything more than that. But don’t worry, I’m fine.
”

Marion sat on the kitchen stool, and for a moment she felt a terrible, incredible sense of distance from the voice on the other end of the line. “I don’t understand. Why couldn’t you at least tell me you were leaving? You just upped and went, no explanation….”

“
That was part of the deal,
” he said, and she knew he was keeping something back from her. “
I’m sorry, but did you get the letter from
— ”

“The Air Force, yes, I got it.” She nodded across the empty room. The letter was there on the kitchen table where she had put it after the polite young lady had left. It talked about ‘valuable contributions’ and ‘important work’ and ‘national security’. It talked about other things, too, without saying them. Paid doctor bills and cleared debts.

She sighed. Of all the options her son could have been looking at as a career, serving his country was not something Marion Wallace would ever have put on the list. She heard an odd rumble in the background. “Are you on a plane now? You sound like you’re in an airplane.”

For a moment, he betrayed a little excitement in his words. “
No, no. Trust me, it’s
nothing
like that. It’s intelligence work. What you can know is in the letter, but I want you to know that they’re going to look after you.
”

“You didn’t have to do this. I pushed you too hard to get a job.”

“
No, no, Mom… This is good. Really, it’s the kind of thing I always dreamed of. I know it’s going to take some getting used to, for both of us… But I just couldn’t say no.
”

Marion felt a stab of sadness and pushed it away before it dared to become the start of a sob. “Okay. Okay, Eli. I know you’ll do great. Just do your best.”

“
I’ll call you again soon,
” he said. “
Love you, Mom.
”

“
Love you too.
” His mother’s voice crackled and faded, and for a moment he couldn’t be sure if she had been crying. The channel cut and Eli put down the headset connected to the intercom in his cabin, and sat heavily on his bunk.

He sat there alone, watching the waves of hyperspace flash past the window in the steel wall, feeling every bit of the light-years of distance.

She rapped on the hatch with her knuckles, and from within came a distracted voice. “Come in.”

Entering the cramped visiting officer’s quarters, she saw Rush bent over a laptop and a scattering of papers, his attention buried deep in his work. Before she could speak, he gestured at a covered tray from the ship’s kitchen on a nearby shelf. “I’m done with that,” he said.

Her lips thinned. “I’ll be sure to have one of my crew square that away for you, doctor.”

Rush looked up in surprise. “Colonel Carter.” He recovered quickly and gave her a flat smile. “I’m sorry.” Immediately, he was closing the lid of the laptop. “What can I do for you?”

Carter kept a neutral expression on her face. “I didn’t have the chance to speak to you before we broke orbit. I wanted to check in before we reached Icarus Base.”

“I appreciate your interest, but I’m fine,” he replied. Rush nodded at the computer. “I’m sure you understand I have a lot of last-minute checks to go over…”

He was trying to dismiss her on her own ship; Carter resisted the urge to sit and folded her arms instead. In truth, she wasn’t really sure of her own motives in approaching Rush, but she felt like something needed to be said to the man. Carter had made no secret of her reservations about certain elements of Project Icarus from the get-go. “General O’Neill has given the
Hammond
clearance to remain in orbit for a few days after we drop you off. We’ll provide additional sensor coverage of the planetary core for your tests.”

“That’s not necessary,” Rush began.

“I disagree,” said Carter. “The
Hammond
has the most advanced and up-to-date sensor package in the fleet.”

Rush hesitated and then nodded. “No, you’re right, Colonel. Your help will be appreciated.” He smiled again. “Your input and experience is valuable.” He paused. “I know there have been some…concerns among certain members of the SGC about Project Icarus. I know that both yourself and Rodney McKay put forward alternate approaches for the ninth chevron venture.”

Carter’s option had involved the use of a staged naquadria-fusion energy source for the Stargate, while McKay had suggested constructing an artificial black hole using Lantean technology to provide the mammoth power needs. Sam still found it hard to accept that the IOA had, in the end, gone with what she saw as a more risky venture. The highly volatile core of planet P4X-351 was the cosmic equivalent of a powder keg awaiting a lit match, but the colonel suspected that political issues rather than scientific ones had been the driving force here, as both Sam and Rodney had earned the ire of the IOA in the past.