Jo Graham - Death Game

“What is it?” Ronon asked.

“That is what I am trying to ascertain,” Radek said. He craned his neck to see better. “The cables disappear into a solid stone wall? That does not make sense. Why would they go to such trouble? Drilling through stone is very difficult, and they have just fastened the cables to the ceiling elsewhere.”

Ronon came back. “Are we out of the cameras?”

Radek glanced down the hall. “Just barely. I do not think that one can see us.” He put his hands to the wall as far up as he could reach beneath the drilled hole. Yes. As he thought. “Ronon, put your hand to this wall and tell me what you feel.”

“Nothing,” Ronon said, running his hands over the uneven surface. “What am I supposed to feel?”

Radek took his other hand and put it to the wall three feet away, smiling. “Do you see?”

Ronon nodded cautiously, looking at the section of wall in front of him. “It’s not cold. The stone is cool over here.”

“Stone does not heat easily,” Radek said. In fact, the temperature in most deep caves stays around ten degrees Celsius year around. It does not vary much, away from the surface. It does not get much colder unless it is in a very intemperate climate, nor much warmer. But this section of wall… He ran his hands along it beneath the cables. This section of wall is warmer. It is not made of stone.

Ronon ran his hands over the surface. Claster painted to look like stone?â

We have found our door, Radek said. This is a false surface. What is beyond it I do not know, but something has been hidden.

The control room?

Possibly. Or a technical closet, which would be nearly as good. Radek looked at it speculatively. If it is a server closet or one where the camera cables attach to a power source, we are in business.

If it's the control room there could be Wraith in there, Ronon said, drawing his pistol. You get back around the corner.

What are you going to do? Radek asked.

If it is just plaster, I'm going to blast through it, Ronon said. So get back.

The water tossed Teyla, throwing her around and around like a leaf in a stream. She had thought that she could hold onto John, but that proved impossible. The strength of the water ripped their hands apart in seconds.

She had no idea how long she was underwater. It seemed forever, but it could hardly have been long, as her lungs had not yet begun to burn with the need to breathe. Suddenly there was nothing beneath her, no sides to the drain, and for a second there was the sickening feeling of falling. From how far up, she wondered? How far down?

And then she smacked the water full on her back, came up struggling. She kicked for the surface and gulped in a huge breath. Just one. And then John landed right on top of her.

She had a moment of panic, pressed beneath him, the shallow bottom of the pool scraping along her arm, pinned beneath his weight beneath the surface. Then he twisted, and she bounced up like a cork, the spray from the incoming freshet in her face.

What a ride! John said, and he was grinning as he tossed the water out of his eyes. Teyla had the momentary urge to slap him.

We did not do this for fun, Teyla snapped.

I take my fun where I can get it, he said.

She did not need to tread water. The pool only came up to the middle of her chest. Teyla looked around.

About five feet above her head the drain poured from the wall in a torrent of white water. Two other drains did the same to her right, one larger and one smaller than the one they had descended, presumably feeding from traps and settings in other parts of the maze. The pool they stood in was broad and shallow, with a grate covering a drain at the far end from which came mechanical sounds that were loud even over the flowing water resumably the pump which recycled the water through the system. The ceiling was high, perhaps thirty feet above, of natural stone. Dim emergency lights hung on cables, illuminating the room with fitful low fluorescents.

I do not see anything that looks like a terminal or a workstation,Teyla said, frowning.

He looked around too. Me neither, he said.

There were no banks of lights or panels, no screens or anything that looked like heavy equipment, just the drains in and out, and the loud sound of the pump that recirculated the water.

John pushed his sodden hair back out of his face and started wading toward the edge of the pool. The water wasn't as cold as it was further up, but it was still quite uncomfortable. It must be controlled from somewhere else, he said. after all, contestants must wash up in here occasionally still alive. He gave her a shrug replete with gallows humor.

We are alive, she said, clambering out of the pool as well. The air was cool but not chilled, little warmer perhaps than the caves above, but still far from comfortable when one was soaked and cold. And we need not fear we will suffocate here.â

That's true, John said, looking up at the vents in the wall far above. This room was lit and ventilated, even if it was rarely used.

Teyla sat down on the stone and tried to wring out her pants. The leg pocket had a soggy copy of Watership Down in it, and she hated that she had probably ruined it. He had brought it to her from Earth aboard the Daedalus only a few weeks ago, and said it was a story of his people that he had loved and thought she would enjoy. Perhaps it would dry. Perhaps all the pages would not stick together and the ink run as so many of the books she had seen did.

John paced around. There is a door, he said. Instead of the ordinary wooden ones they had encountered in the maze, this was a metal power door with no visible hardware on it, obviously meant to open electronically. John waved his hand over it and around it, but nothing happened.

Perhaps it is locked, Teyla said.

You are kidding! John grinned to take the sting out of it. Why don't you come over here and see if your Wraith gene opens doors the way the ATA gene does for me?

It never has before, Teyla said, but she came and tried anyway. The door remained stubbornly closed. It is lock mechanism, she said, examining the sides of the door. Perhaps this is meant to be opened from the outside.

If this is just a water treatment trap, probably, John said.

And now it is a trap for us, she said. I do not see any other way out. The vents were small and high in the wall, and no doubt the drain was only the cover on the pump that recycled the water. It would not actually lead anywhere.

He can't climb back up, John said thoughtfully. But there's got to be a way to get this door open.

While he considered the wall beside the door, Teyla walked around the edge of the pool. The larger of the other two drains that fed it was not entirely full to the top of the pipe, and the water was not running as hard. It flowed rather than erupted in the bubbles of white water under pressure. But she could not get a better look without getting back in the frigid pool.

Casting a glance at John still examining the door, she waded into the water. It was very cold. Knee deep. Waist deep. From there she could see up the pipe, even though it turned. There was a strange blue light, as though it were not far to a chamber lit electrically with colored lights, and she thought she could even see the end of the tunnel perhaps fifteen feet ahead at a gentle slope.

John! Teyla called. Come, look at this!”

He waded out to join her. “What?”

“Do you think that could be a way out?”

Wincing at the cold, he waded over to the end of the pipe. It ended just about at the level of his shoulders, definitely a curved pipe with a low gradient. The water splashed over his whole body as he put his hands on the pipe and pulled himself up, looking. It made her colder just looking at it.