Read Online SG1-15 The Power Behind the Throne by Steven Savile - Free Book Online Page B

good”
    “Yes, sir,” she assured him. The suits were designed to cope with hostile environments. Minus ten was well within acceptable thresholds. Minus thirty would have been comfortable. Her vision began to clear as the temperature settled. The frost evaporated slowly, leaving only the ghosts of its lines on her visor.
    “Well that makes a change. So, ignoring Mister Frosty, what have we got?”
    Sam studied the scanner results. They weren’t what she had expected. She shook the scanner, as though that would fix what she was reading. It took her a moment to realize what was wrong with the numbers. She looked up from the handheld as though to contradict what the device was telling her; there was nothing out there but blasted terrain and scoured earth. The fact that the scanner had returned any vegetative results was curious to the point of being downright wrong.
    She narrowed the range of the search. Again the device returned its curious numbers.
    “This doesn’t make sense.”
    “Which means precisely?”
    “The scanner’s returning various chemical composites which, taken at face value, would suggest plant life, but look around you, sir...”
    “Did the heat fry the scanner?”
    “I don’t think so. Which means there’s enough vegetation to sustain life here, we just can’t see it.”
    “Which means we’re back to looking for the ‘old man’s eyes’,” O’Neill said.
    “And the only way we’re going to find them is to go for a walk, so eenie, meanie, miney or good old moe?” Jack pointed out the cardinals, north, south, east, west, and raised an eyebrow. “Which way do you want to go?”
    “Hey Moe,” Sam said, pointing what she assumed was west. There was a natural declivity cut into the ground that ran parallel to the distant mountains, as though a river had once run through it. Perhaps it had, before the sky started to burn and choked the life out of the planet.
    They shouldered their equipment and headed off along the dry riverbed, looking for the old man’s eyes. There were signs everywhere that this place hadn’t always been hell. The further along the dry gulch they walked the more relics of civilization they noticed. At first they were limited to a few warped metal girders sprouting out of the dirt like grotesque wild flowers. Sam scuffed her feet through the dusting of sand that had settled over the ground, half-expecting to find a layer of black asphalt beneath from the road they were walking along. The few reminders quickly became more as they moved away from the gate. Some of the stones had broken away to reveal the steel rebar in their guts.
    “Daniel,” she said.
    “I see it.”
    What looked like a needle of stone grew like an outcropping from the side of the valley. It was the lowest level of a building. The steel and glass had melted beneath the flaming sky but enough of the structure remained to betray its original purpose. It told them all they needed to know about the fall of Vasaveda. They were walking through a ruin where a town once stood. Sam closed her eyes, imagining for a moment that the circuits of her suit could somehow capture the residual energies of the long dead inhabitants. What would the dead say? Would they scream, aware of their downfall, or would they jibber and yammer on about the mundane stuff of the life that was no longer theirs? Or, worse, would their last words be locked on their lips? She shivered at the thought.
    “O’Neill,” Teal’c called out. Unlike the others, he had turned away from the detritus of civilization and was looking off to the south, seemingly fascinated by something he saw in the peaks of the black hills.
    “What is it, Teal’c?”
    “I do not believe the old man lies in this direction.”
    “And what makes you think that?”
    “There is much we cannot see from this angle, meaning that the old man is hidden from us, but if we stand there,” he gestured toward a slightly raised pedestal of red rock, “the rock formation