SeaQuest Lucas and the Lost City

Lucas and the Lost City By Mapu  
  
Rating: G  
  
Summary: Lucas sees something unusual and no one believes him.  
  
Disclaimer: SeaQuest belongs to Amblin and Universal Entertainment This is created for no other purpose than non-profit enjoyment. I own many things but most are intangible.  
  
For my sister... who could have been a great Tomb Raider.  
  
For five thousand years there had been absolute silence. Peace lay across the city like a blanket, covering it, and protecting it while it waited. Everything within remained exactly as it had been left. The gardens maintained and cared for, the city streets and walkways empty of traffic but in perfect repair, the tallest building ledge and spire immaculately clean and free from the accumulation of five thousand years of dust. The city took very good care of itself. It had to. They would come back, someday and it had to be ready. In patient silence, the city awaited the return of occupation. It had waited so long already, but it could wait longer still.  
  
A deep humming sounded though the gardens, slowly gathering in pitch and volume as it echoed across the city. Eventually the noise became an unbearable harmonic shriek. With a booming crack the silence fell again and all was as it had been before... almost. Where once there had been the view showing an unbroken dome of perfect blue sky and distant horizons, now there was a ragged tear revealing the dark shadows of a deep-ocean sea floor that lay beyond.  
  
***  
  
Lucas Wolenczak sat at the WSKRS station next to his friend Ortiz. Ostensibly he was being given advanced training in remote sensor functioning, but in reality he, and the entire bridge crew, knew he was serving a punishment sentence. Lucas glanced over Ortiz's shoulder toward his current nemesis seated at the central bridge station. Captain Nathan Bridger noticed and returned Lucas's scowl with a bland gaze of his own. After a few moments the captain raised an eyebrow questioningly and nodded his head toward the sensor station, motioning Lucas to return to his work. Lucas's frown deepened and his breath puffed out angrily, just barely containing a verbal outburst that he knew would land him in deeper trouble. Damn it. He did NOT have to take this. He should get up and leave, just let Bridger try to make him stay like some delinquent kid being kept back after school! But despite the mutinous thoughts racing through his mind he stayed at the station.  
  
Ortiz, obviously trying hard to keep the amused smile off his face waved his hand in front of Lucas's face to capture the teen's full attention.  
  
"I think now might be a good time to run a full sensor diagnostic on the WSKRS. How about you try and give that a go, Lucas. Unless you want me to help you, of course," Ortiz asked innocently  
  
"Miguel, I wrote that diagnostic... I know how to run it."  
  
"Well, good then! You won't need my guidance! I'm going to grab a coffee – want one?"  
  
Lucas began to protest the abandonment but caught the teasing smirk on the senior officer's face and knew it would do him no good at all. He shook his head, trying smile in return. It helped when he reminded himself that he wasn't mad at everyone – just the captain.  
  
"Yeah, thanks, can you make it a coke?"  
  
"Sure thing," Miguel clapped the younger man on the shoulder and stood up. "Captain, permission to leave my post?"  
  
"Granted, Lieutenant, and I'll have a black coffee, one sugar."  
  
***  
  
Lucas watched the sensor diagnostic splash it's data across the screen in long incomprehensible lists of numbers. Incomprehensible to most people, but Lucas was anything but "most people" and to him the stream of numbers made perfect sense. He watched the changing patterns of the data returned by each of the WSKRS as it cycled through the range of passive detection frequencies. So far everything was well within operational parameters. Finally the first test was complete. Then came the control and motion checks and finally each of the WSKRS would be taken off the standard log, pointed at an object on the sea floor and run through a diagnostic of their active transmission frequencies. Mother and Loner ran through without a hitch but it was during Junior's active test that it happened.  
  
Lucas had been staring, half asleep at Junior's camera view while it ran it's diagnostic. One moment he was watching a large boulder on the side of a sub-surface mountain slowly float past and the next Lucas found himself staring at a towering city. It was a city the likes of which Lucas had never seen before. Buildings and spires surrounded a large expanse of central parkland with a massive circular lake. Rising from the centre of the lake stood a huge pyramid. The pyramid dwarfed all the surrounding buildings except the equally tall obelisks that flanked it on each side. For a few seconds Lucas could do nothing but stare at the view in wonder, then the spell broke and he was in motion.  
  
"Captain!" Lucas cried, his fingers already tapping the commands that would put Junior's camera view onto the forward screen.  
  
The instant before the image appeared Junior completed it's diagnostic and the city vanished, replaced once again by the side of the sub-surface mountain. Captain Bridger, alerted by the urgency in Lucas's voice glanced up from his discussion with his XO to see a large mountain directly in the path of his vessel. Commander Jonathan Ford looking up saw the same and swore in horror.  
  
Nathan reacted instantly, punching the boat-wide communications button built into the arm of his station chair. "Emergency assent! All hands brace for assent!"  
  
The bridge crew followed the captain's orders to the letter with well- trained reaction times and before the captain had completed the crew warning the huge vessel bucked and began to rise steeply. Most of the crew who had been unfortunate enough to be standing, including commander Ford, found themselves sprawled on the deck as the sudden change in G-force hit them. The rest held on to their stations as hard as they could in order to keep their seats.  
  
The view on the centre screen didn't change, which confused Nathan for a moment. Then he noticed the small white printing in the top left of the display "WSKRS View."  
  
"Abort assent! Navigation, what's our depth?" he snapped out, barely containing his anger.  
  
"Passing through 1300 meters and rising, sir," the helmswoman reported.  
  
"Level us out at 800 meters."  
  
"Aye, sir"  
  
The captain turned to the operations station. "Commander Hitchcock, who ordered a WSKRS view?"  
  
Hesitating for a moment, Katie flickered an involuntary glance toward Lucas. "No one, sir. The view was transferred from the sensor station."  
  
Lucas felt the weight of the entire bridge crew's eyes fall on him but the heaviest by far was the burning, angry and hurt gaze of the captain.  
  
"I ... I-It was a city," he managed to stammer out at last.  
  
Nathan had been expecting any number of possible responses from the teenager, but "It was a city" had not been among them.  
  
"What?" he demanded.  
  
Ortiz arrived back on the bridge at that moment, the front of his uniform soaked and darkened by spilt coffee. The sensor chief flushed with embarrassment and made a vain attempt to straighten the stained fabric as the Captain glanced at his ruined uniform.  
  
Lucas moving out of the lieutenant's path to the sensor station tried again to explain. "On the WSKRS view. There was a city. It had a pyramid. I put it on the main screen but it vanished."  
  
Silence greeted his statement and Lucas knew there was no way anyone was ever going to believe him.  
  
"What happened to my WSKRS?" Ortiz asked confused.  
  
"Junior found a city," Lucas stated, not expecting to be believed but refusing to back down.  
  
"That's enough, Lucas!" Bridger snapped. "Go to your quarters and stay there."  
  
Lucas was outraged, and more than a little embarrassed. He glared at the captain. "What? You're sending me to my room? Are you kidding?"  
  
"No. Go now," the captain hissed.  
  
Lucas was stunned but he found himself already moving toward the bridge's clamshell doors. He knew the captain wasn't joking. He'd heard Bridger use that tone of voice before and knew the Captain was serious. Bridger always spoke softly when he was intensely angry.  
  
"Fine! But you're wrong; there is a city down here. I saw it."  
  
***  
  
Lucas stretched out on his bunk staring up at nothing, and thinking over the events on the bridge. The more he thought about it the angrier he became. The Captain didn't believe him. He was being treated like a disobedient child and not like a member of the crew. It wasn't Lucas's fault that the old man had over-reacted. If Katie, Miguel or anyone else had done the same thing as Lucas the entire vessel would be in the middle of the biggest find of the century ... or even the millennium. One thing was for certain; Bridger sure as hell wouldn't have sent any one else in the crew to their room. Lucas tried to imagine the captain facing down Commander Ford and then ordering him to go to his room. Not likely!  
  
Lucas lifted his arm, letting the filtered light from Darwin's aqua-tube play over his skin in rainbow-tinted patterns of light and shadow. The light was pretty. He sat up in shocked realization. Junior had been near the ocean floor, far from the surface, yet the pyramid city had been brightly lit with a clear blue sky like a summer afternoon. With annoyance Lucas realized that he'd most likely been wrong; what he had seen couldn't have been an undersea city. Subsurface cities didn't have horizons and skylines, just the latticed beams needed to support the dome. Could Junior somehow have picked up a transmission from somewhere else in the world? He HAD seen it of that he was certain, and since it existed Lucas could find it.  
  
He went to his computer, taking a moment to stretch the joins of his fingers like a concert pianist before he began his search. If a city as big, and of such obvious historical importance as the one he saw existed anywhere in the world Lucas knew he could find it, no matter how well hidden the information was. When it came to computers he really was a concert pianist.  
  
Several hours later a soft knock at his door interrupted him, and he turned to find Lt. Ortiz standing in the doorway.  
  
"Hey, Lucas, can I come in?"  
  
Lucas gave his friend a long measuring look. "Did Bridger send you?" he asked suspiciously.  
  
"No. I just got off shift and thought I'd come check that you were all right," Ortiz explained as he came in, and took a seat on the teenager's bunk.  
  
"Sorry, Miguel, and I'm ok."  
  
Miguel nodded. "Still, that was a pretty intense scene a while back. You sure?"  
  
"Why wouldn't I be fine? I didn't do anything wrong! I can't help it if the Captain overreacts," Lucas finished sullenly.  
  
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Miguel asked gently.  
  
"Why bother. I've already said it and no one believes me."  
  
"Yeah, but I missed most of it." Miguel insisted.  
  
"Well give it a few hours, it's probably all over the boat by now. There'll be seven different versions floating around by now and I bet I'm guilty in all of them," Lucas said, hunching down into his oversized jacket till it looked as though the material was about to swallow him whole.  
  
"So what's your version?"  
  
Lucas sighed. "Ok. I was running the diagnostics, like you told me to. One minute I'm staring at a boring rock and the next I'm seeing a city. I know it sounds crazy but it had a lake and a pyramid in the middle of it. By the time I get it up onto the central screen it's gone, and I'm looking at the same stupid rock again. Then all hell breaks loose and everyone blames me!"  
  
Miguel was quiet for a moment. "I don't think the captain blames you, Lucas. Everyone knows it was just a mistake."  
  
"That's just it, Miguel, it wasn't a mistake. I saw a city."  
  
"With a pyramid?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"Lucas, I hate to tell you this, but we are in the middle of the south pacific. A very long way away from Egypt."  
  
"I know that," Lucas said tiredly. It was becoming very obvious that Miguel didn't believe him either.  
  
"There aren't any pyramids around here," Miguel said carefully.  
  
"I know what I saw."  
  
"Lucas, don't you think..." Miguel began.  
  
"Miguel, can we just drop it? Please? I really don't want to talk about it anymore."  
  
Miguel sighed and nodded. "All right. I didn't come in here to talk to you about that anyway. I just came to see how you were. I guess I'll leave you alone now."  
  
Lucas nodded and watched his friend get ready to leave. Despite the fact that the older man hadn't believed his story Lucas had appreciated the company.  
  
"Hey, Miguel? Thanks," Lucas offered.  
  
Ortiz stopped at the hatchway and smiled. "No problem. See you for dinner later?"  
  
"I don't know. I'm kinda busy and the captain ordered me to stay," Lucas said petulantly.  
  
"Well if you're still in prison later, I'll smuggle you in some food," Ortiz promised before closing the door behind him.  
  
Lucas brooded over the conversation for a few moments. Ortiz had tried to understand but Lucas knew his friend didn't believe him. No one did.  
  
***  
  
"I know. I lost my temper with him," Nathan confessed.  
  
"Uh huh?"  
  
"Damn it, Kristin, someone could have been seriously hurt by a stunt like that!" Nathan grouched as quietly as he could. He didn't want to be overheard in a mess rapidly filling with alpha-shift crew seeking their evening meal.  
  
"I thought you said he was serious?" Kristin asked before taking a large bite out of her bread roll.  
  
"He was by then, but I think it might have started out as a joke."  
  
Kristin frowned and shook her head. "I don't think so, Nathan. You know how seriously Lucas takes his work on the bridge. I can't believe he'd jeopardize that for a practical joke."  
  
Nathan shrugged. "I have Ortiz searching through the WSKRS's logs. So far no cities, either with or without Egyptian pyramids. So it's either a joke or Lucas is having some interesting delusions."  
  
As soon as he said it Nathan began to consider the possibility. What Lucas claimed was clearly impossible but the boy had seemed so sincere. Perhaps there was a physical or psychological reason for this mess. Nathan hoped that would prove not to be the case but it would be better to have the boy checked out. From the expression on Kristin's face she was thinking something similar.  
  
"Perhaps you should give him a physical, just to be safe?" he asked, putting the shared thought into words.  
  
"Yes, I'll organise it for tomorrow," Kristin promised.  
  
Kristin played with her food, pushing items around on her plate with the back of her fork. "You know, I don't think it really is Lucas that has you so mad."  
  
Nathan sat back in his chair, knowing that if he asked he was going to regret it. "No? Then what do you think it is?"  
  
"Your pride," Kristin said simply.  
  
Nathan shook his head knowing he really, really should not ask this. "How do you figure that?"  
  
Kristin smiled. "You're disappointed in yourself for loosing control of the situation. Lucas was the catalyst for that, but in truth you are far more angry at yourself than him."  
  
"I don't know, right now I'm pretty angry at him," Nathan said, trying to maintain a stern face but finding it impossible to hold. He finally gave up and broke into a wide grin, which Kristin returned with a far prettier one.  
  
Nathan sighed in defeat. He'd known better than to ask. "You might be right. I looked up and saw what I thought was my boat in danger and I reacted instead of acting. It annoys me."  
  
"As I said; your pride."  
  
"I'm not the only one suffering from an excess of pride in this. If he'd just apologize instead of making up silly excuses we could get past this in a minute."  
  
"Lucas is a little arrogant on occasion, but, Nathan, you have to remember he's still a boy. I sometimes think that this crew depends on him to find the answers so often that they, and you, forget that he's a teenager not a trained Naval officer."  
  
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I don't think Lucas would let me forget it."  
  
Nathan and Kristin fell into a companionable silence while they finished their meals. They sat together long after the last of their coffee was cold and most of their fellow diners had left.  
  
"I guess I'd better go have a chat to Lucas, thanks for dinner and the advice," Nathan said, at last. He took Kristin's hand and gave it a quick thank you squeeze before leaving the table.  
  
"Good luck," Kristin called out after him.  
  
***  
  
It was official; there were no Internex listings of any city that remotely resembled the one he had seen. He turned his computer off and sat staring at the darkened screen for several minutes. He'd been so sure that he was going to find the evidence he needed that he had given no thought as to what he should do if he didn't find it. Not for a moment did Lucas doubt his skills. Any good hacker should have been able to find some kind of reference to that city and Lucas knew he was a very good hacker. If he couldn't find it then there was nothing to be found.  
  
It seemed that the only two entities on the planet that had seen it were himself and Junior. Lucas turned his computer back on and began a new search, this time through the sensor diagnostic logs that Junior had recorded.  
  
He was only a few minutes into the search when a sharp double rap sounded at his door. "Lucas?"  
  
Lucas turned to find Captain Bridger standing just outside his room balancing a tray with two steaming mugs on one hand.  
  
"I ran into Ortiz, he told me he'd brought you some dinner already," Bridger said coming into the room and setting the tray down onto a semi- cleared surface near Lucas's bed.  
  
"Even prisoners get fed," Lucas muttered.  
  
Nathan sighed, it seemed that Lucas wasn't planning on making this any easier for him. "Some even get late night snacks," the older man countered.  
  
The captain lifted one of the mugs from the tray and placed it in front of the teenager. After a moment's hesitation Lucas took the cup and tasted the hot chocolate. Nathan took the other cup and took a seat on the edge of the boy's bunk and took a sip of his coffee.  
  
"Do you want to tell me anything about what happened?" Nathan asked in as neutral a tone as he could manage.  
  
"I've already told you everything, and you don't believe me," Lucas said trying not to let the hurt he felt leak into his voice. It upset him that the captain didn't believe him. The distrust was far more painful than Lucas cared to think about.  
  
Nathan watched the teenager for a moment. It was becoming obvious that Lucas believed what he was saying; the boy just wasn't a good liar.  
  
"You really do think you saw a city, don't you?" Nathan asked more for himself.  
  
"I did see it," Lucas affirmed.  
  
"Just to be sure you're all right, I've asked Dr Westphalen to take a look at you..."  
  
"Great! So now I've gone from being a liar to being crazy?" Lucas asked, the hurt beginning to turn to anger.  
  
"I never said you were either,"Nathan stated.  
  
"So if I'm not a liar and I'm not a nut case and you don't believe me, what do you think I am?" Lucas demanded.  
  
"Mistaken, possibly confused," Nathan said in annoyance.  
  
"A Liar or a nut." Lucas slumped in his chair, his arms crossed defensively across his chest.  
  
Nathan felt himself loosing his hold on his temper again and took a moment to get back under control. Why was Lucas always so combative and why was it that he, who had the patience of a saint with anyone else, couldn't argue with a teenage boy for ten minutes without becoming enraged? It had been the same way with his son, Robert. Robert and Lucas were very different in almost every way but both of them shared the uncanny ability to get under Nathan's skin and raise his blood pressure to the boiling point.  
  
"Lucas, I haven't said that, or anything like it. Look at it from my point of view. If I had come to you with a story that just simply couldn't be true what would you do?"  
  
Lucas didn't answer and the silence stretched. The boy remained hunched in a sullen heap refusing to meet the captain's eyes until Nathan, finally giving up, got to his feet and left.  
  
"Get some rest, Lucas, we'll be heading to the Palmyra Atoll tomorrow."  
  
The hatch door clicked closed and Lucas was alone. "If you said it, I'd have believed you," Lucas said to the closed door.  
  
***  
  
Breakfast with Kristin was always a pleasurable affair for Nathan and the next morning was no different. Kristin had dressed casually in a pink Singlet-top with white leisure pants and a matching white jacket. Her hair drawn back and pilled up on the back of her head in a messy bun, a few ringlets escaping down the sides of her face. It was a style that Nathan thought suited her very nicely.  
  
"How was your chat with Lucas?" Kristin asked.  
  
Nathan groaned. "I'm not sure it could have been worse."  
  
"Oh dear, that bad?" Kristin commiserated.  
  
"No, on second thoughts I supposed it could have been worse... we could have tried a pistol duel at dawn and sold tickets."  
  
"Do you want to tell me about it?"  
  
"Yeah, but later. For now I just want to spend a quiet morning with you," Nathan said, relaxing and breathing in deeply the strong aroma of his coffee. Kristin seemed extraordinarily pleased by his comment, leaving Nathan to wonder what he'd said right but before he got the chance to ask, the insistent beeping of his PAL interrupted him.  
  
"Captain?"  
  
Nathan sighed and answered the call. "Yes, Mr. Ortiz?"  
  
"I... we've found something weird in Junior's sensor diagnostics."  
  
"How do you define weird, Lieutenant?" Nathan asked, trying to work out from Ortiz's cryptic description if the sensor chief had found something interesting enough to give up his breakfast for.  
  
"That's just it, sir, it's too strange. I have never seen anything like this, before. I'm not really sure how to interpret what we're seeing."  
  
Nathan groaned softly, lamenting the loss of his moment of quiet time. "I'll be right there," Nathan said closing the channel.  
  
Nathan turned his attention back to Kristin. "Looks like I'm needed. Want to come have a look a Ortiz's version of weird?"  
  
Kristin smiled. "I thought you'd never ask!"  
  
Nathan helped Kristin to her feet and followed her out. They arrived on the bridge to find most of the senior staff crowded around the WSKRS station behind Miguel, all staring at a displayed data pattern on the monitor. The group parted to let Nathan and Kristin in for a better view. Nathan stared at the screen showing two curved signals overlapping each other in a helix.  
  
"What am I looking at, Ortiz?" Nathan asked.  
  
"This is a signal mapping of Junior's active transmission test," Ortiz said excitedly.  
  
The data pattern meant nothing to Nathan and from the look on Kristin's face she was no wiser.  
  
"And?" Nathan prompted after a moment.  
  
"Oh, sorry, sir."  
  
Ortiz turned away from the monitor to give the captain his full attention. "We're looking at something that can't exist. There are two distinct sensor echoes here. They're perfectly in synch and oscillating at exactly 141.72MHz. Move just point two degrees off the band and one of the signals drops out." Ortiz motioned toward his station console. "I'm having the computer build a reconstruction from the data so we can see what the two signals really looked like," Ortiz finished sounding very much like a child being given a new toy for Christmas.  
  
"How long will the reconstruction take?" Nathan asked getting caught up by the possibility of a scientific discovery.  
  
Ortiz glanced down at another display and smiled. "About thirty seven seconds, Captain."  
  
"Well, it seems we do have something of a mystery. Mr O'Neil, have Lucas called to the bridge," Nathan instructed.  
  
Tim smiled, sketched the captain a half-hearted salute and made his way rapidly across the bridge to his own station.  
  
The next thirty seconds seemed to drag on forever and Nathan could feel the nervous tension building in the people around him as they too waited impatiently for the computer to finish its work. In the background he could hear O'Neil's clear, cultured voice paging Lucas over the PAL system.  
  
Finally Ortiz's computer emitted a single muted beep and the processing was completed. "On the central screen, if you would, Mr Ortiz," Nathan ordered.  
  
Two very hazy images appeared side by side on the central screen. The crude shapes in the images were rendered with light and dark scan bars but although neither image was clear, there was enough detail to make them out.  
  
The first image was a typical sub-surface landscape, full of uneven and randomly placed objects of all sizes but it was the second image that drew the attention of the entire bridge. Fuzzy but straight lines and sharp angles that could not possibly exist in nature showed in a pattern that Nathan could only describe as a city. Lucas had been right. He really had seen a city and right in the middle was unmistakeably a very large Egyptian pyramid.  
  
"It is. It's a city," Kristin whispered.  
  
"Ortiz, can you clean that up any more?" Nathan asked.  
  
"No, sir. But I'd be willing to bet Lucas could do something with it."  
  
"Hmm, yes, I'm sure he will."  
  
"Captain?" O'Neil interrupted from his station.  
  
Nathan turned away from the fascinating display to the communications officer.  
  
"Captain, I can't raise Lucas, he's not answering his PAL," O'Neil reported.  
  
Nathan frowned. Lucas was constantly forgetting to carry his PAL with him despite the number of times he had reminded the boy of its importance.  
  
"He's probably with Darwin. Have you tried calling the moon-pool?" Nathan suggested.  
  
"Yes, sir, I tried there. Darwin answered. He keeps saying that Lucas is gone; that a rock ate him. I've tried a ship-wide hail but he still hasn't answered."  
  
Nathan felt the first stirring of fear. Lucas was often stubborn and occasionally intentionally difficult but the teenager was never vindictive. If he'd heard the hail he would have answered it.  
  
***  
  
Nathan stretched both arms against the side of the moon-pool, his hands clenched tightly against the rim. He'd ordered a search of the boat for the missing teenager as soon as it had become apparent that Lucas wasn't going to answer the hail. The search had failed to reveal the teenager, but it did show up a missing sea-crab and a ten-minute gap in the launch bay surveillance records. The conclusion was as obvious as it was infuriating; Lucas had taken a sea-crab and left the boat.  
  
When Nathan had asked Darwin, the only witness to Lucas's disappearance, the dolphin had confirmed the story he'd already told Tim; Lucas was gone a rock had eaten him. Darwin was so distressed it had taken Nathan some time to make the dolphin understand that they were going to try to rescue Lucas and that they needed his help.  
  
Nathan swore softly but violently, Lucas had broken or ignored at least a dozen safety protocols by taking the sea-crab. The procedures and safety checks had been put in place to prevent stupid mistakes and save lives. Nathan again tried to dispel the shockingly graphic images from his mind. Visions of a young boy trapped in a crushed sea-crab, the cold ocean rushing in through a breach in the hull bruising and battering his body while it filled his nose and mouth. Drowning would be a dreadful death for Lucas and Nathan felt helpless to prevent it. The sea-crab had been missing for more than four hours; whatever had happened to Lucas had already happened. He'd told Darwin that they were going out to rescue Lucas but in his heart Nathan feared the mission would end up becoming a mission to recover the boy's body.  
  
"Captain, the rescue launch is prepped and ready to go. Dr. Westphalen is on her way," Ortiz reported.  
  
"Thank you, Ortiz, I'll be there shortly," Nathan replied.  
  
Ortiz's voice had sounded cool and efficient but Nathan knew the sensor chief felt the same sense of dread that he did. Of the three of them going on the rescue mission only Kristin believed they were going out after a living person. He and Ortiz had spent too many years as submariners, they both knew there were many ways for the careless to die under the ocean surface.  
  
Nathan slapped the surface of the moon-pool water, and watched as a sleek grey shape swam up toward him. Darwin's head broke the surface and the dolphin shot a fine mist of spray from his blowhole into the air.  
  
"Go now?" The vocoder translated the dolphin's clicks.  
  
"Yes, we're going out after Lucas now. You show us the rock that ate him. Meet us outside," Nathan instructed.  
  
Darwin splashed his head up and down energetically. "Go, go?"  
  
"Yes, Darwin, go!"  
  
Darwin needed no further prompting, performing a rolling turn the animal shot away through the connecting tube toward the open ocean. Nathan watched him go before heading for the rescue launch.  
  
It took Darwin more than an hour to guide the launch back to the place he'd last seen Lucas. The dolphin indicated the spot then swam close to the launch's windows to make sure the humans had understood him. Nathan hand signed his thanks and Darwin rolled away swimming toward the surface, presumably to take another breath. The rock face in front of them was very familiar to Nathan; he'd seen it on the bridge view screen at the start of the whole mess and then later as a much fuzzier image reconstructed from Junior's logs.  
  
Nathan was intensely relieved to see that no crushed sea-crabs lay on the sea floor, and he noticed similar relieved smiles, tinged with worry on the faces of his companions as well.  
  
"At least we know where he's not," Kristin said.  
  
"Yeah, but where did he go?" Ortiz asked.  
  
Nathan thought about it for a moment before answering. "Nowhere. Lucas came here and I don't think he's left yet. Mr Ortiz, fire up the directional transmitter," Nathan said nodding toward the rock face.  
  
Ortiz glanced through the forward windows and nodded his understanding. It only took a few minutes to configure the equipment and Ortiz began transmitting at the same frequency they had discovered in Junior's logs.  
  
A roughly circular section of rock face vanished and, just as Lucas had described it, a city took its place.  
  
"Is that some kind of hologram?" Ortiz asked.  
  
"No," Nathan breathed. "The rock face is."  
  
"I can't believe it, Lucas was right! It's really here," Ortiz said.  
  
"Ortiz, take us in a little closer, but don't come into contact with... whatever that is," Nathan ordered.  
  
The launch crept forward slowly and as they did the perspective changed; the city seemed to grow taller and more of the beach front directly ahead of them began to show.  
  
"It's like looking through a window," Kristin observed.  
  
At less than a hundred meters from the "window" they saw the first sign of the missing sea-crab.  
  
"Nathan...?" Kristin began worriedly.  
  
Below them, lying crumpled on the strange, waveless shore was the wreckage of a sea-crab.  
  
"All stop!" Nathan ordered, and the launch drifted to a stop.  
  
The wreckage was partially buried in the sand, its mechanical legs either crushed beneath it or twisted and splayed out beside it. The front of the vessel, where the cabin was located, was badly damaged and distinctly caved in.  
  
"It looks like it fell, like Ben's did," Ortiz said.  
  
Nathan glanced at his officer. "Ortiz?"  
  
Ortiz looked away from the wreckage. "Sorry, sir, I was just thinking that it looks a lot like the sea-crab Ben destroyed when he got caught and dumped by that Tsunami a few months back."  
  
Nathan looked back at the wreckage. "Hmm, yes it does."  
  
"Do you think he's still..." Kristin didn't need to finish; both her companions knew the next word was "alive". Nathan was glad she hadn't finished the question because he wasn't sure he wanted to think about the answer.  
  
"Captain, look!" Ortiz said excitedly.  
  
The view of the city had been growing gradually brighter as they had watched and with the increased light more and more detail had become visible. On the beach leading away from the wreckage and toward the city were tracks.  
  
"It looks like he got out," Ortiz said happily.  
  
Nathan shook his head. "Perhaps, or he may have been taken out. There are dozens of tracks down there."  
  
***  
  
"Mr. Ortiz, take us to the bottom, let's see if we can't turn this window into a door."  
  
"Aye, Captain," Ortiz answered.  
  
Miguel let the launch drift slowly toward the sea floor, and Nathan turned to begin manipulating the communications instruments at the station beside him.  
  
"What are you doing?" Kristin asked leaning over his shoulder for a better look.  
  
Nathan glanced up at her from his work. "Old trick; I'm adjusting the locator buoy so that we can use it as a probe."  
  
"Do I want to know where you learned how to do that?"  
  
Nathan smiled in memory. "No, probably not."  
  
"Captain, we're on the bottom," Ortiz reported as the launch settled.  
  
"Thank you, I'm almost done," Nathan said making the final adjustments to his probe. "There, that should do it."  
  
Nathan pressed of the buoy's release button and a small streak of silver flashed out from underneath the launch, headed for the opening. As the buoy passed through the boundary a flash of light momentarily obscured their view, and then they could see the buoy again on the beach beside the wreckage of the sea-crab. The buoy's delicate antenna array appeared undamaged even though it had stopped transmitting.  
  
"We lost the signal as it crossed over," Ortiz said.  
  
"I expected as much," Nathan admitted, encouraged by the fact that the buoy had suffered no visible damage in its passage. "All right, we're going in. Ortiz, can you land us on the beach so that the hatch clears the window but the engines stay wet? We may need to get out again in a hurry."  
  
Ortiz surveyed the approach with a critical eye. "No problems, Captain."  
  
"Then everybody strap in and let's go."  
  
The launch's crew tightened their restraints and Ortiz began his landing. The lieutenant put the craft down exactly as he'd promised. Then like the slap of a giant hand the small vessel lurched forward violently, digging deep furrows into the sand. As suddenly as it began the violent motion was over.  
  
"Is everyone all right?" Nathan asked, rubbing his whip lashed neck muscles and looking around at the rest of the group.  
  
Ortiz nodded and began checking his panel but Kristin closed her eyes and held her head for a moment.  
  
"Kristin?" Nathan asked concerned.  
  
"Kristin opened her eyes again and offered him a wane smile. "I'm all right, Nathan. It just took me by surprise."  
  
Nathan nodded his understanding and began undoing his restraints. "Well we've arrived. Let's go take a look. Ortiz, break out the stunners, we'll go armed for the moment."  
  
Ortiz went to the small weapon's locker at the rear of the cockpit while Kristin gathered together her medical gear. Nathan was left with nothing to do for the moment but review his decision to cross through the window. He knew the smarter thing would've been to have called back to the seaQuest for a full assessment team but it would have taken time. The sea-crab had obviously taken a dreadful hit; Lucas could be seriously hurt and in need of urgent help. So he'd rushed in. The only problem was that now if Lucas were hurt the only help they could give him would be Kristin's meagre medical supplies and her not inconsiderable skill. Nathan could only hope it would be enough.  
  
The three stepped out onto the golden sand and breathed the clean sweet air in deeply. The outside of the launch, still dripping salt water in thin rivulets, seemed to be undamaged, but the entire fuselage and engines were out of the water. Looking back through the window Nathan could see nothing but the gloom of the ocean only meters beyond the launch. It might as well have been a mile away.  
  
"It's going to be a job to get her refloated," Ortiz commented.  
  
"A job for later. First we find Lucas. I want everyone to stay together, that goes double for Lucas when we find him." Nathan ordered, marching the short distance to the downed sea-crab.  
  
Up close the amount of damage seemed worse; the sea-crab was a complete write-off and Nathan grew tensely afraid for the boy. He climbed into the cramped sea-crab cabin followed closely by an anxious Kristin. Lucas wasn't there; the cabin was empty. Everything inside was in disarray, anything that could have been removed was either gone or had been thoroughly rummaged through. The only sign left of the missing teenager was flaking brown stains on the restraint belts and across part of the pilot's console.  
  
"Dried blood," Kristin identified the stain. Fortunately there didn't seem to be too much of it.  
  
Nathan frowned; Lucas had only been gone a short time, less than seven hours. There wasn't enough time for his blood to have dried like that. Finding nothing else to give them a clue as to where or what had happened to Lucas, Kristin and Nathan rejoined Ortiz outside.  
  
"He's not here, we'll have to try in the city," Nathan said leading the group off.  
  
They found themselves on a wide, paved and tree lined thoroughfare leading directly toward the towering pyramid. The only sound they could hear came from the tread of their footsteps.  
  
"Where is everyone?" Kristin whispered.  
  
Nathan, unwilling to break the silence, slowly shook his head.  
  
Reaching the centre took far longer than Nathan would have guessed; the city was much larger than it looked but finally they reached a tall arched gate leading to a narrow bridge that spanned the lake and lead to what seemed to be an entrance to the pyramid itself. Nathan was so taken by the splendour of the near by pyramid and the massive obelisks surrounding it that he didn't notice the figure at first. Not until it moved.  
  
Lucas, wearing his habitual and somewhat dishevelled flannel jacket limped out from the deeply shaded interior of the gate.  
  
"So. You finally came," Lucas said, the malevolence in his voice palpable.  
  
***  
  
Nathan was overjoyed. He sprang forward, grasping Lucas by the shoulders and gathering the teenager into a rough hug. Lucas stood rigid and aloof in his arms, and when Nathan reluctantly released him the boy glared at him angrily.  
  
"Lucas, are you all right?" Nathan asked, feeling a confused mixture of relief and concern. Despite the teen's new limp and the blood they had found in the sea-crab the kid looked far better than Nathan had expected to find him. Was he always that thin?  
  
Lucas pulled himself away from Nathan's lingering touch. "What do you care?" he demanded coldly.  
  
"Lucas?" Nathan queried, trying again to reach out for the teenager.  
  
"Where were you? Why didn't you come for me?" Lucas demanded growing increasingly agitated by the second.  
  
"Lucas, calm down. We're here now. Come sit down and let Dr. Westphalen take a look at you," Nathan said, motioning Kristin to come forward. Kristin gently took Lucas's wrist and began to check him over.  
  
"No! I don't need a doctor anymore. You should have been here when it would have done me some good," Lucas shouted slapping Kristin's hands away.  
  
Nathan felt a flash of anger. Lucas being ill mannered with him he could handle but he drew the line when the boy showed that kind of disrespect to Kristin. "Lucas, stop this! I don't know what's got into you but calm down now," Nathan ordered.  
  
For a long moment Nathan met Lucas's wildly angry glare with his own uncompromising gaze and waited. Finally Lucas broke his stare and let his gaze drop to his feet.  
  
"Why don't you just go back to the seaQuest? I don't need or want you here anymore," Lucas said in the sullen tone that Nathan was far more familiar with.  
  
"We can't at the moment, the launch is beached, and when we do go back we'll be taking you with us," Nathan said.  
  
"What if I don't want to leave?" Lucas challenged.  
  
While he reigned in his rising temper Nathan had the chance to take a good at the teenager. Lucas was different; his normally carefully tended hair was scraggy and unkempt, as was the rest of his appearance. Dark rings encircled eyes that were fever bright and sunken deep into their socket. Lucas looked tired. Even the boy's shoes, which Nathan would have sworn were only a few weeks old looked worn out. A suspicion began to tickle the edge of Nathan's consciousness.  
  
"Lucas? How long have you been here?" Nathan asked quietly.  
  
Lucas sighed heavily and shrugged his bony shoulders. "I don't know. I lost count. A long time. I was in the sea-Crab, taking measurements so I could prove the city was real, but I got too close and then I was here."  
  
Nathan moved closer to the teenager and gently took the boy's chin in his hand, encouraging the younger man to again meet his gaze. "Kiddo, you've been missing from the seaQuest for a little over eight hours. We only found you gone a few hours ago."  
  
Lucas shook off Nathan's touch. "No, I've been here for months. Waiting for you!"  
  
Nathan shared a look with Kristin and Ortiz. "I don't know how to tell you this Lucas. What's been months for you has only been a few hours for us. We came as soon as we could."  
  
"I don't understand," Lucas said in confusion.  
  
"Neither do I, but I know it's only been a few hours for us," Nathan repeat.  
  
"But I've been here so long. Alone."  
  
This time when Nathan tried to embrace the teenager, Lucas momentarily allowed it without resistance. Then he pushed himself away from Nathan and turned away desperately trying to restrain the sobs that threatened to break free. Nathan gave the teenager the space he needed to get his emotions under control.  
  
From the brief hug he'd been allowed Nathan could tell how thin Lucas had become; he'd felt each individual rib clearly through the corse fabric of the boy's jacket.  
  
"Lucas, please, sit down and let Kristin look at you," Nathan begged.  
  
Lucas didn't answer but he nodded and limped to a nearby garden border and dropped down onto the wide stonework edge. Kristin followed him and took a seat beside the teenager to begin her examination. She had barely begun when she stopped and began rummaging through her pack. Wordlessly she handed Lucas a ration pack before picking up her equipment and resuming the examination. Lucas peeled the wrapper from the food and began to eat greedily.  
  
Ortiz stood a little way away from the group keeping a look out and giving Lucas and Kristin what little privacy he could. Nathan tried to do the same but couldn't stop himself from glancing back at the pair every few seconds. Finally Kristin seemed to have finished and started repacking her medical gear.  
  
"How is he?" Nathan asked the doctor a little anxiously.  
  
Kristin shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, a clear sign that she was concerned. "I'm not really sure. He has a badly healed break in his leg. I can fix that when we get him back to the seaQuest, its not causing him any pain at the moment. He has an intermediate case of malnutrition and a sever case of exhaustion, all of which I can treat here with proper food and rest."  
  
"I finally ran out of supplies a few days back. There are some breadfruit, I think, trees on the other side of the city but with my leg I couldn't climb up and get them," Lucas said a little defensively.  
  
"No one is blaming you, dear," Kristin said, rubbing the boy's arm in consolation.  
  
Lucas said nothing but he shot a brief, incomprehensible glance at Nathan. Nathan had no idea what to make of it and decided the safest course of action was to ignore it, besides he had the feeling Kristin wasn't finished yet.  
  
"Is there anything else, doctor?" Nathan asked.  
  
"Yes. Lucas's blood chemistry is way off. Far more than can be explained by the malnutrition and exhaustion alone, but without the proper facilities or any idea what has caused it I can't be sure exactly how to treat it."  
  
"Is it serious?" Lucas asked.  
  
"The sooner we can get you back to the seaQuest the sooner we can fix it. It will only become a problem if we leave it unchecked. You're fine for now," Kristin reassured him.  
  
Nathan was far from reassured; there was no telling how long it would take them to get the launch refloated and back through the portal, if they could. Lucas had already been suffering this imbalance for weeks.  
  
"Doctor, is there any way to tell how long he's been here?" Nathan asked.  
  
"You talk like I not here now," Lucas muttered.  
  
Kristin patted Lucas's arm and smiled sympathetically at Nathan, she understood Nathan's need to separate his personal feelings from the facts when called upon to make difficult decisions, but she could also see how the attitude could confuse and hurt Lucas.  
  
"It's hard to say, I'd guess at least five weeks, maybe six. It would take at least that long for his leg to have done the healing it shows," she said giving the question some thought.  
  
"That seems about right," Lucas added. "The light here changes on twelve hour cycles but it never gets dark. It's so gradual that it's really hard to notice it happening, and you can't tell at all when you're inside the temple anyway."  
  
Listening to Lucas speak with such confidence about the strange environment he found himself in, Nathan was again reminded how long the boy had been stranded here. Kristin seemed unwilling to release her hold on the boys arm as if fearing he might disappear again if she let go, and Ortiz just shook his head in astonishment.  
  
"How've you managed being alone here all that time?" Ortiz asked with deep respect.  
  
Lucas shrugged. "I've been busy, the temple is amazing. Besides I haven't really been alone, there are plenty of sentinels around to keep things interesting but they're not much company. They usually just zap you, fix whatever you broke and vanish."  
  
"What are sentinels?" Nathan asked warily.  
  
Lucas seemed confused. "What, you haven't run into them yet?"  
  
"No. What are they?" Nathan asked again.  
  
Lucas shrugged. "They're machines. They take care of the city. That's why it looks the way it does. Strange that you haven't met up with them yet, I just assumed you had. They were all over the sea-crab when I crashed, I don't think they liked me bleeding all over the place."  
  
"What did you mean by zap?" Ortiz asked.  
  
"If you don't get out of their way fast enough they'll just shoot an energy at you then drag you away. It doesn't hurt too much," Lucas added at the look of horror on Kristin's face.  
  
"An electric charge?" Kristin asked.  
  
"I don't know. It feels like an electric current but it's actually a kind of plasma. It seems to be the same power source for the entire city," Lucas explained.  
  
"Could these shocks be the cause of Lucas's blood imbalance?" Nathan asked.  
  
Kristin nodded. "Yes, very possibly."  
  
"All right then, we avoid contact with these sentinels till we know more about them," Nathan ordered.  
  
"We could go back to the temple, I haven't seen any in there at all. It's where I've been working anyway," Lucas offered.  
  
Nathan was curious. "Working on what?"  
  
For the first time since they had found him Lucas smiled. "Let me show you," he said.  
  
***  
  
Lucas guided the others back to the gatehouse where they'd first seen him and stepped inside. Nathan found the room cool and dry but with a slight musty scent, but where he had expected to see a gate leading out onto the bridge and the temple beyond Nathan saw nothing but a solid stone wall. Beside him Lucas stepped up to a narrow raised pedestal covered in hieroglyphs and tapped out a sequence. As soon as he'd finished Lucas walked past Nathan and continued without hesitation straight through the gate room's rear wall to vanish from sight. Kristin drew in a startled breath and Nathan scowled.  
  
"He could have warned us," the captain muttered, stepping up close to the wall. Tentatively Nathan reached out his hand to touch the surface, except that there was no surface, and his hand passed straight through the seemingly solid wall without resistance leaving only his suddenly truncated forearm visible. Taking a single large step forward Nathan abruptly found himself on the other side of the wall facing a very amused teenager.  
  
"Welcome to wonderland," Lucas greeted him sardonically.  
  
Nathan turned to look back the way he'd just come. He could see the gate room clearly. Kristin and Ortiz stood staring at each other for a moment until Ortiz made a motion indicating that the doctor should precede him. Kristin's look clearly informed them all of how she felt about the honour but she nevertheless took a step through the wall. Nathan greeted her with a smile and watched as Ortiz took a deep breath and followed his shipmates.  
  
The bridge, only a few meters wide was bordered by highly patterned iridescent lighting and Nathan bent to examine the patterns of light in more detail; Kristin on the other hand was more interested in the lake below them. The lake's placid surface reflected the surrounding buildings like a crystal clear mirror and just beyond the surface, the water teemed with fish and plant life.  
  
"This is fresh water," Kristin observed, having recognised several of the fish species.  
  
"Yeah," Lucas confirmed. "You can drink it but don't swim in it. The sentinels don't like that." Lucas's face clouded over in memory, then he turned and began the trek toward the pyramid.  
  
As they got close to the mammoth structure Nathan noticed that the bridge they were on vanished into a narrow recess in the pyramid's face. Nathan was struck by the sheer astonishing size of the structure. He also had an uncomfortable feeling that this was a place of immeasurable and unthinkable power. A place not intended for them.  
  
Nathan tried to shake away the sense of foreboding as he followed Lucas into the pyramid. Again the group was faced with a blank solid looking wall. Nathan tapped on the surface experimentally to find that it really was solid. Lucas once again went to a nearby raised pedestal and began tapping on the designs.  
  
"What are you doing?" Ortiz asked as he watched over his younger friend's shoulder.  
  
"Entry codes," Lucas explained. "This one will give us access to the room beyond. I'll show you how to work them. Only don't get them wrong."  
  
Ortiz grinned. "Let me guess, the sentinels don't like it, right?"  
  
Lucas returned the grin. "Good guess."  
  
"How did you work this all out?" Ortiz asked, more than a little impressed by the knowledge Lucas had amassed.  
  
Lucas shrugged. "I had plenty of time and I was lucky enough to have had a base set of hieroglyphs on my computer from when I was searching the Internex for this city. Most of the symbols are the same but there are a few differences that have made it an interesting learning experience."  
  
"I'll bet," Ortiz agreed.  
  
Lucas frowned. "This is easy, but I am having a bit of trouble decoding the machine."  
  
Nathan and Kristin wandering closer and had caught the last part of the conversation.  
  
"What machine?" Nathan asked.  
  
"That's what I want to show you," Lucas said with a smirk, and evading the question.  
  
Lucas beckoned the others to follow him as he walked through the rear wall. As Nathan began to follow him he caught Ortiz mutter. "This is going to take some getting used to."  
  
Nathan heard Kristin gasp as she crossed into the room behind him and it wasn't until she'd bumped into him that he realised he'd stopped walking. What Lucas had so casually referred to as "the machine" was the most terrifying and astounding sight Nathan had ever seen in his life. A thought came unbidden into Nathan's mind. "No human made this."  
  
The room Nathan found himself in appeared to take up the entire interior of the pyramid, and a single device occupied much of that space. Four bars of what appeared to be pure energy pulsed upward forming a second pyramid, this one made of light, which framed the machine within. At the top of the pyramid of light a solid beam of energy transferred to the apex of the real building. Patterns of energy, much like Nathan had seen bordering the walkway, then cascaded down the sides of the building to vanish into thousands of conduits.  
  
Ahead Lucas stood watching the reactions of the others with a soft smile. "This is it. This is the machine. It's pretty cool huh?"  
  
Nathan was speechless. He could think of quiet a few words that he could use to try describe what he saw but "cool" wasn't among them. It worried Nathan a little that Lucas seemed to show so little resect to his surroundings. The teenager stood perilously close to the machine, leaning casually against what seemed to be a control panel. Massive components swung dangerously close to the boy's back but Lucas ignored them, a slight smile on his face as though he stood in front of a model train set instead of an unidentified mechanism.  
  
"What does it do?" Kristin breathed.  
  
Lucas shrugged. "The lower levels are definitely the power source," Lucas said pointing over the edge behind him, his voice echoing slightly. It was then that Nathan realised that they stood on a platform and that the machine also extended far blow them.  
  
"I'm not really sure what all the rest of this does," Lucas said, with a sweep of his arm taking in the rest of the machinery. "I've been trying to interpret it but haven't finished yet. I think I'm close though."  
  
"Not anymore you're not. You leave that thing alone until we know what we're dealing with," Nathan reprimanded.  
  
The amount of raw power that fed into... whatever it was, inspired enough respect to make the scientist in him careful. Not so the younger man, Lucas's lack of caution was something Nathan intended to change.  
  
"But Captain! I've been working on this machine for weeks. I've been sleeping here too," Lucas protested, pointing toward the messy pile of bedding near the wall. "Nothing has happened. It's safe here. The sentinels don't even come in here."  
  
"That alone is a reason to be careful. Lucas, I'm not asking, I'm telling you. Leave it alone."  
  
Lucas appeared as though he would have liked to argue the point more but he wisely held quiet.  
  
Nathan softened his voice and tried a more conciliatory approach. "The doctor says you need rest, and that's what you're going to do. We can discuss other maters later."  
  
When he was sure there weren't going to be any more protests Nathan turned to the rest of the group. "This does seem to be the safest place for the moment. So, Kristin and I will go back to the launch and gather up as many supplies as we can and bring them back here. Ortiz you get guard duty," Nathan ordered, then turned back to the teenager and poked his finger lightly into the boy's chest. "You show us how to work the gates and then you hit the sack. Got it?"  
  
"Yeah, I got it."  
  
***  
  
Unlike the first time, when he'd been terrified he'd find Lucas's broken body at every corner, Nathan found this second walk through the deserted city far more pleasant. The city had an ethereal beauty and everything about it seemed restful but Nathan found he couldn't completely relax, instincts that he'd learned to trust told him there was danger here. The city was not safe.  
  
He and Kristin had covered most of the distance in companionable silence and Nathan had managed to work though a great deal of his residual anxiety over Lucas's disappearance. Finding the kid alive and reasonably well had helped, but he was having a little more trouble with his irritation levels. Since they'd caught up with him Lucas had seemed determined to do everything he could to annoy Nathan. "I just wish I knew what was bugging the kid."  
  
"It could be because you weren't there to protect him," Kristin supplied in a thoughtful tone and Nathan realized he must have spoken his thought aloud.  
  
"That's not my fault," Nathan said defensively.  
  
Kristin gave Nathan a small supporting smile. "I know that, and so does Lucas. He's just feeling a bit neglected from all the time he's spent here alone. He just needs a little time."  
  
"I'll give him a little time, but Kristin, he has to take some responsibility for what's happened. He was the one that ran off, with no clear idea what he was doing and then accidentally got himself stranded here. He has acted irresponsibly."  
  
Kristin nodded sagely. "Unlike ourselves, who planned in advance, very responsible, and then got stranded here on purpose," Kristin teased.  
  
Nathan took the bait and smiled. "Exactly!"  
  
The pair crested the last rise before the beachfront where the launch lay and began the walk down the other side. Nathan grabbed Kristin's arm and pulled her roughly down onto the sand behind a nearby rock. Behind the launch the movement that Nathan had noticed became clearer and from their protective concealment Kristin and Nathan watched as a spider-like machine appeared.  
  
A sentinel.  
  
The machine was well over eight feet tall with a cylindrical body held vertically in the centre of its many leg-like appendages. They watched the machine as it made several slow laps around the launch. "It's guarding it," Kristin whispered.  
  
"Yeah, from us. Let's get back, we'll find another way," Nathan urged, leading Kristin back the way they had come.  
  
"I'm beginning to like this place less and less," Kristin said following.  
  
***  
  
Lucas stared defiantly at Ortiz, daring the older man to order him to rest. Ortiz returned the glare with a sardonic half-grin. Just before leaving the captain had taken Ortiz aside, out of earshot of the teenager, and given him several low-voiced orders. Lucas had no doubt the instructions were about him. Lucas was sure the captain had ordered Miguel to get him to sleep.  
  
In truth he was exhausted but he refused to be treated like a child. He'd been taking care of himself for a long time he didn't need either the captain or Miguel telling him when it was his bedtime. "You can't make me do anything," he said.  
  
"No, probably not," Ortiz shrugged. "But would it really hurt to rest for a while?"  
  
Lucas fumed and didn't answer.  
  
"Look, Lucas, I'm your friend. I'll make a deal with you. How about we both sit and talk for a while. If you don't feel like resting after that then fine, don't. Deal?"  
  
Lucas rolled his eyes and all but threw himself onto the makeshift bedding. He leaned back against the wall, stretching out his legs and crossing his hands over his chest. Ortiz took up a spot next to him and settled down with a sigh.  
  
The silence stretched uncomfortably between them for a while before Ortiz spoke. "So, what do you do for fun around here?"  
  
Lucas turned his head to stare at his friend. "I work on the machine. Bridger ordered you to keep me away from it. Didn't he?" Lucas challenged.  
  
"Yeah. He has his reasons, Lucas. He's worried about you."  
  
"He doesn't look worried to me."  
  
"Really? I don't think I've ever seen the captain so scared," Ortiz disagreed.  
  
Lucas harrumphed. "Nothing frightens him."  
  
"You did... when you vanished."  
  
"Then why is he so mad at me all the time. I didn't get stuck here on purpose you know? He's not happy to see me, he's pissed at me."  
  
"Nah, I've seen him pissed. This is not pissed," Ortiz snorted.  
  
Despite himself, Lucas was curious. "What happened?" he asked.  
  
"I don't know. I didn't hang around. You'll have to ask Kreig."  
  
Lucas laughed. "Ben probably is the expert on the Captain's temper," Lucas agreed. He grew serious. "I'm just the expert in disappointing him."  
  
Ortiz nearly choked. "No way, never happen!"  
  
Lucas didn't respond, he just tilted his head back to rest it against the wall and closed his tired eyes. "That's not how I see it," he muttered softly.  
  
"No, maybe not. But I do know he cares for you, every bit as much as you do."  
  
Lucas didn't hear it; he'd fallen asleep. Ortiz waited until the boy was resting deeply before he moved him from his awkward sitting position into a more comfortable looking one on the matting. Standing and keeping watch over the sleeping teenager Ortiz began to wait with only the faint hiss of the giant machine for company.  
  
***  
  
"He's asleep," Ortiz reported as soon as Nathan and Kristin stepped through the gate into the machine room.  
  
Nathan crossed to the boy sprawled on the bedding and knelt beside him. Gently Nathan cleared a few locks of tousled hair from the boy's face and listened to the soft regular breaths. Lucas seemed to be sleeping peacefully, his face loosing its nearly constant scowl, softening its appearance. Nathan was reminded how very young the teenager was. Realizing it was a little cool in the cavernous room Nathan stripped off his jacket and gently laid it over Lucas's sleeping form. Lucas squirmed, and instinctively snuggled deeper into the oversized coat.  
  
Nathan stood and walked back to Ortiz who had been studiously ignoring Nathan's treatment of Lucas in an effort to offer his captain a little seclusion in the open area.  
  
"How are you climbing skills, Lieutenant?"  
  
"Captain?"  
  
Nathan smiled at the confusion on the junior officer's face. "We ran into one of Lucas's sentinels and couldn't get the supplies from the launch. So you and I are going to do a little grocery shopping in that orchard Lucas mentioned."  
  
Ortiz's dismay was almost palpable. "And I will need to know how to climb. Sir, wouldn't the job be better suited to some one who'd spent years on an island, living off coconuts?"  
  
"Yes, but rank has it privileges, Lieutenant."  
  
"I see, sir," Ortiz sighed.  
  
Kristin laughed. "Just be careful, I already have one broken bone to look after when we get back. I don't need another."  
  
Nathan seized Kristin's hands for a brief squeeze. "Don't worry. We won't be long."  
  
***  
  
The walk out to the plantation took the better part of two hours and Nathan began to feel the first hint of exhaustion. It had been a very long day. Thousands of well-tended trees stood, laden with fruit, in no discernable columns but Nathan had the feeling that the placement of each tree was deliberate and exact. He was willing to bet that from the air the entire garden would have a visible design, but for the moment he wasn't interested in the art – just the fruit.  
  
Nathan gestured Ortiz to a nearby tree, and the younger man nodded, squared his shoulders and began to climb. It took Ortiz a few attempts before he had any success and Nathan had to bite off the impulse to give him a few pointers. Ortiz would work it out himself. At last a heavily breathing Ortiz had made it to the top of one of the palms. Hanging on with one hand Ortiz reached out with the other and began to pick the fruit and toss them down to Nathan to pack away.  
  
Ortiz quickly got the hang of picking the fruit and Nathan soon had two bulging packs full of fruit, plenty to last them some time.  
  
"Ortiz, that's enough you can come down now," Nathan called up to the other.  
  
"Hang on, Captain, I just want to get this last one," Ortiz replied.  
  
Nathan watched as Ortiz stretched out to cup a large ripe fruit at the very limit of his reach. Just as the sensor chief got a grip on the fruit with one hand his grip on the tree trunk began to slip. Abandoning the fruit, Ortiz clutched at the trunk with both hands. His actions saved himself from falling but nothing could save the fruit from the same fate. It toppled from the tree to splatter in messy blobs all over the ground and Nathan's pants leg.  
  
Ortiz looked mortified. "Oh, I'm sorry, Captain."  
  
Nathan was about to tell him not to worry about it when he heard a high- pitched whistle. Not more than three meters from the base of the tree stood a sentinel appeared. Its sudden arrival took Nathan by surprise, he hadn't seen it approach and he had no idea from which direction it had come.  
  
The sentinel retracted itself close to the ground scanning the mess the dropped fruit had made then it rose to it's full height and scanned the tree Ortiz clung to. A series of high tones sounded from the machine and it paused for a few seconds, to Nathan the beeps and squeals reminded him of Darwin's non-translated speech. Then without warning a short appendage extended from the central body of the sentinel and a ball of blue fire shot from it.  
  
Nathan pulled out his weapon, but fast as he'd been to draw it, he wasn't fast enough to prevent the blot from hitting Ortiz squarely in the back. Ortiz let out a small cry and fell from the tree, unconscious before he hit and crumpled to the ground.  
  
The sentinel spun toward Nathan, its weapon still extended and ready to fire. Nathan fired first. A full powered blast caught the sentinel flinging it backward into a nearby tree. Smoke leaked from several places in the mechanism and several of the legs flailed about for a few seconds. Nathan slowly approached keeping his weapon trained on the sentinel. It didn't look to be a threat anymore. Carefully moving around it Nathan made his way toward the downed Ortiz.  
  
From behind him Nathan heard a faint whistle and spun around. A flash of blue hit him in the chest and a blinding pain bloomed through every nerve ending in his body. Lucas had lied, being zapped by a sentinel hurt a great deal. He felt himself falling as darkness closed around him.  
  
"Stupid! Always protect your flank," he had time to think before the darkness took him.  
  
***  
  
"Nathan! Nathan wake up!"  
  
The words seemed to come to Nathan from a great distance and he was so tired that it seemed it really couldn't be that important. Perhaps if he just ignored them whoever was calling would give up and go away. The plan appeared to be working and the voice faded out.  
  
A stinging pain flared on Nathan's cheek and his eyes flew open. I'm awake, he realized.  
  
Kristin's face etched with worry and framed by a cloud of her warm honey- coloured hair hovered over him, and even though his body felt like it had barely survived a hit by a small truck he decided that he wouldn't mind waking up to the same view again. He smiled a little as his imagination supplied him with flashes of future mornings with Kristin gently waking him. Although she had slapped him awake this time it was still a pleasant thought.  
  
Hang on? She slapped him? Why did she do that?  
  
"Was that really necessary?" he asked, reaching up to gently probe the still smarting cheek. Kristin didn't pull her punches.  
  
"Yes. Now get up. I need to help Ortiz," Kristin ordered.  
  
The momentary confusion cleared from Nathan's mind and he sat up. He found he had been lying in an open grassy area some distance from the orchard. Nathan looked down at Ortiz who lay still and silently beside him, and noticed that care had been taken to arrange the younger man's limbs neatly by his side. Nathan also noticed, with some relief, that the Lieutenant's side arm remained untouched and still in its holster. It was the only weapon they had left.  
  
The memory of the sudden violent attack in the orchard was clear in Nathan's mind and he could recall all too well the sicking sound of Ortiz's body thumping to the ground from his fall. The other man was sure to have some injuries.  
  
"How is he?" Nathan asked.  
  
"A couple of cracked ribs, a broken clavicle and a hell of a lot of bruising. He'll be all right," Kristin told him as she gently tended her patient.  
  
Anger at the injury gathered in her face and she turned to storm at Nathan. "I thought you said you'd be careful. You promised no broken bones, remember?"  
  
Nathan shrugged under the reproach. "We were careful, just not careful enough. Ran afoul of one of Lucas's sentinels."  
  
Suddenly Nathan realized that the teenager wasn't nearby.  
  
"Where's Lucas?" he asked.  
  
"He was still sleeping when I came looking for you. I left him a note and let him rest," Kristin murmured, distracted by her examination.  
  
Nathan nodded and looked around toward the plantation, there was something he wanted to look into. "Will you be all right for a moment? I need to check something."  
  
Kristin nodded. "We'll be fine," she assured absently as she rotated the unconscious Ortiz's shoulder. Nathan winced and felt a surge of relief that Ortiz was oblivious to what would no doubt otherwise be an exceptionally painful experience.  
  
***  
  
Only the fact that the trees show signs of a recent harvest gave evidence that Nathan was in the same place where the attack had happened. Of the fight itself there was no trace remained. The damaged sentinel was gone, along with the packs of fruit they had picked and Nathan's lost weapon. Even the dropped fruit had been removed and its splatters cleaned from the grass and nearby tree trunks.  
  
The plantation appeared peaceful and undisturbed and Nathan found the serenity after the recent violence a little unnerving, but he at least had a few answers.  
  
Nathan made it back in time to see Kristin helping Ortiz to sit up. The injured officer now had his right arm immobilized in a sling to take the pressure of his hurt shoulder and was gazing about himself blearily. Ortiz reached up with his good hand and gently rubbed his cheek, Nathan quirked a smile at the gesture guessing that Kristin had also used a slap as a wake up method on her other patient.  
  
"The packs are gone," Nathan said meeting Ortiz's eyes.  
  
Ortiz sighed in disappointment. "All this for nothing?"  
  
"No," Nathan said firmly. "We did learn a few things."  
  
Kristin raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Such as?"  
  
Nathan smiled. "We learnt how to annoy the sentinels, but we also found out we can disable them," Nathan explained.  
  
"We did?" Ortiz asked.  
  
"Yes, Let's get back to Lucas and I'll tell you all about the part you missed."  
  
He and Kristin helped Ortiz to his feet and began the long walk back to the pyramid. Nathan had a splitting headache, one of his people injured and they had lost their hard won supplies but still found a grin form on his face. A plan for escape was beginning to take shape, there were just a few details left to work out; details he needed Lucas's help with.  
  
***  
  
Lucas woke alone.  
  
"Ortiz?" he called out into the cavernous room. There was no reply.  
  
"Miguel, are you here?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Captain... Kristin?"  
  
No one answered. For a terrible second Lucas thought the captain and the others had gone and left him behind but he realized the captain would never do that, no matter how angry he was with him. Lucas slowly got to his feet and as he did he discovered the note attached to his shirt. He plucked it off and read it.  
  
"Nathan and Ortiz went to the orchard. They are overdue and I've gone after them. Don't worry. Eat something. Kristin."  
  
Lucas was a little confused; he wasn't sure what Ortiz and the captain were doing in the orchard. The last he'd heard Kristin and the captain were getting supplies from the launch. Looking around the room he realized that there were no new supplies. He guessed he'd have to wait until they got back to find out what had changed the plans, but in the meantime he was starving.  
  
After sorting through the supplies he came up with a ration pack and tore into the nearly tasteless meal. He knew the fresh fruit the captain and Ortiz were bringing back would taste better but Lucas was too hungry to wait. Still chewing on the ration Lucas limped around, trying to stretch his legs and exercise the pain out of the previously broken one. It always cramped up during his sleep.  
  
Lucas now felt acutely alone in the immense room when just a day ago the solitude had seemed totally normal. It felt creepy. He wandered aimlessly and found himself at the familiar console. Only this still felt welcoming, full of promise and reward if only he could solve its mystery. Lucas let his hand trail fondly across the hieroglyphic patterns embedded in the panel and relaxed, forgetting his loneliness.  
  
The designs were all so familiar to him but he just hadn't been able to make that last crucial breakthrough that would bring it all together so he could understand it. It frustrated him as though he were looking through a dirty window at a work of art. Just one clear glimpse and Lucas knew he would be able to understand the whole thing. Except that Bridger wasn't likely to give him that moment, the man was overly paranoid; he'd kept Lucas away from the work for a whole day.  
  
Lucas stared at the designs and suddenly a few things seem to connect and make sense. Possible combinations of designs emerged to make a muddled kind of meaning. Without intending to Lucas's hand followed his thoughts and gently touched on three of the designs in the sequence that seemed to make sense.  
  
A deep thrumming sounded from far below in the power plant of the machine and a shaft of blue light shot up into the centre of the machine to illuminate a motionless group of concentric rings. Slowly, then with greater speed the rings began to spin about each other sending new pulses of power to other sections of the machine that had not been active before. The faint hiss amplified and became a humming buzz and the level of light in the room tripled.  
  
Lucas backed away from the panel in shock. "Oh, hell," he whispered. There was no question... the captain definitely wasn't going to like this.  
  
"Lucas! What the hell are you doing?"  
  
Lucas spun around. An extremely angry Captain Bridger stood behind him at the entrance helping to support an injured Ortiz. Doctor Westphalen supported the other side of Ortiz, her mouth open in shock as she stared at the fully operating machine. Lucas looked from one stunned face to the next.  
  
"I'm sorry, it just sort of happened."  
  
Nathan closed his eyes and silently counted to ten, it wouldn't help to yell at Lucas now. The damage had already been done, and Nathan had other priorities, Ortiz had been growing steadily heavier as the last of the injured man's strength gave out. He helped Kristin carry Ortiz over to Lucas's mats and eased him down. Ortiz settled down on the bed with a pained sigh and fell to sleep in seconds.  
  
"Is Miguel all right," Lucas asked in a soft voice as he watched his friend loose consciousness.  
  
"Yes, dear, he's going to be fine, he just needs some rest," Kristin soothed.  
  
Kristin's gentle manner with the teenager only caused Nathan's frayed temper to flare. It seemed he couldn't leave Lucas alone for a moment without the boy acting irresponsibly and endangering himself.  
  
Nathan stood and faced Lucas. "Just what did you think you were doing? I thought I told you to leave that thing alone," Nathan snapped.  
  
"You did. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I was just looking at it and I accidentally turned it on."  
  
"You turned it on by looking at it?"  
  
"Well no I was..." Lucas began.  
  
"Working on it. Like you promised you wouldn't," Nathan snapped.  
  
"Look, Captain, I understand this technology a lot better than you think I do," Lucas ground out between clenched teeth.  
  
Nathan dismissed Lucas's assertion with a wave of his hand. "You haven't the faintest idea how this technology works, no human does. You have some clue as to what the symbols are but you don't know hat they mean. There is a big difference, Lucas, between recognition and comprehension. Do you have any idea how dangerous a mistake could be? There is far too much power here to be playing guessing games."  
  
"I wasn't guessing. I knew it was a command."  
  
"But you had no idea what that command was. Did you?" Nathan asked in exasperation.  
  
Lucas returned Nathan's glare with a defiant stare but didn't reply. Nathan could almost feel this blood boiling in his veins, of all the idiotic things Lucas could get stubborn about he would have to pick the most dangerous. The most frustrating part was that the little twit just couldn't see the risk. The temptation to take the kid by the shoulders and shake some sense into him was nearly overwhelming and Nathan had to fight the impulse down, it would do neither of them any good.  
  
Kristin stood and came between them. She eyed each of them coldly and seemed to capture both of them in her attention. "That's quite enough. If you two want to shout at each other you can do it outside. I have a patient that needs rest," she hissed.  
  
Nathan felt his temper bleed away and nodded his acceptance of the doctor's point, he'd been far to close to loosing his temper completely. Lucas dropped his gaze and looked to the floor, points of high colour in his cheeks indicating his deep embarrassment.  
  
Nathan went to their supplies and emptied the last of their packs, stacking its contents neatly near the wall. The work gave him a moment to compose himself, and regain his control. When he'd finished he stood and tossed the empty pack to Lucas who caught it by reflex.  
  
"Come on, we have work to do and I think we both could use some air," Nathan said in a reasonable tone.  
  
Lucas looked from the pack in his hands to Nathan, obviously unwilling to go with him. Nathan watched Lucas fiddle nervously with the pack in his hands and shook his head in regret as he realized how close he'd come to saying something irreparable.  
  
With an effort to hide his self-recrimination Nathan softened his manner. "Lucas, someone still needs to go out and get some fresh supplies, that someone is going to be you and me. If we can't secure an alternate food source pretty quickly then we are going to have to start rationing the survival packs, and you're thin enough as it is," he explained.  
  
Lucas still seemed a little unsure and Nathan had a pang of guilt for unintentionally causing so much fear. What the hell was wrong with him? Nathan knew Lucas had difficulty dealing with aggressive emotional confrontations, they reminded the kid too much of his upbringing. Nathan acknowledged that as the adult it had been his responsibility to stop the fight. He just hadn't been able to.  
  
"You ok?" he asked the boy.  
  
"Yeah," Lucas said quietly.  
  
Nathan knew the teenager was far from fine but at least he followed him from the Pyramid.  
  
***  
  
The return trip to the plantation seemed even longer with the uncomfortable silence from his younger companion and his own fast growing exhaustion. No wonder he had been so short tempered, he was beyond tired. It was a good thing that Kristin had stepped in when she had or he might really have said or done something he would have regretted.  
  
Nathan chose a section of plantation a distance from the earlier one and examined the heavily fruit laden trees. "This looks good."  
  
Lucas, as he had since they'd left the pyramid, said nothing but Nathan could feel the boy's sullen eyes follow his every move. Trying his best to not let Lucas's attitude get to him Nathan chose a tree and expertly clambered up it. Once at the top he began picking the fruit and carefully tossing them down to Lucas to pack away.  
  
The work was done in less than half of an hour and Nathan jumped neatly back to the ground.  
  
"I could use a rest," Nathan said tiredly as he twisted his back from side to side letting the vertebrae crack loudly.  
  
He was getting old Nathan realized with melancholy, the work had taken far more out of him than he'd expected. He found a near by tree and dropped to the ground gratefully. After a small hesitation Lucas took a seat next to him. Nathan glanced across to the teenager and frowned at Lucas's closed expression.  
  
"You think I'm being unfair?" Nathan asked.  
  
Lucas met his gaze for a second. "You don't?" he sulked.  
  
Nathan felt his eyebrows lift in surprise and he shook his head. "I was a little more angry than I should have been but unfair? No, I don't think so. Forgetting that you could have endangered us all. You knew you weren't to touch that panel but you did it anyway. You broke your promise to me by doing that."  
  
"Look, I'm sorry all right!"  
  
Nathan found it easy to stay calm. At least the boy was talking to him again.  
  
"I accept your apology and we can discuss whether it's all right after we get out of here."  
  
Lucas mumbled something that Nathan couldn't quite hear, but he did manage to catch the phrase, "Trust me."  
  
"Lucas, you keep asking me to give you more responsibility but how can I do that if you ignore my directions and do whatever you feel like?"  
  
Lucas seethed. "Yeah, but you never give me anything important to do, unless it's a computer problem. You don't trust me."  
  
"That's not true, I do trust you." Nathan was a little surprised by the accusation. Especially as he considered the boy, despite his youth, to be one of the few people he trusted implicitly.  
  
Lucas didn't reply and he turned away to stare out toward the trees.  
  
Nathan frowned and tried to organise his feelings in a way that Lucas could not possibly misunderstand. "Lucas, I trust you with my life, and the lives of my crew. I assign work to the person who I think can do it best. Would I pick Chief Crocker to do a translation for me when I have Tim? Or would it be smart to have Commander Ford plan the end of tour party instead of Lieutenant Kreig?" As expected the mental images inspired by the unlikely combinations brought a small smile to teenager's lips.  
  
"Kiddo, I give you the computer problems, not because they are unimportant, far from it, but because I know I can count on you to do it right."  
  
Lucas gave a bone-weary sigh and much of the anger surrounding him seemed to fade away with it. "I know. It's just that I never seem to do anything else and when something goes wrong it always seems to be my fault."  
  
Nathan smiled. "That's just your overactive curiosity getting you in trouble, but as it happens I have a bit of work that I need you for."  
  
"Let me guess, a computer problem?"  
  
"Well, there will certainly be some programming needed, yes. But first I need you're help getting hold of the hardware. I want to take out a sentinel and reprogram it to help us get out of here."  
  
Lucas sat up and stared at the captain. "A sentinel? That's a great idea!"  
  
"I thought you'd like it," Nathan smiled.  
  
***  
  
Lucas had wanted to set out to capture the sentinel immediately but Nathan had badly needed a rest and as he'd pointed out to Lucas, they needed a plan. So Nathan had delegated the task of planning the operation to Lucas while he slept. Lucas had been enthusiastic and had set to work brainstorming ideas and bouncing them off Kristin for comment. Kristin hadn't been overly impressed with the idea but Nathan had been too tired to argue the point with her. He had left them to it and dropped into a deep sleep almost the moment he laid down, happy that the vibrant personality he was used to seeing in Lucas had at last reappeared.  
  
When Nathan at last awoke several hours later he found Lucas sleeping soundly curled up beside him.  
  
"He's been asleep for about an hour, I had to threaten to veto his part in your little hunting expedition if he didn't rest first. Don't wake him," Kristin said softly.  
  
Carefully rolling over Nathan had to gently remove one of the teenager's hands from his arm before he could stand. Once on his feet he went to join the doctor. "What I wouldn't give for coffee," he muttered with feeling.  
  
Nathan caught the slight smile on Kristin's face at his complaint, but it was the tired dark circles under her eyes that concerned him. "Have you had any sleep?"  
  
"Yes... No, not very much. Just a nap earlier." Kristin shrugged.  
  
"Do you want to go out side for a bit or would you rather sleep?" Nathan asked.  
  
"Outside, definitely."  
  
Nathan picked up one of the fruit from the pile and followed Kristin out of the pyramid. The night cycle had come and passed while Nathan had slept and the sky was once again slowly brightening. It wasn't a true sunrise but it still gave Nathan the same peaceful feeling of promise the real sunrise had always given him. He and Kristin sat side by side on the edge of the bridge looking out over the calm water. Nathan broke the fruit in half and handed Kristin a portion.  
  
"It really is beautiful here," Kristin said drinking in the view and nibbling on her breakfast. "We've been so caught up that I haven't had a moment to really appreciate that."  
  
Nathan nodded. "I know what you mean."  
  
For a while they relaxed in each other's company, neither feeling the need to converse.  
  
At last Kristin sighed, breaking her silence. "I spent a several hours watching that machine in there," Kristin said slowly, pointing back over her shoulder toward the entrance to the pyramid and the machine that lay beyond.  
  
"Don't tell me you've joined Lucas in his obsession?"  
  
Kristin slapped him gently on the arm. "Behave. No, but I have come up with a theory."  
  
"Well, don't keep me in suspense," Nathan encouraged.  
  
"All right, but I'm not sure how sound this is. I know Lucas is convinced that the machine is performing a specific function but I think it's all ready finished whatever it was designed to do, or very nearly finished at least."  
  
Nathan was intrigued. "What makes you think so?"  
  
Kristin's gaze turned back to the calm lake and the abundant fish life there. "When we first came here less than a half of the machine was active. Then Lucas triggered something that has started, or re-started an entire section. I've been watching it. It cycles around but it never touches exactly the same place twice."  
  
Nathan frowned. "Sounds like a verification cycle."  
  
"Yes, exactly. Nathan, I think that whole pyramid is a single gigantic data storage unit."  
  
"What could you need to store that would take up that much space?"  
  
"I don't know, but I do know that whoever left it went to a great deal of effort and trouble to see that it wasn't disturbed. They intend to come back for it."  
  
Nathan nodded. "That makes sense. It explains the time difference too. If I had an incredibly big job that I knew would take a substantial part, or all of my life to process, and I had the technology, I'd set up a variation in time this way too. Subjectively you'd see the results thousands of times faster. I wish we knew what it was processing."  
  
Kristin smiled at him. "Watch out the obsession is catching. Right now, I'd settle for knowing the way out."  
  
"We'll get out and with some luck we might be able to figure out some of this technology before the owners get home, without damaging its original purpose."  
  
"Nathan, what if we've already damaged it, without realizing it?" Kristin asked.  
  
Nathan puffed a small laugh. "The sentinels are pretty effective. I'm sure they would have let us know by now."  
  
"Not necessarily, when we first got here, they weren't guarding Lucas's crashed sea-crab – he was able to go back to the ship several times, but now they won't let us near the launch. I think our presence here is changing their behaviour."  
  
"We'll be gone soon, then we can let the experts take over."  
  
"That's another thing that's been bothering me, this plan of yours, its far too dangerous. Wouldn't it be better to just sit tight and wait for the seaQuest?" Kristin asked.  
  
Nathan shrugged. "That's an option, but I think you're forgetting the time difference. The seaQuest hasn't even missed us yet."  
  
"It's hard to remember that not even an hour has past since we got here," Kristin said unhappily.  
  
"There's no guarantee that whoever came for us would work out the trick to opening a window through the hologram and if they did then they would have only two options. They could attempt a rescue themselves and more than likely end up trapped like we were or they could do the smart thing and launch a full rescue mission for us. For them that would only take five or maybe six hours, for us it would be months. It's just a feeling I have but I don't think we have that long," Nathan said quietly.  
  
"All right, we get ourselves out of here. Are you sure this is going to work?"  
  
"No, but it's the best I can come up with, let me know if you have a better idea."  
  
Kristin looked unhappy but said nothing.  
  
***  
  
Lucas stood just inside the entrance to the pyramid's gate room holding his arsenal in a pouch made from the lining of the captain's jacket. The captain had offered it willingly but Lucas knew the older man had lamented its loss, not that he'd want it back now. Lucas's weapon was a little sloppy.  
  
They had decided only sure way to bait a sentinel was to make a mess. So to that end, Lucas had devised a simple, foolproof plan to lure a sentinel in close enough so that the captain could disable it. Lucas had taken up position just inside the entrance with the captain hidden from view just inside the machine room. Close enough to help but hopefully invisible to the sentinel when it took the bait.  
  
Lucas could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he prepared to play his part as target, and he glanced over his shoulder at the entrance to the machine room. The captain had insisted that they go over and over Lucas's part in the capture until Lucas could, and had, recited it. He couldn't see the captain but it gave him support to know the older man was standing ready just meters away.  
  
Taking a deep steading breath Lucas stepped out into the open and taking a handful of pulped fruit he threw it out the entrance onto the bridge. It splattered satisfactorily sending several large drops over the edge into the water.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
Lucas waited, then he cautiously peered around the doorway but there was no sign of a sentinel. He stepped clear of the pyramid entry onto the walkway and took another handful of bait spraying it on the path. A high-pitched whistle sounded closely and a sentinel rose from underneath the walkway almost directly where Lucas stood.  
  
"Oh no," Lucas breathed and began to quickly back-peddle toward the relative safety of the pyramid. The sentinel was far too close, the plan he had come up with had anticipated the sentinel travelling toward him from some distance and giving the captain a nice clear shot, but this sentinel had appeared almost within touching range. Lucas knew he was blocking the captain's shot but fear stole his reason and his only thought was to escape.  
  
A small, and all too familiar to Lucas, appendage extended from the sentinel's body and Lucas threw himself to the ground. The sentinel fired. He felt the majority of the charge of blue fire pass over his head and hit the pyramid wall where it was absorbed into the structure. Lucas had still been hit by enough energy from the near miss to hurt and daze him but it hadn't been enough to knock him out completely. He thrashed about trying to get his arms and legs to obey his instructions long enough that he could get back inside the pyramid. He knew it was the only safe place. The sentinels had never followed him in there before and he realized it was his only hope to avoid another blast.  
  
Two successive shots streaked over Lucas's head and it took his addled senses a few seconds to realize that the shots had come from the pyramid.  
  
Lucas heard a loud crash behind him and a heavy weight fell across his legs pinning him to the walkway. He struggled but couldn't free himself  
  
"Lucas! Are you all right?" A concerned and far too loud voiced asked him, and Lucas saw the captain standing over him, in fact so was Kristin and Ortiz. The three adults crowded on the walkway, their bodies constantly moving in and out of focus. When he realized how silly they looked Lucas giggled, or he tried to the sound came out sounding more like a groan.  
  
The weight lifted from his legs and Miguel dragged him to his feet.  
  
"Captain, another sentinel coming." Ortiz said with urgency.  
  
Lucas couldn't see the new sentinel; he was having enough trouble concentrating of staying on his feet even with Miguel's support.  
  
"Nathan, leave it."  
  
"No. We are not going through this again. Help me drag it inside." The captain's fierce command was the last thing Lucas heard for a while. The moment he crossed into the safety of the pyramid he lost his battle to stay conscious.  
  
***  
  
Nathan dropped the heavy hulk of the disabled sentinel onto the floor just inside the machine room and stood ready with his weapon in case one of the now several sentinels milling around just outside the Pyramid entrance decided to come in. None of them did and after a while Nathan realized Lucas had been right they wouldn't come inside the structure.  
  
Nathan handed the weapon to Ortiz so the younger man could keep watch and went to where Kristin knelt working on the teenager.  
  
"How bad?"  
  
Kristin shook her head. "The shot itself wasn't too bad but it's the cumulative effect. Lucas's body has just absorbed too much of that energy, it's shot his blood chemistry to hell," Kristin ranted.  
  
Nathan looked on with worry as the doctor took several vials from her emergency kit and filled a syringe. "His pressure is too low and his heart rate is far too high. He's going into shock. I need to stabilize him or he's going to arrest," Kristin explained tensely as she worked.  
  
Lucas lay unresponsive as Kristin emptied the contents of the syringe into the teenager's arm and Nathan could do nothing but stand helplessly by. He'd known the moment Lucas had stepped out from the protection of the pyramid that the plan was going to fall apart. He'd shouted at the boy to get back under cover but Lucas had obviously not heard him on the other side of the gate. He'd been moving to intercept the teenager even as he'd seen Lucas throw another handful of the bait. Then the sentinel had appeared. Unfortunately Lucas's position put him directly in between Nathan and the mechanism and there had been no way he could shoot it without hitting the boy.  
  
Watching as Lucas had desperately tried to avoid the sentinel's blast had been the worst few seconds of Nathan's life.  
  
Kristin, having done everything she could with her limited resources sat back, still keeping holding one of the boy's too pale hands. Nathan knelt beside Lucas's head and gently called to him. For a long time there was no response but slowly the colour seeped back into Lucas's face and the boy began to show signs of waking.  
  
Nathan swept the hair free from the teenager's forehead and smiled encouragingly as the boy's eyes slowly opened and focused on his face.  
  
"Captain? What? ... Did we get it?" Lucas asked.  
  
"Yeah, kiddo, we got it."  
  
"Cool, I can't wait to take a look inside that thing," Lucas sighed happily.  
  
"Well you are going to have to wait, young man. Don't you even think of getting up before I tell you," Kristin threatened.  
  
"Yeah, yeah. I'll be good," Lucas muttered tiredly and drifted off to a more natural sleep.  
  
***  
  
It took Lucas several weeks to regain his strength and despite his assurances of good behaviour the teenager turned out to be an extremely frustrating patient. Both Kristin and Nathan had been forced to constantly insist and occasionally threaten the boy into taking proper rest breaks and eating regularly. From the moment Kristin had first let him out of bed Lucas had seemed to consider himself cured and had thrown his whole being into the reprogramming of the captured sentinel. The exhausted and barely recovered teenager had complained bitterly of the lost time whenever Nathan or Kristin had ordered him to rest, even though the young man invariably fell into a deep sleep the moment he lay down.  
  
Eventually though the teenager did recover and even Nathan relaxed his frequent checks on Lucas's wellbeing. Seeing Lucas so extremely ill had frightened Nathan far more than he care to think about and he was determined not to let that happen again. Ever.  
  
Nathan watched Lucas discussing part of the repair work with Ortiz. The boy's blonde head bent intently over the exposed mechanism of the machine as Ortiz pointed out some final pre-test problem the repairs had hit. How Lucas could see anything with all that hair flopping in his face was beyond Nathan. Lucas was obviously in disagreement with Ortiz over something and the two spoke animatedly for a few minutes before coming to some kind of mutual decision. They worked well together Nathan mused.  
  
Lucas had taken to the sentinel job with a passion and he was obviously delighted with his new toy. Between them Lucas and Ortiz had managed to almost completely restore the machine to working order. It was at last ready for it's first functional test. Both Nathan and Kristin had helped and offered the advice their expertise but it was clearly the pet project of the younger members of the team. Ortiz and Lucas had even named the beast. They'd called it Kryten after the robotic character in an old out-of- date comedy. Nathan didn't want to admit it but he had been a fan of that particular show when it had been new.  
  
At last the work was finished and Ortiz called out to them. Nathan waited for Kristin and together they went to join the others.  
  
Lucas was in high spirits and talked animatedly about the reconstruction work.  
  
"Krytie doesn't use processors like our computer systems do, his systems are based on some kind of nano-technology, complete with multiple redundancies. So the biggest job we've had was to remove the resident programming," Lucas told them warming to the subject.  
  
Lucas patted the machine possessively. "Then the next problem was to develop enough basic translation code so that we could get some function out of him. I think we have that licked."  
  
Lucas sounded confident but Nathan didn't miss the quick confirming glance the boy shot at Ortiz at the end of his statement and he was gratified to see the sensor chief return a firm nod of agreement.  
  
"So what can we expect it to do?" Kristin asked.  
  
"Only the most basic commands. Things like stop, follow, and simple motion commands like that. We're adding more complex functions but that will take time," Lucas said with a shrug.  
  
Ortiz nodded and took up the explanation. "The only problem we have left is power supply. He seems to have about a half charge and even with his weapon systems disabled ... all that we could find anyway, he still draws a lot of power. He has maybe seven hours of continuous use before he runs out of battery."  
  
"It can't be recharged?" Nathan asked.  
  
After a quick look at Lucas, Ortiz answered. "We don't think that would be a good idea. He seems to get his programming instructions through the same coupling assembly that he uses to draw his power. The two systems seem to run parallel."  
  
"Right, no recharge," Nathan stated. Visions of a rampaging sentinel newly repaired and fully charged turning its weapon toward Lucas flashed through Nathan's mind and he barely controlled a shudder.  
  
Nathan checked the charge on their only weapon and prepared himself. "OK, lets see how it goes, but I want you to stay clear," Nathan said pointing at Lucas.  
  
Lucas offered no protest and moved to stand behind Nathan where Kristin protectively clasped his shoulders.  
  
At Nathan's nod Ortiz stepped to the front of the sentinel and touched an internal component in the machine's exposed mechanism. With a snap of energy the sentinel jerked once then smoothly rose into an upright stance.  
  
Ortiz looked up at the behemoth in front of him. "Kryten, follow," he said in a clear voice.  
  
Ortiz turned his back on the sentinel and walked in a wide circle around the room, the massive machine following silently a few meters behind the sensor chief. The machine made no threatening movements but Nathan kept his weapon at the ready.  
  
"Kryten, stop," Ortiz commanded as he continued walking. The sentinel froze in place and Ortiz circled back to the machine. Nathan only relaxed his stance after Ortiz had reached inside the sentinel's body and disconnected its power source.  
  
Nathan glanced back to Kristin, still holding the obviously excited teenager by the shoulders.  
  
"Well, that went well," Kristin commented.  
  
"Well? That was fantastic!" Lucas enthused breaking free from Kristin's grasp and running forward to join Ortiz in examining the sentinel. Nathan shook his head in mock despair as Lucas reached up to pat the sentinel on the top of its body. "Good, Krytie."  
  
Nathan shared a smile with Kristin. "I'm just glad..." Nathan paused and tilted his head. "Did you hear that?" he asked concerned.  
  
Kristin stopped to listen for a second then shook her head. "No, what?"  
  
The faint noise that had attracted Nathan's attention wasn't repeated.  
  
"I don't know. It's gone now but for a second I thought I heard something."  
  
Kristin shrugged. "Maybe it was something Lucas and Ortiz were doing," Kristin offered.  
  
"Maybe."  
  
Nathan said it but he didn't believe it, the sound had seemed to come from far below them. Trying to dismiss the sense of disquiet he felt Nathan gallantly offered his arm to the doctor.  
  
"Shall we go see what the results were?" he asked her.  
  
"Certainly." Kristin smiled as she took his arm.  
  
***  
  
Nathan woke suddenly. He pushed himself up onto his hands in a half sitting position and gazed around the silent room, searching to find what had woken him. Nothing seemed out of place. Kristin and Lucas slept huddled together, Kristin's arm rested against the boy's chest and Ortiz slept awkwardly, sitting against the nearby wall. The lieutenant had obviously fallen asleep sometime while he'd supposedly been keeping watch. Nathan smiled and relaxed a little at the sight, it seemed young people just had no stamina. The scene was peaceful and ordinary, or at least what Nathan had come to recognise as ordinary in the strange city beneath the ocean. Even the sentinel, Kryten, was silent and still.  
  
Nathan briefly considered trying to go back to sleep but once he had awoken he'd never had much success at returning to sleep. He considered his options for breakfast, fruit or one of the remaining dried rations. Neither choice seemed particularly appetising. As he had every morning since they had arrived Nathan sent out a silent prayer for a nice strong black coffee.  
  
Nathan was still dreaming about the coffee when he felt it. A faint tremor shook through the floor, so light that if Nathan hadn't had his hands pressed flat to the surface he doubted he would have felt it at all. The vibration gradually grew stronger and then just as suddenly as it had begun it ceased.  
  
Nathan knew with absolute certainty that it had been a previous tremor that had woken him. Rolling to his feet in a single smooth motion Nathan moved quickly toward the machine console but as far as he could tell the display there hadn't changed.  
  
Far below a low deep rumble began and Nathan ran back to the others. He roughly shook Lucas and Kristin awake.  
  
"Get up!"  
  
Ortiz snapped awake at the shout and Kristin sat up blinking. "Nathan, what's wrong?"  
  
"Trouble," Nathan said tensely as the tremors started again. This time instead of fading away as the others had the tremor increased in strength. Kristin stumbled to her feet and then helped Lucas up.  
  
"Let's get out of here!" Nathan ordered, as the shaking got worse.  
  
Instead of heading for the exit as the captain had ordered Lucas staggered for the control panel.  
  
"It's some kind of overload," the teenager called out reaching the panel and examining the display.  
  
Nathan helped Kristin gather as many of their precious supplies as she could carry, while Ortiz went to activate the reprogrammed sentinel.  
  
"Lucas, leave it and get out," Nathan called.  
  
Lucas seemed not to have heard him. "I think I can shut it down."  
  
Many of the panel's hieroglyphic patterns pulsed with yellow light throwing strange patterns over the teenager's face as he concentrated on the problem. As Kristin and Ortiz, with Kryten in tow, headed for the exit Nathan headed for the teenager. Nathan was determined to lift and bodily carry the kid out if he had to.  
  
Lucas touched a sequence of patterns, attempting to close down the malfunctioning section of the machine. The centre of the machine began to slow in response to the command and as it did the shaking also began to fade. Lucas smiled smugly as gradually each of the pulsing yellow lights faded back to their more usual pale blue colouring. Nathan looked first to the machine then looked back to catch the eye of the smirking teenager.  
  
Lucas turned toward him and grinned. "Piece of cake."  
  
Whatever Nathan had planed to say in response was forgotten as he noticed two converging surges of energy tracking through the machine.  
  
"Lucas!" Nathan cried in horror as he realized the two energy pulses were going to collide. Nathan flung an arm over his face to protect his eyes from the blinding flash, and then a tremendous force picked him up and threw him to the floor. Nathan shook his head as he rose to clear the coloured spots from his eyes and saw that Lucas had also been knocked from his feet. At the site where the explosion had happened the formally gracefully designed machine was now blackened and twisted, leaving a dark ugly patch in the structure. Lucas sat upright and put a hand to his head.  
  
"You all right?" Nathan asked.  
  
Lucas nodded. "Yeah, just a bit dizzy."  
  
A strident alarm began and echoed throughout the cavernous room causing both Nathan and Lucas to wince at the volume. Lucas used the console to pull himself to his feet. Lucas shook his head in dismay at the panel, almost every pattern glowed a deep ominous red.  
  
"It's no good. I can't fix this. Maybe I can still reroute the power," Lucas said to himself.  
  
Nathan looked up at the darkened, damaged section of the machine and was surprised to see several smaller versions of sentinels making their way toward the damage. It seemed there were sentinels in the pyramid after all.  
  
These sentinels differed from the ones they were used to, they were much darker coloured, far smaller with a thinner more angled body. The tip of each leg of the pyramid sentinels glowed brightly with a spike of energy. Delicately and carefully the sentinels tread through the maze of the machine toward the blackened section, repairing the damage as they moved. Nathan looked to Lucas, intending to point out the fascinating sight, but instead he caught a flash of movement from behind the boy.  
  
A sentinel moved noiseless from the shadowed area behind were Lucas stood and advanced on the oblivious teenager. As the machine neared him one of the foremost legs lifted high into the air. In an instant Nathan realized the sentinel intended to slash down onto Lucas's unprotected back and he reacted without thought.  
  
Savagely grabbing Lucas by the arm Nathan pulled him clear of the attack just as the sentinel started its downward swing. Nathan tried to pull himself clear of the pointed glowing tip as well but there just wasn't enough time.  
  
The slash that would have impaled Lucas through the back struck Nathan high on the shoulder and tore down into his chest.  
  
Nathan screamed.  
  
The burningly intense pain was like nothing Nathan had ever felt and he stumbled backward to collide with Lucas. Lucas franticly clutched at him; trying to keep him upright but the pain and the spasms from the power he'd absorbed in the attack drove them both to the ground.  
  
Lucas pulled Nathan a few meters clear of the sentinel, but it had apparently lost all interest in them the moment they had fallen and had turned its attention to the control panel. Nathan struggled to stay conscious and if it hadn't been for his concern for Lucas he could easily let himself succumb.  
  
"Lucas, go. Get out of here," Nathan ordered, trying to put all the force he could manage into the command.  
  
Lucas shook his head it. "No, not without you," the boy said in a determined half sob.  
  
Lucas began to drag Nathan toward the entrance and away from the sentinel but from his position on the floor he couldn't get much leverage on the larger man. Nathan gritted his teeth against the pain and helped the teenager all he could. When they were some distance from the panel and its attending sentinel Lucas risked rising. The young man pulled Nathan's good arm across his shoulder and hoisted him to his feet. For a few moments Nathan could do nothing but sway on his feet and fight back the nausea but at last he looked into Lucas's concerned face. "Right. Let's go," he said with a tight nod.  
  
Nathan's wound bled profusely and it hurt intensely, but he managed to concentrate on keeping his balance and with Lucas's help the pair headed for the entrance.  
  
High on the wall above the entrance Nathan could see another sentinel coming downward toward them and he knew they weren't going to make it in time. Lucas seemed to have seen it as well and tried to increase his speed but before they could reach the exit the sentinel reached the floor. Nathan and Lucas stopped short backing away slightly. The slowly advancing sentinel moved between them and the safety of the exit. Two legs at the front of the approaching machine rose high in the air.  
  
Nathan pulled Lucas back away from the sentinel and began to edge around it, still attempting to get to the exit but the machine moved to block their path again. Nathan tried to make himself and Lucas seem as unthreatening as he could but the sentinel kept coming, slowly closing the gap between them. Giving up on the tactic of trying to out flank the machine Nathan began to push Lucas into a full retreat.  
  
The older man felt Lucas stiffen and heard the teenager's alarmed whisper. "Behind us!"  
  
Nathan craned his neck to take a quick look behind them. Approaching from both directions across the smooth floor two more sentinels moved to cut off their retreat. Nathan swore. Suddenly Ortiz reappeared through the gate. The Lieutenant fired the moment he was clear of the door. The blast hit the sentinel blocking their escape squarely in the centre of its body.  
  
The sentinel went down in a shower of sparks and without hesitation Nathan and Lucas fled passed it. Nathan nodded to Ortiz as they passed him but the grim faced lieutenant didn't acknowledge the gesture, all his attention focused behind them. As they crossed through the gateway Nathan heard the unmistakable sound of Ortiz firing again.  
  
They met Kristin just outside the pyramid standing next to the hulking figure of their tamed sentinel.  
  
"Nathan!" Kristin cried out, as she saw how badly injured he was. In moments she was by the captain's side with her medical kit out. Lucas helped her lower him to the ground where she could treat him. The doctor hastily applied a dressing to the wound. Without the time needed to be gentle Kristin's usually nearly painless ministrations sent waves of fire through Nathan's body and he gasped. The edges of his vision grew fuzzy and Nathan felt a deep swell of peace rise through him despite the pain.  
  
"Nathan! Stay with us!" Kristin yelled into Nathan's ear jerking him away from the fast approaching darkness.  
  
"Nathan waved his arm to reassure them. "I'm Ok," he muttered, but from the looks on their faces Nathan could tell that neither Lucas nor Kristin believed him.  
  
Kristin hauled Nathan back to his feet just as Ortiz reappeared from the pyramid gate room. The younger man still faced toward the gate but he turned to the others as he came through.  
  
"Run. I can't hold them back."  
  
They ran.  
  
Or at least they tried. Kristin weighted down by Nathan's only semi- conscious form tried her best to move quickly, but the pace they set was barely more than a staggering trot. Lucas, even with his limp and badly healed leg was able to keep up, though the effort showed on the boy's face. Only, Kryten, the huge sentinel that Lucas had ordered to follow them showed no effort.  
  
From behind them Nathan heard the occasional report of weapon's fire indicating that Ortiz was still covering their escape. The young officer had been well trained and knew his job well, Nathan had no doubt Ortiz would hold his ground on the narrow bridge as long as he could to help them get away, but the time would be short.  
  
Nathan put all his concentration on staying conscious and putting one foot in front of the other as fast as he could. The journey seemed to take forever but Nathan knew it hadn't actually been long at all before they reached the beach where the launch lay.  
  
Ortiz caught up with them as they made their way forward slowly.  
  
"I couldn't shake them, and I'm nearly out of ammo. The pyramid sentinels seem to move pretty slowly over open ground and I haven't seen any of the other type. I think we have a few minutes before they catch up to us," Ortiz reported still trying to catch his breath.  
  
Nathan nodded. "Then let's not waste it. Lucas, send your sentinel ahead."  
  
The teenager nodded, his eyes wide with fear. "Kryten, ahead 30 meters," Lucas ordered the machine, taking a rough guess at the distance between themselves and the launch.  
  
Nathan, with Kristin's help, fell into step behind the machine followed by Lucas with Ortiz bringing up the rear and protecting their retreat. Kryten stopped about five meters from the launch and Nathan risked a quick glance around its barrel shaped body. Standing near the ship stood another sentinel, identical to theirs.  
  
Nathan hand signalled to Ortiz who passed forward the weapon. Nathan checked its charge. Ortiz hadn't been exaggerating; the weapon had one, maybe two shots left in it. Nathan knew he had to make them count. Taking a deep breath to clear the fuzz from his head, he stepped out from behind the cover of their reprogrammed sentinel and fired at the one guarding the ship. The shot was good and the machine went down smoking.  
  
"Captain, they're coming." Ortiz warned looking back the way they had come.  
  
Beginning to make their way across the sand toward the seaQuest crew were nearly a dozen of the pyramid type sentinel. The machines obviously found crossing the loose sand difficult but they came on relentlessly.  
  
"Get on board!" Nathan ordered. He checked the charge on his weapon; it was empty. There had only been one shot left after all.  
  
Lucas helped Kristin get Nathan inside the ship and into a seat. Nathan bit his lip to keep from crying out as Kristin did up his restraint and the strap bit hard into his wounded shoulder. Lucas looked on, his pale face etched with concern. Outside Nathan could hear Ortiz issuing a string of instructions to Kryten.  
  
As soon as Ortiz finished he dived through the hatch, quickly sealing it behind him.  
  
With a groan and a shudder the launch began to move slowly backward across the sand.  
  
"Here they come," Kristin said tensely.  
  
Nathan leaned forward in his seat as much as the painfully tight restraints would allow, in the seat across from him Lucas did the same. Through the cockpit window Nathan could see the larger form of Kryten pushing the launch backward toward the holographic force field and the ocean that lay beyond it. Several of the pyramid's smaller sentinels swarmed over their larger cousin attacking it ruthlessly. Nathan watched as the smaller machines began to tear the larger one apart. The shuttle's progress began to slow.  
  
Nathan began to think of contingency plans for escape when the launch made contact with the field behind it. The launch was wrenched violently backwards and in an instantly they found themselves off the beach and back in the ocean.  
  
Through the opening in the holographic shield they had just passed through the crew could see the smaller sentinels continue to tear the larger one to pieces. Nathan noticed several of the smaller sentinels walking up the inside surface of the holographic shield, repairing it.  
  
"Launch MR-8, this is seaQuest. Please respond." Lt. Tim O'Neil's voice came unexpectedly from the launch's communications console causing Kristin to jump in her seat.  
  
Ortiz smiled as he answered his friend's call. "seaQuest this is MR-8 returning. All crew plus one," Ortiz reported.  
  
"That's good to hear launch. We were about to send a mission out after you, see you when you get back," Tim replied, relief obvious in his voice.  
  
"Acknowledged seaQuest."  
  
"Oh, my..." Kristin whispered in amazement and Nathan's attention was drawn away from the sentinels repairing the hologram back to the city itself. At first Nathan thought the launch was rising but with surprise he realized the launch hadn't moved at all. The city was sinking. As the sentinels repaired the breach in the holograph the view became hazy but before the view was completely obscured they saw every building and spire sink silently from sight til not even the immensely tall pyramid showed above ground.  
  
The city was gone.  
  
"It's gone," Lucas said in disbelief.  
  
Silence fell on the launch as they watched the last of the view vanished.  
  
"I wonder who built it?" Ortiz asked wistfully at last.  
  
"And why," Kristin added.  
  
Lucas hunched dejectedly into his chair. "I guess we'll never know now."  
  
Nathan smiled at the disheartened teenager affectionately. "Don't be so sure, Lucas. Never is a very long time. They, whoever they are, built that city for a purpose. They'll be back."  
  
Lucas shrugged noncommittally.  
  
Nathan sat back in his seat with a sigh and closed his eyes with a grimace. Damn his shoulder hurt.  
  
"You OK?" Lucas asked.  
  
Nathan slowly opened his eyes with another sigh. "Yeah, just glad to be going home," Nathan told the younger man.  
  
A look of excited realization settled on Lucas's face as it sank in that at last he was going home.  
  
"Yeah, me too." The boy smiled.  
  
***  
  
Epilogue  
  
Lucas lay flat on his back gazing listlessly up at the uniformly grey medical bay ceiling. He was tied, or at least it felt like he was tied to the bed. Kristin had explained the necessity of the straps and weights she had attached to his body but that didn't mean Lucas had to like it.  
  
He knew the traction gear was needed if he wanted his leg to heal properly this time but he felt imprisoned by the device and had to constantly struggle to keep his frustration and anger in check. Once they had returned to seaQuest and the doctor had been able to give him a more complete examination she had found that the only way to fully correct the damage to Lucas's leg was to surgically re-break the bone and then use weights to gradually stretch and pull his leg back to its correct length and shape.  
  
At least there was virtually no pain from the broken bone this time. Just thinking about the time he'd spent hurt and alone in the city after the sea- crab had crashed and before the captain and others had finally come was enough to send a shiver down his spine. Lucas just wished the whole set up wasn't so damn uncomfortable. No matter what he did he couldn't seem to find a position that didn't make him frustratingly uncomfortable in less than ten minutes.  
  
Across the narrow isle the captain lay resting in another bed and Lucas was grateful for the company. Although Lucas would never have wished for the older man to be hurt, it was nice to have someone to talk to, and they had talked often over the last few days since their return. Their discussions had effectively distracted Lucas from the discomfort.  
  
Lucas moaned and futilely tried shifting his position again, the captain wasn't much company at the moment; he still slept recovering from the second set of surgery he'd needed to repair the serious injury the sentinel had given him. Lucas had been desperately worried about him but Kristin's constant reassurances that a full recovery was expected had finally calmed him.  
  
Kristin, trailed by Commander Ford entered the quiet medical bay. Both were smiling and seemed to be getting along well for a change. For some reason their smiles made Lucas nervous.  
  
"Ah, Lucas, you're awake," Kristin observed brightly, coming to stand next to his bed and gently laying her hand across his forehead; checking his temperature the old-fashioned maternal method instead of glancing at the monitor display by his bed.  
  
"Just who I was looking for," Ford added pleasantly.  
  
Lucas frowned in annoyance. "You couldn't have looked too hard. It's not like I can go anywhere," Lucas said waving his hand down at the sheet covering the lower half of his body and hiding the complex maze of tension cables and weights.  
  
Ford smiled. "It's funny you should mention not going anywhere. I have some orders to relay to you from the captain," Ford said affably, crooking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the sleeping captain.  
  
Lucas swallowed. "What?"  
  
Commander Ford's face grew a little more serious. "Effective immediately, Lucas, you are confined to quarters for the next 8 weeks."  
  
Lucas was shocked. "What! Why?"  
  
Ford crossed his arms over his chest. "Well let's see. You stole UEO equipment, illicitly accessed UEO sensor data, disobeyed orders, destroyed UEO equipment, you got yourself injured, and scared the hell out of the Captain. I'd say you got off lightly."  
  
Kristin rubbed Lucas's arm comfortingly. "Don't worry, dear. It's not that long. Besides, you're going to be in traction for at least six of those weeks anyway." The doctor told him with a smile.  
  
Lucas's voice rose to a near squeak. "Six weeks! You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding!"  
  
Lucas stared from one smirking adult to the next then groaned. "Oh, man, you're not kidding."  
  
Finita July 2002 


End file.
