The Gateship emerged from the Stargate only an instant after the one Sheppard was flying. River looked over at his copilot, who was bringing up the HUD and pointedly not looking out the forward view.

“How do you want to do this?”

The HUD brought up an image of the area of the small planet that the sensors on the Gateship could read – with a few spaces that seemed to be blank spots. Places that the sensors couldn’t penetrate for one reason or another.

“We’ll go latitude and send Sheppard longitude.”

River nodded, and reached up for his comm., but before he could call Sheppard to let him know the plan Ian spoke up again.

“And if this thing rolls once, you’re going to be shuttling garbage for the next month.”

The Californian grinned, knowing that his friend was absolutely serious.

“Trust me.”

“I do trust you. But unless you want to wear my breakfast, you’ll do as you’re told.”

He did, too, but River was an exuberant guy, and that transcended into his flying as well. Always ready to show off – especially when he was in anything that handled as well as the Gateships did – he tended to get a little cocky. At least, too cocky as far as Ian’s sensitive stomach was concerned. The other pilots loved it, which was fine, as long as he didn’t have to fly with them.

“Roger.”

He turned his attention to calling Sheppard, and Ian switched his to looking at the HUD and programming the sensors to look for anything out of the ordinary.

OOOOOOOOO

The sensors were some of the most sensitive in the known universe, but after about an hour – and four passes around the little planet – they didn’t know much more about the place than they had when they started. It was about the size of Earth’s moon and covered with mostly towering mountain ranges blanketed in pristine snow. The atmosphere was close to Earth’s, but they knew that already from the probes McKay had sent before they’d even considered going for a look. The places that weren’t mountainous were sheltered valleys which showed some signs of cultivation; orchards in the foothills and a few crops that the sensors showed might be somewhat related to wheat and potatoes on Earth.

After the fourth pass Ian looked over at River.

“You said there were a hundred thousand people here?”

“Right.”

“What’d they survive on? What we’ve seen isn’t enough to sustain that kind of population.”

“There were a couple of fair sized cities on the shore of the sea,” River answered. “Maybe they did a lot of fishing.”

“You’re sure of the headcount?”

“We didn’t count them one by one,” came the reply. “But the figure was conservative.”

Ian frowned, looking at the display once more.

“Let’s run by one of those cities.”

River nodded and banked the little ship, his radio coming to life as he advised Sheppard where they were going and suggested if they were finished they could join up with them.

The city was a fairly large one as River had said. Most of the buildings weren’t more than two or three floors high, but the place stretched out along the shore of one of the two main bodies of water for several miles until the beach turned into a sheer mountainside that could only be inhabited by birds and mountain goats. In the other direction the sandy beach turned into rocks that were fairly large and intimidating. Certainly nothing someone would want to sail a ship near. Not if they valued the bottom of their craft, anyway.

“Any particular place you want to land?” River asked as they hovered.

“Somewhere on the beach is fine.”

It would make it easy for Sheppard to find them.

The landing was as smooth as he could have asked for, and Ian double-checked the Glock in his holster as he got out of the co pilot chair and hit the control that would open the rear hatch. The air that came in certainly smelled like the seashore, and he and River could both hear the squawking of seabirds even from inside the ship. They hesitated at the top of the ramp and River looked around.

“Looks like a beach to me.”

He’d know if anyone did, Ian had to admit.

“Do you feel that?” Ian asked, frowning as he looked around.

“What?”

The New Yorker walked to the bottom of the ramp and looked over toward the sheer mountain, concentrating on trying to figure out what he felt.

“Almost like a warm spot…” he muttered, turning in every direction to see if he could figure out where it was coming from.

“It’s the beach, Ian,” River pointed out. “It’s supposed to be warm…”

“I know.”

It didn’t stop him from continuing to look around, though, and River hesitated, trying to feel it, too. He was still trying to feel it when the other Gateship landed about thirty feet away.

“Let’s go see if they found anything,” Ian said, still distracted and looking around – although his gaze continued to return to the mountain down the beach.

As they walked over, the ramp lowered and Sheppard and his team filed out, Rodney holding a life sign detector while Sheppard and the others looked around warily at first, always looking for a trap or some kind of danger.

Ian started to say something, but Sheppard frowned.

“What is that?”

McKay looked over, quickly.

“What?”

“You don’t feel it?”

“Is it a warm spot?” Ian asked.

John’s frown didn’t fade as he was quiet for a moment, trying to decide if that was the best way to describe what he was feeling. Ronan Dex scowled, looking for anything that might be a trap or a danger, and Teyla looked around curiously.

“Yeah. It kind of is, isn’t it?”

“I don’t feel it,” Ronon said.

“Nor do I,” Teyla agreed.

“It’s there,” Sheppard said. “Feels kind of… tingly.” He looked over at Ian to see if that was a good description and the New Yorker nodded.

“Right.”

“Do you feel it, Rodney?” Teyla asked.

McKay, however, wasn’t paying attention. He was looking at the device in his hand.

“This is wrong…”

“What is?” River asked, his hand moving down to his holster.

Rodney looked around.

“Think about it,” he told them, his face pale. “There were hundreds of dead people here only a few hours ago. Do you see any dead people? I don’t.”