02 - Reliquary (17 page)

“No, it does not. Nothing proves your point, because your point is stupid and
defeatist. Note that I said stupid first before defeatist, because that’s the
salient feature of your wholly ridiculous point.” Rodney unclipped his holstered
sidearm and held it in his lap, staring at it. Then he said, “You have to give
me your word you won’t shoot yourself.”

“What? Oh.” John had forgotten about Dr. Gall. A young guy, a super genius
like Rodney, with his life mostly sucked out of him by a Wraith, he had put a
bullet in his own head so Rodney wouldn’t have to stay with him in the downed
Wraith ship. So Rodney could go help John. John looked at the ceiling, around at
the stained walls, uncomfortable. Would he use a gun on himself? He didn’t think
so, but then Gall probably hadn’t planned on suicide before the Wraith had taken
him, either. Feeling incredibly awkward, he finally said, stiffly, “I give you
my word I won’t shoot myself.”

Rodney looked at him for such a long moment that John turned shy and picked
up the life sign detector, fiddling with it to make sure he could still make the
buttons work. It was a little strange working with the claws when they kept
coming out unexpectedly. It was like having extended fingertips with no feeling.

Finally Rodney put the pistol on the floor next to John. He shifted over to
pick up the flashlight, saying, “I’m going to turn this off to save the
batteries. We only have two flashlights and no spares.”

“Good idea.” John left the gun where it was. He just hoped Rodney wouldn’t
have reason to regret asking him for that promise.

In his work area in one of Atlantis’ large airy rooms, Radek Zelenka sat in
front of three laptops, trying desperately to concentrate on any one of the five
diagnostics and two data analyses he had in progress. He had once liked this
room very much, but now the bright sunlight visible through the softly colored
window panels seemed like a mockery. He hadn’t been able to eat lunch, and his
ration of the terrible coffee from the pot in the main lab bay sat in his
stomach like a pool of motor oil. He couldn’t stop thinking about the news Teyla
and the others had returned with.

Boerne the Marine he had not known well, just enough to speak to casually in
the mess hall, or when someone played a DVD in the evening. Irina Kolesnikova he
had worked with over several projects, and his heart hurt for her.

But the worst part was that there was a good chance Rodney and Sheppard were
still alive, terribly alive, sealed up in a Wraith hive ship to be drained at
their captors’ leisure.

Radek winced and rubbed his eyes, trying to banish that image. It was one
thing for friends to be killed in a war, to grieve and to know that they were at
least safe from further pain and terror. To know they might be suffering for
days yet was quite another.

He set his jaw, turned to yet another laptop and brought up the connection to
one of the Ancient data readers. He had pulled the damaged memory core out of
the pillar and had been trying to reconstruct the scattered fragments of data.
If he could concentrate on nothing else, he could at least submerge himself in
the intricate and elegant patterns of the Ancients’ data matrix.

Sometime later Radek sat back, frowning. “That is very odd.”

At the nearest table, Ling was paging through reports, frowning in
concentration. She glanced up, blinking. “What’s odd?”

Radek shook his head slowly. He had been able to pull together and decipher
one section of the damaged core, the one containing the ’gate address to the
repository. “The gate on Dorane’s world was altered so only the Atlantis ’gate
could connect to it.”

Ling pushed her hair back, her mind still obviously on her own analysis. “By
who? The Wraith?”

“No, no. By the Ancients.”
It was supposed to be a meeting place. Why
would they alter…
Radek could think of a lot of reasons why the Ancients
might think that was a good idea. None of them were good reasons.

At the briefing earlier, Elizabeth and Bates had outlined the plan to gate
back to the repository after night fell on the planet, taking two puddlejumpers
to escort Dorane’s people to the Stargate.
They should be leaving soon
—Zelenka checked his watch. He pushed to his feet, found his headset on the desk
and put it on. “Dr. Weir, I need to speak with you immediately.”

No answer.

“Dr. Weir?”

Faint static. A sinking feeling settled in Radek’s stomach that had nothing
to do with the bad coffee. But she might simply be taking a personal moment. He
tried again, “Dr. Grodin? Peter, are you there?”

No answer. Ling and the two other technical assistants in the lab were now
watching him worriedly. He tried, “Sergeant Bates, come in please.”

No answer. If the head of city security was not answering—There was no reason to panic, but Radek found himself pausing to tell
the others, “Get your laptops, emergency gear. Just in case. I have a funny
feeling. Humor me.” He had barely finished speaking before they were up and
scrambling to stuff computers and equipment in carrying cases. Radek tried the
radio again. “Carson, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Radek.” The answer from the medical lab was gratifyingly quick. Radek
had never been so glad to hear Beckett’s voice, except possibly for the time he
had gotten his leg stuck in a faulty transporter door out on the southwest pier.
“What’s up?”

“Carson, I can’t raise the operations tower. Or Bates.”

Radek heard Carson say to someone in the background, “Katrien, love, see if
you can reach anyone in the operations tower.” There were muffled voices for a
few moments. Then Carson’s voice said sharply, “Radek, you’d better get yourself
down here. We can’t raise them either.”

“We’ll be with you in a moment.” Radek cut the connection. His lab staff were
gathered around him now, clutching emergency packs and laptops, watching him
anxiously. “It’s probably nothing,” Radek said, opening a compartment in the
table and taking out the holstered pistol that lay inside. “But we’ll pick up
the others on this level on the way.”

They were halfway down the hall when the lights went out.

John was stretched out on his side, his eyes on the softly glowing screen of
the life sign detector, watching the Koan move around on this level. McKay had
been so tired he had fallen asleep almost before he lay down. The holstered 9mm
still lay between them, and John had left it there, just checking to make sure
it was loaded.

After a time he realized the fever was completely gone, leaving him with a
dry mouth and probably a good case of dehydration, but blessedly cool. Except
for McKay’s soft breathing, it was very quiet, and John kept imagining that he could hear the detector making a soft, almost inaudible humming noise.
Listening to it, he tried to decide if it was really there and he had just never
heard it before, because he had never used a detector in a place this quiet.
Then he started imagining that the ZPM was making soft little whispery noises
to itself, and that was just weird.

John was deeply glad when McKay’s watch alarm beeped.

Beside him, McKay groaned, batted at his watch until he got the alarm turned
off, and sat up, moving like an old man.

John asked him, “Hey, you okay?” McKay usually woke up instantly. John hadn’t
noticed it earlier, but he was pale and bleary-eyed, like a drunk on a bender.
It might be the lack of actual food; they hadn’t had anything except the power
bars since yesterday.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Yawning, McKay scrubbed at his eyes, took the detector
away from John, and peered at the screen. “I dreamed Atlantis was attacked by a
hive ship, and Samantha Carter showed up with SG-1 and rescued us. It was a
little humiliating, but under the circumstances I was willing to cope with
that.”

In the past couple months, John had mostly dreamed about killing or getting
killed. He meant to make a joke, to ask if Colonel Carter had brought beer with
her and what was she wearing, but instead what came out was, “That’s not going
to happen, Rodney.”

“I know.” McKay sighed and fumbled for the flashlight tucked into his vest
pocket.

That was when John realized something else had changed. It had happened so
slowly during the last couple of hours that he hadn’t noticed. “Hey, don’t turn
on the light just yet.”

McKay had finally managed to get the flashlight out of his pocket and right
side up. “What?” He squinted at John in the darkness, then went still. “Did
something else happen? I mean, while I was asleep, did…something change?”

“No, not like that! Oh, wait.” John realized he had better check and make
sure. He did a quick personal inventory, as well as he could without a mirror.
No, spiny things still the same size,
claws as normal, nothing else obvious.
“No, it’s just that I can see in the
dark, really well. Better than really well. Like—” He picked up a power bar from
their tiny stack of supplies. The ambient light from the detector’s screen was
enough to light the whole room for him. “I can read the writing on this wrapper.
Jeez, these things are mostly preservatives.”

“Oh. That’s good, though. That’ll come in handy.” Rodney rubbed his face,
obviously still trying to wake himself up. “Not the preservatives, the seeing in
the dark thing.”

McKay stuffed everything in his pack, and John turned his back so he could
use the light to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. John took the 9mm
and put the remaining extra clip in his pocket. They couldn’t afford to meet
many Koan on the way.

John slung Rodney’s pack over his shoulder, so Rodney could carry the ZPM.
John didn’t ask what happened if you dropped one of those things. He guessed
that either it would be impressively shock-resistant and nothing would happen,
or the resulting explosion would be so violent they wouldn’t be in any position
to care.

There was nothing in the upper levels of Dorane’s lab except a few dead Koan.
John, his eyes squeezed nearly shut, held the flashlight while Rodney got the
sealed blast doors open. The life sign detector assured them there was nothing
waiting outside, but as the doors slid away, John covered the growing opening
with the pistol.

The corridor looked empty, and John stepped out cautiously, making sure there
were no Koan equipped with a new sensor-jammer crouched in hiding. He signaled
for Rodney to follow him, realized Rodney couldn’t see jack in the dark space,
and whispered, “Come on.”

McKay groped his way out into the corridor, the ZPM tucked firmly under his
arm, and John grabbed his free hand and guided it to the pack strap on his
shoulder. “Hold on to that. Let’s go.”

“Right.” Rodney sounded uncertain, and John didn’t blame him; he wouldn’t
have wanted to be blind in this darkness.

Holding the detector across the 9mm, John led the way back through the maze
of passages. “Can you see in color?” Rodney asked at one point.

“No. It’s like normal night vision, just a lot better.”

“Huh. It’s probably something to do with an increase in the rhodopsin in your
eyes. That’s the chemical in the rod cells in the retina.” He hesitated. “If the
flashlight bothers you, what about daylight?”

“Crap,” John muttered. He hadn’t thought of that. If the Koan avoided the
surface because they couldn’t see in bright light—A nocturnal lifestyle and
incredible night vision might even be considered a trait helpful in surviving
the Wraith. But John wasn’t willing to trade it for permanent day-blindness.
“We’ll deal with it when we get up there.”

The detector picked up life signs in the corridor leading to the nearest
stairwell, so John took another route to the upper level. Since the ZPM was with
them rather than powering the repository’s systems, the blue emergency lights
were out. John looked around, squinting, trying to get his bearings again. They
were near one of the monitoring bays for a cell area; he thought the surface
shaft was only a couple hundred yards to the south. He heard a voice whisper and
flinched, then realized it was the damn ZPM again. He thought about telling
Rodney about it, but he just couldn’t make himself admit it aloud.

Rodney had recaptured the detector, clutching it to the ZPM. “We were wrong
about the Koan ignoring the big surface shaft. I’m getting a large concentration
of life signs right around it.”

John grimaced. “There’s got to be alternate ways to get up there.” He frowned
up at the rocky ceiling, thinking over the layout of the control area not too
far above their heads. “Hold it. Right before Kavanagh started acting funny—”

“Oh, and that would be when? 1986?” McKay snorted.

“Recently acting funny. He was out of visual contact in the control area,
remember, when his headset went dead?”

“Yes. Yes, you think Dorane was up there with a sensor-jammer, waiting to get
one of us alone.” Rodney pivoted, using the detector to check the corridor.
“That’s in this direction.”

The ZPM whispered again, and before John could stop himself, he snapped,
“Will you shut up?”

His attention on the detector, Rodney said, unperturbed, “You have to wait
until I’m talking before you can say that. That’s the way it works. I thought
you got that about us.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, I—Never mind.”

Finally, using the map from Rodney’s PDA, they found a passage leading to a
room in about the right spot. John shielded his eyes while McKay investigated
the walls with the flashlight, until McKay finally said, “Hah, here it is. The
panel is set right into this wall, so you wouldn’t find it unless you already
had a suspicion it was here.” McKay turned the light off so John could help him
wedge the panel open. They had found a small one or two person elevator, the
metal walls etched with abstract designs. “That must be what lured Kavanagh off
alone.” McKay’s tone was deeply self-satisfied at solving that small mystery.
“There would have been a brief power signature from the elevator, and Kavanagh
followed it into the room. After Dorane gave him the drug, he ordered him to
forget it ever happened.”