02 - Reliquary (21 page)

The Koan shifted forward, blocking the way, their dark eyes alert and steady.
They looked far less twitchy, and somehow even more dangerous here than they had
in the tunnels under the repository. John would have thought being removed from
the place might have made them less susceptible to Dorane’s control, but it just
seemed to have solidified it.

John said, “Hi, guys. Miss me?” He ejected the clip and laid both it and the
9mm on the floor. It wasn’t like the gun was going to do them any good anyway.
The shield made Dorane invulnerable, creating an impervious body-hugging force
field. He must have brought it with him; they had only found one in Atlantis,
which had initialized to McKay so no one else could use it. Then the Darkness
creature had sucked the energy out of it when McKay was trying to get it out
through the ’gate, and the shield had never worked since.

Dorane’s expression was impenetrable. “Search them.”

John submitted to being awkwardly patted down by the Koan, though the one
doing him growled the entire time, making it clear it would much rather be
disemboweling him. When they stepped back, empty-handed, Dorane said, “Very
good,” and didn’t order anybody to shoot. He turned away, starting back up the
steps to the control gallery. The Koan gestured with their weapons and John and
McKay followed.

Seeing Dorane in control of their ’gate room, was painful in a way John
hadn’t expected. He had never been part of the SGC; this was a Pegasus Galaxy
thing, where access to a Stargate was to be protected at all cost, at any cost.
Wraith might come through the ’gates, but mostly they came from the air, and
controlling your ’gate meant survival.

McKay asked tightly, “What did you do with the rest of the people who were
stationed in this area?”

It was the question John had been trying to think of a way to ask without
wrecking his act. Dorane glanced back with mild interest. “They are being held
in a secure room on the level below. Your leader Weir was very sympathetic to my
people’s plight, and obligingly sent two gateships back for them. Teyla and
Kinjo accompanied them, and by the time they landed to pick up the Koan, the
majority of each crew, besides the pilots, of course, were mine.”

The pilots would have had the Ancient gene or the ATA therapy. John hoped
they were both still alive. “And so you’re moving in permanently?” he asked. He
threw a look at Ford where he stood like a statue on the gallery, guarding Grodin.

Dorane laughed. “Of course not. Without full power, this city is ridiculously
vulnerable to the Wraith. It’s fit only for scavengers, now.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” John said, giving Rodney, whose mouth was
open, a chance to think twice and shut it.

Dorane reached the gallery and stopped to look directly at McKay. Private
Benson came to stand at his side, his expression dull-eyed and blank. Dorane
said, “Some of your people have managed to fortify one of the levels lower down
in this section. The doors are sealed, the transporters refuse access, and I
can’t convince the city systems to give me control.”

That’s a relief.
John was betting it was the area around the medical lab,
which was in one of the most defensible sections of the city’s center and a
designated point of retreat if the operations tower became compromised. Which
meant, if they were lucky, Dorane hadn’t found and killed Beckett, who was the
strongest natural Ancient gene carrier next to John. He doubted Dorane had
managed to trap the entire expedition. If the group holding the medlab had been
able to raise any kind of alarm, there were probably people who had escaped to
go to ground in the remote parts of the city. But even if they couldn’t be
found, they were still trapped. There was no way off Atlantis other than the
Stargate or a jumper, and the mainland was too far away to reach except by air.
Hopefully Dorane hadn’t had time to send anybody there to mess with the
Athosians yet.

Dorane was still eyeing McKay with thoughtful deliberation. Rodney said
grimly, “I don’t know yet if anyone has told you about my various allergies, but
if you use any of your freakish retroviruses on me, I’ll probably just fall over
dead.” He managed to sound as though he was sort of looking forward to it.

Dorane countered, “But it might just make for a more interesting—if
brief—experiment.”

John shook his head and stared at the ceiling.
See, this is why I told you
to shut up, Rodney.
McKay did a little uncomfortable twitch, but lifted his
chin and snapped, “Would it be more or less brief than getting shot?”

Dorane didn’t bother to answer that one. “Are you willing to help remove the
naquadah generators for transport back to the repository in exchange for your
life—for the moment? Dr. Kavanagh has explained how the generators are tied in
to the original power systems, but he admits that they are dangerous devices,
and that as you installed them, you are better qualified to remove them.”

The naquadah generators?
John thought, eyes narrowing.
He’s serious—he
really is going back there.
McKay looked as if he had been asked to remove
his own kidney with a spoon, but he said, “Oh right, as if I have any choice.”

Dorane inclined his head, apparently taking that for acceptance. “If you
complete that successfully, perhaps I will need you for a longer time.”

“You’ve been here before, after the Ancients left,” John said, interrupting
whatever McKay was about to reply. “Why didn’t you take the ZPMs? You could have
gotten through the ’gate with at least two of them without collapsing the city
shields.”

“I had no need for them at that point. I had given up.” Dorane’s eyes fixed
on John. He said, with an eerie lack of inflection, “Your people have given me
new hope.” His expression shifted and he almost smiled. “And you seem to have
done an excellent job of reviving the city of your forebears. Except of course
for the essential defensive elements. I’m certain the Lantians would be
delighted that their children have made such good use of their legacy. And that
those children will be of such help to me.”

It wasn’t comforting to know that their speculation had been correct; Dorane
didn’t want the city, he wanted the people in it. John said, “Yeah, it’s too bad
they aren’t here to see it. Of course if they were, they’d probably be killing
you right about now. Too bad they didn’t take care of that earlier.” He showed his
teeth in something that wasn’t a smile. He could feel McKay glaring at him, but
he was supposed to be crazy, so he didn’t think a lot of hostility was out of
place.

“I’m sure they felt their punishment was effective.” Dorane turned, starting
down the gallery, telling John, “Come with me.”

John followed, Benson trailing behind him, obviously as insurance he didn’t
change his mind.

McKay started to follow, but a Koan blocked his way. John glanced back over
his shoulder, keeping his expression noncommittal. McKay managed to glare and
look frightened at the same time. John didn’t like the idea of being separated
either, but he didn’t see any way to prevent it.

Dorane led the way down to the conference room. The embossed panels were
already open, allowing access into the room where the walls were all soft
metallics, with squares of copper, lapis, and turquoise. When Dorane walked in
and sat down at the table, John had that sudden feeling of violation you got
when your house was robbed, that “unwelcome strangers touching your stuff”
feeling. This was the room where they had briefings, yelled at each other, made
plans, worried about overdue ’gate teams.

Laroque, one of the operations staff who worked with Grodin, was seated at
the table already, an open laptop in front of her. The dead expression on her
face told John that she had been given the control drug. She had a bruise on her
cheek, and her dark hair had been pulled out of its usually scrupulously neat
bun, as if someone had grabbed her by it. It provided John with an image of what
might have happened on the control gallery, and he had to stop in the doorway
and quell a violently homicidal impulse. Benson had a P-90 aimed at his back,
and it wasn’t like the personal shield would let him rip Dorane’s throat out
anyway.

Dorane regarded him for a moment with that chill calm, then gestured to
another chair. As John dropped into it Dorane said, “There is another small pocket of resistance. They have not sealed
themselves off as well as the others, but they are trapped, so there is not much
point in attempting to extract them, at least for the moment. I have jammed your
communication devices and had the Lantian com system taken offline, but I can
speak to them through this technology.” He glanced at Laroque, and she used the
laptop’s keyboard to call up a program.

John just had time to realize that the laptop must be set up for video
conferencing when the screen flickered to a view of another room. Elizabeth was
leaning on a table, turning her head to face the video feed. He heard a rustle
as someone else moved just out of the camera’s range. It gave John an instant to
brace himself. Elizabeth saw him and straightened. “John!” Then, staring, she
asked uncertainly, “John?”

He didn’t answer her, on impulse slumping in the chair and avoiding her eyes
like a sulky teenager. He knew he might not be able to resist trying to give her
a signal of some kind, and Dorane would be watching for that. It was probably
one of the reasons that he wanted this little confrontation.

“Your Major Sheppard is helping me now,” Dorane told her. He didn’t gloat, he
just said it calmly, as though they were at a staff meeting talking about
reassignments.

John could feel Elizabeth’s eyes boring into the side of his head. The
laptop’s microphone picked up other people moving in the room, a startled
murmur. John slumped a little further in the chair. He hoped she had Bates with
her, and at least a couple of men from the Marine security detail. He realized
his claws were out; there had to be some sort of impulse-control mechanism there
that he just hadn’t mastered yet. She asked quietly, “What did you do to him?”

Dorane gestured, as if the answer was obvious. “Just a successful
experiment.”

John slanted a look at her in time to see her expression harden. Behind her
he could see blue-gray wall panels with silver trim, but that didn’t narrow it
down enough to tell him which room it was. She asked, “Is Dr. McKay alive as well?”

“As long as he is useful.” Dorane leaned forward, sounding reasonable. “This
can all be solved in a very simple way. You have something I want. If you give
it to me, I will leave you in peace.”

John didn’t think there was any way Elizabeth would buy it, but just in case
he looked at Dorane, brows lifted in incredulous amusement. He considered
bursting into laughter but decided he should hold onto that until later.

Elizabeth smiled thinly, making it clear she was humoring Dorane. “And what
would that be?”

“The memory core of the display chamber you found recently. Your people spoke
to me of it, that you managed to make it play a portion of the display, and
found the ’gate address for the athenaeum there. I have been to the chamber, but
the memory has been removed.”

“I don’t know anything about that.” Elizabeth eyed him. “Why do you want it?”

Good question,
John thought, keeping the surprise off his face. He
wouldn’t have guessed that the display held any information that Dorane didn’t
already have.

“It contains data that is useless to you, but important to me. I’ve tried to
retrieve it before. After the Lantians departed, I had to destroy two subspace
power sources in order to make my crippled dialing device work, to come here
searching for it. I found the display, but I thought it damaged beyond hope.”

Elizabeth’s brows drew together, and John knew she didn’t understand. He
didn’t either.
He came to the city just to look for the display, and when he
found it was broken he didn’t trash the place, didn’t go anywhere else through
the ’gate, he just gave up and went home. Okay, that…doesn’t make sense.
Elizabeth asked, “If you’ve come here before, why didn’t you escape through our
Stargate to another world? You could’ve taken a jumper—”

Dorane spread his hands. “Woman, escape from what? I have always been exactly
where I wanted to be. I would not stay in this city for any reason; its
atmosphere is inimical to me. I need to stay at my athenaeum.” He showed faint
exasperation. “Now the only reason to remove the memory core was to try to read
the damaged portion. Tell me which of your people would do that.”

Zelenka,
John thought. He must have removed the core after they left, to
keep working on it in case there were maps or structural information that they
could have used. Elizabeth said, “I have no idea. No one was assigned to work on
that.”

“I hate waste, but I will begin killing your people if I do not get a
satisfactory answer.” Dorane regarded her steadily.

Dorane must have already asked the personnel he had under his control, who
would have had no choice but to answer. But unless Zelenka had mentioned it to
some of the other scientists and techs, they might not realize he had been with
John and McKay when they found the thing.
Except Ford. Ford knows Zelenka’s
the most likely candidate. And Ford knows I know.
John said, “I bet I can
guess who has it.”

Dorane shifted, lifting his brows. “And?”

“And it’s Dr. Zelenka, but you already know that from questioning the
others.” He tilted his head toward Benson. “I’m guessing what you really want to
know is where he is.”

From the screen, Elizabeth said sharply, “John, don’t—”

Dorane motioned to Laroque, and she cut the video. He turned to face John
directly.

John said, “He’s down in the medlab, keeping you out of the computer system.”
Elizabeth wouldn’t have been as worried if Zelenka was holed up with her.
“You’ve cut off access to Atlantis’ com system and you’re jamming our radio
traffic, so they won’t know about me. I can get in there and talk them into
giving me the memory core.”