Later that afternoon, Teyla made sure she just happened to be in the mess hall at the same time as Alexa Cassidy. After some nimble maneuvering, she found herself sitting opposite the young woman with a tray of random food items in front of her. There was a shift-break in progress, and the mess was crowded: making sure she got close to the physicist had been difficult enough, without the distraction of paying attention to what she was ordering.
She sat for a few minutes, toying with a plastic bowlful of some sickly-looking dessert and watching Cassidy push food absently around her own tray. After a time the crowd in the mess began to thin out. The man on Cassidy’s left finished his meal and walked away, then the one on her right. Teyla had anticipated that Cassidy wouldn’t rush back to Angelus after her break, and she was right. It was only when the mess was nearly empty again did the woman push her untouched tray aside and stand up.
Teyla looked up at her, directly for the first time. “Alexa?”
Cassidy frowned behind her glasses — they were large, and made her look rather owlish. “Yes?”
“May I speak with you?”
“Ah, Ma’am? I’ve really got to get back.” She was looking at Teyla warily, obviously unsure why she might warrant this sudden attention. They had never spoken before, after all. Teyla realized that if she didn’t take control of the conversation quickly, the woman would bolt. She seemed the type to do so; bookish, unsure of herself.
“I am sorry, Alexa. I know you are busy with the Ancient’s project — but I am here because of Mr Franklyn.”
“Bob?” Cassidy sat back down, slowly. “What’s wrong?”
“With him? Nothing. But he is worried about you.”
“Damn it.” The woman looked away. “I told him not to say anything.”
“He knows you are unhappy with your current assignment. I believe he suggested you request a transfer.”
Cassidy nodded miserably. “Fat lot of good it did me, with that IOA hawk standing right there. Look, I’m in enough trouble already…”
Teyla took a chance. “Alexa, please. What is it about Angelus that frightens you?”
The woman froze, and stared at her for a long moment. Then she got up. “I have to go,” she breathed.
Teyla stood too. “Let me help you.”
Cassidy didn’t reply. She simply turned and walked briskly away, out of the mess hall.
Teyala watched her go, cursing herself. She had played that badly, and lost one of her main lines of enquiry. Now she would have to try something different.
Glumly, she put her finger into the dessert and brought it to her mouth. It tasted exactly as she had imagined it, which didn’t improve her mood at all.
Much later, when darkness had fallen, she went down to the lab where Angelus worked.
She had been mulling Franklyn’s words over in her mind, trying to make sense of his insinuations. He seemed certain that Cassidy was afraid of Angelus, or at least of something that had occurred in the lab, but what could that be? By all accounts, the Ancient was a model of politeness. Teyla herself had not perceived the slightest threat from him — he had been quiet, helpful, almost gentle. She could not find it in herself, even after all she had seen, to believe him so radically different with Cassidy than he had been with her.
There was his work, of course. The design of his super-weapon would frighten most people, if they truly understood it. But again, Teyla couldn’t quite reconcile what she knew of Cassidy with that kind of attitude. According to Franklyn, she was a most dedicated scientist, one whose enthusiasm for the applications of high-energy physics had not only seen her rise to the upper levels of a discipline that was thoroughly dominated by male academics, but had done so while she was still in her early twenties. If anyone would remain unafraid in the face of whatever the Ancient’s weapon could wreak, it would be her.
Which left something else… Something Teyla could only discover by seeing it for herself.
The way to the lab was a little convoluted, but Teyla had an excellent sense of direction, and before long was entering the long, railed cloister. On the other side of that, and through a short, angled corridor, lay the Ancient’s lab.
He would almost certainly be there. Rumor had it that a bunk had been set up in the lab for him, so he could take periods of rest without leaving his work. However, it was late. Teyla would be surprised if she found Cassidy and the other techs still at Angelus’ side at this hour. She stepped into the cloister, shivering slightly at the sudden coolness of night air. And then, as she reached the first corner, she saw something move in the opposite corridor.
Warily, Teyla slid further back into the shadows, and made herself immobile. She could see shadows moving fitfully in the open corridor entrance. Someone was approaching.
She waited. The shadows grew more defined until, a few seconds later, two men in uniform emerged from the corridor. Teyla didn’t recognize their faces, but they were marines, no doubt from the guard post Sheppard had set up at the entrance to the lab. Perhaps they were going off-shift, although she was certain she had seen no-one else going in. She relaxed a little.
But then, as the two men walked along the other side of the gallery, Teyla became aware that there was something very strange about them.
The cloister was long, but quite narrow. Although the marines were on its far side, when they came to the corner they would turn towards Teyla and see her. Watching these two, she suddenly had no desire at all for that to happen. Instead, she eased herself down behind the rail, crouching with her face to the gridded metal supporting the handrail. From there, hopefully, she could see and yet not be seen.
The marines were closer now, halfway along the gallery. And Teyla realized what it was about them that disturbed her so.
They were walking utterly in unison. Teyla had seen soldiers march before, and even the most highly trained warriors still retain a degree of individuality when they move. Everyone’s bones, after all, are different, even in the smallest ways. Everyone’s muscles are made and stressed and worked according to those bones. Two men, even if they were the exactly the same height, the same build, trained the same way, would not have moved so completely alike as these two.
Twins could not have moved so.
There was no communication between the two marines, either. Not a word passed between them as they walked along the gallery. And even when they reached the end of the cloister — turning towards Teyla’s hiding place behind the rail — they didn’t pause, or falter, or make way for each other. They walked back into the corridor as smoothly and as faultlessly as two machines.
After a minute passed, Teyla let out the breath she had been holding and stood up from her crouch. The marines would, at that pace, be well into the city’s corridors by now.
She moved quickly along the cloister, keeping close to the rail. She was almost at the corridor entrance when there was a sound far behind her, a scuffling footstep.
It didn’t sound at all like the steady, mechanistic tread of the marines, but Teyla froze anyway, then slid back out of the light again, scowling. Her attempt at a covert observation of Angelus looked like being thwarted at every turn. Maybe she should just give up, and come back on a quieter night.
There was a man on the gallery, on the same side as her, looking right at her.
No, she thought, he was looking for her. He had frozen in place, just as she had, and perhaps he had sensed her there. But he couldn’t see her. He was peering, leaning forwards to see, the meager light of the gallery reflecting from his glasses.
It was Radek Zelenka. What reason could he have for being in the cloister so late at night? He normally spent his time investigating the hidden functions of Ancient devices, or being verbally abused by McKay. Often both. But here, now? There was no sense to it.