"I don't care what you'd like," announced the ST officer. "I've got my orders." He turned to Ronon. "Follow me."
Wordlessly, Ronon did just that. The rest of the security detail fell in behind him, in case he got any fancy ideas. He was marched past his fellow troops-who ducked their heads, avoiding eye contact at all cost, their whole demeanor yelling Thank the Ancestors, it's not me! — and across the parade ground to an open surface glider. The ST officer motioned him to climb aboard, and he was happy to comply. If life had taught him one thing, it was that a wise man didn't question amenities but enjoyed them while they lasted.
Which is precisely what you should have done last night, Dex!
As it turned out, the amenities didn't last for long. The glider never even rose high enough to sneak a look over the barrier wall into the residential slums. After a short hop past the spires of the government administrative complex, it banked steeply, slowed to an almost complete halt with the anti-gray boosters running full-throttle, and settled outside the main entrance of the Defense Command Center.
The STs jumped out and secured the sidewalk, still intent on stopping any escape attempt their charge might make. Overkill, considering that the Behemoth would stop him in his tracks if Ronon so much as thought of trying. That aside, he wanted to find out what the hell was going on before he entertained any notions of running even though, given a choice in the matter, he'd have done his level best to avoid revisiting the DCC.
At the top of a broad set of stairs the entrance to the center loomed like a huge black maw, doors noiselessly sliding open and shut at irregular intervals to gobble up scurrying people who were dwarfed to antlike proportions by this monolith of a building. The primary cause of death among ants was getting stepped on…
The doors opened, gobbled, shut, and he and his escort headed across a cold, marble-glistening lobby and toward a bank of transporters at the far end. The space was so enormous that the echo of their footsteps seemed to come at them from all sides, mingled with the hushed voices of unseen people. Now and again a single word broke the surface of unintelligible murmur like a bubble, out of context and surreal.
Daytime.
Nosebleed.
Gruel.
The transporter lacked the kind of controls Ronon remembered. Instead of a touch schematic it had an opaque screen, flickering with a steady stream of numbers. Coordinates, no doubt, though he couldn't even begin to decipher them. The device was operated from a wristband the ST officer wore. Ronon filed it away for further use; if you wanted to get anywhere in this building-or, more to the point, if you wanted to get out of this building-you-needed-one of those wristbands.
Then the floor seemed to fall out from under him while his stomach leaped for the ceiling, and he silently cursed the engineer who'd decided to skimp on the inertial dampeners. Maybe it had been deliberate, to unsettle the delinquents. In this place down wasn't a good direction. The memory made him clench his teeth, and he felt a thin sheen of sweat cooling on his forehead. The ST officer smiled a razor of a smile, and turned to the door. They'd be there soon, wherever there was.
As suddenly as it had begun its descent, the transporter jerked to a stop, its door opening on another lobby, one that was uncomfortably familiar. Ronon pulled his features into a blank mask. Behind that steel door across from the transporter bank someone was screaming; high-pitched agonized yelps, one after another, triggered by each push of the Behemoth into a consciousness. Someone was being initiated. Hooray for them.
"Feeling cold, soldier?" the ST officer asked, ogling the goose-bumps that raced up Ronon's arms.
"No, Excellency. I don't feel anything, Excellency."
The razor smile snapped open to release a throaty laugh, then the officer turned left, past the door that locked in the screams, and down an empty, dimly lit corridor. Ronon stuffed his relief into a small, tightly sealed pocket of his mind.
The end of the corridor was closed off by yet another door, massive enough to protect a treasure vault. In front of it was a checkpoint manned by yet more STs.
One of them scanned the officer's wristband for his orders, then nodded at Ronon. "Is he to enter?"
"That would be the point of bringing him down here," the officer snapped.
"He'll have to have a probe, then," the ST replied, unperturbed.
"Fine. Just hurry up. They've been waiting long enough in there."
"Hey! You! Place your head there." The ST indicated a metal chin rest.
Ronon did as ordered. Everyone underwent probes on a monthly basis to ensure that their conditioning was fully functional and they hadn't, by some miracle, contrived to outwit the Behemoth.
A mechanical arm swung up from under the chin rest, rose, and the probe telescoped out at him until it touched his left eyeball to look at whatever patterns were forming on his retina now He'd trained himself years ago not to flinch when it happened, and it wasn't painful, just unpleasant. The unbearable part was knowing that somehow the Behemoth in his mind would be tattling with the probe, telling on him and his behavior. If the computer derived any danger signals from the data transmitted by the probe, the consequences could be… ugly. Of course you never really knew what kind of thought or feeling counted as a danger signal.
Then, quietly and unspectacularly, it was over, the probe retracted, and the ST gave a bored nod, as though he were disappointed that this subject hadn't been plotting a military coup in his spare time. "He can go."
The officer looked mildly surprised but bit back any comment. In front of them the door swung open, a yard-thick boltbristling chunk of metal. Beyond lay a cavernous space, white and sterile, and at its center, like a displaced work of art or an object for laboratory study, sat a Stargate. More Security Troops lined the walls, positioned at short intervals, their unblinking focus on the dormant gate, and for a brief moment Ronon wondered what it must be like to pull that detail, standing there for days, weeks, months, knowing that you were pointlessly guarding against an invasion that couldn't happen because the gate system no longer worked.
Then his attention was drawn to a group of three men in long white robes-Ancestors. Two of them, young and eager, were strangers, but Ronon instantly recognized the oldest of the three, even though he hadn't seen the man in ten years. Maybe the stoop was a little more pronounced, the face a little more lined, the hair a little grayer, but there was no mistaking him-Marcon, junior member of the Defense Council back when they'd first met, now its leader. Marcon had debriefed Ronon after they'd found him washed into the inner harbor of Atlantis, a sodden rag doll, more dead than alive. Marcon had pretended to be a friend. Marcon had told him all the beautiful lies.
Hatred boiled through him like molten steel, white-hot and consuming. Ronon had killed a man for a similar betrayal, and in his memories that man's face became overlaid by Marcon's, making him want to sigh in satisfaction. Then the pain struck. The Behemoth ripped through his head in punishment for the forbidden fantasy, and he gasped, struggling to get his mind and feelings back under control.
If Marcon had noticed, he gave no indication. Instead he dismissed the ST officer with a curt nod and smiled at Ronon. "Ronon Dex! It is good to see you're keeping well, my friend."
As if you care, old man!
The silent outburst brought another bolt of pain, less ferocious this time, and Ronon forced himself into uttering an approximation of a civilized reply. "Greetings, Marcon."
"I'm glad you came," Marcon continued as though Ronon had been given a choice. "We need your expertise. Come."
His arm described a graceful arc, inviting Ronon into an embrace as comrades would, hands clapped on shoulders, on their way to the inn to reminisce about the good times they'd had together. Ronon tasted bile, and something in his face or posture finally must have warned Marcon off. The arm dropped, and Marcon nodded a silent acknowledgement; no more lies, no more pretense. They were master and slave, it was as simple as that.