"One's enough for now., Grabbing Radek's wrist, Elizabeth prevented him from getting up to fetch some more. "It can hit you quite hard when you're not used to it. And no, I'm afraid I've got no idea what became of Rodney. He never was here. I don't even know if he's still alive."
Trying to ignore the weight of responsibility and guilt that pressed down on her, she struggled to just keep breathing. There was a lot to be said for madness, Elizabeth thought, looking at her alternate who'd curled up like a kitten and was falling asleep by the fire. If she simply went crazy, she wouldn't have to face the fact that she'd failed on an unimaginable scale. Rodney and everybody else who'd died or gone missing that day-all of them were on her conscience. She could have stopped the activation of Charybdis, but she'd chosen not to believe Rodney. Her gaze wandered to the tray and the mugs, and she craved some of the tea, if only to make her forget for a while.
"Why?" Radek said.
Why what?
"Why do we need to find McKay?" Colonel Sheppard's speech sounded faintly slurred. But the tea couldn't kick in that fast, could it?
Scared all of a sudden, she asked, "John? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Tea seems to work." He scrubbed his hands over his face as though to wipe away his fatigue. "McKay? I thought that would be ovbi… ov… obvious. We need him to figure out a way of getting us back to Atlantis-our Atlantis-and stop Charybdis from ever happening. But if we can't find him, it's up to you, Zelenka. We haven't got much time left."
"Less time than you'd imagine," Radek affirmed gently. His eyes were warm, smiling, but Elizabeth couldn't say whether it was how he felt or whether it was the blossom extract. "Suppose I help you, Colonel-and keep in mind, you no longer can order me to-and by some miracle you succeed. What will happen to us?" He'd gradually raised his voice, and everyone in the grotto was listening now. The happy noises had died down completely.
In a flash, she knew what he was playing at and that he was stone-cold sober for once. His mug must have contained hot water, nothing more. "Radek! Don't do this! We have to-"
"Stick together?" He laughed. "We never have. Because you're different, aren't you? You won't be affected by any of this!" He turned back to the Sheppards. "What will happen to us?"
Major Sheppard blinked heavily, struggling to focus. "You won't ever have existed," he murmured. "You won't-"
"We won't be there any longer. We'll be wiped out!" Arms spread wide, Radek rose like an angry prophet. "You heard him, brothers and sisters. They'd destroy us without thinking twice about it. And Elizabeth here-I won't honor her by using her chosen name-would help them. Because she is one of them, not one of us."
Us and them.
That's what it had boiled down to, what she'd been afraid of all along. In a way Radek had been right: the arrival of the Sheppards and her double had upset a precarious balance, and the resultant upheaval could destroy them all.
Across the fire from her, Colonel Sheppard was struggling to rise, sluggish and uncoordinated, and awkwardly slumped back against his alternate, who began giggling uncontrollably. Elizabeth clenched her fists. "How much did you give them?"
"Enough," Radek said simply. "They won't be able to put up a fight, which is what I hoped for. It's never been my intention to harm them."
"So what are you planning to do with them now?"
"Send them back to where they've come from."
"You heard them, Radek. It won't work unless you go with them. You'd have to leave, which is the last thing you'd want to do, isn't it?" It wasn't exactly a fair move, but Elizabeth no longer cared. Leaving the planet meant not having access to a drug that made this version of Atlantis seem like the happiest place in the universe. Nobody wanted to leave, and the thought of never being able to return would be terrifying. "Besides, how would you dial out? There is no dialing console"
Fora brief moment it looked as though she was getting through. Then Radek shook his head. "Who says they were telling the truth? And I suspect they've got a jumper." He stepped over to the Sheppards, who were all but unconscious by now, and began searching them. Tucked into the waistband of Major Sheppard's pants he found a handgun, which he discarded with a mixture of indifference and disgust. Next he discovered a cloak remote, which was what he'd been looking for all along. "I thought so," he declared and activated the device.
Elizabeth whirled around and strained to see past the darkness and pounding hail beyond the grotto. At the far side of the clearing a faint gray outline materialized. Frustration made her grit her teeth. "For all we know, sending them back through the gate could kill them!"
"It's unfortunate but preferable to them killing us. Besides, if they've been telling the truth the gate won't work, will it?"
"Radek-"
"Make sure she doesn't interfere," he said calmly.
When Elizabeth turned back she almost collided with Brother Star, who was built like a linebacker and had the mindset of a Marine. The rest of the group closed in around her; a wall of once familiar faces that somehow had mutated into alien masks risen from a nightmare. And who could blame them`? They'd gotten the gist of what Major Sheppard had said: if the effects of Charybdis were reversed, they'd cease to exist.
"Sorry, sister." Somehow Star contrived to sound both apologetic and implacable at the same time.
Then a bright burst of pain exploded at the back of her head and sent her spinning into blackness.
Rodney McKay had persuaded himself that the tales of the local inquisition were vastly exaggerated. It'd been the only way of getting any sleep at all. Besides, so far and contrary to the propaganda, nothing seriously detrimental had happened to him. True, his current abode wasn't exactly pleasant, and the exquisite boredom of spending twelve days in an eight by eight subterranean cell defied description, but on the other hand, nobody had strapped him to the rack either. The worst damage he had sustained was a complete set of blisters from when he'd been power-walked down to the city, but even those had pretty much healed by now. Okay, two larger ones showed signs of turning into bunions, but considering the alternative he ought to congratulate himself.
You forgot to whine about the cold and the rats.
Well, yes, there was that.
He was hearing voices. One voice, to be precise. Still refusing to consider insanity, he'd put it down to the stress of the interrogation at first, but now he was more inclined to ascribe it to some form of malnutrition. Had to be. It had gotten worse since they'd thrown him in here without so much as listening to his side of the story. He'd decided to protest his treatment by refusing to eat. Not that it was much of a hardship. So malnutrition had to be it. Lack of potassium? Manganese? Zinc? Some mineral deficiency at any rate, and where was Carson Beckett when you needed him?
You mean the excitable person with the funny accent?
"Shut up!"
God, he needed some decent food! He needed some food, period.
As if on cue, his stomach cramped painfully. In front of a small hatch at the bottom of his cell door sat a wooden bowl, slid in at dawn by the warder. A large, mangy-looking rat was slinking around it, sniffing at its contents, and Rodney stared at it miserably.
Second thoughts about that pointless hunger strike? Personally, I don't care about whether or not you're killing yourself, but I'd take exception to any attempts at killing me. Especially pointlessly.
.,Who said it was pointless`? Hunger strikes worked for Mahatma Gandhi."
Ma-who?
"Mahatma Gandhi. One of the great- Oh, no, no, no! I am not going to validate a delusion by talking-to it."
There was no other choice, he supposed. He had to start eating again.