Without warning, it all stopped, tumbled into the utter silence of a winter morning, brilliant with freshly fallen snow. For what seemed like an eternity he heard nothing, felt nothing, half decided that he was dead. Then he realized that he was panting as though he'd just outrun a whole wing of Wraith darts-if he was panting, he was breathing, and if he was breathing, he was still alive. Even McKay wouldn't be able to dispute the logic of that.
Teyla's hands searched again, found his face and cupped it and withdrew almost as quickly. "You're wet," she whispered, about to lick her finger and determine the nature of the liquid.
"Don't!" Ronon clamped her wrist in an iron grip.
"You're hurting me!"
"Sorry." Taking a deep breath, he eased his hold a little, took stock. Though his head still swam, the pain was gone completely, as if it'd never existed, and there was no presence to constrict his mind or force his will. The hand he was still grasping glistened with blood. He brushed his fingertips across his face and neck, realized that he was bleeding from his nose and ears, and sat back on his haunches in surprise. Couldn't be a stroke; overall he was feeling too good for that. No nausea, no nothing. It could be a ruse on the part of the Behemoth. Or it-
"Ronon? It would be helpful if you told me what's going on.,
"Nano-robots. They use them for mind control. Clean your hands, else you get infected."
He reached over to the bed, ripped off the sheets and wiped her hands as best he could. They'd have to take care of the rest as soon as they had access to water and two minutes to spare. Right now, their clock was ticking way too fast for his liking-if it hadn't run out already. Marcon had to have realized what was happening and would be on his way down here with a contingent of STs. The tactically most sensible thing to do would be to dispatch the guards in the Stargate room, but Ronon doubted that would happen. The Ancestors' paranoia wouldn't allow them to leave the gate unattended. In any case, he and Teyla had to make it to the lab before the STs arrived, wherever they came from.
"I'm fine, and I'll explain everything, but now we gotta go. Fast." Pulling Teyla to her feet after him, he headed for the door-so easy and everyday now-opened it a crack and carefully checked the hallway outside. Still deserted, which was good news, and at the end of it gleamed the lights of the laboratory. "Quiet," he whispered. "Hang on to my shirt.'-'-
Her hand wandered to his side, grabbed a fistful of fabric, and he let go of her and drew his sword. A few more steps brought them to the entrance of the lab. Teyla glided along behind him, a noiseless shadow. Cautiously, barely daring to breathe, Ronon poked his head around the corner. The technician was on his own, no STs in sight, and the lab door leading out into the second corridor and the room with the Stargate was closed. Securing that door-the only ingress to the lab from the side where the most immediate threat would come from-was the first order of the day.
The lab technician's back was turned, and he seemed completely immersed in his work, dissecting that mysterious surplus finger and inserting the samples he took into small, transparent containers. Momentarily Ronon wondered what the man was hoping to find, then he shook off the thought as pointless, and detached Teyla's hand from his shirt. Grasping her shoulder, he signaled her to stay put, received a brisk nod of acknowledgement. Then he raised his sword and tiptoed forward until the tip of the blade nudged a spot midway between the technician's shoulder blades. The man froze, back stiffened, and dropped the container he'd been in the process of sealing.
"Don't move," Ronon said mildly. "Might make me jumpy and then things could get real messy. Now, I need you to lock the door."
"I can't do that from here," the technician croaked.
"Turn around. Slowly."
Shivering, the look of a cornered rabbit in his eye, the man did as he was told. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his raised palms were damp, and he oozed the acrid smell of fear. "You can't do this," he stammered. "The Behemoth won't let you. It will stop you."
"What if it wants me to do it?"
The terror on the technician's face deepened as he obviously contemplated a global malfunction of the Behemoth, causing hundreds of thousands of soldiers to turn against their masters and their masters' property. Ronon grinned. The idea had a lot going for it.
"What's the Behemoth?" Teyla had been listening attentively, but attention hadn't stopped her from getting confused.
"Later," promised Ronon and waved the technician over to the door. "Lock it."
The way his knees wobbled it was nothing short of a miracle that the man could move at all. But move he did. Fingers trembling, he keyed the lock code. From inside the door came the clank of bolts sliding into place.
"Good." Ronon smiled at him, which provoked another shudder. Then he smashed the pommel of his sword into the pad, destroying it. It wasn't going to keep the STs out forever, but hopefully it would slow them down just long enough. "And now you're going to tell me where the hidden exit is."
He wouldn't have thought it possible, but the technician turned yet another shade paler, enough to make Ronon worry that the man was going to faint.
But instead of passing out, the technician pulled himself together, marshaled that ounce of courage he possessed, and stuttered, "Wha…what do you mean? There is no hidden exit. The only door is the one you just ordered me to lock."
"The Behemoth asks you to quit lying to me. It doesn't like lies."
Smiling again, Ronon emphasized the point by placing the tip of his sword against the man's neck, just above the carotid artery. He felt almost as confident as he sounded now, because the technician's startled reaction had already proved that his guess was correct. He'd banked on the Ancestor's obsession with covering all bases, even the unlikely ones. There was no way they'd have only one access route to the Stargate and leave themselves without an escape hatch or a means to ambush the enemy, should such an enemy ever manage to arrive through the gate.
Of course, if Teyla really had solved the problem of making the system work, he'd also just cut off their own easiest escape route, but that was a question of getting your priorities straight; in the short term, staying alive took precedence. They'd find another gate eventually.
"So. The hidden exit. Where is it?" Steel nicked skin, and Ronon watched a trickle of blood run down the technician's neck. The man yelped. "No! Please! It's… There! It's behind there!" He pointed at the bank of computers that ran along one side of the lab.
Ronon couldn't see so much as a crack in the wall to indicate a hidden doorway, but that meant nothing. The Ancestors' technology wasn't as sophisticated as what he'd seen in his Atlantis, but it ran a close second. It'd be simple enough for them to cloak the exit. "Open it." Something else occurred him. "And disengage the alarm before you do so."
Another yelp. "How did you-?" The technician flinched from the minute increase in pressure applied to the blade. "Yes! Yes, I'll do it. I… I need to get to that computer, alright? The passage is password controlled."
It made sense. This way you could-
"He's lying." Her head cocked, Teyla seemed to listen to something only she could hear. "He is planning something."
"It that so?"
"No… No!" the man gasped and turned on Teyla, furious all of sudden. "How would you know, woman? What are you? Some kind of witch?"
For reasons best known to herself, Teyla grinned. "Perhaps. But you see, if a person loses one sense, the others sharpen to make up for it. The sound of your voice gave you away. I recommend you practice lying more often. Now, the truth. You don't want me to curse you, do you?"
Taking an involuntary step back, the technician collided with Ronon's chest. Before he could correct his mistake and skip forward again, Ronon had him in a stranglehold and gently reduced his victim's air supply to the minimum requirement. "Alternatively, I could just hurt you. A lot. Which do you prefer?"