“As it always is,” Jaaya answered, her smile faltering a little. “Twenty are taken. Twenty are returned.”
Chapter Two
Sheppard’s team knew the drill; this wasn’t their first rodeo, after all, and together the Atlanteans had encountered their fair share of places that seemed nice enough on the outside but nasty underneath. Isolated communities, strange goings-on, unexplained disappearances — it was all another day at the office for them. Leaving Laaro and Jaaya to put a weary Errian to bed, they elected to do a little bit of informal recon around the perimeter of the village.
The team split into two groups, McKay going with Ronon and Teyla joining Sheppard; only Keller was new to this. Her off-planet experience was minimal and it had been on Colonel Samantha Carter’s insistence that he’d taken Jennifer along on this mission. It wasn’t that John didn’t respect the young doctor or anything like that, but she was an unknown quantity. He wasn’t sure how she’d react in a given situation…and that was why he’d brought her with him instead of letting her tag along with Ronon.
And there was something else. Something going on between Keller and Teyla. Sheppard knew that recently the two of them had shared a dangerous experience when they were trapped by marauders on New Athos, and not for the first time he found himself wondering if something was being kept from him.
He dismissed the idea with a slight shake of his head. Keller didn’t seem the type for keeping secrets, and Teyla… Sheppard trusted Teyla implicitly. If there was something the Athosian woman had to tell him, she’d get to it soon enough.
Keller walked with them, her head turning this way and that as she tried to take in all the sights around them at once. “This place is so cool,” she said. “Can you imagine how much work it took to build something like this? A whole community, homes and a school and a market, a hundred feet off the ground.”
John nodded. He had to admit, he’d never seen the like himself. Broad wooden walkways curved around the main trunks of the giant trees in shallow spirals, with smaller avenues radiating off like the spokes of a wheel. The homes Keller talked about clustered to the sides of the spokes, held there by rope, wooden trestles and big fat gobs of what had to be some sort of natural resin glue. At first glance, the Heruuni settlement had a ramshackle, shanty-town look to it; but on closer inspection it became clearer that the folks who had constructed it knew a hell of a lot about engineering, and probably about just as much about ecology. They were walking through the greenest town they’d ever seen, in more ways than one.
“We’re being followed,” said Teyla quietly, darting her eyes behind her.
Sheppard nodded. “I had noticed.” It was hard not to. A troupe of bronzed kids, a mix of them maybe eight to twelve years in age, were pacing the three Atlanteans a little way behind them. Every now and then, a new child would slip out of a side avenue and join the bunch. They talked among themselves, pointing and giggling. “We’re like the circus come to town, I guess.” He smiled to himself, amused by the idea of how Ronon and Rodney would be dealing with the same thing.
It wasn’t just the children that were interested, though. Adults studied them from slat-windows or through half-open doors, but with an altogether more watchful and wary manner. For his part, John continued to smile a tight-lipped, neutral smile at all of them, and kept his hands away from the P90 strapped to his chest. He gave one man a jaunty nod and a “Howdy!” In return, the guy turned away and set off at a pace along a connecting rope-bridge. Sheppard shrugged. “Something I said?”
“They’ve never seen voyagers in the settlement before.” Laaro emerged from the lee of a overhanging branch up ahead and approached them. He nodded at the children. “It’s all new to them.”
“Not to you, though,” said Keller wryly.
“No,” Laaro agreed, playing it nonchalant in front of the other kids.
Sheppard had to hold down a smirk at the youth’s air of studied coolness. “You got over this side of the town pretty quick.”
“I know all the short-cuts,” he explained airily.
“How is your father?” Teyla asked.
A shadow passed over the boy’s face. “He’s resting now. But I…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I just wanted to make sure he was going to get better. Kullid knows all about that sort of thing.”
“The healer,” explained Keller, off a look from the colonel. “He was with Errian when we found him?”
Laaro pointed up along the curving thoroughfare. “The sick lodge is just ahead. He’ll be there. He’ll know what to do.”
Sheppard threw Teyla a level look. “Let’s go introduce ourselves, then.”
The sick lodge was a wide wooden disc wedged between two large tree trunks, held up by a fan of saplings cut from the living tree itself. Rattan window shades had been propped open to let in the morning air, but the place still had the faint scent of illness about it. Clockwork fans extending from the walls chattered slowly as they rotated, and all around Teyla saw low cots arrayed in circles. Many of them were occupied, mostly by men and women of a similar build to Errian. The Athosian woman found something about the place slightly disturbing; the quiet. The people in the beds did not moan or cry out. They seemed hollow and drawn, bereft even of the energy to do any more than lie dormant and breathe. One of them caught her eye — a man around her own age, or so she assumed — as he reached for a lacquered cup of water. Every move he made seemed like a huge effort, and she saw a twitch of palsy in his fingers as he eventually took his drink.
Teyla looked to Keller. “What is wrong with them?”
The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not certain…”
“There is no special name for it,” said another voice. “We just call it ‘the sickness’ and leave it at that.” A striking young man emerged from behind a hanging muslin curtain. “Jennifer…” he said, with a wan smile, the woman’s name sounding odd in his accent. “These are more of your people?”
“I brought them here,” insisted Laaro, as if that fact would entitle him to something.
“Colonel Sheppard and Teyla Emmagan,” said Keller, indicating them in turn.
He bowed slightly. “My name is Kullid. How can I help you?”
Jennifer’s manner changed before Teyla’s eyes. Outside on the walkway she had seemed enraptured by the alien world around them, almost enthusing over every new sight and sound; but the moment they had entered the sick lodge she became focused and intent, her medical training taking over by instinct. She reacts to this the way I would react to the sight of an enemy; her skills come to the fore.
“Actually, maybe we can help you,” Keller began. “If there’s a disease here, we have a lot of medicines where we come from. We might be able to find a cure —”
Kullid shook his head. “It’s not a disease, not in the manner of something that can be spread by infection. This malady is inflicted upon our people.” His manner grew grave and Teyla saw him shoot a look at Laaro, as if he didn’t want to say too much in front of the boy.
Keller’s mind was working as she studied the patients in the room. “Disorientation? Chronic fatigue, physical weakness?”
Sheppard frowned. “The same as —”
“My father,” Laaro broke in, swallowing hard. Abruptly the deliberate bravado the youth had shown outside melted away and all at once he was just a scared little boy. “He’s worse. Worse than he was the last time. I knew it would happen if he went to the Aegis again… I knew it…” He trailed off.
Kullid put a friendly hand on Laaro’s shoulder. “I’ll come to your lodge later, before the celebration, see to him, yes?” Laaro looked at the ground and nodded. “But you should go home now.” He ushered the boy out toward the door.
Laaro composed himself and looked at Sheppard. “If you need a guide, I can do it. Come find me.”
“Will do,” said John.