“Yeah.” John stuffed the detector into a vest pocket. There was no point in further speculation until they got to the surface. He gave Rodney a narrow-eyed look. They needed to talk Dorane into coming back to Atlantis with them, and bringing all his stuff, including any stray ZPMs he might have around. Rodney would know he should be taking care of that while John was gone, and hopefully he knew enough to let Kolesnikova and Kavanagh mostly handle it, and just kick them back into play if they got distracted by any other interesting Ancient technology. He just said, “Ford’s in charge.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Oh, no kidding. I’ll try not to stage a coup while you’re gone.”
“Just play nice, Rodney.”
Teyla was waiting beside the open door, and John stepped inside, flashing the P-90’s light to give him a view of a long narrow corridor, dark and dank.
McKay watched them from the doorway, his face etched with worry. “Be careful.”
Chapter Five
Rodney had a lot of questions he wanted to ask, and he needed to nudge the conversation toward ZPMs. But he kept getting put off, which irritated the hell out of him. First Dorane had seemed unsteady on his feet, so Rodney and Kolesnikova had helped him back to the main part of the lab area. Once there, Kavanagh had stepped out of the communications alcove to help Dorane sit down, and the alcove sealed itself up again. Rodney had objected, telling Kavanagh that they should be monitoring it in case Sheppard tried to contact them, but Kavanagh — now the team’s Ancient communications expert because he had touched the damn thing once — had replied irritably that he had set it to monitor itself, and that it would alert them when Sheppard called in. Then Kavanagh had taken up more important question-asking time by apologizing for Rodney and Sheppard’s behavior. Rodney had snorted derisively, but before he could comment on Kavanagh’s behavior, Kolesnikova frowned at him and said in a whisper, “You and the Major talk to each other as if you are badly-raised eight year olds. Not everyone finds that attractive.”
Rodney allowed himself a restrained sneer. “The fact that our professional communications function on a level that Kavanagh doesn’t comprehend is not my problem.” Focusing his annoyance on Kavanagh made it easier to pretend he wasn’t worried.
Rodney had always hated relying on other people, who were inevitably fallible and wrong and usually stupid, but once they had arrived in Atlantis it had startled him how quickly he had come to rely on Sheppard. It had occasionally been difficult to reconcile the fact that the surfer/pretty boy type who qualified for MENSA but couldn’t be bothered to join was the same person who had stalked and killed Genii in the city’s corridors like they were cockroaches, could snap a man’s neck, and was crazy enough to attack a super-Wraith with a belt knife. But Rodney was over that now.
“What is this part of the facility for, exactly?” Rodney asked, once he could get a word in. “This whole underground section doesn’t look like it was part of the original design of the repository, athenaeum, whatever.”
“We believed it was a hospital and medical research facility,” Kavanagh told Dorane, and Rodney swore mentally. He wanted Dorane’s version, in his words, uncluttered by any of their suppositions and suspicions.
“You are correct, the underground levels were a hospital, also a facility for biological research,” Dorane told him, glancing up. He was seated on the couch again and still looked a little pale, sweat standing out on his forehead. “The settlement on this planet suffered from a sickness, originally created by the Wraith, in their experiments on their human livestock.” He gestured around a little helplessly. “We were making some slow progress in defeating it when the Wraith attacked again.”
McKay frowned. That wasn’t a strategy they had heard of the Wraith using before. “Didn’t you have shields, like those on Atlantis?”
“We did, but—” Dorane looked up, brow furrowed in thought. “How long have you been here?”
“A little more than a day,” Kolesnikova answered, watching him thoughtfully. “Why did the stasis chamber wake you now?”
“I had set the controls to wake me if any of my own people opened the blast door and entered the upper chamber.” Dorane smiled around at them all. “You are our descendants indeed. Atlantis’ children.”
“Yes, yes, whatever, but what happened with the shields?” Rodney persisted. For some reason, Kavanagh glared at him. Rodney glared back. Oh please, like you don’t want to know too.
“The Wraith used the Koan to infiltrate the outpost from within, and shut down the shields and other defenses,” Dorane explained. He looked a little confused, as if he wondered what was so urgent about the question.
“Oh. So the shield generators could still function?” Rodney prodded. “We could turn them back on, protect this place from Wraith attack? Once we got rid of the Koan, that is.” He wasn’t personally fond of this place, but if something happened to Atlantis, it was essential to have a safe point to retreat to. Or if they couldn’t turn the repository into a secure Alpha Site, they could cannibalize the working systems to shore up Atlantis’ failing power grid.
Dorane shook his head. “Unfortunately, they were destroyed by the Wraith deliberately during the attack. But I have never needed the shields. The Wraith believe this planet to be uninhabited, and have never returned here, that I know of. I am safe enough, if isolated.”
Kavanagh said earnestly, “You can’t mean to stay here. You must come back to Atlantis with us. There’s still much we don’t understand.”
“You could help us a great deal,” Kolesnikova added. “And you would be returning to your home.”
Dorane smiled at her. “Why yes, I would be happy to accompany you.”
This was what Rodney had been waiting for. He added, “Hey, since you’re coming with us, you can bring your ZPM. Your Zero Point Module? The subspace power source?”
Dorane gestured absently, as if it didn’t matter. “If you like. I’m not sure how much power it has left.” With a rueful expression, he added, “It has been working a long time.”
Oh, hell. Rodney had nearly been able to smell that ZPM since they had first seen this place on the MALP’s fuzzy transmission. He couldn’t wait; he needed to find out now. “I need to take some more readings.” He snapped his fingers impatiently at Kavanagh. “Give me your detector.”
Kavanagh snorted in annoyance, but retrieved the device from his vest pocket and handed it over.
Rodney ducked out, following the short passage back to the stairwell. He got a base reading and found the nearest power conduit, then started across the room. From the gallery, Ford asked, “Dr. McKay, what are you doing?”
Rodney barely glanced up. “I’m going to check out his ZPM.”
Ford started down the stairs, whispering urgently, “You’re not going to steal it!”
“Of course I’m not going to steal it!” Rodney rounded on him, glaring. “He’s coming back to Atlantis with us, I presume he’ll want to bring it with him since it would be criminally stupid to leave it.” You take one ZPM that looks like it’s just there for no reason, and suddenly everyone thinks you’re the mad ZPM bandit of the Pegasus Galaxy.
“Oh.” Ford stopped, shifting his weapon in a somewhat chastened way. “So why are you going to check it out?”
“To see if it’s the only power source. It would be nice to be able to have lights on the way out. Hey, and you’re supposed to be guarding, so guard.”
“Okay, okay. I was just asking.” Ford held up a placating hand, retreating back to the gallery.
Still huffy, Rodney followed the power conduits, tracing them back through the big room. He didn’t know how useful Dorane was going to be; the man seemed a little off, a little confused, and Rodney thought the isolation here might have driven him over the edge.