In his work area in one of Atlantis’ large airy rooms, Radek Zelenka sat in front of three laptops, trying desperately to concentrate on any one of the five diagnostics and two data analyses he had in progress. He had once liked this room very much, but now the bright sunlight visible through the softly colored window panels seemed like a mockery. He hadn’t been able to eat lunch, and his ration of the terrible coffee from the pot in the main lab bay sat in his stomach like a pool of motor oil. He couldn’t stop thinking about the news Teyla and the others had returned with.
Boerne the Marine he had not known well, just enough to speak to casually in the mess hall, or when someone played a DVD in the evening. Irina Kolesnikova he had worked with over several projects, and his heart hurt for her.
But the worst part was that there was a good chance Rodney and Sheppard were still alive, terribly alive, sealed up in a Wraith hive ship to be drained at their captors’ leisure.
Radek winced and rubbed his eyes, trying to banish that image. It was one thing for friends to be killed in a war, to grieve and to know that they were at least safe from further pain and terror. To know they might be suffering for days yet was quite another.
He set his jaw, turned to yet another laptop and brought up the connection to one of the Ancient data readers. He had pulled the damaged memory core out of the pillar and had been trying to reconstruct the scattered fragments of data. If he could concentrate on nothing else, he could at least submerge himself in the intricate and elegant patterns of the Ancients’ data matrix.
Sometime later Radek sat back, frowning. “That is very odd.”
At the nearest table, Ling was paging through reports, frowning in concentration. She glanced up, blinking. “What’s odd?”
Radek shook his head slowly. He had been able to pull together and decipher one section of the damaged core, the one containing the ’gate address to the repository. “The gate on Dorane’s world was altered so only the Atlantis ’gate could connect to it.”
Ling pushed her hair back, her mind still obviously on her own analysis. “By who? The Wraith?”
“No, no. By the Ancients.” It was supposed to be a meeting place. Why would they alter… Radek could think of a lot of reasons why the Ancients might think that was a good idea. None of them were good reasons.
At the briefing earlier, Elizabeth and Bates had outlined the plan to gate back to the repository after night fell on the planet, taking two puddlejumpers to escort Dorane’s people to the Stargate. They should be leaving soon—Zelenka checked his watch. He pushed to his feet, found his headset on the desk and put it on. “Dr. Weir, I need to speak with you immediately.”
No answer.
“Dr. Weir?”
Faint static. A sinking feeling settled in Radek’s stomach that had nothing to do with the bad coffee. But she might simply be taking a personal moment. He tried again, “Dr. Grodin? Peter, are you there?”
No answer. Ling and the two other technical assistants in the lab were now watching him worriedly. He tried, “Sergeant Bates, come in please.”
No answer. If the head of city security was not answering — There was no reason to panic, but Radek found himself pausing to tell the others, “Get your laptops, emergency gear. Just in case. I have a funny feeling. Humor me.” He had barely finished speaking before they were up and scrambling to stuff computers and equipment in carrying cases. Radek tried the radio again. “Carson, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Radek.” The answer from the medical lab was gratifyingly quick. Radek had never been so glad to hear Beckett’s voice, except possibly for the time he had gotten his leg stuck in a faulty transporter door out on the southwest pier. “What’s up?”
“Carson, I can’t raise the operations tower. Or Bates.”
Radek heard Carson say to someone in the background, “Katrien, love, see if you can reach anyone in the operations tower.” There were muffled voices for a few moments. Then Carson’s voice said sharply, “Radek, you’d better get yourself down here. We can’t raise them either.”
“We’ll be with you in a moment.” Radek cut the connection. His lab staff were gathered around him now, clutching emergency packs and laptops, watching him anxiously. “It’s probably nothing,” Radek said, opening a compartment in the table and taking out the holstered pistol that lay inside. “But we’ll pick up the others on this level on the way.”
They were halfway down the hall when the lights went out.
John was stretched out on his side, his eyes on the softly glowing screen of the life sign detector, watching the Koan move around on this level. McKay had been so tired he had fallen asleep almost before he lay down. The holstered 9mm still lay between them, and John had left it there, just checking to make sure it was loaded.
After a time he realized the fever was completely gone, leaving him with a dry mouth and probably a good case of dehydration, but blessedly cool. Except for McKay’s soft breathing, it was very quiet, and John kept imagining that he could hear the detector making a soft, almost inaudible humming noise. Listening to it, he tried to decide if it was really there and he had just never heard it before, because he had never used a detector in a place this quiet. Then he started imagining that the ZPM was making soft little whispery noises to itself, and that was just weird.
John was deeply glad when McKay’s watch alarm beeped.
Beside him, McKay groaned, batted at his watch until he got the alarm turned off, and sat up, moving like an old man.
John asked him, “Hey, you okay?” McKay usually woke up instantly. John hadn’t noticed it earlier, but he was pale and bleary-eyed, like a drunk on a bender. It might be the lack of actual food; they hadn’t had anything except the power bars since yesterday.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Yawning, McKay scrubbed at his eyes, took the detector away from John, and peered at the screen. “I dreamed Atlantis was attacked by a hive ship, and Samantha Carter showed up with SG-1 and rescued us. It was a little humiliating, but under the circumstances I was willing to cope with that.”
In the past couple months, John had mostly dreamed about killing or getting killed. He meant to make a joke, to ask if Colonel Carter had brought beer with her and what was she wearing, but instead what came out was, “That’s not going to happen, Rodney.”
“I know.” McKay sighed and fumbled for the flashlight tucked into his vest pocket.
That was when John realized something else had changed. It had happened so slowly during the last couple of hours that he hadn’t noticed. “Hey, don’t turn on the light just yet.”
McKay had finally managed to get the flashlight out of his pocket and right side up. “What?” He squinted at John in the darkness, then went still. “Did something else happen? I mean, while I was asleep, did…something change?”
“No, not like that! Oh, wait.” John realized he had better check and make sure. He did a quick personal inventory, as well as he could without a mirror. No, spiny things still the same size, claws as normal, nothing else obvious. “No, it’s just that I can see in the dark, really well. Better than really well. Like—” He picked up a power bar from their tiny stack of supplies. The ambient light from the detector’s screen was enough to light the whole room for him. “I can read the writing on this wrapper. Jeez, these things are mostly preservatives.”
“Oh. That’s good, though. That’ll come in handy.” Rodney rubbed his face, obviously still trying to wake himself up. “Not the preservatives, the seeing in the dark thing.”
McKay stuffed everything in his pack, and John turned his back so he could use the light to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. John took the 9mm and put the remaining extra clip in his pocket. They couldn’t afford to meet many Koan on the way.
John slung Rodney’s pack over his shoulder, so Rodney could carry the ZPM. John didn’t ask what happened if you dropped one of those things. He guessed that either it would be impressively shock-resistant and nothing would happen, or the resulting explosion would be so violent they wouldn’t be in any position to care.