“OK,” he said. “OK, that’s it. That’s all I can do.”
An alarm began to sound, a slow, steady pulse.
“Maybe you should do something more,” Ronon said.
Rodney bared teeth at him, and Ronon lifted his blaster.
“There is nothing more,” Rodney said. “Right now, we’re good, and if that changes, well, it’s too late for me to fix it. Even Sheppard can’t fly something that isn’t meant to be flown.” That wasn’t strictly true, but he waved it away. “We’re in the atmosphere, that’s what the alarm is for. We’re just along for the ride now.”
Ronon took a breath, tipped his blaster up and away. “OK,” he said. He pressed himself back into the niche next to Jennifer. The padding shifted slightly, trying to accommodate his bulk. “Brace yourself.”
Like that’s going to help if we’ve missed the corridor, Rodney thought. All the padding in the world isn’t going to do one bit of good if the angle’s bad and we burn up before we’ve slowed enough for the gravitics to compensate — He wedged himself into the niche on Jennifer’s other side, the padding stiff and unyielding now.
“Keep your hand where I can see it,” Ronon said.
“What?”
“Your — hand. The feeding hand.” Ronon gestured with his blaster. “Keep it away from her.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this,” Rodney said, but he lifted his feeding hand, held it out. “If I break my arm, I’m going to hold you responsible.”
“Fine.” Ronon’s teeth were clenched.
“And it’s not like I can’t control myself,” Rodney said. The alarm was louder now, drowning his words. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the screen flashing white data, the hull temperature flaring, the autopilot flickering, the gravitics pegged at maximum. “I mean, this is Jennifer we’re talking about — my girlfriend, though I don’t think that’s really a very dignified word? Except I can’t think of anything more appropriate under the circumstances. Anyway, popular fiction notwithstanding, I really don’t see anything particularly appealing about feeding on somebody you care about —”
Ronon’s face was set in a pained grimace, his body braced against the edge of the niche. Jennifer lay between them, still and silent, peaceful as if she slept. They were coming down, the alarm pulsing, indicators going from gold to white, systems failing under the strain. And then they hit and tumbled, the inertial dampeners flickering in and out, flinging them against the sides of the pod. Ronon braced himself against the edges of the niche, held himself in position by main force, pinning Jennifer beneath him. Rodney grabbed for the nearest handholds, head and hands and hip banging hard against objects that seemed too hard and sharp to belong in a lifepod. Then the movement stopped, the alarms cutting out, and there was nothing but silence.
Chapter Two
Down
The cessation of sound was almost painful. Rodney untangled himself from the control panel, wincing. His wrist hurt, and his hip and knee, sharp pains already fading as he moved, his body healing itself. Something to be grateful for, he knew, but his feeding hand throbbed a warning. He clenched his fingers over the hand-mouth and turned his attention to the central console. Behind him he could hear Ronon moving, struggling to his feet, but he ignored him, concentrating on the flickering display. It had been damaged in the landing, and he hoped it was just the screen. He reached for the keyboard, jerked back as something failed, spitting sparks and then a more definite flame. He slapped at it with his off hand, beat them down, and squinted at the failing display. They’d landed well, not too far from the Stargate — well, far was a relative term, he thought, converting Wraith units to kilometers, but it was a distance they could reasonably expect to walk. Fifty kilometers was something they could manage, and he wasn’t going to think about what would happen if Jennifer didn’t regain consciousness —
The display steadied under his touch, instructions spilling down the screen. He followed them, touching keys to transfer data to a portable device, deactivating the claws that held the hatch closed. There was a heavy click and a hiss, and a crack appeared in the hitherto seamless hull.
“Nice, McKay,” Ronon said.
Rodney ignored him, watching the screen, the power fading even as he typed. “No, no, don’t — crap.”
The display was dead, the last of the lifepod’s power spent transferring the systems’ data into the handheld device. Rodney pulled it from its dock, slipped it into his pocket.
Ronon pushed past him, braced himself against the frame of the hull, used feet and shoulders to shove the hatch fully open. Air rushed in, sweet with something that made Rodney brace himself, expecting to sneeze, and Ronon tipped his head back.
“OK,” he said. “This looks — safe enough.”
Rodney turned toward him and Ronon recoiled, the blaster coming up.
“Would you stop that?” Rodney asked. “Hello? Rodney McKay? Remember me?”
“You’re also a Wraith,” Ronon said, but after a moment he slipped his blaster into its holster. “And if you make one wrong move, toward me or Jennifer, I will kill you.”
Rodney opened his mouth to protest, but his own memories stopped him. He had fed — through intermediaries, yes, Dust and then Ember feeding him like a child, but it was still feeding. People had died because of him. He shoved that thought away, too, and fixed Ronon with what he hoped was his most sincere gaze. “It’s me,” he said, softly. “Ronon, I —” He shook his head, unable to find the words, and, anyway, there wasn’t likely to be much of anything that would convince Ronon. “Let’s get Jennifer out of here, and see what we’ve got.”
“We’ll check out the area first,” Ronon said, and dropped the half meter from the hatch to the yielding ground.
Rodney glanced back at Jennifer, still held safely in the niche, and Ronon glared at him from the open hatch. “Come on, McKay.”
Rodney sighed, and scrambled out of the lifepod. They had landed among trees, and the air was filled with the scent of broken branches. That was the sweetness that he had smelled, almost like maple sugar, and for an instant he was overcome by a sense of deja vu. These trees could have been Canadian, the heavy conifers of the northwestern provinces: it would be fall there, golden leaves showing among the dark green of the pines. Madison would be starting school, and Jeannie would be finishing up that year’s hats and mittens, readying them all for the winter to come.
He glanced down, seeing his own hands green and misshapen, the heavy vein twining around his feeding hand. There would be no going back, not if he stayed like this — and he would not. Carson would find a way. Carson and Jennifer would find a way to reverse the process, and to that end, they needed to find the best way to the Stargate. He fumbled for the device in his pocket, keyed it on and let the screen fill with data. Fifty kilometers from the Stargate — really, not bad under the circumstances — and in a direction that the device called eight points north of northeast.
“Ronon!”
“Yeah?” The big man turned back to face him, the blaster loose in his hand.
“I’ve got a fix on the Stargate.” Rodney pointed into the trees. “That way. Fifty kilometers.”
There was a pause while Ronon converted that into some unit of his own. “OK. What else does that thing do?”
“What?”
“Lifesigns?” Ronon asked. “Humans, Wraith, large carnivores?”
“Oh.” Rodney touched the controls, found the local sensors. “Nothing in the immediate vicinity. And the scan from orbit didn’t show any signs of human habitation. Or Wraith landing sites.”