Teyla must have picked up on Aiden’s misgivings, because when Peryn closed the doors of the transport, she turned to him and said, “Dr McKay is worried for Major Sheppard.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Have you given thought to how we will proceed if he does not regain consciousness?”
Aiden’s mouth abruptly went dry. Among other things, it’d mean relying on McKay to pilot the jumper. Great. Now they were bound to have transportation issues. Still, the immediate problem was of more importance.
“Where do you wish us to go?” Peryn was staring at the map mounted inside the transport.
“We should take a look around the area south of where the Wraith are amassing their forces.” Aiden indicated a light about five miles out on the southern side of the Citadel.
“We must not let our arrival alert them.” Teyla pointed out. To Peryn, she said, “As soon as you select the destination, hand me your Shield.”
The four warriors — two of them trainees — who had volunteered to accompany them readied their axes. Holding the Shield over Teyla’s palm in one hand, Peryn pressed the lights that Aiden had selected. The moment the doors began to unfold, he released the Shield, which was a bad move. The doors continued to fold back, revealing an inn full of Wraith with their stunners trained on them.
Aiden instantly fired a round into the leading Wraith’s chest, but then something knocked him off his feet, and everything went black.
Chapter Nineteen
The transports near the bridges differed from their more common counterparts. Instead of being located in an inn or one of the Sanctuary Halls, each opened directly into the street leading to the bridge itself. “It is for the purpose of moving goods,” Yann explained when Rodney expressed surprise at their destination. “This way, carts may enter the Citadel from the bridges and be transported into the Sanctuary Halls to unload.”
Recalling something of that nature in the initial briefing, Rodney’s interest was quickly diverted to the sight through the closed portcullis of the West Bridge. Flames crawling up into the night sky cast an orange glow over the entire North Wall. Although the wind had dropped with the fall of night, the hot air generated by the blaze and the sheer cliff face leading up to the Enclave seemed to propel most of the oil-laden smoke away. The force of the heat surprised him — it felt like a physical presence. Despite nearly burning his hand on the heavy iron of the portcullis, he would, if pressed, have admitted to a certain fascination. People who battled massive forest fires and oil blazes spoke of fire as a living entity. Watching the way the flames curled and danced across the waters of North Channel, he was beginning to understand the analogy.
Glancing west, Rodney was pleased to note that the oil was flowing at a satisfactory pace.
“It is good that you survived.” Turning, he met the grim faces of the men who had dragged the boom across the channel the previous evening. The warrior added, “We heard that the Wraith culled all those who had remained behind.”
The unspoken question hung between them like an embarrassing smell. “Yes, well, the Shield fell off when I was in the river.” Rodney saw no reason to elaborate on exactly when that unfortunate event had occurred.
A hand clasped his shoulder and he was reluctantly drawn into a display of male bonding that involved embraces and back thumping. Moving past the moment as quickly as possible, he explained what needed to be done, adding, “Once again, we’re a little pressed for time. And we’ll need rope, lots of rope.”
The men, supported by a gaggle of chattering children, led the way to a subterranean passage, claiming it allowed access outside the Citadel near where the end of the boom was secured.
“Are there many more of these tunnels?” Rodney asked, stooping to pass through the low entrance.
“Thousands,” the lead man, another of the engineers, replied. “They provide access for workers to service the sewers and the pumps that supply the Citadel with water.”
Given the sophistication of their weirs, it made sense that a place this big would have a decent wastewater system. Except of course that it wasn’t exactly operating as designed. Aside from the fact that Gat’s crew had evidently used part of the system to stash their food, there was the little matter of raw effluent in the streets. “And how much service actually gets performed?” Rodney’s breath hitched as the septic smell hit him again. At street level, the oil fire had actually masked the stench for a while, but down here it was another story.
“To allow the home of Dalera to fall into such a state is unconscionable,” Yann spat.
The engineers rounded on him. “There were too few of us to more than maintain the water supply coming into the city.”
“I do not blame you,” Yann elaborated. “This is but further proof that the barbarians failed in their leadership. When this culling is passed, never again shall those who blaspheme against Dalera be allowed into our city, except to take temporary refuge from the Wraith.”
Apparently speaking ill of the dead wasn’t a concern around here. All Rodney could think was that he’d be damned before he got involved in sorting out this world’s plumbing issues.
“The sewerage should be the least of our worries,” grumbled another engineer, clutching a torch to light the increasingly claustrophobic passages. “The blackwater has discouraged the Wraith, but it has also made its way into every pump in the city. For the foreseeable future, freshwater will have to be brought in from Nemst.”
Yet another shortcoming in Dalera’s design, to Rodney’s way of thinking. If the water intakes had only been placed at different levels in the Channels, the ‘blackwater ’ problem would have been entirely avoided. Of course, it was probable that Dalera had never envisioned this particular situation. “Assuming that there will be a foreseeable future,” he muttered, sidestepping a putrid mess that, he was certain, had passed through someone’s intestines.
The engineer’s complaints continued. Too tired to voice any kind of objection, Rodney concentrated on watching his step, but after a while the droning conversation had a soporific effect. He began to wonder if he was sleepwalking through a particularly tedious nightmare involving children and alimentary canals.
“Agh!” The engineer kicked out at a rat-sized animal. With a flash of green fur, the creature scuttled down a side tunnel.
One of the children, whom Rodney conceded had been unnaturally quiet during this particular part of their excursion, bent low to follow.
“What are you doing?” Rodney snapped, repulsed by the frothy muck splashing onto his boots.
“This way,” the engineer said, getting down on all fours in the sludge and following her.
“What? Are you kidding me?” He could already feel himself hyperventilating. Not a pleasant thought, because it meant that he was inhaling even more of the rank air than previously.
“The passage is short, and leads directly outside.”
The wound on Rodney’s arm began to ache. He’d forgotten about it during his immersion in the oil, but now every injury he’d sustained, from the goose egg-sized lump on his head to the splinters in his fingers, throbbed unmercifully. Hell, in the last week he’d fallen into a waste tank and swum through a river of oil. What were a few rat droppings, a little stagnant…water…and a very, very tight black hole?
Reluctantly crouching on all fours, he pretended to ignore the slimy sensation beneath his hands, squeezed his eyes shut, thought of wide-open meadows, and followed. Spurred on by the brush of a breeze against his cheek, he increased his pace, as much as that was possible when crawling. Of course, nobody had considered warning him that the tunnel came to an end at least two feet above ground level, a fact that resulted in him tumbling down a sand dune and into a shallow pool of sludge.