There was silence for a moment, then Teyla replied, “I believe that Peryn at least is still alive.”
The sticky bonds were more elastic than he’d first thought, and he managed to get his nose and mouth clear. Maybe the Wraith that had wrapped him hadn’t been focused on the job. There was a lot going on, after all. “How do you know?” He tried shifting his hands around to tear through the binding. Not so easy. But then, he conceded that the Wraith had had at least ten thousand years to perfect their methods of storing food supplies.
“I was not rendered entirely unconscious by their stunners.”
Possibly it was the darkness, or his own sense of failure in carrying out what should have been a straightforward reconnaissance mission, but Aiden was sure that he could hear self-recrimination in Teyla’s voice. McKay’s parting shot now hit him, and he said, “You think they used Peryn to transport into the Citadel?” So why were he and Teyla still in one piece? Twisting his hands around, he was determined to get free. No way was he letting his mission turn into a complete snafu.
“Yes, but not immediately. I am not entirely certain of what occurred, but I sensed…confusion. I believe that the Wraith were uncertain which of us was responsible for operating the transport.”
“So they kept us alive just in case.” The residual stickiness that had plagued Aiden’s senses was clearing, and he could make out a pallid shape in the direction of Teyla’s voice. She was only a few feet away. “What about—?” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The stark light cast by the overhead planets shone through the open windows of the inn. He spotted four desiccated bodies, slumped against one wall. Their chest armor had been ripped off and tossed in a separate pile — which Teyla, or the cocooned shape of Teyla, was currently up against.
Rocking back and forth in an attempt to loosen the rubbery netting, Aiden bumped into her.
“Do not waste your energy, Lieutenant. You will not escape the bindings so easily.”
“Well, I’m not just going to lie here and wait for more Wraith to turn up,” he retorted. “Unless you can pull another one of those Houdini tricks of yours.”
“If you will hold still,” she said with a touch of exasperation, “I have located a shard of metal. But I can only grasp it with my mouth.”
Several minutes passed while he felt Teyla squirming beside him, and then abruptly, he felt a hole in the netting large enough to stick his hand through. That gave him sufficient leverage to tear away more of the binding until he could reach his knife and cut away the rest.
Once Teyla was free, Aiden searched the inn for their packs and weapons. He barely glanced at the dead men on the floor, but his teammate seemed to be taking an unhealthy interest in them. Although two of them were the warriors who had stuck with Teyla from the start, it wasn’t like the Athosian to be morbid, so he said, “It’s not your fault that they’re dead. It could just as easily have been you and me lying there.”
“That is what disturbs me. Why did they let us live, and instead feed on these men?”
“You said it yourself.” Aiden found his P-90 and checked the weapon. He’d fired several rounds into the nearest Wraith before being hit with the stunner. “They must have thought that we would be more useful to them alive, at least for now. Major Sheppard said that when he was held captive by the Wraith, they tried to pull something from his mind.”
Teyla rounded on her heel and stared at him. “What did you say?”
Not sure what button he’d just pressed, Aiden shrugged. “Some sort of interrogation, I guess. Although I can’t say I believe in the mind reading thing, that queen or caretaker or whatever she was sure did something to the Major on the hive ship. The guys who captured us were probably ordered to keep us on ice until someone up the chain of command could get here.”
“And leave us unguarded?”
“Hey, I’m not the Wraith expert around here. That’s your department.” He glanced through the window and up at the sky. “All I do know is that we’ve got about six hours until dawn. And since we’re not going to be able to get back into the Citadel without Peryn, I say we carry out the original mission, and then find some other way back inside.”
Teyla’s eyes dropped. “Perhaps not.”
Following the direction of her gaze, Aiden swore. Outside, dozens, maybe hundreds of Wraith were making a beeline for the inn. “Is there a back way out of this place?” Before he’d even gotten the words out of his mouth, a light from behind signaled the returning transport.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Outside, the crunch of boots grew louder. Beside him, Teyla lifted her P-90 and readied her aim at the opening transport doors. This time, he doubted that the Wraith would bother to gift-wrap them before feeding.
Chapter Twenty
The Wraith’s head rolled off its shoulders. Rodney blinked, staring in fascination. Then the torso collapsed on him and something gushed out over his face and eyes. Unable to cry out in revulsion, simply because the sheer weight of the thing had driven all the air from his lungs, he discovered a reserve of strength that he hadn’t believed possible and shoved the creature off himself.
“Oh…God!” The stench of whatever passed for blood was, as incredible as it seemed, actually worse than anything he had so far encountered.
Before he could even begin to get his bearings, his shoulder was more or less wrenched from its socket by someone hauling him further up the stairs. Multiple someones, more accurately. Not content with extending the length of his arm by several inches, a bunch of other hands began pushing at his legs, urging him to climb higher and yelling something that sounded like, “This way!”
Suddenly he found himself standing on a balcony or porch, surrounded by the children, Yann, and the engineer who had returned with them. Everyone was jabbering at once, asking him inane questions about what they could do next.
How the hell was he supposed to know? While they stood there, another gang of Wraith poured up and out of the transport. Most were swarming uphill; however, a group broke off and headed around the fountain in the center of the square and toward the bridge. The Dalerans had somehow managed to defend the entrance to the bridge, but at this rate, it was only a matter of time before they were overrun.
The blood from the felled Wraith dripped into Rodney’s eyes. Yelling in frustration and disgust, he rubbed the heels of his hands across his face, trying to wipe the stuff away. “Precisely how am I supposed to magically ascertain what to do when I can’t even see? Hasn’t anyone got any water in this place?”
A bubble of stunned silence seemed to encapsulate the group. Then the little girl tugged at his shirt. He looked down at her and snapped, “What?”
“The wells are all dry. Now there is only blackwater.”
And that, combined with the children’s expressions, their trust and faith in him, suddenly pulled Rodney from his funk. They needed him; everyone needed him. Maybe Ford and Teyla were dead, but the Major might only have a headache. And what about Atlantis? Zelenka simply wasn’t capable of looking after things as well as Rodney. Okay, so maybe Zelenka was capable, but it would give the Czech scientist entirely too much satisfaction to know that Rodney had been unable to solve what amounted to a relatively straightforward problem. He peered at the transport. “Am I imagining things, or is that set slightly downhill from the square?”
“The transport was built as such so that barrels and carts could readily be moved from the bridge and inside.”
“Of course it was.” His mind already taking two steps at a time, Rodney turned to the engineer. “Where’s the mechanism that controls the water supply to that fountain?”
“There, in the pump-house by the bridge.” The man pointed to a huge metal door set in the wall on the far side of the square, directly opposite the transport. “All major water pumps are located by the channels.”