by Martha Wells
That's a relief. John was betting it was the area around the medical lab, which was in one of the most defensible sections of the city's center and a designated point of retreat if the operations tower became compromised. Which meant, if they were lucky, Dorane hadn't found and killed Beckett, who was the strongest natural Ancient gene carrier next to John. He doubted Dorane had managed to trap the entire expedition. If the group holding the medlab had been able to raise any kind of alarm, there were probably people who had escaped to go to ground in the remote parts of the city. But even if they couldn't be found, they were still trapped. There was no way off Atlantis other than the Stargate or a jumper, and the mainland was too far away to reach except by air. Hopefully Dorane hadn't had time to send anybody there to mess with the Athosians yet.
Dorane was still eyeing McKay with thoughtful deliberation. Rodney said grimly, "I don't know yet if anyone has told you about my various allergies, but if you use any of your freakish retroviruses on me, I'll probably just fall over dead." He managed to sound as though he was sort of looking forward to it.
Dorane countered, "But it might just make for a more interesting-if brief-experiment."
John shook his head and stared at the ceiling. See, this is why I told you to shut up, Rodney. McKay did a little uncomfortable twitch, but lifted his chin and snapped, "Would it be more or less brief than getting shot?"
Dorane didn't bother to answer that one. "Are you willing to help remove the naquadah generators for transport back to the repository in exchange for your life-for the moment? Dr. Kavanagh has explained how the generators are tied in to the original power systems, but he admits that they are dangerous devices, and that as you installed them, you are better qualified to remove them."
The naquadah generators? John thought, eyes narrowing. He's serious he really is going back there. McKay looked as if he had been asked to remove his own kidney with a spoon, but he said, "Oh right, as if I have any choice."
Dorane inclined his head, apparently taking that for acceptance. "If you complete that successfully, perhaps I will need you for a longer time."
"You've been here before, after the Ancients left," John said, interrupting whatever McKay was about to reply. "Why didn't you take the ZPMs? You could have gotten through the `gate with at least two of them without collapsing the city shields."
"I had no need for them at that point. I had given up." Dorane's eyes fixed on John. He said, with an eerie lack of inflection, "Your people have given me new hope." His expression shifted and he almost smiled. "And you seem to have done an excellent job of reviving the city of your forebears. Except of course for the essential defensive elements. I'm certain the Lantians would be delighted that their children have made such good use of their legacy. And that those children will be of such help to me."
It wasn't comforting to know that their speculation had been correct; Dorane didn't want the city, he wanted the people in it. John said, "Yeah, it's too bad they aren't here to see it. Of course if they were, they'd probably be killing you right about now. Too bad they didn't take care of that earlier." He showed his teeth in something that wasn't a smile. He could feel McKay glaring at him, but he was supposed to be crazy, so he didn't think a lot of hostility was out of place.
"I'm sure they felt their punishment was effective." Dorane turned, starting down the gallery, telling John, "Come with me."
John followed, Benson trailing behind him, obviously as insurance he didn't change his mind.
McKay started to follow, but a Koan blocked his way. John glanced back over his shoulder, keeping his expression noncommittal. McKay managed to glare and look frightened at the same time. John didn't like the idea of being separated either, but he didn't see any way to prevent it.
Dorane led the way down to the conference room. The embossed panels were already open, allowing access into the room where the walls were all soft metallics, with squares of copper, lapis, and turquoise. When Dorane walked in and sat down at the table, John had that sudden feeling of violation you got when your house was robbed, that 'unwelcome strangers touching your stuff' feeling. This was the room where they had briefings, yelled at each other, made plans, worried about overdue `gate teams.
Laroque, one of the operations staff who worked with Grodin, was seated at the table already, an open laptop in front of her. The dead expression on her face told John that she had been given the control drug. She had a bruise on her cheek, and her dark hair had been pulled out of its usually scrupulously neat bun, as if someone had grabbed her by it. It provided John with an image of what might have happened on the control gallery, and he had to stop in the doorway and quell a violently homicidal impulse. Benson had a P-90 aimed at his back, and it wasn't like the personal shield would let him rip Dorane's throat out anyway.
Dorane regarded him for a moment with that chill calm, then gestured to another chair. As John dropped into it Dorane said, "There is another small pocket of resistance. They have not sealed themselves off as well as the others, but they are trapped, so there is not much point in attempting to extract them, at least for the moment. I have jammed your communication devices and had the Lantian com system taken offline, but I can speak to them through this technology." He glanced at Laroque, and she used the laptop's keyboard to call up a program.
John just had time to realize that the laptop must be set up for video conferencing when the screen flickered to a view of another room. Elizabeth was leaning on a table, turning her head to face the video feed. He heard a rustle as someone else moved just out of the camera's range. It gave John an instant to brace himself. Elizabeth saw him and straightened. "John!" Then, staring, she asked uncertainly, "John?"
He didn't answer her, on impulse slumping in the chair and avoiding her eyes like a sulky teenager. He knew he might not be able to resist trying to give her a signal of some kind, and Dorane would be watching for that. It was probably one of the reasons that he wanted this little confrontation.
"Your Major Sheppard is helping me now," Dorane told her. He didn't gloat, he just said it calmly, as though they were at a staff meeting talking about reassignments.
John could feel Elizabeth's eyes boring into the side of his head. The laptop's microphone picked up other people moving in the room, a startled murmur. John slumped a little further in the chair. He hoped she had Bates with her, and at least a couple of men from the Marine security detail. He realized his claws were out; there had to be some sort of impulse-control mechanism there that he just hadn't mastered yet. She asked quietly, "What did you do to him?"
Dorane gestured, as if the answer was obvious. "Just a successful experiment."
John slanted a look at her in time to see her expression harden. Behind her he could see blue-gray wall panels with silver trim, but that didn't narrow it down enough to tell him which room it was. She asked, "Is Dr. McKay alive as well?"
"As long as he is useful." Dorane leaned forward, sounding reasonable. "This can all be solved in a very simple way. You have something I want. If you give it to me, I will leave you in peace."
John didn't think there was any way Elizabeth would buy it, but just in case he looked at Dorane, brows lifted in incredulous amusement. He considered bursting into laughter but decided he should hold onto that until later.
Elizabeth smiled thinly, making it clear she was humoring Dorane. "And what would that be?"
"The memory core of the display chamber you found recently. Your people spoke to me of it, that you managed to make it play a portion of the display, and found the `gate address for the athenaeum there. I have been to the chamber, but the memory has been removed."
"I don't know anything about that." Elizabeth eyed him. "Why do you want it?"
Good question, John thought, keeping the surprise off his face. He wouldn't have guessed that the display held any information that Dorane didn't already have.
"It contains data that is useless to you, but important to me. I've tried to retrieve it before. After the Lantians
departed, I had to destroy two subspace power sources in order to make my crippled dialing device work, to come here searching for it. I found the display, but I thought it damaged beyond hope."
Elizabeth's brows drew together, and John knew she didn't understand. He didn't either. He carne to the city just to lookfor the display, and when he found it was broken he didn't trash the place, didn't go anywhere else through the gate, he just gave up and went home. Okay, that... doesn't make sense. Elizabeth asked, "If you've come here before, why didn't you escape through our Stargate to another world? You could've taken a jumper-"
Dorane spread his hands. "Woman, escape from what? I have always been exactly where I wanted to be. I would not stay in this city for any reason; its atmosphere is inimical to me. I need to stay at my athenaeum." He showed faint exasperation. "Now the only reason to remove the memory core was to try to read the damaged portion. Tell me which of your people would do that."
Zelenka, John thought. He must have removed the core after they left, to keep working on it in case there were maps or struc- rural information that they could have used. Elizabeth said, "I have no idea. No one was assigned to work on that."
"I hate waste, but I will begin killing your people if I do not get a satisfactory answer." Dorane regarded her steadily.
Dorane must have already asked the personnel he had under his control, who would have had no choice but to answer. But unless Zelenka had mentioned it to some of the other scientists and techs, they might not realize he had been with John and McKay when they found the thing. Except Ford. Ford knows Zelenka's the most likely candidate. And Ford knows I know. John said, "I bet I can guess who has it."
Dorane shifted, lifting his brows. "And?"
"And it's Dr. Zelenka, but you already know that from questioning the others." He tilted his head toward Benson. "I'm guessing what you really want to know is where he is."
From the screen, Elizabeth said sharply, "John, don't-"
Dorane motioned to Laroque, and she cut the video. He turned to face John directly.
John said, "He's down in the medlab, keeping you out of the computer system." Elizabeth wouldn't have been as worried if Zelenka was holed up with her. "You've cut off access to Atlantis' com system and you're jamming our radio traffic, so they won't know about me. I can get in there and talk them into giving me the memory core."
Dorane lifted his brows. "I thought you said that they would no longer trust you, or consider you one of them, after your transformation?"
Crap. John hesitated for a half a heartbeat, then remembered just in time that he was supposed to be crazy and crazy people believed contradictory things all the time; he shouldn't be trying to come up with an elaborate rationalization here. He made himself look confused, and gave Dorane his best 'I said what?' expression.
It worked. Dorane's eyes went hooded. "Very well. I suppose it will be quicker than waiting until they starve." He leaned back in his chair. "The Koan will follow you to the first obstructed passage."
On the control gallery, the Koan guards, who seemed more in charge here than the Atlantis personnel Dorane had under his control, let Peter Grodin untie Rodney's hands. Squinting in the dim light, Rodney eyed him suspiciously. Kavanagh had behaved normally, or at least in a Kavanagh-like fashion, for a long period after being infected. "Why didn't he give you the control drug?"
Grodin threw a grim look at Ford. "He wanted someone to operate the equipment up here. As far as I can tell, he can't allow an infected individual enough initiative to perform any kind of complicated task without losing control over them. Unfortunately, `stand here and shoot anyone who disobeys orders' isn't a complicated task."
"Well, that's just fantastic." Rodney sat down at one of the locked stations, rubbing his eyes. It explained why Dorane needed Rodney to disconnect the naquadah generators. He hadn't maintained that strict control over Kavanagh initially, but the first order he must have given was for Kavanagh to forget anything out of the ordinary had happened. That kind of loose control wouldn't work on people who were dismantling Atlantis' power grid.
Grodin said quietly, "He tried to initialize some of the other consoles, the ones we haven't been able to make work, but he couldn't. Is-"
One of the Koan came and stood over them, glaring suspiciously, but after that Grodin kept trying to catch Rodney's eye, until Rodney turned and gave him the 'oh my God, will you stop that' glare. Ford, his head still bandaged from the blow Kavanagh had given him, stood nearby watching them completely without expression, like some alien pod-person replica of the real man. Rodney had no idea whether Ford would be compelled to volunteer information to Dorane or not, but he didn't want to take the chance.
"McKay," Grodin whispered.
"Not now," Rodney said through gritted teeth.
Grodin persisted, "Sergeant Stackhouse's team has been on that three-day trading mission to the Enarians. They're due back later tonight-"
Rodney interrupted, "He'll order you to open the force field. You won't have to kill them." Though if we don't get out of this, they may not thank you for that later.
"How do you-"
"He doesn't want them dead. That's what, six more bodies for his experiment? Markham's with them, so that's one more Ancient gene carrier to torture."
Grodin hesitated, watching Rodney uncertainly. "What did he do to Sheppard?"
"What did it look like?" Rodney snapped. He was desperately afraid of giving something away, and starting to have flashbacks to the Genii and Kolya's occupation of the city. Not to mention the sour stomach and a pounding in his left temple that signaled the incipient arrival of a headache from hell.
He finally saw Sheppard and Dorane emerge from the conference room, the Koan and Benson following. The tight pain between Rodney's shoulderblades eased just a little. He realized he had been waiting for the sound of gunfire.
Sheppard swept the gallery with one tight glance, giving nothing away, then went down toward the center stairwell without glancing back, the two Koan following him like welltrained attack dogs at heel.
Rodney swallowed in a dry throat, craning his neck until Sheppard was out of sight. Great, great, great. I have no clue what we're doing. Or if Sheppard had a clue what they were doing. In the shadows of the gallery it was impossible to tell if he looked any worse. In the bright sunlight before stepping through the `gate, he had already looked drawn and obviously ill. Sheppard had always seemed as if he was nothing but bone and muscle, but in the last few hours Rodney was willing to swear the man had actually lost weight.
"You are concerned for him?" Dorane asked, and Rodney realized with a start that he had been watching him. Dorane strolled down the gallery toward him. "He betrayed you."
"Well, you know, that would really be your fault, wouldn't it?" Rodney snapped, swiveling around to face him. "And can we just get back to threatening me? Because frankly I'm not comfortable discussing my personal relationships with you, considering how you're planning to kill everyone I know."
Dorane dismissed that with a slight shrug. "It will be interesting to see how long he survives."
Rodney hesitated, knowing he shouldn't fall for the bait but unable to stop himself. "What do you mean?"
Dorane watched Rodney, his eyes opaque. "The Lantian- descended Thesians I tested that particular strain on only lived for one or two days. But I understand that your people also have some degree of genetic variation from the prototypal Lantian stock, so that estimate may be unrealistic." His voice hardened. "Now, let's get started on your naquadah generators."
Rodney stared at him, trying to tell if that was the truth or just another sick little lie. It was depressing enough to be the truth. His jaw set, he stood up. Dorane would be gauging the time by the rotation of the repository's planet, and by that measure it had already been a full day since Sheppard was infected.
They didn't have much time.
John took the central stairs down, ignoring the two Koan for now. Despite this minor victory, he couldn't shake
the feeling that Plan B was still circling the drain. The problem was that Dorane really, really liked playing with people, and he had a tremendous amount of experience at it. John could too readily imagine that Dorane was playing both him and McKay, making them think they were fooling him.
But he obviously wanted that memory core very badly, badly enough to risk letting John run loose around the city to get it.
They had speculated that all the Ancients' tinkering with the Stargate had been a cat and mouse game to force Dorane to give up something. If all he gave up was information... what's the point in getting it back? But if there was something else there, something the Ancients might have recorded on the core that Dorane needed, or at least thought he needed, maybe to keep his experiments going... Since he now had a new pool of human DNA to meddle with, he would be all the more anxious to get it.
John paused on the next landing, getting a view down the corridor. There was a room down there that was used for big meetings and science team conferences. It had one door and had always looked as if it would be relatively easy to secure. And yes, there were at least six Koan and four dead-eyed Marines stationed outside it. That had to be where Dorane was keeping the rest of the operations staff and the other expedition members he had managed to capture.
John eyed the corridor, considering it. Dorane had basically tried to hand them a scenario where John would have to kill half the Marines to save the rest of the expedition. But John had no plans to take him up on that one. Though it was really starting to worry him that he hadn't seen Teyla yet. He had expected to find her guarding the prisoners.
The Koan growled, and John moved on.
The lights were dimmed through every section they passed, the green bubble pillars motionless and silent. A few levels down in an open foyer, another group of Koan were gathered around the sealed door to the medlab corridor. They growled, glaring at John, but apparently they had gotten the word to let him through. He pushed past them, pretending to ignore the claws and bared teeth and the inexpertly held guns. As he reached the door, it slid open without waiting for him to touch the control, invitingly undefended. It revealed the long corridor that accessed most of the labs and work areas on this level, the walls decorated with copper bands enclosing squares of soft metallic grays and blues. The Koan hung back uneasily.
