Reliquary

by Martha Wells

  Bates nodded sharply, his expression of concentrated suspicion changing briefly to relief. The Wraith used the stunners to render their prey helpless for capture and feeding; with the four stunners the expedition had managed to acquire, Bates and the others could take out the controlled Marines without harming them, and it would be quicker and far more efficient than trying to use tasers. It would still be risky, as the men under Dorane's control would be shooting to kill, but it was the best chance they had to get out of this without a bloodbath. Bates said, "Then we take back the `gate room."

  "That's right." By that point Bates would have help from the personnel liberated from the Koan, and the `gate room was a straight shot right up the tower. Cutting off Dorane's access to the Stargate would probably make him freaky and desperate as well as incredibly dangerous, but this was the only way they could play it. "They're holding Grodin and Laroque in there, and there might be some others, so don't give them time to shoot anybody. Grodin was the only one I saw who hadn't been given the control drug. Then come after Dorane. We should be at one of the naquadah generator stations-he's having McKay take them out for transport back to his planet. Don't waste any shots on Dorane, he's wearing a personal shield."

  Bates' expression took on a new level of grim. Ramirez asked quickly, "Sir? Personal shield?"

  "That Ancient thing Dr. McKay was wearing the time I shot him and threw him off the control gallery," John told him.

  "Yes, sir." Ramirez nodded his comprehension, then realized the implications. "Uh oh."

  "Yeah." It had been funny when they were playing 'Captain Invulnerable' with McKay; now it was anything but. And if the Ancients were going to make those damn things, why so few? Why not one for everybody? Sometimes the Ancients were just annoying. John wasn't thrilled with the people who hadn't bothered to flush the plague-spreading nanites and the Darkness creature before leaving the city, either. "By the time you get there, I'll think of a way to take care of Dorane."

  John could see Bates suppressing a comment on that piece of optimism. Instead he said, "What about Eliza-" He corrected himself stiffly. "Dr. Weir?"

  John shook his head, though it ate at him to make this decision. "He can't get into that room, so he can't hold them hostage; we can get them out after we take out Dorane."

  John could tell Bates saw the sense in that, though he didn't like it either. As Bates tookAudley and Ramirez aside to work out a plan of attack for the level the prisoners were on, John turned to Beckett and Zelenka again. "Look, Dorane's going to send the Koan in here, probably when he has Rodney take out the generator for this section of the city. You need to get everybody out, get them to the lower levels, split up and hide. It's not Atlantis he's really after. He wants us, to experiment on."

  Beckett grimaced. "I thought it might be something like that. We'll pack the emergency supplies and go as soon as we can."

  "Oh, and he wants the memory core from that pillar thingthat's why he let me come down here." John asked Zelenka, "Do you have that?"

  Zelenka nodded. "Yes, I took it out to work on further, and it came with me when we evacuated the labs. There's information there he wants?"

  "Yeah. I have no idea what, but- Can you make a copy of a part that's really damaged, something he won't be able to read? I just need something I can hand him, something that'll seem convincing."

  Zelenka was already moving toward an array of laptops set up on the work tables at the back of the bay. "Yes, yes, we can do this."

  Beckett rubbed his forehead wearily. "This mind-control can't be a completely organic process. If he really based this on the ATA gene, it just doesn't work that way. There has to be a technological component somewhere."

  "I haven't seen him use-" John frowned. He had seen Dorane with something, when he and Teyla had caught him with the Koan. "Oh, crap. I thought he was using a life sign detector. But that was when McKay was hiding in the area; if Dorane had had a detector, he would've been able to send the Koan right to him." That was why Dorane had put the thing down and walked away from it so readily. If John had had the chance to follow through on his threat to shoot Dorane's hand off with the device in it, this whole thing would have been over in that moment. There's a lesson in that, he told himself grimly.

  Zelenka had returned and was listening thoughtfully, tapping a memory stick against his chin. "We think life sign detector works by sensing a degree of electrical activity in nervous system-that is why it doesn't show the presence of hibernating Wraith." He lifted his brows. "If he has altered a unit so it also broadcasts to these infected individuals and can perhaps set it to inhibit any activity that is not directly provoked by some certain cue, such as his voice- But this is all hypothetical."

  "Could you jam the hypothetical signal from the hypothetical thing?" John asked, not hopefully.

  Zelenka shook his head, grimacing. "I doubt it, certainly not in limited time before he decides to order our friends to kill us. We still have not isolated the exact element the Ancient technology uses to interact with the ATA gene, and that is happening all around us, all the time." He handed the memory stick to John. "Here is partial copy of the damaged portion of the core. It's nothing useful, but as you said, it may keep him busy for a few moments."

  "Right, thanks." John pocketed the little device, still thinking about the mind control. "The control box isn't going to be Ancient tech, it's going to be something with Dorane's version of the gene. If we're lucky."

  Beckett frowned. "You can hear that also?"

  "It's what made the Koan crazy. That repository sounds like ...I can't describe what it sounds like." The constant whisper of alien noise was getting pretty loud in here now, with all the Ancient medical equipment that Beckett had managed to activate stored in this area, the devices he had figured out well enough to use safely and those he hadn't. "I should be able to tell if he has it on him or hidden somewhere else. Maybe Atlantis' ATA just drowned out whatever noise it was making."

  Beckett took a sharp breath. "We have to get our hands on that device, because there's no telling how long it would take to create a counteragent to the biological side." He lifted his brows. "Unless you could get me blood samples from a variety of victims-"

  "Blood samples. Right." John nodded earnestly. "Want me to pick up anything else while I'm out? Some groceries, your dry cleaning-

  Beckett took his arm. "I can at least take a sample from you right now."

  "Look, I don't have a lot of time-"

  "If you'd be still for two seconds I'll have it done," Beckett told him briskly, steering him toward a chair. Dr. Biro already had a drawer open in the nearest storage cabinet, scrambling for a hypo and collection vials. "And if I could take a sample of one of those spines-"

  "Uh, no." John sat down reluctantly, leaning away from Beckett. "What if they're attached to my brain or something?"

  "Well, then we'd best find that out, shouldn't we?"

  John ended up successfully resisting having a spine ripped out of his skull, but Beckett stood over him with one of the Ancient medical scanning devices while Biro took the blood sample. It took her a couple of minutes to get it, since John's veins apparently heard her coming and tried to hide. "You're badly dehydrated, Major," she told him, her expression severe.

  "And you know, that's really the least of my problems right now," John said, and then had to convince her that he barely had time for the bottle of water she forced on him and that an IV was out of the question.

  Beckett was still studying the Ancient diagnostic scanner, a faint professional frown creasing his brow. John started to ask something and saw Beckett's face change, caught the unguarded moment when the scanner showed Beckett something he must have suspected but had been hoping not to see. Well, crap, John thought, cold settling in the pit of his stomach. The ATA was getting louder and more intrusive; it wasn't just his imagination, or that there was less ambient noise here to drown it out, or that there was so much active Ancient technology in the medlab. Something was changing in
his body and brain chemistry again, and from Beckett's expression, it wasn't good.

  Beckett cleared his throat; his professional mask was back in place, but the lines on his face were etched a little deeper. "Major Sheppard, I need to talk to you in private."

  "Carson, I don't have time, and I don't want to know," John said. Dr. Biro had finished with the blood sample, and he pulled away from her automatic attempt to put a bandage over the puncture; without one it was just one more bloody scratch on his arm and he didn't want anything to draw Dorane's attention to it. Watching Beckett worriedly, Biro barely noticed. Though she hadn't seen the scanner, she must have caught the same implication from Beckett's expression. "Not unless it's going to happen in the next five minutes."

  Beckett winced. He said, "I haven't even looked at your blood sample yet. We don't know-"

  John avoided his eyes. Okay, that means I've got more than five minutes. He didn't want sympathy right now. Actually he did want it, a lot of it, he just didn't have time for it. And he wasn't sure he wanted it from the two people who, in a best case scenario, would be doing his autopsy. He shoved to his feet, suppressing the urge to ask them not to put him in the same freezer as the parts that were left of Steve the Wraith. "I've got to get back up there. Make sure Zelenka keeps that memory core safe. It's the only thing Dorane seems to want more than us."

  As the others scrambled to gather emergency gear, Beckett followed as John led Bates, Audley, and Ramirez to the floor access panel that would take them down to the section below where they could reach the armory. It would be easier and faster for John to go back that way instead of going up and out again.

  Waiting impatiently for Audley to pry up the panel, John felt something change in the direction of the central stairwell. It was that same weird tickly feeling in the back of his brain that had warned him about the Koan in the forest. He could tell there were a lot of them, and he could tell they were close but not too close, somewhere towards the inner portion of this section. He said, "There's some Koan nearby; they're probably gathering at the stairwell access to the main medlab corridor. Dorane must be getting ready to cut the power to this section." He looked up to find all of them staring at him a little warily, except for Beckett, who looked like he was making mental notes. John told him, "Remember, let them take the medlab, just get everybody out through here and further down into the city."

  Beckett nodded sharply. "Right. Don't worry about us." He shook his head suddenly, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "Look, just don't- Don't give up. Give me a chance to fight this. I'll have my headset on. As soon as you can call us back, do it."

  That was the sympathy thing again. John just nodded, and followed the others down into the access.

  When John strolled up the central stairs, he found the large group of Koan waiting at the door to the medlab corridor. "So where have you guys been?" John asked them. "I was looking all over the place for you." He was starting to feel warm, though he wasn't sweating. He knew it was him; he could tell the circulation system in this section was still running, drawing in cool outside air.

  Before leading him to Dorane, the Koan searched him again, making him glad for resisting the temptation to take a side trip with Bates to the armory for some grenades. Explosives were one thing that might be effective against the personal shield, since they didn't have to work against the body inside the forcefield, just the structural integrity of whatever building that person was standing in. But despite the difficulty of smuggling any kind of weapon into the same room with Dorane, the man would be too close to the naquadah generators, and the naquadah generators were too close to the operations tower and the Stargate, which was made from naquadah, and from what John understood, that could add up to losing a much larger chunk of the city than he was willing to part with. But if it came down to it... He would rather lie down in an open field on a Wraith planet with a 'get it here' sign than let Dorane take any people back to the repository. And John didn't think Dorane was the type to cut his losses and make a run for the Stargate before the last possible moment. If he couldn't take the expedition members back with him, he would kill as many as he could.

  The door to the generator room was open, and the Koan led John inside. Dorane was standing with several Koan, Ford, and two Marines. Dorane looked even worse than he had in the `gate room; his eyes were yellow and bloodshot and his skin was gray. Maybe when he said the atmosphere of Atlantis was inimical to him, he hadn't been exaggerating.

  McKay, crouched on the floor beside the generator, looked up warily. He was surrounded by open access panels and disconnected crystal conduit. Kavanagh, his expression blank, stood nearby holding a toolkit. "I'm back," John announced unnecessarily. He was listening hard for a faint thread of discord among Atlantis' whispery harmonics, and the ATA was relatively quiet in here. The naquadah generator was Earth manufacture, not Ancient, and the only other tech he could hear was the door control panels and Dorane's personal shield. So where the hell is he keeping this thing? It had to be nearby. Even if it didn't have to be physically close to work, John figured Dorane was too cautious to let it out of his control. Unless he has it on him somewhere, and the shield is just so loud it's covering up any noise from the control device.

  "You didn't go to the sealed area through the main corridor," Dorane said, watching him carefully.

  "Well, no, since I'd be dead if I had. I knew another way in." John lifted a brow. "Isn't that what you were counting on?"

  Dorane didn't bother to answer. "But you found the memory core."

  John fished the stick out of his pocket and held it out. McKay stared, winced, and ducked behind the generator. John knew the stick probably didn't hold a tenth of what the actual Ancient core held, but Dorane wouldn't know that. He just hoped it didn't occur to the man to ask Kavanagh.

  Dorane's expression was impossible to read. He didn't reach out to take the stick. "What is that?"

  "It's a data storage device for our computers," John told him. "I couldn't get the core itself"

  Dorane looked at Kavanagh, who put the toolkit down and came forward. Kavanagh took the memory stick from John, glanced at it briefly, and held it out to Dorane, saying, "That's correct, it's a data storage device."

  John knew Dorane was still wearing the personal shield. But he really doesn't trust me, and it obviously occurred to him that I might hand him something that would blow up or even short out the shield. Too bad John didn't have anything like that. But Dorane obviously knew nothing about their technology; maybe he had seen just enough to realize there were elements of it he didn't understand.

  Dorane finally took the stick from Kavanagh, his lips thin with distaste. "And I assume this will only display on one of your devices. Which one of you will have to operate for me."

  John shrugged, as if he didn't care. "I guess." He took a couple of distracted paces to the left, so his back was to the Koan, Kavanagh, Ford, and the others.

  Dorane watched him, eyes narrowing. "Surely you know."

  "He doesn't know," McKay sneered, looking up from where he was crouched beside the generator. He had obviously reached the overly aggressive stage of his blood sugar crash. "He can barely check his email."

  Dorane turned to regard him, probably with a great deal of skepticism. Rodney glared up at him, and John took the opportunity to mouth the words 'big distraction, soon.'

  Rodney twitched in alarm, but he looked so flustered and annoyed, it would have been hard for someone who didn't know him to tell. He told Dorane, "You'll need a laptop to read it. That's one of the computers in the silver cases."

  Dorane turned back toward Kavanagh, who said, "Yes, that's true." Something in the way Dorane was holding the memory stick suggested a great deal of frustration. Whatever was on the memory core, Dorane didn't want anyone else to see it, apparently not even one of the people he had under control.

  John made an idle circuit of the room, still listening hard for the control device. He was fairly certain now it wasn't
on Dorane, but surely it was nearby. If it was up in the `gate room... No, it had to be closer than that. If it isn't, we may be seriously screwed. But would Dorane just stick it on a shelf somewhere and leave it? The naquadah generators were spaced out widely over the center portion of the city; did this thing have the kind of range that it could... Or he gave it to someone else to carry.

  "Is there one of these laptops nearby?" Dorane was asking Kavanagh.

  Kavanagh shook his head; his attention was on Dorane and not what Rodney was doing with the generator. "I don't know. They would be in the `gate room, the labs, the living quarters and offices-"

  John wandered past Kavanagh, the two Marines, Ford, and caught the first hint of a tiny disruption in the ATA's ongoing cacophony. It wasn't insistent enough to be coming from one of them. The nearest Koan growled nervously as John went to the wall and leaned back against it. Dorane, still questioning Kavanagh about nearby labs, threw him a cold look, but he obviously wasn't much interested in however John wanted to occupy his last moments. John closed his eyes, tipped his head back against the metal, and tried to shut everything else out.

  And there it was, somewhere on the other side of this wall, a thread of discordant sound, moving away. Yeah, he gave it to someone who's been following him around the city. And I bet I know who.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ohn opened his eyes to see McKay crouched by the generator, fiddling with the last connection, watching him anxiously. And here we go. John lifted a brow, giving him a 'what are you waiting for' look.