Stargate Atlantis: Third Path: Book 8 in the Legacy series

by Melissa Scott

  “Dr. Beckett wanted me to ask again if anyone was showing any physical symptom,” Harris said.

  “Not so far,” Zelenka answered. His mouth quirked into a familiar wry smile. “None of us have implants or the like that might be affected, and it seems uninterested in human flesh.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” Harris said.

  Zelenka nodded vigorously. “Yes, indeed.”

  Ember shifted impatiently, and Zelenka looked at him.

  “Ember. You are well?”

  If anyone knew what it meant for him to go hungry, it was Zelenka, who had shared his life-force before. Ember bent his head, embarrassed. “Yes. I am well.” For now, he thought, but would not speak that weakness aloud.

  “Ready,” Sindye said, reappearing at Zelenka’s shoulder. She held up the biohazard box, once again tightly sealed, then slid it gently out into the corridor. The younger doctor hooked it, and Harris picked up the first of the disinfectants. She sprayed it thoroughly on all four sides, then switched to the second tank and repeated the procedure. When she was finished, she nodded to the younger doctor, who brought it all the way in and then quickly zipped it into what Beckett had promised was a secure carrier.

  “Let us know what you find as soon as you can,” Zelenka called. “The degradation has accelerated considerably.”

  “As soon as we know anything,” Ember said, and Harris gave him a startled glance.

  “Absolutely.”

  It seemed to take forever to return to the medical lab, and another age to transfer the new samples — a ragged square of thick white plastic, a cup that had collapsed into itself — into a containment unit. Ember paced the length of the lab and back again, his teeth closed firmly over any injunction to hurry, and at last Beckett looked up from his screen.

  “All right. All’s secure, and it looks as though we have good samples. You said you wanted one to examine yourself?”

  “Yes.” Ember slowed his movement, feeling the Marines come to attention behind him. “Thank you.”

  “Two sets of eyes are better than one,” Beckett answered. “You’re right about that.”

  “Let us hope so.” Ember took his place on the opposite side of the containment unit, cocking his head as he identified the various tools. Yes, there was the microscope platform, and the screen that allowed him to visualize and manipulate the images, and the secondary screen that let him perform any other necessary calculations. The remote operating tools were awkwardly shaped, and he worked his fingers into the gloves, flexing his hands cautiously. The rasp of the material against his handmouth was unpleasantly distracting, but he forced himself to ignore it, moving his fingers until he was sure he could use the tools without damaging the containment unit.

  Beckett was ahead of him, of course, practiced hands already scraping an invisible film from the nearest piece of plastic. Ember found his own broad-bladed knife and did the same, transferring a thin curl of plastic to the microscope’s platform. The first slice looked well-populated, but he cut a second, and then a third, before he worked his hands free and turned his attention to the screen.

  Most of the cells looked like the ones he had seen in the first sample, the familiar, utilitarian solvent, and he adjusted the magnification, looking for any anomalies. Dispiritingly, it looked normal, and he slid his hands back into the controls to transfer some of them to the mass spectrometer for further analysis, then returned his attention to the screen. All of the samples looked the same, even at the highest magnification, and he wished again for his familiar toolset. If only he could touch the solvent, sieve its DNA for mutations, feel the changes — He shoved that thought aside as pointless, and added a sample to the Lantean DNA sequencer.

  It would take some time for that machine to finish its work, and he turned his attention to the other, less familiar bacteria that seemed to accompany the solvent. He had not looked closely at them before, so convinced had he been that the solvent was the problem, and now he wondered if that was his mistake. They seemed to be a variant of a common strain of airborne bacteria, harmless to Wraith and their ships, occasionally a vector of disease for humans; he didn’t think he’d seen this particular variety before, but there were thousands of related organisms. Even so, he picked it apart, working at the highest available magnification, cataloguing its features in detail. If it had interbred with the solvent, its characteristics might be more important than they seemed.

  And then he saw it, the odd hook at the tip of several of the spikes sticking out of the cell wall. Surely not, he thought. Surely that was just damage, some peculiarity of that cell — but, no, there it was again, and again. He pulled away from the screen, looking for the rack of familiar stains that he would have used in his own lab to identify various organisms, but the Lantean system had strange gaps in it. He hissed in annoyance and fear, and got himself under control.

  “Dr. Beckett. Do you have any —?” He stopped, unable to find a word for the thing he saw and felt, and reached for the nearest laptop. He called up one of the modeling programs and quickly entered the codes to produce an approximation of his tester. “I need this compound. Do you have any?”

  Beckett squinted to see across the containment unit, his hands still encased in the heavy gloves. “No. I don’t even know what that is.”

  “It’s a stain. We use it to test for the presence of a certain virus, a bacteriophage.”

  “I expect Dr. Wu can make you some, if it’s important.”

  “It’s vital.” Ember kept his tone steady with an effort. For once he was grateful that he was not among his own kind: it would be all but impossible to hide what he was thinking. “I need to be sure that we are not dealing with this virus.”

  “You might have thought of that before,” Beckett said.

  “I had no reason to consider it,” Ember snapped. “It’s not something we let anywhere near our toolkits.”

  “Dr. Wu,” Beckett said, and the dark-haired woman came over to the console to study Ember’s screen. “See what you can do about making up a batch of that.”

  “Of course.” She gave Ember what might have been a fleeting smile. “Twenty minutes.”

  “Thank you,” Ember managed, though he wanted to shout at her to hurry.

  “Do you want to tell me what you’re looking for?” Beckett asked.

  “I would like to be sure first,” Ember said. “There is no point in worrying before we are sure.”

  “I’m worried already,” Beckett said.

  “I am mostly concerned to eliminate the possibility,” Ember said, and almost believed it himself.

  Wu was better than her word, turning away from her lab bench in slightly less than fifteen minutes. She held up a small glass tube, displaying a cloudy liquid that rose maybe a thumb’s width up the side of the glass. “Is this enough?”

  “Yes.” Ember started to take it from her, then realized that he didn’t know how to get it into the containment. “Ah. Could you —?”

  “Oh.” Wu blushed pink, a reaction Ember had never been able to interpret. “Right. Just a second.”

  She took back the vial and fiddled with the containment unit for what seemed like an unreasonable amount of time, but finally she straightened.

  “There. You should have full access to it, in dispenser 7.”

  “Thank you.” Ember fitted his hands into the gloves again, hissing at the pressure on his feeding hand. He found the correct tool and dispenser and carefully transferred a small amount of the stain to the microscope’s platform. For a long moment, nothing happened, and he allowed himself a sigh of pure relief. But then he saw it, the faintest shift in color from the ordinary clear fluid to a blue as pale as ice, and he hissed again.

  “Problem?” Beckett asked, his voice very controlled.

  “I can’t tell.” Ember added a bit more of the stain, but there was no further reaction. If it was there, there was only a minuscule amount, and that gave them a chance. “How long will it take your equipment to read t
he DNA from these samples?”

  “Another few hours,” Beckett said. “I think you should tell me what you’re worrying about.”

  “There is a bacteriophage that is very aggressive, very effective at colonizing bacteria,” Ember said. “It is, so far, fairly rare and reasonably fragile, in its natural state. But when it does find a host, it is much harder to kill, and it enhances the effect of the bacteria it infects — if this is what happened, it explains why our solvent is so much more virulent.” He looked at the screen again. “The stain has barely reacted, though. It may — I hope it is — a false positive.”

  “And if it’s accurate?”

  “Then we are indeed in serious trouble.” Ember bared teeth in a mirthless grin. “We have fought this virus before. It is extremely persistent — I have known of hives that have been infected that have had to be destroyed. But surely this is not it.”

  “Does this thing have a name?” Beckett was already reaching for his radio.

  Ember hissed. “We called it the ‘little replicator.’ Because it reproduced nearly as fast.”

  “Lovely.”

  “There is worse,” Ember said. “It reproduces quickly, it is genetically unstable, and when it mutates — it can become dangerous to living tissue.”

  “To humans?” Beckett paused. “Dangerous how?”

  “And also to Wraith,” Ember said. “In us, it causes a fatal infection of the lungs, one that spreads so quickly that even our ability to heal cannot keep up with it. I don’t know the effect in humans.”

  “Probably similar,” Beckett said, grimly. “What are the chances of it mutating to that form?”

  “Eighty percent. But perhaps we will be fortunate,” Ember said, and wished he could believe it himself.

  The hive Just Fortune came smoothly out of hyperspace and into orbit above the planet, placing itself between the distant pinpoint of the sun and the ocean-covered surface. Guide waited while the sensors probed, building a picture of the world to fill their displays, and in the queen’s chair Alabaster shifted to look up at him.

  *This world does not seem particularly hospitable to humans.*

  Looking at the readouts, Guide had to agree. The surface was almost entirely water, and this far from the sun, the scattered landmassses lay in perpetual twilight. The Stargate stood at the edge of one of the larger islands, and there were lines and masses of rock nearby that suggested purposeful placement. *No hive I know of has used this as a base,* he said thoughtfully.

  *Bonewhite?* Alabaster asked.

  The Hivemaster lifted his head. *Nor I. Perhaps Night’s lineage? They often sought planet-bound sanctuaries.*

  He looked at the man at the sensor station as he spoke, and the blade dipped his head. He was a relative newcomer, his mental voice a bright banner tossed on a strong wind, and had come to them from a hive of Night.

  *Had our people used this world, I would have said so.* His tone was deferential. *I do not believe it was ever one of ours.*

  *It is known to the Travelers,* Guide said.

  *You are very certain they will be here,* Alabaster said.

  *It is the known stopping point closest to where the ships escaped to hyperspace,* Guide answered. *And we did at least some damage.* Not enough, he added inwardly, closing his mind tight to keep his daughter or any other from hearing his doubts. It had taken them longer than he had liked to identify Traveler ships that might have worked with the Wolf, though they had gotten lucky in tracking the one called Durant. They’d been less lucky to find it in company with two others, and the Travelers had worked together well enough to hold them at a distance that allowed all three to successfully make the transition to hyperspace.

  The cruiser Thrice Bold winked into existence beside them, and a new screen lit to show her commander’s face. “My Queen. There was no sign of them on Ulliga.”

  “Then we will keep searching here,” Alabaster answered, leaning back comfortably against the well-grown supports. *Put us into a search orbit, Guide.*

  Guide suppressed a snarl, and focused his attention on his controls, easing the hive into a new pattern that would allow the scanners to reach one hundred percent of the planet’s surface in the shortest possible time. For the first orbit, the screens showed nothing but sea and sky, both fertile in potential, but largely empty of life. That was unsurprising, as far from the sun as this world lay, and he wondered why the Ancients had bothered with it at all. Had the sun been brighter when the Ring was set in place, or had there been resources to exploit, now exhausted?

  *There!* Banner pointed a claw at the main display.

  Guide eased the hive into a turn that brought the signals into closer focus. Yes, three ships showed vivid against the cool ground, their hulls still warm from reentry, their engines glowing brighter still. *More detail.*

  *Yes, Commander.* Banner adjusted his controls, and the image shifted, losing the brilliance of the false colors, but taking on subtler detail. The ships stood on a plateau, a flattened spot on the largest of a series of islands that trailed away in the direction counter to the planet’s rotation, three ships — and was that a fourth? If so, it was much smaller, the details blurred by the bigger ships around it. A tender or a lifeboat, Guide thought, deployed for repairs or for shelter. Nothing to worry about. His attention sharpened as a secondary scan drew new lines through the scene.

  *That is not a natural clearing.*

  *No,* Banner answered, his fingers busy on his controls. *I am scanning for metals and for formed stone. This is an artificial surface, probably intended as a landing area, and there are more artificial cavities inside the hill.*

  *An Ancient installation?* Alabaster’s tone was still serene, but Guide knew her attention had sharpened. Ancient installations meant mystery weapons, drones and beam weapons and who knew what else. Although if this were defended only by Travelers… He put that thought aside. Time enough to consider that once they had dealt with the Wolf.

  *I’m not — I don’t think so?* Banner worked his controls again, his head cocked to one side. *The materials are similar, but the construction is very different. I don’t recognize this style.*

  *Defenses? Weapon sites?* Bonewhite leaned over Banner’s shoulder.

  *None. There are pits that might have been outlying cannon stations — no, probably not, there are no connections to the main installation.*

  *Then what are they?* Guide demanded. He could see the pits himself how, six spaced evenly to cover the landing area: surely any sane commander would have placed weapons there, to cover both anyone landing and to protect the entrance to the underground installation.

  *They may have been weapons once,* Banner said, his tone carefully deferential, *but there’s nothing there now.*

  *Except the Travelers,* Alabaster said. *And they are grounded and damaged, at our mercy. We can put an end to this Wolf once and for all.* She rose to her feet. *Bring us in over the field, Guide, and contact their captain. We can at least offer them that much grace.*

  Guide brought Just Fortune around onto a looping course that kept the curve of the planet between them and the Travelers’ sensors until the last possible moment. He doubted they were in any condition to escape, but there was no point in taking chances. Thrice Bold mirrored the movement, coming in over the pole, and the two ships took up station directly above the field.

  *Any sign of activity? Weapons activation?* Guide asked.

  *Nothing, Commander,* Bonewhite answered, and Guide allowed himself a sigh of relief. Mysterious installations, even ones that had not been built by the Ancestors, had an unfortunate tendency to turn out to have sharp teeth.

  *Do they see us?* Alabaster asked.

  *No active scans, Lady,* Banner answered. *We’re well within range of any passive monitors.*

  Alabaster leaned back in her chair, visibly considering. *Contact them,* she said abruptly. *We have them trapped. Let’s see if we can end this without further damage.*

  *Yes, Lady.* Bonewhite worked
his controls. *I have the frequency they used in battle. It should reach their commanders.*

  *Good, thank you.* Alabaster straightened abruptly, the ease vanishing from her pose, her face hardening into a cold mask. For an instant, she looked painfully like her mother, in the last days of their hive, and Guide had to look away to master himself.

  “Traveler ships,” she said aloud. “We know you have aboard the assassin called the Wolf. Surrender him to us, and you will come to no harm.”

  There was a long silence, the open channel hissing faintly, a high note just at the edge of hearing. Alabaster sighed. *They are receiving us?*

  *This is their common channel,* Bonewhite answered. *It is possible that their receivers have been damaged, of course —*

  *Hardly likely on all three of them,* Guide said.

  *Indeed not.* Bonewhite ducked his head in agreement.

  “Traveler ships,” Alabaster said again. “I know you can hear me. We would prefer only to take the Wolf, but if you persist in ignoring us, we will simply destroy you and your ships from orbit. It is your choice.”

  Again there was nothing but silence. Guide glanced sideways, but Alabaster’s expression made it clear that she would not welcome any comment.

  “Very well,” she said. “We will attack —”

  “Wait!” That was a human voice, a man’s, high and sharp with fear. “Wait, wait, it’s taken us a minute to fix our transmitter, that’s all.”

  Guide rolled his eyes, and felt the same disbelief fill the control room.

  *We do not need to believe them in this,* Alabaster said, her tone tinged with amusement. “Then you have heard what I said. Surrender the Wolf, and we will let the rest of you go free.”

  “How can we believe you?” That was a different voice, and the first voice cut in quickly.

  “But we don’t have him! Is that why you attacked us? You’ve made a mistake, the Wolf isn’t with us —”