“Bad. Worse than last time.”
“Damn it.” Lorne shook his head. “You know the risk.”
“We’ve got two hours before we have to move,” Ronon said. “Then we’re coming through.”
“Understood,” Lorne answered, and Ronon cut the connection.
Joseph fiddled with her laptop, and gave him a sidelong glance. “That bad, sir?”
“I’m afraid so.” Ronon took another deep breath. He needed to tell everyone, make sure that there was a single general plan that covered everything, in case he or Aulich or any of the others were hit by lightning. “No luck with the DHD?”
“No, sir.” Joseph shook her head.
“Right.” Ronon lifted his voice. “Everybody! Back to the shelter, I’ve got something you need to hear.”
They gathered around the fire, backs to the wind, sparks spiraling up with every new gust. Ronon looked them over, impressed again by the Lanteans’ sheer doggedness. No one here had expected to risk their lives when they came through the Stargate; this was supposed to have been an ordinary scientific mission, nothing particularly dangerous or even particularly important. Except of course that every person on Atlantis, from its officers down to the cooks and lowliest technicians, had chosen to step through a Stargate, knowing that there were dangers in Pegasus that had never existed on their homeworld. He was proud to stand with them, prouder still that they accepted his leadership. He cleared his throat.
“Ok. Some good news, some bad news. The good news is that Atlantis says they’ve treated the quarantined area and it seems to have been successful. They’re running tests to be sure, and as soon as that’s done, they’ll open the Stargate. The bad news… We’re currently in the path of storms that are a lot bigger than the ones we went through. Captain Aulich gives us about two hours before we have to dial out. We’ll wait as long as we can to see if Atlantis can’t finish clearing their area, but if they haven’t, we are going back anyway.”
There was a little silence, and then Parrish lifted his head. “There’s no chance we could ride it out here?”
“There’s too much lightning,” Aulich said. “It’s — No. It’s not going to be survivable.”
“How convinced is Atlantis that they’ve got this thing under control?” Parrish asked. “Because if they’ve done an all-out push, and it hasn’t worked, we still might be better off taking our chances here and waiting for the DHD to reset.”
“What part of ‘not survivable’ didn’t you get?” Hunt asked.
“Let’s face it,” Parrish retorted, “if Atlantis can’t get this bug under control, that’s not survivable, either.”
“Ok,” Ronon said, loudly. “This is not a debate.”
“No,” Parrish said. “Sorry.”
He was right, Ronon knew, and a part of him was tempted by that very plan. Better to take their chances here and eventually dial out to somewhere besides Atlantis than to be trapped on Atlantis waiting to die of a plague. But he had seen the first line of storms, and he trusted Aulich’s readings. And he trusted Atlantis’s scientists. “We’re going to leave the equipment,” he said. “Take what you can carry easily — what you can run with. We can come back for the rest of it.” He thought Hunt looked doubtful, but she said nothing. “Two hours. In the meantime, get packed, and get rested. This is likely to be hairy.”
They kept the fire going, more for the reassurance than for the warmth, though the wind that blew in ahead of the storms was perceptibly colder than before. Hunt and Samara pooled supplies to come up with a thermos’s worth of coffee, and shared it out in their few cups. Ronon accepted one with the others, though he wasn’t particularly fond of the bitter taste. It was more important that they share this warmth, physical and emotional, than that he enjoy the drink, and besides, the caffeine was likely to come in handy.
“Atlantis will contact us, right?” Parrish asked, both hands wrapped around his cup.
“As soon as they’ve cleared the gate room,” Ronon said. It was the fourth time he’d said it, but he managed to keep his voice calm. “Or we’ll dial them if the storm gets too close.”
A crack of thunder punctuated his words, louder than the steady distant rumbling, and he glanced over his shoulder to see the eastern horizon flashing like a chain of signal beacons. Against the flashing clouds, he could see three bolts of lightning, white-hot forks stabbing from cloud to ground.
“It’s getting too close for comfort,” Samara muttered.
“We’re all right for now,” Ronon said, and hoped he was right.
Aulich set her empty cup aside and opened her laptop. “I’m losing the signal, but as far as I can tell — yeah, we’ve still got some time.”
Ronon managed not to look at the Stargate. Staring at it wouldn’t make Atlantis call any more quickly. Instead, he slid another piece of wood into the fire, pushing into the heart of the coals so that one of the branches above it collapsed in a shower of sparks. Another gust of rain blew past, a sudden spattering of cold water on back and shoulders. He’d been through worse as a Runner, but he hadn’t been responsible for anyone else then, either.
He looked around the shelter, seeing the day packs set ready for departure. They’d done what he’d told them, gathered up only the most necessary items — well, there was a leaf from one of the succulents sticking out of Parrish’s pack, and probably more in Hunt’s pack, but that was what they’d come to get. He didn’t grudge them their samples as long as it didn’t keep them from moving fast when the time came.
There was another crack of lighting, an instant of pure white light that threw everything in the clearing into sharp relief, and then thunder loud enough to drown out conversation. He had counted to two before it sounded: too close for comfort. “Sergeant. What’s the time?”
Joseph consulted her watch. “Been an hour and forty since Atlantis called.”
Twenty minutes before he had to decide. Twenty minutes before things got too dangerous, though that last strike seemed to indicate that the storm had speeded up. He looked at Aulich. “What’s your radar tell you?”
She shook her head. “I’m losing the signal. Everything is — it’s all static, sir. Sorry.” Her eyes widened. “Or else it’s rain. It might be rain.”
“Like the rain that hit us before?” Ronon asked sharply. They’d been lucky the shelter had held up under it; he had no desire to experience it without some protection.
“Or worse. But I think what’s messing me up is rain.”
“Can you tell if it’s moving any faster?”
Aulich shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. I just can’t tell.”
Another blast of lightning lit the clouds, followed instantly by thunder. Too close, Ronon thought. It was time to go. “Sergeant! Dial Atlantis. Everybody else, get what you’re bringing and move out. We’re going through.”
The thunder was growing louder as they huddled by the DHD, packs in hand. Joseph dialed the Stargate, and Ronon braced himself in case it failed. They hadn’t let the DHD run its course since it had been hit; they’d always let Atlantis dial them. There was no knowing how much damage the bolt had done. Ronon looked to the horizon again as the symbols lit and circled. Lightning flared above a lowering shelf of cloud, and beneath it he could see a solid gray wall advancing across the fields of succulents. It was coming quickly; in the next series of strikes, he could see the plants swallowed by the wall of water. He could hear it, too, a heavy hissing that swelled rapidly toward a dull drumming almost as loud as the thunder. The last symbol lit, and the wormhole erupted into the clearing. He heard Parrish let out his great in a sigh of relief, and Hunt grinned broadly.
“Atlantis, this is Dr. Parrish’s team,” Joseph said. “Are we clear to come through?”
“Stand by,” Banks’ familiar voice answered. “Ok, clear!”
“Move!” Ronon raised his voice to be heard above the sudden roar of water. He could see it clearly now, a gray wall that looked nearly solid in their lights. Hunt was starin
g at it, open-mouthed, and he caught her shoulder turning her bodily toward the Stargate. “Go, go, go!”
Aulich sprinted toward the Stargate, Samara at her heels. Parrish and Hunt followed, Parrish laboring under the weight of his pack. Hunt made it up the stairs at the first enormous drops of rain hit them, and vanished though the wormhole. Parrish stumbled on the stair, and Samara caught his arm, dragging him upright again.
“Go,” Ronon said, to Joseph, and the sergeant ducked her head and started for the Stargate. Ronon followed, counting. Hunt was through, and Parrish, and Samara… Something struck his back, hard and cold as though someone had thrown a bucket over him; behind him, another enormous drop hit the fire, extinguishing it in a hiss and a cloud of steam. He was at the stairs, Joseph a step ahead of him, and the wall of water swept over them, a weight that drenched them both instantly. He stumbled, and Joseph went to one knee, coughing and sputtering. There was no air, nothing to breathe, just the roar of the water dragging him down. He reached out blindly, found Joseph’s shoulder and hauled her upright. She staggered, still choking, but found her feet. Just ahead was the hazy blue of the wormhole. Ronon cupped his hand over mouth and nose, and shoved Joseph ahead of him into it, then staggered after her.
Just as suddenly, he was in Atlantis’s gate room, gasping for air as water streamed down his face and body. The others were there ahead of him, Parrish, Hunt, Aulich, Samara, Joseph, and he gasped with relief as the Stargate winked out behind them. All back, all safe, even if they were leaving enormous puddles on the gateroom floor.
“Everyone all right?” Lorne called from the control room, Zelenka at his side looking more than usually disheveled.
Ronon glanced at the others, received nods and small smiles in answer. “We’re good.”
“That was cutting things a little too close for comfort,” Zelenka said. “I am sorry we took so long.”
Ronon shook his head, saw the nearest Marine duck as the water splattered across the floor. “We made it. That’s the main thing.”
“And presumably the quarantine is lifted?” Parrish asked. “Because if it is — I, for one, really want some dry clothes.”
Ronon laughed with the others, knowing that it was at least partly sheer relief. But they’d made it, he’d gotten everyone through the first storm, and brought them all home. He was, he thought, allowed to be satisfied.
The Vanir ship was stark and empty, every surface planed smooth, with a dull gray coating that didn’t soften the solidity of the metal underneath. Teyla had thought the Lantean ships coldly utilitarian, until she came aboard this scout. Compared to it, Daedalus and the General Hammond were as warmly inviting as the tents of her people. She had been given one of the eight identical berthing spaces, with a niche carved into the bulkhead for sleeping and a pair of cubes, one protruding from the wall and the other from the floor, that could be converted into various items of furniture, and she had played with them for a while, looking for some shape that was less severe than the rest. The light that diffused from the ceiling threw no shadows, and she shivered and palmed open the compartment door.
The corridors were just as plain and featureless, the light just as dull, with none of the visual cues that the Lanteans used to direct traffic in their ships. And also none of the decoration the Ancestors put everywhere, the careful use of proportion and color and elaborate, delicate abstraction. The Vanir had nothing, revealed nothing, their spaces as featureless as their skin.
At the first cross-corridor, she turned left, and was relieved to hear voices in the distance. In the room that was apparently the ship’s kitchen and common room, Daniel and Elizabeth had configured more of the cubes into a table and awkward-looking chairs, and somewhere they had acquired coffee. Elizabeth looked up as Teyla came through the door, a smile of welcome spreading across her face.
“Teyla. There’s coffee and food if you want some.”
“The coffee’s real,” Daniel said. “How the Vanir acquired it, or why, I’m not even going to ask. The meals are MREs, though.”
“I will have coffee, thank you.” Teyla found the pot, an incongruously shiny bulb tucked into a niche in the wall, a set of Lantean-style mugs ranked in a second niche next to it. She filled herself a cup and came to join the others, perching cautiously on another of the configured cube-chairs. “Has Dis said how long it will take us to reach Earth?”
“Another ten hours,” Elizabeth answered. “Assuming the estimates were right in the first place. Dis wasn’t sure how efficient the engines were going to be. This ship was moth-balled for a long time.”
Ten hours. A long time to spend in this uncongenial space. Teyla made herself smile as though it didn’t bother her. “Do you think Ran will answer? She has been badly treated in all of this.”
“I think she’ll at least listen,” Elizabeth said. “She was — she struck me as both wise and compassionate.”
“And she may have some ideas that none of us have thought of,” Daniel said. “That’s the thing about being ascended, you know — so much more. Impossibly more. There may be half a dozen solutions right in front of us, only we don’t have the ability, the simple knowledge, to see them.”
There was a definite touch of frustration in his voice, and Teyla tipped her head to one side. “You must regret losing that, after you were forced to unascend.”
To her surprise, Elizabeth gave a fleeting smile, and Daniel grimaced. “Well of course I miss the knowledge,” he said. “Or at least I think I do. Since I can’t even remember what it was that I knew, it’s hard to be absolutely sure. I miss the idea, I suppose?” His expression hardened. “What I didn’t like was the price.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes. I am sure that what I knew, what I had, was wonderful, but… To be forever forbidden from interfering, even to save lives — no, I couldn’t live with that, either.”
“The Ancients would say we can’t interfere because as a species we lack the maturity to assess and understand the consequences of our actions,” Daniel said bitterly. “Though I can’t say I’ve been particularly impressed by their ability to grasp consequences.”
Teyla nodded, thinking of the Wraith. Though of course those had been the Ancestors who had chosen not to make the sacrifices necessary to ascend — but, no, that was not the whole story. The Ancestors had seen themselves as infallible, standing above other beings like the only adults in a universe populated by children. “They were powerful and full of knowledge,” she said slowly, “but I cannot think they were always wise.”
“Certainly not as wise as they thought they were,” Daniel said. There was a note in his voice that made Teyla wonder if he was talking about himself as well.
She turned at a footstep in the corridor, to see Atelia peering cautiously into the compartment, the baby Jordan nestled comfortably on her shoulder.
“Come in,” Elizabeth said, smiling, and Daniel rose to drag another cube into the ‘chair’ configuration.
Atelia eyed it uncertainly, but sat, settling Jordan more comfortably on her lap. “I’m still getting used to those things.”
“So are we all,” Teyla said. She rose from her place to sort through the stack of MREs. “I am sure you must be hungry, after you have slept.”
“I am,” Atelia admitted. “And so is Jordan — aren’t you, baby?”
The boy gave a shy smile, then buried his head against his mother’s shoulder as Daniel smiled back at him.
“This one is a Lantean breakfast,” Teyla said, setting the package on the table. “Or there is one with stew?” That would be her personal choice — she had never really understood the Lantean preference for sweet things in the mornings — but Atelia reached for the first one.
“Want me to heat it up for you?” Daniel asked. “You’ve kind of got your hands full.”
Jordan squirmed as he spoke, and Atelia laughed. “Sit still, baby! Mama’s getting you something.” She smiled at Daniel. “Thank you, that’d be a help.”
Teyla watched as Daniel q
uickly opened the meal and began sorting out the various packets. “Ok, here’s a muffin top and some apple butter and crackers, that looks likely. And — granola? And a Pop-Tart — sorry, toaster pastry. And I’ll heat the sausage.”
Atelia took the muffin top, breaking off pieces for Jordan to cram into his mouth, scattering them both with crumbs. Daniel squeezed lines of apple butter onto the crackers and passed them over as well, then opened the other packets and fitted the package of sausage into the heater. Teyla couldn’t help remembering the first time she’d watched John assemble a meal out of what she had thought were remarkably unpromising ingredients. She still preferred Athosian rations, the cakes of dried fruit and meat bound with lard and the bags of parched grains and berries, but she had to admit that the Lanteans’ supplies kept better and were far more varied. If you had to spend weeks on the march, Athosian rations grew tedious indeed. These days, she knew, Lantean rations were traded far and wide, as desirable as the Lanteans’ medical supplies.
“Is it true that Dekaas was a Wraith worshipper?” Atelia asked. She and Jordan had finished the muffin top, and were sharing the toaster pastry now.
“Yes,” Teyla said. This was a hurdle they would all have to cross, each one at their own pace.
Atelia sighed. “That — I liked him. He was a good doctor.”
“Yes,” Teyla said again.
“He took good care of Jordan when he had the Ulari fever. He’s cared for nearly everyone on Osir.” Atelia shook her head. “And — he went with them, didn’t he? With the Wraith?”
“He had been found out,” Elizabeth said, gently. “I don’t think he felt safe anymore. And he believed he could do some good among Alabaster’s people.”
Daniel looked up from his coffee. “Back in the Milky Way, back on Earth, we have a remarkably persistent legend about vampires. Nearly every culture has some version of it: monsters that haunt the night, that appear out of the dark to drain the blood, the life force, from of innocent people and leave them withered husks — or turning them into monsters in their turn. The origins of the monster, the vampire, are varied — some are devils or demons, some are unfortunates who died in ways that left them vulnerable to the taint. In one culture, if a cat or dog jumps over a dead body, it will become a vampire; in another, failure to perform the correct funeral rites dooms the dead to rise and prey on the living. But one thing remains constant: the vampire feeds on the living.”
Stargate Atlantis: Third Path: Book 8 in the Legacy series Page 27
