Three Days in Limbo
Alli Snow
"The true test of character is
not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to
do." -John Holt
Day One
“Are we
sure that we’re on the right planet?”
Teyla
glanced towards Colonel Sheppard in time to see him roll his eyes, then looked back over her shoulder to smile patiently at
Rodney McKay. “I am certain. Illyias was positive of
the seven symbols leading to this world.”
“Yes, but
she originally got them from her grandmother,”
said Rodney testily, consistently annoyed at being challenged, no matter the
subject. “And this Illyias is herself a grandmother, isn’t she? Isn’t it possible she was wrong?
We’ve been flying forever.”
They had
not, of course, been flying forever. The Stargate of
the world known by Illyias as Xeol
was in orbit above the planet; upon arriving in local space, Sheppard had been
forced to scan the surface below for signs of life and habitation. All of these
had proved to be on the far side of the globe and, to get a better “feel” for
the planet at large, the Colonel had opted to take a low pass over the surface
on their way to the populated region. Skimming along the treetops – cloaked, of
course; they would not repeat their mistake with the Olesians
– at a speed Teyla could scarcely imagine, they had nearly completed the trip in at most fifteen
minutes.
Rodney
seemed to take any kind of delay as a personal affront and, although he had a
singular disposition, he was not the only person on Atlantis to behave in such
a manner. After nearly two years among the people of Earth, and a brief trip to
the planet in John Sheppard’s mind, Teyla had decided
that the entire world must be an exceedingly busy place.
Ronon
made no complaints. Ronon had been a Runner; half the
time he seemed compelled to motion, any motion, as though he carried along the
momentum of the last seven years, and half the time he seemed to luxuriate in
any small moment of inactivity. Teyla could not see
him at the moment – he was seated in the chair directly behind hers – but she
imagined him comfortably sprawled, idly watching the scenery pass beneath the
front window, and pulling faces too subtle for Rodney to catch from the corner
of his eye.
She smiled
again, this time with genuine affection. “You need not doubt Illyias’ memory, or that of her grandmother’s. They are old
friends of my father…”
“Old being the operative
word.”
“…and both
of our peoples are used to handing down information orally through the
generations.” With the Wraith’s
penchant for destroying everything they come in contact with, they had learned
it was best not to trust too fully in the written word.
Rodney was
briefly silent – the only acknowledgement she would get that he had accepted
her explanation – and then continued. “Well, exactly what did she have to say
about this place? They’re not friends with the Genii, are they?”
“You were
at the same briefing as the rest of us, weren’t you?” asked Sheppard in a
mockingly confused tone.
“Physically,”
rumbled Ronon’s voice. “Maybe not
mentally.”
“Showing
off that rapier wit again, are we, Chewy?”
“Yeah, actually.”
Teyla
sighed, although she tried to do it quietly. No need to let
any of them know how they sometimes tried her patience. “She said that Xeol was a beautiful land with many souls, a quiet,
peaceful settlement, but that they ‘knew the magic of the Ancestors’.”
“Hm,” said Rodney. “Clarke’s Third Law.”
Teyla
was fairly sure she was not expected to know who Clarke was – or what any of
his laws were – but she said anyway, “Excuse me?”
“’Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’,” Sheppard
interjected, his brightening eyes fixed on the readouts. “Science
fiction author. What he means is that if Illyias’
people assumed it was magic, there’s a good chance it was just really, really
cool technology.”
“This
report did come from many generations ago,” said Teyla
stiffly.
Sheppard’s
gaze flickered towards her, confused. “And?”
“And… nothing.” She supposed that she was also not meant to take such casual remarks
as insults, but sometimes it was difficult.
Illyias
was not just a friend; she had been Charin’s
half-sister, and as such she was considered family by many Athosians,
including Teyla. In many ways Illyias’
people on Vilice were not so different from the Athosians, as they had once been, before the Earthers had come and changed everything.
Sheppard
and the others had considered their way of life to be primitive, although he
had been more tactful about it than his superiors. She knew that the Colonel
respected her, but it still hurt to be so cavalierly dismissed as a people who
could not tell magic from machine.
Maybe Ronon understood that, but even Sateda,
before the end, had been more technologically-inclined than Athos.
In either case, he remained silent.
“Still,”
Rodney continued blithely. “Seems like kind of a slim possibility…”
“If you’re
going to start nitpicking potential allies,” said Sheppard laconically, “I’ll
let you out right here and we’ll pick you up on our way back.”
McKay
snorted indignantly. “All I’m saying is…”
“Doesn’t
matter,” said Ronon shortly; Teyla
heard him stand, glanced up and saw him looking with interest through the front
window. “Looks like we’re here.”
* * *
Compared
to the surface area of an Earth-sized planet, the inhabited region of Xeol – if this was it – was extremely small. Very seriously extremely
small. Hundreds of human life signs readings were crammed on a steep,
verdant hillside between the base of a modest mountain range and the thin,
rocky shore of a very large ocean. The population density alone made John think
of
It also
made him think about a planet of kids where you had to kill yourself on your
25th birthday. He checked the HUD, but there was no sign of any telltale field
protecting the settlement… if a settlement was the right word for it.
It had the
appearance of a city, situated incongruously in the middle of a dense, wooded
area that looked, from this altitude, like one of the temperate rainforests
along the northwestern coast of North
It didn’t
look like an Ancient outpost, but it didn’t look like much else they’d come
across in Pegasus, either. Hovering above the city, there was no structural
damage to the buildings that either John’s trained eye or the jumper’s sensors
could perceive, no signs of violent Wraith attack, recent or otherwise.
And there
were people moving around there, walking on the paths, standing in their yards…
They were only ant-sized from this distance, of course, but they didn’t seem to
be in a hurry, didn’t seem to be in any rush whatsoever. They didn’t seem
afraid.
Almost
everyone in Pegasus seemed to spend a lot of the time afraid, including John
himself. Everyone except for the Wraith, of course.
“I’m going
to put her down on the beach over there,” he announced, nodding and angling the
jumper towards a crescent of golden sand along the winding curves of the river,
where the five tributaries met before disgorging into the sea. It was only
about half a klick from the most noticeable grouping
of large white buildings, through one of the more sparsely wooded areas, but
predictably…
“Isn’t
there anywhere closer?”
Rodney McKay, ladies and gentlemen,
right on cue.
“Just
think, McKay,” said Ronon dryly. “Magic
of the Ancestors. Should be worth the hike, right?”
“Just
barely,” said Rodney, but he sounded slightly mollified.
“Trust
me,” said John, bringing the jumper in for a feather-soft landing – no, please, hold your applause until the end
– “if it turns out they want to kill us, we won’t have far to run.”
“Funny.
They’re… not going to want to kill us, are they?” he asked Teyla,
looking, as usual, worried for his own hide.
Teyla
spread her hands. “I have never met these people. I cannot speak for their
intentions.”
Rodney was
peevish. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,”
said Ronon, “they’ll only want to kill us once they
meet you.”
“Oh, ha ha. You should do standup.”
“I’m
standing up now.”
“I mean…
never mind.”
* * *
The fact
that the cool, salty tang of the sea air made Teyla
think home was something of a shock.
Their
encampments on Athos had almost always been near
water, of course, but it had been fresh water, running water, inland and away
from the oceans where the summer storms were worst and threatened each annual
harvest.
It was not
until coming to live in the city of the Ancestors that she had become
intimately familiar with the smell of ocean salt, the sound of waves lapping
endlessly against the shore, and the breeze, far enough below human body
temperature on some nights to necessitate a jacket.
Sheppard
and Rodney, as they readied their packs and bodies for the walk, looked
comfortable and even pleased with their surroundings. Ronon,
now that they were on the move, merely looked watchful and intent, regarding
the lush landscape beyond the jumper’s hatch with suspicion.
“Come on,
folks,” said Sheppard, once they stood on the hard-packed sand, watching the
ramp lock into place and the jumper shimmer into nothingness. “Let’s go find
the Ancient magic.”
“We’re off
to see the wizard,” chirruped Rodney; the Colonel gave an amused snort.
It was a reference
to an Earth book or movie, or both; Teyla knew as
much. Ronon, who had spent less time among these
people, looked blank but unperturbed.
Did they
ever think about the non-Earthers when they said such
things? Teyla studied Sheppard and Rodney’s backs and
shook her head silently. She tried to
edit her own speech of idioms and casual sayings, familiar among the Athosians, related from one generation to the next, which
would perplex the others and require lengthy explanations.
Granted, Earther civilization seemed to be not only insanely busy
but insanely influenced by what they called “popular culture”, culture that the
masses invented and reinvented for themselves on an almost daily basis, leading
to wild changes in the social order every decade or so. This she had gleaned
from conversation, from the occasional Earth history stored in the computers,
and from simply being around these people so often, and for so long.
It was an
utterly alien concept. For most of her life, only sameness and stability
brought any relief from the various ravages of the Wraith. Change meant
destruction, dissolution and death.
That was,
until change had meant moving from the world they knew best, the one they had
called Athos, named millennia ago for a great
mountain in a story handed down by the Ancestors themselves, to an
indescribably complex city built by
the Ancestors themselves. And later, when all realized that this city could
never truly be home to them, change had meant moving to the relative freedom of
the mainland, where they could walk on solid ground and tend to their crops and
raise their families in the way they knew best.
Except all had not realized
this. Or maybe Teyla was just trying too hard.
Or maybe
she was just being overly sensitive to a flippant comment made by one Rodney
McKay, who regularly peppered his speech with words and phrases that made no
sense to others from his own home planet.
“This
reminds me of
“Reminds
me of
“You’ve
been to
“Yeah.
Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I always wanted to go there. Isn’t that where they filmed Lord of the
Rings?”
“Beats me.
I hated those books.”
“Anyway,
it can’t be
Teyla
finally sighed aloud and glanced at Ronon, who was
not listening, or if he was listening gave no outward sign of it. He was still
watching the trees around them with a sharp predator’s glare, particularly
fierce in the eyes of a man who had for so long been prey. She was sure that
Sheppard, walking in front of her with his weapon held in a loose but confident
grip, was doing the same despite his idle chatter.
Even so,
it was Rodney, surprisingly, who sounded the first alarm by letting out a sharp
bark of dismay and jumping behind Sheppard. The Colonel raised his weapon smoothly;
Ronon simultaneously yanked his from its holster and Teyla followed Sheppard, a distant third, as she perceived
the man who had stepped into their path was unarmed. And
smiling.
But the Athosians had a saying; it had been one of Toran’s favorites: A
smile may reveal the sharp teeth of hunger.
Toran
had been an exceedingly wary, cautious individual, not that it had done him any
good in the end.
“Welcome,
far travelers,” said the smiling man, raising one hand, palm up, fingers
spread, in greeting. “I mean you no harm,” he continued, nodding at each of
them in turn, including Rodney who had peeked out from behind his bulwark. “I
am here to meet you, and bring you to Rnaer.” His
smile broadened. “We rarely have visitors here.”
Even alert
and aware, prepared to defend herself and her friends to the last should this
man show the hunger behind the teeth, Teyla was aware
that he was extraordinarily handsome, appealing to the eye in a way that seemed
itself a form of magic. He was tall and hale, with a naturally light complexion
burnished darker by the sun, dark hair that curled charmingly around his ears
and striking blue eyes. His face was built on strong lines and his teeth were
fine and white. Clothed in what appeared to be cured hide – trousers and a half-shirt
that ran diagonally from shoulder to waist, leaving the other shoulder and much
of his chest bare – he seemed to have stepped out of a child’s adventure tale.
Well – Teyla realized she was staring – maybe not a child’s tale.
Sheppard
paused, then lowered his weapon incrementally,
motioning for Teyla to do the same. Ronon did not move. “Rnaer?” he
echoed. “I thought… we were looking for a place called Xeol.”
The
stranger raised his eyebrows. “Xeol?
I’ve not heard that name in some time. This world,” he explained, spreading his
arms wide, “is Xeol. Rnaer,”
he gestured behind him, “is where we live and do the lords’ work, as I hope you
will come and see. Ah, but I have been unspeakably rude.” He put a hand to his
chest. “I am Colum Vius.”
“Lieutenant
Colonel John Sheppard,” said the Colonel, as though the rank would mean
something to Colum. He twitched his head towards the
rest of them. “Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan.
We wouldn’t mind a guide, actually.”
Ronon
finally lowered his weapon, although he did not holster it. Rodney edged out
from behind Sheppard, and Colum gave all of them
another sweeping look… although Teyla was certain
that it lingered on her for a second longer, and that his eyes looked
especially lively when they did.
She smiled
nervously, realized that it was a nervous smile, and stopped smiling
altogether.
“The
lord’s work, eh?” asked Rodney eagerly, falling in alongside Colum as they resumed their trek up the hillside. “Does
that include the lord’s shields and the lord’s weapons systems?”
“McKay…”
“How about
the lord’s ZPM, about yea high…”
“McKay!”
Sheppard barked again, louder this time.
Colum
looked over his shoulder at them with an apologetic frown. “I am sorry… you
would have to discuss such things with my mother.”
“Your
mother?” asked Ronon, faintly disdainful.
The Xeolian – Rnaeran? – continued on as though he had
not heard. “Her name is Nyri Vius
and she is one of the keepers of the faithful. I am sure she can answer all of
your questions.”
McKay, who
had so recently been disparaging of Teyla’s elders,
looked perfectly pleased at this development. “Then we’re off to see the
wizard…ess,” he said sprightly.
Teyla
caught Ronon rolling his eyes at last.
The cool
ocean air followed them up the hillside; even with the angle of ascent Teyla still felt comfortable and rather refreshed as they
entered the city of
Immediately,
there were people all around them.
They were
not mobbed, not attacked… these were people going about their business, sparing
a curious look for the strangers in their midst but nothing more. They were of
all ages, all builds, and still there was a similarity to many of them that Teyla had often encountered in small populations. Their
dress had a consistency to it as well: long pants on the men, long skirts on
the women, and much briefer tops that displayed midriffs, torsos, shoulders and
arms, chests and cleavage. The women’s clothes seemed somehow more provocative
than the men’s, although Teyla knew that her scrutiny
was unfair.
The men of
her team did not seem to find it unfair; they ogled the gaggles of attractive
women who passed, smiling coquettishly. Even Ronon,
who knew better. Teyla
mentally choreographed a bit of sly footwork around all three of them – a subtle kick in the shin, elbow in the
ribs, butt of her gun in the stomach, I am sorry, clumsy me, were you looking
at something? – but ultimately decided against it.
After all, she’d stared at Colum.
* * *
Contrary
to John’s experience and expectations, the city of
The view
from almost any point along the main avenue, where it was not blocked by tall
green-gray conifers, was spectacular: the rolling hills, the black-rock
shoreline melting into the small, sandy beach where they had left the jumper,
the slender streams parting and meeting and finally emptying into the
summer-blue waters of the ocean below. Back on Earth it would have been a
multimillion dollar vista.
And the
other view wasn’t so bad either. Scoop-neck, v-neck, deep v-neck… the women of Rnaer had no
qualms about showing off their various assets.
John tried
to ignore them, but he was, after all, only human.
The
streets were busy, but they weren’t as crowded as he had expected from his
initial life sign reading. Certainly no
Colum
led John’s team to one of the mica-white rectangular buildings, the largest in
this complex, and ushered them inside. When the wooden door closed behind them
– Ronon tensed noticeably – the temperature of the
air and its relative humidity rose, but it was still pleasant.
They
walked down a corridor flanked on one side by tall, narrow windows, and outside
John could see that people had stopped in pairs or small groups, talking with animated
expressions, gesturing towards the building.
“This is Arthere Hall,” explained Colum
happily, gesturing to a large, rather faded mural on the wall across from the
windows. It depicted a lot of happy women with low-cut tops and happier men
baring more skin than your average Chippendales dancer, captured by the artist
mid-cavort holding either goblets of drink, large platters of food or tiny
babies with manically-jubilant expressions. “She was one of our greatest
leaders, and my ancestor as well.”
“You must
be very… proud,” said John muzzily, not sure what
response was expected of him, until the word ‘ancestor’ registered in his
brain. He looked at the mural again, more carefully this time, seeking out
anything that looked like a ZPM or a glowing unearthly radiant being, but it
was still just a washed-out painting of some people at a party.
“Arthere Hall is the only way to enter the Hall of the
Faithful,” Colum continued. He was not exactly
playing tour guide to them all, John noticed; he seemed to be speaking
exclusively to Teyla now. “It is a place of truly
splendid beauty, the heart and soul of Rnaer,
although of course you would need my mother’s permission to set eyes upon it.”
“Very
nice,” said Rodney, looking bored; Teyla scowled at
him. “Is she anywhere in the general vicinity, by any chance?”
Colum
was oblivious. “Right this way,” he said genially, motioning them around a
corner, out of the windowed, muralled hallway and
into a windowless room.
If this
was Nyri Vius, she was not
exactly what John had expected. The woman in front of them was certainly old
enough to be the mother of a man Colum’s age; surely
he couldn’t be older than 30. Her hair was dun, streaked with gray, and her
face was lined with age and wear. She was short and plump, her ample curves
straining against the straight skirt and revealing top that didn’t look nearly
as flattering on her as it did on her younger counterparts.
She was
sitting when they entered, seated around a large rectangular table that took up
much of the room, reading a book, surrounded by more books, holding a thick
tome out over her bosom like a trollish librarian.
Her eyes were in fact troll-sharp, and her reflexes quicker than John would
have expected; seeing them, she jumped to her feet and sucked in a breath. “Colum, who are these people?”
“Lieutenant
Colonel John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, and Teyla Emmagan,” said their guide promptly, his memory impeccable.
He smiled and put a hand on Teyla’s shoulder; she
didn’t seem to mind, so John tried not to either. Ronon
stirred but said nothing. “They are far travelers. I told you they would come,
Mother,” he added pointedly.
Nyri
did not smile as she looked them over; her eyes were not just sharp, they were
absolutely penetrating, and John felt half-naked as she gave him a
once-twice-thrice over, lingering in places that were absolutely inappropriate
for a librarian, troll or otherwise. Then she turned that steely gaze on her
son, looking both suspicious and concerned, and that was John’s first inkling
that maybe Colum wasn’t quite right in the head.
“Sit,” she
said gruffly, just when the silence was starting to get so awkward that he
almost wished McKay would jump in with some stupid comment. She nodded at
several other chairs around the table. “Ignore the mess.” It was a command, not
an entreaty. “We do not get visitors.”
John
couldn’t imagine why not.
“Why have
you come?” she demanded when they had all been seated; Ronon
positioned his chair towards the room’s only door with a challenging look towards
Nyri, as if daring her to object. The woman ignored
him.
Teyla,
with Colum sitting at her side, looking on happily,
leaned forward in her chair. “We mean no disrespect, coming like this. But we
have heard stories about Rnaer…”
“Xeol,” interrupted Colum, nodding
at John. “He said Xeol.”
Nyri
grunted. “Stories may be lies.”
“From what
we have seen of your city,” said Teyla pleasantly,
“this one appears to be a truth. We are looking for allies.”
For the
first time the woman looked something other than murderously annoyed or
viciously distrustful. Interest sparked in her mud-dark eyes. “Allies among the
faithful?” she asked, almost wonderingly.
“Allies
against the Wraith,” said Ronon shortly.
“Technology,”
piped up Rodney. “Something called a ZPM, a Zero Point Module; here, I have a
picture in case, well, I mean you might know what I’m talking about, looks like
you have electricity here and everything; of course that doesn’t mean…”
He
prattled on, but Nyri paid him no attention. She was
still staring at Ronon. “Allies against the Wraith?”
she repeated, slowly, each word falling like a stone from her mouth. Colum’s expression tightened, and with a screech of wood on
wood he scooted his chair away from his mother’s.
“I know
you might not have had contact with them in a while.” John spoke up despite
himself, irrationally worried that the intensity behind Nyri’s
eyes might cause Ronon to burst into flame. “But…
they’re awake. They have been for a while, and there’s a good chance that
they’ll come here. They’ve already come to… our planet.”
Nyri
pursed her lips. “And yet you live.”
“Yes, we
live,” said Rodney, frustrated at being ignored. “Personally I’m surprised
every day I wake up. But it’s kind of a
temporary solution to a permanent problem, if you know what I mean.”
Nyri
said nothing, but after a moment of thought she lifted herself out of her seat;
John almost expected the chair to move with her, wedged from armrest to
armrest, but he was disappointed. She only moved slowly, ponderously, to a
large cabinet in the back of the room.
The
interior was dark. The woman flipped a switch somewhere to her right, but it
must have been broken; no light winked on. Still she rummaged through the
shadows, catching Ronon’s suspicion and his eye, but
eventually brought out nothing more threatening than a volume even larger than
the one she had been reading. It seemed old, very old, but not dusty or
decrepit. Well-cared for. Walking slowly, as though
reconsidering her actions every step of the way, she returned to the table and
handed the book, carefully, to her son. “Show them, boy.”
Colum
sighed, looked apologetically at Teyla, and began to
carefully flip through the fragile sheets of vellum. When he found the page he
wanted, the page Nyri wanted, he stepped back and
motioned for them to look.
It was an
illustration, and a familiar one. Men and women in what John now recognized as
traditional Rnaeran dress were frozen smiling,
laughing, holding up their food and their wine and
their frenzied offspring. It was the mural they had just passed in the hallway
– the original sketch, perhaps, or a smaller reproduction.
But where
the mural had seemingly stopped at the corner they had turned, this picture
continued on. Maybe the rest of the mural was further down the corridor, or
maybe it had been moved into the all-important Hall of the Faithful. Maybe it
had been covered up to keep impressionable kids or strangers from seeing it,
because what it showed was a tall figure with flowing white hair sucking the
life from a man’s bare chest.
The man in
the picture did not scream. His expression was quixotic, tranquil.
The Wraith
smiled benevolently.
On the one
side, the Rnaerans reveled. On the other, a Wraith
feasted.
John felt
his head strike the corner of the table before he heard the buzz of the
stunner; pain exploded briefly and then succumbed to numbness, nothingness;
there was a curse, a scuffle, a gasp, and a multitude of buzzes overpowering
everything else. Bodies thumped to the floor beyond his range of vision. He saw
Teyla fall limply across his body, although he could
feel none of it.
They
hadn’t even gotten off a single damn shot.
“I am
sorry,” said Colum sadly, but John didn’t think that
the sentiment was directed at him, so he passed out.
* * *
She
floated up to wakefulness on a cloud of oblivion, and it was wonderful.
In this
nothingness she was free to imagine anything. She was a child again, dozing
under her father’s watchful eyes, safe from anything because he was there. She
was sleeping on a sun-warmed rock near their summer encampment on Athos, blissfully drying after a brisk river swim. She was
back in Atlantis, in her lonely room but not alone in this fantasy, her head
pillowed on a man’s firm shoulder. She smiled.
“Teyla? Are you awake?”
The voice
intruded into her happiness, ripping away fancy, shattering dreams, sending a
sharp spike of pain through her entire body. She gasped and opened her eyes,
and found herself staring into Colum’s concerned
face.
It was
hard to move, but oh, Ancestors above, she had to move; she had been hit by a
Wraith stunner, she had to get Colum and his mother
to safety, she had to make sure that Sheppard and the others were alright…
Then the
past came back to her: falling atop John’s prone body with a jarring thud, the
lightning quick flare of heat and then nothing at all, as though her mind had
been disconnected from her body. Colum’s voice,
contrite… but Nyri had called them, the switch she
had flipped, she had called them and she was the enemy.
And so was
he.
Her throat
tightened and her hands clenched, but her muscles were still knotted by the
stunner, and she wasn’t even sure she could spit in his face with any degree of
accuracy. She would probably wind up a drooling mess.
“It’s
okay,” said Colum consolingly. “You’re safe now.”
Safe?
She didn’t feel safe. She felt very confused, and in pain; a tingle of sharp
static coursed through her body… “pins and needles”,
Sheppard called the sensation. It was not as bad as when Sergeant Bates had
stunned her, but she seemed to remember that he had hit her more than once. So
this was the effect of a single shot, then. It still was nothing close to
enjoyable.
And yet
she felt that she was laying on something soft, a bed, and this made no sense.
Unceremoniously stunned, dragged to some other location, and then coddled by
the enemy’s son as though she were a helpless child? If the Rnaerans
were in league with the Wraith, perhaps as the Olesians
had been, she should be exiled, jailed or dead by now, or at least trussed up
aboard a Wraith cruiser, marinating in her own fear.
And no
matter what she should be with her teammates. Not alone with this strange man.
Colum
was still undeniably attractive; as he leaned over her his dark curls fell
forward into wide, expressive eyes. But there was something not quite right in
those eyes, something that trembled on the edge of sanity. Why had she not seen
it before?
Her voice
sounded ragged and raw. “Where are my friends?”
Colum
leaned back, his face as open as a young boy’s. “Friends?
They are gone now, Teyla,” he said gently. “You don’t
have to pretend. You are safe with me.”
Gone?
Pretend? There were so many questions flooding through her mind that processing
even one felt impossible. She concentrated on breathing, on flexing her fingers
and toes as the sensation trickled back into them. Colum
did not seem to mind. He continued on.
“I knew
you were different. I knew the minute I saw you. I knew you were coming, you
understand, but I did not know who you were, if you were friend or foe. Well, they answered that question clearly
enough, but you are different. I can tell. I told Mother, and she believes me.”
Perhaps it
was best that she was still partially stunned. Her denial of his words played
on her lips, the fury, the outrage that she would comply with the Wraith or any
of their minions, but her brain imposed a fortunate delay. No. No, best to play
into his delusion, even though it disgusted her, best to go along with this
farce until she was able to save herself and the others.
She breathed.
Gingerly tested her arms and legs. “And I am thankful
for that, Colum,” she said, sounding false and fake
to her own ears. “But for my own peace of mind, would you tell me what you have
done with my…”
“Your captors?” Colum finished eagerly. “They are still in Rnaer, but worry not. They will be securely incarcerated
until the lords come for them.”
Teyla’s
breath caught in her throat; she tried to disguise it with a fit of coughing.
Captors… Colum thought she had been their prisoner? A
prisoner with a gun, dressed the same as the others, introduced as part of the
group? There was delusion, and then there was this. But no
reason to let the opportunity pass. “I am glad to hear that,” she said
firmly, certain to the marrow that trying to convince Colum
that Sheppard and the others were in fact her friends would mean death for them
all. “But these are dangerous men. I would like to see them with my own eyes,
please, to make sure that your methods are sufficient.”
Colum
frowned, concerned. “I would hate to see you put through further pain, Teyla.”
She
managed a smile, thought it felt tight and thin. “I have been through far worse
pain. This would do me good.”
He
hesitated… and then his face bloomed into its customary grin. “I will talk to
Mother. You… stay here. Recover. I am sorry it was needful to stun all of you,
but it was safer this way. For all of us.”
“Of
course,” said Teyla placatingly,
feeling like a fool.
“I will
send Miarpia to attend to you,” he told her, backing
towards the door. “And I will be back soon.”
It was a
heartfelt promise, not a threat, and yet one felt very much like the other
* * *
When one
is knocked unconscious, the first sound one wishes to hear upon awakening is a
gentle, familiar voice, or the soothing tones of the family doctor, or even the
steady, reassuring beep beep beep
of the heart monitor that lets you know you’re in the hospital and not a more
lasting purgatory. Nowhere on this list is the muttered cursing of one Rodney
McKay and the depressingly solid sound of clanging iron bars.
There was
something poking him in the face that felt and smelled like pine trees. “What
the hell happened?” he groaned, spitting out a few intrusive needles that had
worked their way past his lips. Phantom needles worked their way through his
muscles. Shit. Stunned again.
“The
Wraith happened,” snapped McKay. John could just make out his form on the other
side of the prison cell – that had to be what this was, unless the Rnaerans put all of
their guests up in tiny, windowless chambers with bars on the doors and ragged
pine needle mattresses.
“Wasn’t
the Wraith,” disagreed Ronon
tersely, standing by the door, looking out into an inky hallway. “It was
men. Humans.”
“Genii?”
“Not
unless Genii soldiers enjoy showing off their nipples as much as these guys
do.”
John
seriously considered this for a moment – his skull was still buzzing from the
effects of the stun – and then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“No, what
happened is that we wandered into the middle of a Wraith fan club,” Rodney
hissed. “Remember your girlfriend from the hive ship? Wraith
worshippers. Sound familiar?”
“She
wasn’t my…”
“You know,
it’s too bad Bates isn’t still around. He would have gotten a hell of a lot of
mileage out of this one. One of Teyla’s sources leading
us right behind enemy lines. I mean, honestly, what are the odds?”
Two
neurons that had been stubbornly refusing connection suddenly reunited, and a
fear that had been lying dormant suddenly sprang to life. Squinting in the
near-darkness – the only light came from a tiny sconce mounted on the wall
behind him, and it threw off an illumination weaker than moonlight – he scanned
the cell for anything resembling another unconscious form. It didn’t take long
to come up empty. He cursed. “Teyla.
Where’s Teyla?”
Silence.
Rodney crossed his arms and looked penitent. “We don’t know,” said Ronon at last. “I woke up first… haven’t seen her.”
Fear
clawed up his throat like there was some kind of alien thing in his gut. He
swallowed it back down. “There weren’t any Wraith on the planet when we got
here,” he said, mostly to himself.
“Maybe so,
but it’s just a matter of time.”
John
snorted, carefully clambering to his feet. The cell swayed, then
steadied. “Nice attitude, Rodney, very defeatist.”
“I think
you’ve forgotten exactly how defeatist I’m capable of being.”
John
joined Ronon at the door. The threshold was narrow,
allowing enough space for only one man to pass through at a time, and
crisscrossed with thick black bars. Beyond the bars there was simply nothing, as though they’d been utterly
abandoned.
Being
abandoned was better than being Wraith food, but not still great when you were
locked in a minuscule cell with an astrophysicist likely to resort to
cannibalism at the first twinge of hunger. It was sort of a ‘lesser of two
evils’ thing.
“Hello!”
he yelled into the black hole. “Don’t we at least get a phone call or
something?”
The dreary
echo of his own voice was his only answer.
Teyla.
* * *
Miarpia turned out to be a young woman
near Teyla’s own age, a very tall, thin woman with
one eye that worked and one that stared eternally towards the ceiling, and
snarled brown hair that curled around her face like brambles.
Teyla had already analyzed the ceiling,
the walls, the floor, and all of the room’s possible entrances and exits. There
were no trap doors, no sliding walls, no hatch that
might open onto the roof. The door and windows were all locked, undoubtedly for
her own safety.
She could have rushed Miarpia
when the key had first turned in its lock – the woman was unarmed and no
physical threat – but then what? She would have no idea where to begin looking
for John, Rodney and Ronon, and there was no
certainty that Miarpia would know either. She could
run for the jumper but without the Ancient gene she could not operate it, and
the Stargate was too far away to be dialed from the
planet’s surface. She had no way of calling Atlantis for help.
Colum, or his mother, or one of her
cronies had taken away her radio, her weapons – even the knife in its hidden
sheath – and her jacket as well. She stood in the center of the room, shivering
although she was not cold, looking for something light enough to pick up yet
heavy enough to throw through one of the windows. There was no such object
here.
The annoying thing was that it was a very nice room…
rectangular, of course, following the theme of this world, with white walls and
white wooden floors. The two windows were softened by sheer blue curtains; when
they were pushed aside Teyla had a lovely but
unhelpful view of the green hills from one side, and the ocean from another.
There was a bookcase firmly affixed to the wall, filled
with books. Unlike those in Nyri’s library these
books were glossy and unmarred along the spine or edges, as though they had
never been opened. They were written in a language that Teyla
had never before seen, but the illustrations in several gave her a feel for the
overall content.
Softened, romanticized pictures of Wraith, looking almost
appealing with their flowing white locks and smooth, green-tinged skin… the
faces of their victims, alternately peaceful and ecstatic… Over and over again,
there was the sigil of a heart within a long-fingered hand.
And there was the mural again. Nothing chilled Teyla more than the presence of infants among the macabre
festivities. Except maybe the fact that the Wraith’s happy
victim, if she squinted and tilted her head, looked a lot like her
father.
She felt sick. Nausea was listed as a side effect from
stunner fire in Carson Beckett’s notes, and Teyla
idly wondered if Colum would be so caring and
attentive if he returned from his errand to find that she had vomited all over
his room.
At least she was fairly certain that this was his room. He
had seemed comfortable here, at ease as she had seen him nowhere else. And the
room itself retained its own subtle aura of instability.
Then Miarpia entered, all brisk
efficiency and upcast eye and bramble hair, not
pretty, not even plain, but smart. She locked the door behind her and dropped
the key, strung on a chain, down her cleavage. “Guess I should say ‘welcome’,”
she began frostily, dumping an armload of soft, foam-green cloth on the bed. “That is for you to change into. Since you are one of us
now.”
“Thank you,” said Teyla, for the
simple reason that no other safe reply came to mind. She fervently hoped that
she was not expected to strip down in front of this woman.
Miarpia pursed her thin lips. “Not that I
am sure I believe it. You don’t look like us. You don’t act like us, either.
But you don’t have the stink of the old ones on you like those two men do. And
you don’t have the hate in your eyes like the other one.”
Teyla hesitated, leaping hope warring
with caution in her heart. Could they somehow sense Sheppard and Rodney’s Ancient gene? Could they tell just by
looking at Ronon that he was their inherent enemy?
Well, perhaps that last was not so unbelievable. But if that was the case, why
could they also not divine her own feelings just by looking at her? Did her own
Wraith DNA – blight on her soul, savior of her people – somehow mask her true
loyalties?
Or was it something simpler? She had been told by both Athosian and Earther that she was
controlled, composed, calm, that she was
imperturbable, unreadable, closed off. No matter how this was communicated it
seemed to always have negative connotations. Had it spared her the fate of the
others?
“It was very brave of Colum to
rescue me from them,” she answered steadily. “Although I would like to see
them, one last time, to let them see
that I am free of them.”
Miarpia stared; it was difficult to tell
if she believed, difficult to tell anything with that eye. “Colum’s
a good man,” she said shortly. “I hope you will be good to him in return.”
The words seemed loaded with elusive meaning. “I will try,”
she answered gamely.
Miarpia shook her head; her hair swung
about her face and her good eye rolled. “The faithful don’t try, Teyla Emmagan. The faithful are perfect in their love, perfect in
their obedience, perfect followers of the lords of flesh.” She paused. “But I
believe Colum has chosen well. You look strong and
healthy. You will bear him strong, healthy children, and you will serve the
lords well. Or… you will suffer the fate of the others.”
Miarpia smiled and left.
* * *
The troll
herself brought them their first meal.
John
wasn’t exactly happy to see her, but he was glad he wouldn’t have to worry
about Rodney gnawing on his bicep in the middle of the night. The food didn’t
look pretty, thrust through the bars on wooden plates, and it probably didn’t
taste great either, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t toxic. There were more
efficient ways of knocking them unconscious, and killing them outright would be
a… a waste of a good meal, from someone’s standpoint.
Nyri
scrunched up her face in a porcine expression. “Who are you?”
“We’re
people with powerful friends,” snapped Rodney. “Friends who are going to come
looking for us, and then you’ll all be in big trouble.”
A ghostly
smile played across the woman’s face. “There is none alive who frighten the lords
of flesh,” she said softly. “They will come, and they will devour you, and they
will take great pleasure in your pain. As will I.”
Ronon
snarled something; John couldn’t make it out. Maybe it was a regional curse,
something specific to Pegasus, because Nyri blanched
and scowled. “Perhaps we will make it a public showing,” she said icily, and
her eyes widened with sudden inspiration. “Perhaps I will bring the girl to
come watch you die.”
John’s
pulse leapt along with his heart. She was still alive…
“The last
time the ranks of the faithful grew,” Nyri continued,
warming to the subject, “and there was a festival of the lords, all of the
initiates came. And the ones who fainted at the sight, or became ill, or were
unwilling to come forth and place their hands over those of the lords and feel
the feeding energy, they were declared unfaithful, and they were devoured.” She
recited as though these were words she had memorized rather than something she
had seen with her own eyes, and John wondered if this was the narration behind
the mural in Arthere Hall.
“Of
course,” said the troll, smiling like something from underneath a fairytale
bridge, “she just might make it through without flinching. She may simply not
care. She may be the kind who will do anything to save her life, or that of her
child.”
Child? The fear monster clawed at his
throat again.
“Teyla doesn’t have a child,” said Rodney, unthinking,
frowning at his meal.
Nyri quirked an eyebrow at John. “No,” she agreed. “Not yet.”
She was
gone before he had a chance to fling his plate at her between the bars. He
flung it anyway. His dinner was all over the floor, but he didn’t care. He
didn’t have an appetite anyway.
Ronon
spat invective and kicked the unmovable iron bars. Rodney simply stared.
Teyla.
* * *
Living in
the city of the Ancestors, Teyla had received her
share of curious and even speculative looks from some men in the expedition.
During one of their conversations, Kate Heightmeyer
had kindly suggested that she could “borrow” shirts meant for the enlisted
women, to go along with the BDU pants and jacket she wore while out with her
team. Another well-intentioned insult.
Every
piece of clothing Teyla owned – aside from the jacket
and pants, of course – she had either personally traded for, or made from
traded materials. They represented memories, and if Sheppard and Weir were
untroubled by what she wore – and it seemed they were – then she saw no reason
to change her ways.
She had
changed enough already.
But she
would have gladly changed into one of those thin black shirts if it meant
avoiding what Miarpia had left for her to wear. It
was not that it was much more revealing than what she donned for exercise, but
it had the mark of these people, the stink of their hideous betrayal of humanity,
and she could not get over the feeling that Colum had
chosen it especially for her.
You will bear him strong, healthy
children.
Teyla
shook her head, determined to put it out of mind. Whatever else Miarpia was, she was no sympathetic soul, and whatever else
Colum was, he cared for her well-being. Until she
determined where the others were and what was needful to rescue them, she could
afford to return his small kindnesses.
The
alternative was to sit back and wait for them to come rescue her, and that was untenable.
Colum
did not return until after dark. Miarpia brought her
food and smiled sickly when she thought Teyla was not
looking. There was a small water room concealed behind a curtain, but she spent
most of her time pacing between the windows, watching the sky darken with both
twilight and cloud cover. When she could no longer make out the ocean below, it
began to rain.
She turned
on the electric lights; the fixture on the bedside table was a translucent
globe, etched with the hand-heart symbol.
The glass
could be shattered; a shard driven into eye or throat.
The sash
of her skirt could be used as a garrote.
She had no
staves, no knife, but her hands were capable weapons.
But what
would happen to the others?
The door
opened and Teyla turned towards the door, both
nervous and relieved that the waiting was over. Colum
entered, closing the door behind him. When he turned around his dark hair
sparkled with raindrops and water ran in rivulets down his bare skin, but he
was not soaked to the bone. His expression was nearly beatific as he took her
hand and led her… to the bed.
She nearly
balked, but Colum merely patted the spot on the quilt
beside him. His face was bright and merry even in the dim lighting, too young
an expression to entertain more adult notions, surely, and so she sat. “I am so
sorry to have kept you,” he said breathlessly. “It’s simply so… so unbelievably
exciting.” He reached over and gasped her hand. “I am so happy you are here, Teyla.”
He was
still as handsome as ever, and yet his touch was repellant. Teyla
thought of the others and smiled back. “As am I.”
He leaned
towards her and grinned shyly. “I know you have yet to meet anyone besides
Mother and Miarpia, but… the truth is that some of
the other faithful think I am a little… strange.”
“I cannot
imagine that,” said Teyla, amazed at her ability to
deceive.
“They dare
not say anything to my face, of course,” he continued, still close, “with
Mother being one of the keepers. But they think it all the same, because I have
never fathered a true child.”
She felt
her smile, already stiff, become frozen on her face. The dim light, the sound
of the rain on the rooftop, the way they sat… Teyla
suddenly felt absurdly guilty, as
though she had led Colum to believe something, as
though she were not the victim, the prisoner. “Never?” she echoed faintly.
He shook
his head ruefully. “Mother says because of my rare ancestry I am… incompatible
with many of the women of childbearing age. You met Miarpia…
she was brought into the household some time ago because she is the breeding
woman with whom I share the least blood.”
Though the miasma of fear Teyla grasped that
oddity, held onto it. “I do not understand.”
He put his
hand on her leg.
If she
grabbed his wrist, broke it, pushed him to the floor and put her foot on his
neck… she would not be able to compel him to silence. Nyri
and others would come, men with the Wraith stunners, and she would be put
somewhere where she could be no use at all to Sheppard, Ronan and Rodney.
Fine, she
decided. Her leg, but no further.
“When the
great families came to Rnaer before the end of the
last great war,” said Colum in a near whisper, “their
numbers were already few. Arthere had gathered most
of them, and the lords of flesh brought them all to this place where they could
live without fear of persecution. Too many at that time believed in the will of
the old ones, the Lanteans, and would hunt down those
who worshipped the lords.”
“Terrible,”
said Teyla, without much feeling.
“It was.
Oh, it was.” His voice turned bitter. “That we would worship the lords of
flesh, the very masters of life and death, they would have all of us murdered
in our beds. So Arthere brought her people here, and
they prospered. But the isolation that had saved them was also their downfall.”
Teyla
was not well-versed in what
Rnaer,
she suspected, would display a series of very twisted family trees.
“Our
population was once far greater,” Colum explained.
“But children die, or are born not breathing, or must be killed before they may
contaminate the rest of us. Miarpia and I only share
a great-grandmother, and that is often safe. But Miarpia
herself… well, you have seen her. I fear what kind of strange children she
might bring into this world.”
She
wondered how many half-sisters and cousins and aunts he had tried to
impregnate, how many had been stillborn or sickly, how many had been smothered
in their cradle for some harmless deformity. She could feel the sticky warmth
of his hand on her thigh, through the woven cloth of her skirt, and she
imagined breaking it apart.
He was
still devastatingly handsome.
“The lords
will sometimes bring us men, to give healthy children to the women, but they
are not the faithful. They are always afraid, always hateful, even as they
perform their duties. We do not want their blood mixed in with our own.” His
face darkened. “We do not wish that this be reserved for the women.”
Teyla
had a good idea of why the Wraith brought men. Once the Rnaeran
women were with child, the outsider men could be taken away and fed upon. An
outsider woman, once impregnated, must be allowed to live for the time it took
her child to grow.
Assuming
she did not succeed in killing herself first.
Colum
moved his hand to her stomach.
She
grabbed his wrist but did not try to pull it away, suddenly worried that she
would be unable to, struck by the reality that this cheerful, attractive boy
was in reality a full-grown man, and his eyes, flat with resentment and wide
with desire, were trained on her face.
“You can
give us healthy children, Teyla Emmagan,”
he murmured. “You will give me
children, and then,” he smiled benevolently, “I will consider sending you to
lay with the others. For the greatness of Rnaer
and the lords.”
Her throat
was dry. She could not speak. But she had to speak, had to stop him, had to
find words somewhere. “I understand,”
she said, her voice barely a whisper. “But I do not believe we should begin our
future together tonight.”
The
perfect planes and angles of his face came closer, and she could feel his
breath on her neck. “Why not?”
Teyla
tried to swallow, could not. “I have only this very day been rescued from the
followers of the old ones,” she said, treading the line between a suitably
light tone and nervous hysteria. “They were coming here to destroy you, you
know. They thought I would lead them to you, but you found us first.” She
wanted to throttle him; she thought she could do it with her bare hands.
Instead, she gave the hand on her abdomen a reassuring squeeze. “But I have
been through a great deal these past days, Colum. I
am anxious and weary, half-expecting my captors to come… bursting through that
door and retake me.” Ancestors above, if she was only so lucky. “Surely this is
not the night to… consummate the rebirth of Rnaer?”
He stared
at her.
There was
no doubt in her mind that he would leap to his feet, pushing her down and
screaming “fraud!” She wanted to scream it herself.
But he
only stared at her, and then he bowed his head.
“I apologize,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. His hand fell away from her body and he looked up with anguish in his eyes. “Teyla, I am sorry. I have these… moods… fits, Mother calls them.” He laughed fretfully. “You are right, of course, and I would be the worst kind of cretin