“Really? We reserve that for weddings and other private celebrations,” Radim said. “In any case, I wanted to let you know that the dancing and the drinking will continue for some hours. I have detailed men to escort you back to your quarters so you won’t get lost.”
“You’re not staying, then?” John asked.
Radim gave a small smile, the most genuine expression John had seen from him since they’d arrived. “Traditionally, the senior officers only stay for the first few dances, to allow their junior to relax and enjoy themselves.”
“As long as that doesn’t involve, say, knife fights.”
“That would be why the seniors absent themselves.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” John said, and silently resolved to get his people out of there as soon as he reasonably could.
~#~
Ladon Radim leaned back in his armchair, stretching his feet toward the electric hearth. Even in summer, the underground cities stayed cool, and there were times when they were even uncomfortably chill. He loosened the neck of his uniform jacket, and accepted the glass of brandy his aide offered. Ambrus poured one for Dahlia as well and, at Ladon’s nod, poured a third for himself.
“I think that went well,” he said aloud, and took a swallow of the brandy. The familiar heat seared its way down to his stomach, and he closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself relax. “You should have come, Dahlia.”
He opened his eyes in time to see her shake her head. “It was better that I stayed away. The scientists deserve a chance to enjoy themselves without feeling as though I’m looking over their shoulders like a disapproving stepmother.”
“I don’t think they think of you that way.” Ladon paused. “Their Doctor Beckett was disappointed that you weren’t there.”
Dahlia gave a wry smile. “Possibly I’m not up to discussing my health over a six-course banquet. The Lanteans — I won’t say they have no sense of propriety, but it’s very different from ours.”
“True enough.” A buzzer sounded in the outer room, and Ambrus vanished with a murmur of apology. Ladon watched him go, but kept his tone light. “I’m afraid Colonel Sheppard didn’t enjoy the recitation.”
“Can you blame him?” Dahlia shook her head. “I don’t know what the Academy was thinking to elect Paros as this year’s laureate.”
“He’s well-connected,” Ladon began, and stopped as Ambrus reappeared in the doorway. “Well?”
“Beg pardon, but Roza Virag would like a word with you.”
Rosa was the senior intelligence officer in charge of the housekeepers set to watch over the Lanteans, and he trusted her not to disturb him unless it was urgent. “Show her in.” Dahlia started to stand, and he waved her back to her seat. “I may want your opinion.”
She shrugged and reseated herself, and Ambrus held open the door for a stocky, graying woman in a neat khaki uniform.
“Chief Ladon,” she said, with a salute, and Ladon waved toward the nearest chair.
“Sit, please, Roza. Let’s be informal here. Would you take a brandy?”
“Thank you, Chief.” She seated herself carefully, smoothing her skirt over her knees, and accepted a glass from Ambrus. “And I do apologize for addressing you so late.”
“Quite all right. I was still up.”
“Thanks to the party for the Pride’s former crew.” Roza smiled cheerfully. “And indeed, if I hadn’t expected to find you still up, I wouldn’t have troubled you until morning. But I thought you would want to know that the Lanteans have accepted our offer of a tour of the city.”
“We expected they would,” Ambrus said.
Ladon nodded in agreement.
“And we had agreed on the course of the tour,” Rosa said. “I see no need to modify it, unless you think otherwise? We’ll take them past the Hall of Remembrance, of course, and the Upper Market and the Western Arcade, and we’ll make sure to go through the new residential delving on the way. I expect someone will ask about the surface, and we’ve planned to detour through the Outer Hamlets. We’ll have a spontaneous lunch at the greenhouses there before returning to the Market.”
“That sounds excellent,” Ladon said, wondering why she was bothering him with such ordinary details.
“We are in an ideal position to insert Stage Two operatives, both at the Hamlet greenhouses and in the Markets. I have identified suitable staff, and can have them in place. However, we hadn’t discussed escalating our surveillance to that level, and I thought I should bring the question to you before I authorized it.”
“Ah.” Ladon took another swallow of his brandy, buying himself time to think. Stage Two surveillance involved agents who struck up friendships with the observed parties, and then became their primary points of contact when dealing with the Genii. It was always a delicate job: you could never predict exactly where the friendships would develop until agents and subjects actually met, and even after that it was a struggle to keep the agents’ goals aligned with the governments. He couldn’t help remembering Tyrus and his daughter Sora, trained as the Athosians’ contact agents: that had gone badly wrong. Tyrus had died aboard a Wraith hiveship, perhaps through the negligence of the Athosian Teyla Emmagan, and Sora had rejected all her training to seek revenge. Whatever else they did, they couldn’t afford another debacle like that.
“Is it really necessary?” Dahlia asked. ”The Lanteans will be leaving in less than sixty hours.”
“It’s not much time,” Roza agreed. “The best we could hope for is to plant a seed. On the other hand, a deeper connection with the Lanteans would be extremely valuable.”
“Surely the Lanteans will be on the lookout for any such attempts,” Ambrus said.
Ladon tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, weighing the possibilities. Roza was right, a connection with the Lanteans might prove extremely useful in the long run. But at the same time, they needed to keep on good terms with Atlantis, at least until they could push their own technological development a little further. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t think that’s necessary. Let them mingle with our people, note if any friendships seem possible, but don’t try to set something up.”
Rosa nodded, and set her glass aside. “Very good, Chief. Then, if you’ll excuse me?”
“Of course. And thank you for your excellent work so far.” Ladon waited until the door had closed behind her, then sighed. “I hope I’m not missing our best chance.”
“I still say the Lanteans would expect such an attempt.” Ambrus lifted the decanter, and Ladon allowed him to refill his glass
“The Lanteans are very loyal to each other,” Dahlia said. “They boast of leaving no one behind, and they’d rather die than break that word.”
“Tactically foolish,” Ladon said, “but it wins them allies. One day, though, they’ll come up against someone they can’t overpower with their Ancient weapons, and then they’ll learn what sacrifice is.”
“Let’s hope they learn that lesson far away from us,” Dahlia said, with a wry smile.
Ladon lifted his glass in answer.
~#~
Orsolya Denes hunched closer to the console, trying to make sense of the shapes flickering past her on the screen. Like all of the Pride’s crew, she had been taught the Ancient writing system and a working knowledge of their language, and of course she had the ATA gene to help her, but even so there were sections of the diagnostic system that made very little sense to her. She froze the image and downloaded the data to a secondary screen, where she could go over it frame by frame, then brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. This was what she was here for, the thing she had trained for since she was a girl in the barren southern provinces, where you worked or starved, and sometimes one did not prevent the other. She had excelled in the provincial schools, where they were given weeks off at a time to tend the harvest, and she had to beg the headmaster for the chance to study electronics with the boys. He had been reluctant, but there had been no denying her scores or her aptitude, and she had bee
n one of the five sent from Barrings Hold to the Science School at the capital. She had been behind all the others then — the Hold schools only went so far — but she’d managed to claw her way into the middle of the class. General Karsci had found her there, ranked 138th out of 300, and suggested that she leave the main track and enter engineering instead. That’s what you’re really good at, he had said, eyes on her grade sheets rather than the breasts visible even under the severe student uniform. And you’re a southerner like me. You know how much we need engineers in the south. She had taken his advice and not looked back, not even when her classmate Dahlia Radim had climbed to the top rank of the Science Services on the strength of her brother’s political connections. And then Ladon launched the coup that brought down Chief Cowen, and Dahlia was Chief of Sciences, with an entire Ancient warship to play with. When the call came for volunteers, she had gone to Karsci for advice, and he had told her to go, but not to forget where she came from, and she had taken that as he had meant it, and sent carefully composed letters home to him as her patron, keeping him updated on the progress of the restoration. Dahlia had known, Orsolya was sure of that, but turned a blind eye: there were too few people with a natural ATA gene to turn her away for anything less than outright treason. She had survived the fight against Queen Death, and that had brought her here, back on board an Ancient warship that reminded her more and more of the ill-tempered oxen that had pulled plows on the southern farms.
Not that I wasn’t very fond of them, she added hastily. She still wasn’t sure how much of her emotions the ship understood. They were good creatures, even if they were stubborn sometimes. She felt nothing, none of the surge of confirmation or refusal that she sometimes picked up, and turned her attention back to the screen.
She paged through the diagnostics one section at a time, painstakingly tracing each section of the communication systems, making sure that they would be able to contact the Chief as scheduled on Foundation Day. That was as vital to their mission as their visits to their allies — Ladon never skimped on propaganda — and her lip curled in disdain. If Karsci were Chief, there would be a good deal less posturing, and the Pride would be used for worthwhile things —
She stopped as an anomaly caught her eye, and scrolled back up the screen to be sure of what she saw. Yes, there it was, a suboptimal output reading from the back-up transmitter. By all evidence, the main systems were fine, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.
“Denzo!” She pushed herself away from the console. “You got a minute?”
“I’m just adjusting the last of the transmitter beams.” The technician bent his body backward, leaning out of the space between two of the control stations, tipping his head almost upside down in his effort to see her. “Can it wait?”
“How long?”
“Almost done. Five minutes?”
“All right. Then we’ve got some crawling to do.” Orsolya turned back to the screen, calling up a set of local schematics. From the diagnostics, it looked as though one of the mid-sized relays needed to be replaced; according to her supply list, they had enough spares to replace both of them and still have a back-up left. Better to do both, and not worry about whether she’d correctly identified the damaged one.
She typed her request into the system, saw the computer ping back with the most direct route to the relays. It would take them through the narrowest of the access tubes, past the hot spot beneath the heat exchanger for the crew cabin space, but at least it didn’t involve suiting up and going outside. “Denzo! I’m going to collect some parts. When I get back I’ll need your help getting them in place.”
“Ok, boss.” Denzo’s voice was muffled, but she thought she could trust him to stay even after he’d finished with the beams.
The relays were waiting in the supply bunker, heavy, ungainly things salvaged from other Ancient ships, and she eyed them uneasily, hoping someone had in fact tested them for fit. But that wasn’t the sort of mistake Dahlia allowed. She hoisted them, grunting — they were heavier than she’d expected, about thirty pounds each — and hauled them back to the systems control room.
Denzo had finished with the beams, and was wiping his hands on a scrap of fabric, but stuffed it in a pocket and hurried to take one of the relays from her. “I thought we did these before we left home.”
“We did, but one of them’s gone bad,” Orsolya said. “With the broadcast coming up, we need to replace both of them.”
“Can’t have the Chief look bad,” Denzo agreed, with just enough sincerity that she decided she could ignore him.
“Tube 9-A,” she said, and this time he did groan.
“Sorry, ma’am. It’s just that’s not a nice climb.”
“No, it’s not,” Orsolya agreed, and shifted the relay to her other hand. “Come on, the sooner we get this over with the better.”
At the base of the access tube, she warned the bridge that she was cutting power to the back-up relays, then cut local power as well, just to be on the safe side. Denzo stirred uneasily as she threw the switch, and she glared at him. “Problem, technician?”
“No, ma’am. It’s just — that includes hot water for the gun crew.”
“Then let’s get it done before they notice,” Orsolya answered, and hoisted herself up into the tube.
It was a long climb, particularly with the relay strapped to her back, and then she had to unfasten it and push it ahead of her down the tube that led under the heat exchangers. In spite of the insulation, she could feel the heat like a weight on her back, and she was damp with sweat by the time she pulled herself through. Luckily, the relay points were only a few meters ahead, in a junction where the tunnels widened, and she drew herself gratefully to her feet. Denzo dragged himself out a few minutes later, and crouched panting beside her.
“The Ancients can’t have let it get that hot in here.” He paused. “You don’t suppose that’s what’s causing our problem, do you?”
“I hope not,” Orsolya said, “because if it is…” She let her voice trail off, but they both knew what she had been going to say: if it was the problem, there wasn’t anything they could do to fix it until they were back planetside. “Come on.”
She pulled the first relay without difficulty, and handed it off to Denzo, then levered her own replacement into place. It took two pairs of hands to hold it steady while she reattached the connectors, and slid it back into place, then pulled the shield over the socket and fastened it. They repeated the process with the second relay, and Denzo crouched to package up the removed parts while she screwed the shield closed again. She grimaced, thinking of the trip back out, and Denzo looked up sharply.
“Ma’am. I think I’ve found the problem.”
“Yes?” Orsolya went to one knee beside him, and he heaved the relay over further to reveal the filter that covered the polished parabola. He pushed the filter gently back until it latched, and tilted the parabola so that it caught their work-lights. Orsolya’s breath caught in her chest. There was a line, perhaps as wide her finger, a streak that crossed the bright surface, dulling it. It wasn’t much, but given the distances involved, that tiny smudge might be enough to shut the system down. “That looks like a fingermark.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Denzo met her eyes, and Orsolya looked away. If it was a fingermark, someone had been appallingly, criminally careless — so careless, in fact, that it was almost impossible to believe it could happen by mistake. And that meant sabotage, subtle but potent. No, she thought, I’m not prepared to make that accusation. Not when I’m not absolutely sure. There were already tensions between the gun crew and the civilians, and between people who had belonged to different factions.
“Someone was careless,” she said aloud, and saw Denzo’s eyebrows rise in disbelief. “Extremely careless,” she said again, and Denzo sighed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’ll take these back to supply, give them both a good going-over,” she went on. “If there’s one flaw, there might be more.”
/> “Ma’am.”
“And, Denzo. Keep an eye out for any other… carelessness.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he repeated, and she knew from his tone that he’d understood her real meaning.
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS A CLOUDLESS day on the surface, and the light traps that collected every scrap of sunlight made the approach to the Hall of Remembrance glow with the reflected light. The high walls with their narrow strips of polished wood paneling glowed in the warm radiance, vertical lines alternating with columns of names: the heroes of the Genii. The oldest dated back to before the last great culling, their panels either salvaged from the wreckage of the previous capital or carefully duplicated, every detail exact down to broken letters and truncated names. Someday, Ladon hoped, he would have earned the right to have his name added to the list. If he and his policies survived long enough. The walls rose twice the height of any other chamber in the city, the arched ceiling supported by both visible and hidden braces, light from the sun traps and the recessed electrics painting a corridor on the pale stone floor. At the end of the chamber, steps rose to the Hall of Remembrance, guards flanking them in what was hopefully only a ceremonial escort, the doors open in welcome behind them.
There were still some minutes to go, the shaft of sunlight that fell onto the sundial carved into the center of the floor not quite on the hour, and he allowed himself a glance over his shoulder. Sheppard grinned back at him, but the cheer didn’t quite meet his eyes. He and his men had brought their best uniforms, cut differently and, in the men’s case, more brightly colored than anything he had seen from the Lantan military, with snow-white belting and multiple shades of blue, trimmed in scarlet and gold. Even Sheppard’s plain blue uniform was badged with lines of brightly colored ribbon, and the doctor was in black with a snowy shirt beneath it.
“You can’t tell me that your people don’t have ceremonial events, Colonel,” he said aloud. “Otherwise you wouldn’t all have such suitable uniforms.”
“We usually keep them for weddings and funerals,” Sheppard answered. “And in service occasions. Promotions, things like that. We don’t do so much parading.”
Stargate Atlantis #24 Page 5