“All right,” he said. “Here’s what I see. No ATA gene, there’s some mild inflammation, probably corresponding to fever and chills at worst. Unenhanced recessive, slightly more inflammation, some damage to the ATA gene, but, as it’s a recessive and not affecting anything, the patient isn’t likely to experience anything except a worse fever. Enhanced recessive, bad fever, and the DNA is attacked at the points of enhancement, damaging the gene and almost certainly switching it off again. Full natural ATA gene — no fever, no sickness, no damage to the gene. Marie?”
“I agree,” Wu said. “Also — I’d worry about the unenhanced recessive being damaged to the point that the gene would not be passed on to any children.”
“Aye, you may be right about that.” Carson stared at the test for a moment longer, and behind him Massour stirred.
“So what you’re saying is that this is designed to — turn off — an artificial ATA gene?”
“That’s exactly what it looks like,” Carson said, grimly. “Marie, I’d like you to start proper DNA analysis of these samples. I know, it’ll take a day or two, but we’re going to need the details. Dr. Massour, can I ask you to write up your findings? Just a memo for Colonel Sheppard.”
“Of course,” Massour said. “I am glad to help.”
“And in the meantime…” Carson sighed. “In the meantime, I need to talk to whoever’s currently in charge.”
Colonel Carter had taken over her old office, the one that Sheppard almost never used; none of her things were there, no pictures or books or odd artifacts picked up on strange worlds, but she still looked, Carson thought, as though she belonged there.
“You’ve got something on the Pride?” she asked, and waved toward the coffee maker that stood ready.
“I do,” Carson said, “and no, thank you, I’ve been drinking tea all afternoon.” He took a seat across from her, and saw the lines tighten unhappily at the corners of her eyes. “We’ve been working on the formula Dr. Zelenka was given on Teos, and we have some preliminary answers.”
“I’m not going to like them, am I?” Carter poured herself a cup of coffee, added canned milk that had to come from the Hammond’s stores.
“I’m not delighted by them myself,” Carson answered. He ran through what they’d found, from deciphering the Ancient-based notation to the afternoon’s experiments, and when he had finished, Carter shook her head.
“You’re right, that’s very… sticky… diplomatically. If we tell the Genii that the Teosians — well, essentially attacked their starship — Ladon Radim is going to retaliate. And if we don’t — well, obviously, we have to tell them something.”
“I think so,” Carson agreed, “because there’s a bit more to it than just what we could see. From the way the Genii talk about the process, when they talk about it, it sounds as though they’re actually adding in an artificial ATA gene, rather than enhancing something that’s already there. It looks to me as though the tools target the points at which the enhancement was made, and that means that the completely artificial gene would be at least as vulnerable as the enhanced recessive.”
“And the ATA gene is vanishingly rare in the Pegasus Galaxy,” Carter said. “Do we have any idea how many of the Pride’s crew could have been affected by this?”
“Zelenka said it was put in their water supply,” Carson said. “Everyone would have been exposed.” He shook his head. “I don’t think there could be more than two or three people on board with a natural ATA gene.”
“That’s not enough to fly the ship,” Carter said.
“It would take a little time for enough of the compound to build up in the crew’s bodies,” Carson said, “but pretty soon, people would start getting sick. It would look a lot like influenza or its equivalents, they wouldn’t be thinking about poisons, they’d be worried about contagion — that’s probably why we have’t found them on any of the inhabited worlds we’ve searched.”
“That makes sense,” Carter said. “Go on.”
“But no one can stop drinking — there’s no reason even to think of that — and so they just keep getting sicker.” Carson suppressed a shiver. “So if I were their doctor, I’d recommend setting down on a world without a Stargate — or an orbital gate, at worst — until I could get the disease under control. That way they won’t risk spreading it back to their homeworld.”
Carter nodded. “The Hammond is almost ready to launch. I’ll recall Sheppard and take her out myself. If — when we find them, do we have a cure?”
“Not as such,” Carson said, “though I’ll be working on it. But — if they stop drinking the tainted water, the symptoms should stop. What it does to their ATA therapy long term, I couldn’t say. But that’s a start.”
~#~
The jumper emerged from the Stargate into a blaze of sunlight, P3M-271’s sun rising in a blinding haze over the curve of the planet. The jumper systems instantly darkened the windows, and John glanced down at the controls to confirm that everything was steady. He could feel that it was, the jumper practically purring, and he swung the jumper up and over, facing the gate again with the sun to their backs. Below, P3M-271 — Baidu — lay half in night, a curve of shadow that gave way to brilliant clouds and bright sea and a scattering of islands that stretched to the edge of the visible disk.
“Anything?” John asked. It looked as though there was more land on the night side, though there were no lights or any signs of habitation.
“Give me a minute,” McKay said, not looking up from his screens. “Wait — yes, something large and metal on the far side of the planet — yes, it’s a ship.”
“But is it the right ship?” Ronon asked, and McKay glared at him.
“How many lost ships are we looking for?”
“There’re more out there than you think,” Ronon said.
John ignored them, nudging the jumper onto a course that would bring them over the curve of the planet, flying out of night into the middle of the day, and felt the sensors come alive. Yes, there it was, unmistakably, the Pride of the Genii, settled neatly on top of a low and grass-covered plateau. There were no signs of damage, none of the scarred land and crumpled metal of a crash, and John allowed himself to hope that maybe things hadn’t gone so terribly wrong after all.
“See if you can raise them,” he said, to McKay, and brought the jumper lower.
“Pride of the Genii, this is Atlantis Jumper One, do you read me?” McKay frowned, fiddled with the frequencies. “Pride of the Genii, this is Jumper One. Answer, please.” He repeated it a couple more times, then shook his head. “No answer. I think their comm must be out.”
“They have set up camp,” Teyla said. “But — what is that?”
“They’ve put up a perimeter fence,” Ronon said in the same moment, leaning forward.
“There’s something else down there,” McKay said. “Lots of somethings.”
John brought the jumper down lower still, until he could circle low and slow over the grounded ship. There were people on the upper side of the hull, clustered around the dorsal gun mount —they’d modified it to fire manually, by the look of the hull — and a short wooden tower held another Ancient weapon and several more Genii with repeating rifles. The perimeter fence glowed blue, and there were still more armed men on the ship’s ramp.
“They had a camp there,” Ronon said. “Outside the ship. But they’ve moved it.”
“Probably because of whatever’s out there,” McKay said. “Damn it! I still can’t get a good look at them.”
“Well, there’s room to land the jumper inside the fence,” John said. “Let’s tell them what we’re going to do.” The jumper responded to his thoughts, switching on the external loudspeaker. “Hello, Pride of the Genii! This is Atlantis Jumper One. We’re landing inside your perimeter. I repeat, we’re coming in to land inside your perimeter fence.”
He switched off and swung the jumper around again, shedding speed as he looked for the best place to land. All of the open spaces would
be tight; probably the best place was toward the ship’s tail, behind the gun tower.
“They’re waving us off,” McKay said.
Ronon leaned forward. “What the hell?”
John slowed their descent, frowning, and the jumper’s systems passed a warning: the gun on top of the Pride’s hull was turning in their direction.
“Oh, that’s not good,” McKay began, and John brought the jumper to a hovering stop, ready to fling the ship up or back the minute the Genii opened fire. At the base of the ramp, several of the Genii were waving their arms, waving them away, and a tall man hurried down the ramp. He looked up at the jumper, shouting, and John recognized the Pride’s captain. He opened the outside speakers, and a few words came through, faint and distorted.
“Don’t land! Sickness… Don’t land!”
John glanced over his shoulder. “You were right, Teyla.”
Teyla grimaced. “I very much wish I were not.”
“Ok,” John said. “We have to assume they know what they’re doing, so we can’t land. And we can’t take anyone back with us, or bring anybody to help with repairs, not unless that person is willing to take the chance of catching whatever this is —“
“It would be best to find that out first,” Teyla said. “We can talk at a distance, surely, without danger.”
John switched on the external speakers again. “Copy that, Pride. We will not, repeat, not, land. Can you give us more details, please?”
The captain shouted something, then cupped his hands to his mouth and tried again.
John shook his head. “Can’t hear you. We’re dropping lower, but we will not land.” As he spoke, he let the jumper sink slowly toward the ground, until they were hovering only fifty feet above the trampled grass. “Say again, please?”
The captain came closer, cupped his hands again. “We’re afflicted with a contagious illness that preferentially attacks carriers of the artificial or modified ATA gene and destroys it. We haven’t been able to get it under control. Our comms are out, or we would have warned you sooner.”
“Understood.” John felt himself grow cold imagining it, the slow disappearance of the connection to the Ancient machinery, a familiar, comfortable presence fading slowly away. Or maybe it was just gone, severed, disappeared in an instant, or after a bout of fever. Losing Atlantis — it was too painful to think about. And at least half the Pride’s crew carried a modified gene, according to what Radim had said. There was a good chance they wouldn’t have enough people to fly the ship. “Ok, Pride, we copy that. We can provide medical help or fetch help from the Genii homeworld, or pretty much do what you need us to do —“
“Sheppard.” Ronon leaned forward again. “I think the noise is upsetting those things.”
John collected views from the jumper’s various cameras, spread them out across his screens. Sure enough, the creatures were pacing back and forth just outside the fence line, and more and more of them were joining the crowd. They looked like hyenas, with the heavy forequarters and boxy jaws, only they were easily three times a hyena’s size.
“Or something is,” McKay said. “There’s more of them coming — a lot more.”
“Crap.” The jumper obligingly adjusted his central screen, displaying the ground below, the ship surrounded by moving dots that were the predators. There were more dots coming, long lines of them converging on the jumper and the grounded ship. In the sensors’ view, they looked like ants following a scent trail, and John bit his lip. “Captain. There are a lot more of those things coming in. You may want to get your people back inside —“
Before the captain could answer, one of the creatures leaped at the fence. It clung to the wires for a moment, sparks flying around it, and then dropped free, but as soon as it landed, another one took its place. A second creature joined it, two of them wrestling with the wires as sparks flew and smoke rose from their fur. One dropped away with a strangled howl, but two more took its place. The same thing was happening on the far side of the compound, four creatures struggling to push through the fence. The Pride’s captain shouted an order, and both the dorsal gun and the tower gun let loose, firing bolts over the heads of the writhing creatures, but it didn’t seem to affect them. The Genii let loose with their repeating rifles, dropping several of the creatures, but another group attacked the fence, and then another. John swung the jumper, trying to get a decent shot, then stopped abruptly. If he hit one of those things with a blast from the jumper, he’d kill it, but he’d take out the fence, too; that was why the Genii on the big guns were firing over their heads. He did the same, but the creatures ignored him. Smoke was rising from the grass, and McKay gave him a worried look.
“Sheppard. We don’t want to start a forest fire.”
“Crap,” John said again. McKay was right, but the creatures kept coming, running right into the Genii rifle fire. “We have to do something.”
“Lower the ramp,” Ronon said. “Give me a shot, I’ll pick them off from here.”
Teyla snatched up her P90 and moved to join him. John swore again, but swung the jumper, lowering the ramp at the same time. “Hold us here, McKay,”he said, and scrambled to the open door, grabbing his own P90 as he went.
“Oh, great, that’s just —” The jumper steadied as McKay took over, becoming rock solid beneath their feet. “This is a stupid idea. Just for God’s sake don’t fall out of there.”
John closed his mind to the words, and hooked one elbow through a hanging strap. It wasn’t much security, but it was better than nothing — and better than Ronon, who was lying flat on the down-tilted ramp, aiming his blaster at the nearest cluster of the creatures. Teyla had her arm through a strap as well, her face serene as she aimed the P90 and fired a short burst into the same cluster. Two of the animals fell away, dead, and John aimed at the next group. The fence was crackling, static snapping along its length: it wasn’t going to hold much longer, and John risked a shout.
“Captain! Captain, get your people back inside —“
The men in the tower were already climbing down, two of them manhandling the heavy Ancient weapon over the platform’s edge. Ronon slid a little further down the ramp, leaning over the edge to take another few shots, and Teyla emptied her clip at a tangle of creatures that seemed to trying to push through the fence by sheer weight of numbers. The animals collapsed, but one instead of falling backward fell forward onto the wires and hung there, hazed in static, its fur starting to smoke. Another of the creatures pressed against it, trying to use the fallen body as a ladder. John shot it dead, but more were coming up behind it.
“Teyla!”
“I see them.” She slammed the new clip home and fired.
John fired with her, and three more creatures fell. Their bodies were starting to pile up, offering a platform from which a creature could try to jump the fence… Even as the idea registered, John saw one try, but Ronon picked it off. It fell dead inside the perimeter, the first of the creatures to cross the barrier.
“Captain!”
The gun crew on the top of the ship abandoned their position, scrambling across the hull toward the main hatch. The men in the tower had gotten the gun down, but were having trouble lifting the awkward weight of weapon and power systems. They stopped, fiddling with the connectors, and John swore under his breath. “Leave that…”
They couldn’t hear him, and they weren’t his men, anyway. He heard the Genii captain shout something, the words drowned in the irregular stutter of the rifles, and Ronon said, “They’re over.”
He fired in that direction as he spoke, dropping the lead creature, but more were piling after it. John fired at the oncoming knot of animals, saw one fall, but two more leaped over it. “Crap. Those guys at the tower don’t stand a chance.”
Ronon reached for the edge of the ramp. “Tell McKay to go lower.”
John wasn’t sure what he had in mind, but Ronon’s ideas were usually good. “McKay! Bring us down to ten feet!”
“Are you crazy?” McKay
yelled back, but the jumper sank gracefully.
“Cover me,” Ronon said, and let himself hang from the edge of the ramp, then dropped the last few feet. John fired over his head, diverting one group of creatures as they shied away from the blast, then turned on another that was attempting to sneak up from the other direction. Ronon had reached the group from the tower, was waving them toward the ship, but the two still struggling with the Ancient weapon refused to leave it. Ronon kept firing, dropping a creature with every shot, and the Genii were firing from the top of the ramp, but the creatures kept coming, using each other’s bodies to leap the sputtering fence. At last, the tower crew got the weapon moving, but even as they turned toward the ramp, the fence sparked and died.
“Crap. I’m going in.” John pulled his arm out of the loop and slammed a fresh clip into his P90. “McKay! Lower! Low as you can!”
“That’s about where we are!” McKay shouted, but the jumper sank obediently.
“John,” Teyla said, then shook her head. “Go. I’ll cover.”
That was Teyla, she always had his back. John stumbled down the ramp, jumped the last four feet to the ground, rolled, and came up firing. The first line of creatures checked and fell back, and behind him he heard Teyla’s P90 open up, driving back another group. He fired again, crouching as he darted across to join the men from the tower. The Genii at the ramp were firing past them, and he hoped their aim was good.
“Leave that thing,” he yelled, but the nearest Genii shook his head.
“We can’t, it’s too important.”
“Then haul it,” Ronon snarled, and switched to single-handed firing. With the other, he hoisted part of the Ancient weapon and the three of them staggered toward the ramp. John backed away after them, swinging his P90 to bring down creature after creature. The jumper swung closer, Teyla leaning from the rear opening to strafe another incoming group. And then there was metal under his feet, the Pride’s ramp rising behind him, and he broke off to wave the jumper away.
Stargate Atlantis #24 Page 21