Balancing on the edge, he eased himself into a crouch, took aim one last time, and leaped. For what seemed like an eternity, he hung suspended, body stretched, hands reaching, then he slammed into the cage, sending it into a wild heave and swirl, and felt himself slip almost as soon as he'd made contact. Fingers locked around rain-slick metal bars he held on for dear life.
The cage gave a lurch that catapulted Rodney out of the corner he'd crawled into and slammed him into the bars on the opposite side. One of the cracks he heard was caused by the impact of ribs on metal, and if he'd been in any doubt, the murderous stab of pain that sent a white shower of sparks flitting through his vision would have clinched it. The other crack, quieter and subtly different, remained unidentifiable until the metal bars moved under his weight. In a panicked flash he realized that the latch of the cage door, corroded by the endless rain, must have snapped. Then he began sliding through the opening and out of the cage. Arms flailing, he clawed for a handhold, snatched a bar with one hand. The fingers of his other hand briefly brushed metal, lost their grip and clutched at thin air. The bar he was holding on to, slippery as a piece of soap-God, how long before he lost his grip there, too?-con- tinued to move. The second he dropped free of the cage and into a sea of agony from his broken rib, it dawned on him that what he hung on to was the door of the cage. Somewhere in the back of his mind he also registered that the unnerving noise he was hearing had to be his-own- screams.
Then something else shouldered its way into his awareness.
"Shut up! McKay! Shut up, damn you!"
The voice, grating and impatient, sounded familiar. For a moment he thought it was Ikaros, but the kid wouldn't have been able to come over quite so offensive. The voice was familiar in a different way. When he finally made the connection, the surprise rammed his screams right back into his throat.
He hiccupped. "Ronon?"
Oh please! Not him!
"I'm busy. If you value your continued existence, shut up!" Rodney hissed ferociously. Ikaros's astute observations were the last thing he needed now.
There was no comeback, so apparently the kid had gotten the message. You had to be grateful for small favors.
Blinking water from his eyes, Rodney peered into the darkness below, relieved when he found he couldn't see much further than his toes. By the same token, he knew only too well what the night and the rain were hiding. He'd stared at it for the past three days. As Ronon did whatever he was doing up top, the cage kept moving erratically, and Rodney could feel his fingers slide millimeter by millimeter. The bottom edge of the door was digging into his wrist, his chest was on fire, his hands and feet were numb with cold, and he could have sworn the ball of his shoulder was inexorably sliding from its socket. Another jerk of the cage swung the door wider and made him swivel a quarter of a turn.
"I'm sure whatever you're doing there is a lot of fun," he yelped, "but I'm slipping. So stop moving, for God's sake!"
"Just hang on," Ronon's voice came back, accompanied by another jolt.
Then it was a lurch and a jolt, and Rodney whimpered when he felt his grip loosen some more. "I can't hang on!"
"Yes, you can. Quit chatting and save your strength."
Strength? What strength?
He hadn't eaten in three days, and his last meal-if you could call it that-had found its way into the abyss. It was a miracle he was even conscious, and never mind metabolizing enough energy to hold on for as long as he already had. The cage began to list to the side where Rodney was dangling, so apparently Ronon had made his way over. Just as that thought took hold, a gust caught the door and drove it back toward the cage, jamming Rodney's wrist in a metal vise.
It's Charybdis! It doesn 't
"Shut up!" he hollered.
"Didn't say anything." The Satedan's voice sounded strained but reassuringly close now. "Listen to me. McKay? Are you listening?"
"Yes!" As if he had a choice! Talk about captive audience...
"Good. I want you to hold on real tight now. I've got to swing the door back out."
"Swing the- Are you insane?"
"I won't be able to reach you unless I'm inside the cage. I can't get inside the cage unless I open the damn door. In order to open the damn door, I have to swing it back. So hang tight!"
As soon as he had a moment, Rodney would get riled up about how Ronon had the nerve to talk to him as if to a retarded kindergartner. For now he scrunched his eyes shut, held his breath, and tried to compute the time it would take for his fingers to slip completely. The result was not encouraging. According to his calculations, he should have fallen already. The cage dipped some more, and the door moved. He gave a soft groan, almost wishing that he would fall, because then at least this nightmare would be over.
In response to this upbeat thought, the cage began to shudder and shift in a cadence of jerky movements that culminated in a thud and another major heave as Ronon propelled himself into the cage. It was the last straw. Gravity finally won out over virtually nonexistent friction, Rodney's grasp opened, and he screamed.
In the very same instant an iron fist clamped around his wrist.
"Oh no, you don't!" the Satedan growled through clenched teeth.
No longer having to concentrate on keeping his fingers clenched, Rodney finally managed to look up, for all the good it did him. Between the darkness and the rain stinging his eyes, all he could see was a dark shape lying prone on the bottom of the cage, his head and shoulders sticking through the door.
The shape's free arm extended as far as possible, and Ronon shouted, "Grab my hand!"
"I can't!" Rodney gasped and anticipated the inevitable reply. "I really can't. I've broken at least one rib."
It prompted a string of crudeness from above. Then Ronon grunted, "Okay. This'll be unpleasant "
Unpleasant? As opposed to the box of delights Rodney had been through so far?
His mental diatribe was cut off when Ronon's free hand closed around his forearm. Christ almighty, the man was proposing to haul him in hand over fist! And he'd not been lying- except unpleasant didn't begin to describe it. There was a brutal yank up. Simultaneously the vise grip around Rodney's wrist released, only to reappear a second later, clamped around his upper arm, by which time he felt that his shoulder would give for sure.
"Help me!" Ronon snarled, strain flattening his voice.
Gritting his teeth, Rodney lifted his free arm and was just about able to reach the bar beside the opening. If he stretched a little farther... His ribcage howled in protest, but suddenly his fingers found purchase, and he held on and pulled for what he was worth. Not overly much, if Ronon's continued growling was anything to go by. Another yank, a fist clutched a handful of shirt at the back of Rodney's neck, and then Ronon started hauling for real.
Kicking and swearing, Rodney slid into the cage, convinced that his broken rib had shifted. Then the obvious struck him. "Now what?"
"You're welcome." Still panting hard, Ronon climbed to his feet, grabbed the crossbar above the door opening, and pulled himself up onto the top of the cage like a gymnast. Once up there, he lay back down on his stomach. "Grab my hands."
As if once hadn't been enough... Rodney suppressed a sigh and raised his arms, wincing.
"The other way round!" hissed Ronon. "You want me to break your back? Face me!"
Good point. Rodney hated when other people had those. He also hated the notion of having to back right into the door-far too reminiscent of high diving, high being the operative word and it made him crane his neck and look down against his better judgment.
"Hurry up!" the Satedan snapped.
Rodney resigned himself and turned, closing his eyes again, partly in expectation of what would happen in his chest once his feet left the ground. Seconds later he noted that his expectation had fallen way short of the actual event. By the time Ronon pulled him up onto the top of the cage, he seriously considered passing out. What stopped him was the fact that their combined weight had put the cage into a s
teep list. He felt himself sliding again, more rapidly than ever before, and scrambled for a handhold. At last, as though gravity had been thinking about it and made up its mind, his slide slowed to a halt, but Rodney couldn't shake the feeling that it'd start all over again if he so much as took a breath or batted an eyelid. Consequently, for the time being he decided to do neither.
It was enough that Ronon kept dancing around next to him, though whatever kept the Satedan upright on those slick bars had to be nothing short of a miracle-or a prehensile tail, which actually would explain a great many things. One arm hooked around the chain that held the cage, Ronon freed the end of a rope he must have tied to the chain upon his arrival. Then he reached out to Rodney and said, "Stand up"
"What?"
"Stop fretting. I'll hold you."
Yeah. Question was who'd be holding Ronon...
No viable alternative looked to be forthcoming, so Rodney did as he was told. The bars offered as much traction as black ice, his feet were slipping constantly, and he wouldn't have been able to stand if Ronon hadn't steadied him. At last and with all the desperation of a drowning man grabbing a lifebelt, he clutched the chain with both hands and hung on grimly while Ronon slung the end of the rope under his arms and fastened it across Rodney's chest. The rest of the rope spanned the gap between the cage and rock wall and disappeared into a narrow window above, apparently hooked to something inside the fortress.
"Okay," Ronon said. "You're perfectly safe. Now all you've got to do is stand there, hang on to that chain, and take my weight."
"Take your-"
"Not for long. It'll be fine."
With that Ronon grabbed the rope, which, on closer inspection, revealed itself to be a somewhat less than trust-inspiring affair knotted together from strips of cloth. Christ! The old Let's escape from prison by tying together the bed sheets trick... Rodney would have groaned, but at that moment the Satedan swung himself free, and a sharp pull squeezed the air from his lungs and served as another reminder that he was probably developing a pneumothorax this very minute.
The rope sagged under Ronon's considerable weight, and for a few moments the Satedan disappeared below the top of the cage. Then, hand over hand, he pulled himself up toward the window. Prehensile tail... In real terms it took less than two minutes of undiluted hell for him to get there, but to Rodney it seemed like a breathless, agony-riddled eternity. When Ronon reached the casement, hauled himself in, and took the tension off the rope, Rodney almost wept with gratitude.
Almost. What stopped him was the inevitable question: How on Earth was he going to get over there? His idea of upper body strength confined itself more or less exclusively to the cerebral. Then he reminded himself that he was harnessed to the end of the rope, for want of a more accurate word, which meant that-
"Let go!" Ronon hissed from above.
"What?"
"Let go of the chain!" This time it was accompanied by a sharp tug.
Oh no, no, no, no. No way was he-
Just do it.! How else are we going to get out of here?
His fists unclenched, obeying a volition other than Rodney's own. For a split-second he stood precariously balanced on two bars, then a violent gust shoved the cage sideways and catapulted him into the air. As he fell, he could hear himself scream over the howling of the wind, then, with a brutal yank, he dropped into the harness and found himself swinging toward the rock face. There was no time to bring up his legs for a buffer, and he slammed sideways into unforgiving stone. It felt as though the left half of his body had been pulverized, and Rodney hung there staring into the darkness and trying to concentrate on catching his breath.
The next jolt, considerably gentler, dragged him upward by about two feet. It was followed by another, and another, and he slowly but steadily came level with the top of the cage again, then rose above it. His life was measured in jolts now, he thought dizzily, a whole new unit all of his own, designed to accurately assess sheer panic. Between the cold and the rope strangling his circulation, he could barely feel his arms anymore, which probably was a good thing.
Jolt by jolt the dim halo of light spreading from the window was getting closer and more intense. Now he was almost within reach of the casement. And the rope looked as if it was fraying. Just his kind of luck. Salvation in his sights and-
Ronon reached down, grabbed Rodney's shirt again and heaved him into the casement. For several minutes they both lay there, panting as though they'd run a marathon, then the Satedan pushed himself to his knees.
"Come on," he gasped, trying to flip Rodney on his back. "We've got to-" He'd succeeded, and his eyes had gone wide as saucers. "Holy crap! No wonder you were a lot lighter than I expected. How old are you?"
"What do you mean, `a lot lighter'? I'll have you know, I-',
"How old?" Not content with obviously having retained his real age, the man had the audacity to smirk.
"Sixteen, at a guess," Rodney snarled, feeling himself blush. "You can stop grinning. It's not like I asked for this. Anyone who tells you they want to be sixteen again because it was the best time of their lives is lying through their teeth."
"Oh, I dunno..." The smirk widened. "I had a pretty good time..."
"I'm surprised you can remember this far back."
"Of course I didn't have boils in my face..."
"Zits! They're called zits!" Rodney hissed savagely. "And you're wondering why the Wraith decimated your home planet!"
"Not really. They're Wraith. It's what they do. Come on." Ronon dragged Rodney from the casement and into a gloomy hallway, where he tried to untie the harness without much success. Between the rain and the pressure applied to them, the knots might as well have been welded tight. Giving a shrug, the Satedan picked up his sword. "Don't move."
"This may be difficult to believe, but moving is the last thing on my mind." Rodney scrunched his eyes shut just to protect his nerves. "I was thinking of a nice warm bed in which I can precisely not move and- ah!" He could feel the tip of the sword working under the rope, dangerously close to his left nipple, and struggled not to flinch. "Just... watch it, okay?"
The rope snapped with a soft pop. "You can open your eyes now," Ronon said and handed him a largish piece of fabric that looked like it might have provided the raw material for the rope. "Put his around you and over your head."
The cloak-at least Rodney assumed that's what it had been before Ronon went to town on it-was heavy and stank of sweat and unwashed soldier, but it was only moderately wet, and it was warm. Grateful, Rodney wrapped himself in it and peered at Ronon. "So how are you going to get us out of here?" The moment he asked the question, something else occurred to him. "And where are the others?"
"Teyla's waiting for us downstairs. As for Colonel Sheppard, well, we're hoping you can help us find him. It's kinda urgent, so let's go."
CHAPTER 22
Charybdis -223
ow long do you plan on just sitting here?"
Elizabeth sounded impatient, and John could relate. Still shaken by Star's death and by the slaughter they'd unwittingly caused when the vortex had lunged into the mass of people here, they'd emerged from the gate to find themselves in the middle of a scene that looked deceptively like the one they'd just left. The cast was bigger, though. Much, much bigger, and by the looks of it these good folks had rather more advanced technology at their disposal than the alternate Zelenka's mob. Which might pose a problem if they decided to take a step back and think. Right now they were attacking the jumper with bare fists and sticks, driven by a volatile mix of rage and grief.
"John?"
"We'll stay put and play possum for now. If we try to fly out, we might hurt more people, and there's no guarantee that they won't come after us with real weapons."
"You're right." Sighing, she settled back into the seat. "What do you think they're doing here in the first place?" she asked suddenly.
"Best guess?" He nodded up toward the sky that stretched red and riotous above the frantic mass of bo
dies outside the jumper. Somehow John didn't think that this was the usual state of atmospheric affairs on this planet-yet another version of Lantea, likely as not. "I'd say they're having some major natural disaster."
"Evacuees?"
"Yeah. Look at the gear they've got on them. Tents back there. Cooking fires. I mean, it could be some kind of citywide jamboree, but somehow I doubt it..."
It was a fact. Many seemed to have brought only the clothes on their backs, and they looked disheveled and dirty, as if they'd barely escaped with their lives from whatever had happened here. Others, who appeared to have had a little more advance warning, had brought vehicles-ground gliders, from what John could see-piled high with possessions ranging from bedding and cookware to ancestral portraits. So far, and discounting the righteous fury being vented on the jumper, either personal discipline or the authorities around here seemed to have been able to uphold the law, since there were no signs of looting.
"What do you think happened?" Elizabeth sounded tired, making conversation merely to stay awake-or to keep him awake, which probably wasn't a bad idea at all.
He shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Flood, volcanic eruption, storms; hell, war, for all I know. Maybe they've got some kind of weapon that will do this to-"
For the first few seconds he thought his concussion had finally gotten the better of him. Trees, tents, rocks, everything around them began a slow-motion dance, swaying and heaving. Piles of belongings tilted lazily, as if deliberating whether to topple or not, some spilling to the ground, others somehow managing to find the rhythm of that odd motion and staying upright. A low, rolling noise filled the air, reverberated through the jumper, and seeped into his very bones, stirring up the marrow a bit.
Only when the people outside quit their concerted attack on the jumper and froze in their tracks, thunderstruck, wide-eyed, shouts stuck in their throats, John grasped that the phenomenon wasn't some kind of weird delusion. The shaking didn't stop, and suddenly, as if alerted by some silent signal, the crowd began to part, slowly at first but accelerating rapidly, like a wave rolling in to shore. Kicking and flailing, they shoved and jostled and scrambled over each other, trying to get away from whatever was coming. They weren't quite fast enough.
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