by Martha Wells
Dorane said easily, “Very well.” He smiled. It wasn’t the evil smile John had been half expecting. There was a quality to it he couldn’t quite define. “This way.”
John didn’t move. “Tell your friends there to back up, right out through that doorway.”
Dorane turned back to him, lifting a brow. “They aren’t my friends, they are my people.” He touched the iridescent shoulder of one of the Koan. It twitched away from him with a growl, edging back.
John’s brows lifted. “What?”
“Oh, we were like you once,” Dorane assured him. “Human, or so genetically similar that any difference was immaterial. We knew the Lantians, the people you call the Ancients, your honored ancestors. They shared their technology with us, in dribs and drabs, built the Stargates. And antagonized the Wraith into destroying us.”
The last was said in almost the same even tone. Almost. “Antagonizing the Wraith isn’t that hard to do,” John felt compelled to point out. “Now tell them to leave, or I’ll kill every one of them. This gun holds a lot of bullets. Their buddies in the tunnel found that out.”
Dorane’s expression turned a little colder, but the Koan, in response to some invisible signal, backed away, muttering uneasily among themselves. They moved out through the doorway into the corridor, and when they were clear John flicked a look at Teyla, a jerk of his head telling her to seal the door. She moved over to it, sparing a hand from her weapon to hit the controls. As the door slid closed, John caught a glimpse of her in the light. She didn’t look so good, her face paling enough that her eyes seemed enormous. Her bangs were matted with sweat, though it wasn’t that warm. He remembered she had been acting oddly right before the Koan attack; oh great, maybe there is an airborne disease down here. They had to find the others and get this over with fast.
He told Dorane, “Now move.”
Dorane turned reluctantly, starting across the chamber. He said, “I was not lying when I said my people were attacked by the Wraith. We tried to use biological and chemical weapons to fight them, but the Lantians would not help us. We believed our biological weapons would only affect the Wraith; we didn’t realize they would affect us as well. Our weapons drove the Wraith away—temporarily—but they also caused terrible genetic changes in our own people.” He paused to look back at John. “I went to the Lantians to beg for help, and they allowed me to stay with them for a time, working in their laboratories. They pretended to help me.”
“Pretended, yeah, uh huh, keep moving,” John echoed skeptically. He didn’t get it. The Koan didn’t act like any kind of people, genetically altered or not; there was something wrong with their minds, not just their bodies.
Dorane’s eyes narrowed. He was obviously angry that John wasn’t paying attention to his little story. “They betrayed me. The attempts they made to stabilize the damage only made the situation worse, and my people were destroyed.”
John said pointedly, “They weren’t gods, they were just people. Technologically advanced people. They couldn’t fix everything or they would have destroyed the Wraith.” He squeezed off a three-shot burst, scarring the floor about two inches from Dorane’s feet. “Now keep moving, or the next time I’ll shoot your kneecaps, and drag you.”
Dorane hadn’t flinched, but his face had gone still. He turned, leading the way toward the stairwell on the far side of the room. He said, “The Lantians obviously gifted your people, their favored descendents, with the gene, but they withheld it from us.” Dorane gestured like a man who was only being reasonable. “It would have helped us recover, but of course it would also have given us access to all their technology, all their secrets. I begged, but they refused to share it.”
John pressed his lips together. He doubted Dorane was giving him an accurate account of what had happened. The Ancients probably had tried to help the Koan, but it could have been too late to do anything for them. The Ancients hadn’t been able to stop the plague that had driven them to the Pegasus Galaxy in the first place, either. “But you’ve got the gene. We saw you activate the com system, or was that another trick?”
Dorane reached the stairwell, looking back at John with an almost noncommittal shrug. “They would not share it, so I created my own. I developed a drug—You would perhaps not understand the details.”
“We call it a retrovirus.” The big room was too dark to see much, but a door now closed off the archway into the stasis chamber. There was a trap here, John could practically taste it, but he couldn’t see where it was coming from. Maybe more Koan hiding in the stasis lab? “Keep moving.”
Dorane started down the stairs. “Yes. I knew your people must have an artificial way to give yourselves the gene. Even in crossbred human-Lantian populations it is rare. Of your companions who had it, I could tell you were the only one born with it. I could smell it on you.” While John thought, oh, that wasn’t creepy. He sounds like a Goddamn Wraith, Dorane continued, “The Lantians were so confident in their superiority that they let me do what I wished in their great city. I could go where I wanted, copy what I wanted. I stole the secret of a great many of their precious devices, completed my work on my alternate gene serum, and escaped back to my world. But it was too late. Most of my people were dead. I brought a group of survivors here to this planet, to where the Thesians were building this place to the Lantians’ direction. Here I could continue my experiments and try to reverse the physical and mental damage the survivors had suffered.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs. “It looks like you didn’t do so great at that.” John was enjoying pretending lack of interest in a sick kind of way, but he couldn’t help asking, “What happened to the Thesians? Were they locked up in those little cells?”
“I needed a baseline human population to test my attempts to cure the other Koan. I told them I was a Lantian, that I had come to help them finish the repository and to use it to defeat the Wraith.”
“Yeah. That works every time,” John said. They had reached the doorway of the stasis lab. “Open the door.”
“Of course it does. It certainly worked when the Lantians tried it on us,” Dorane agreed. He faced John calmly. “I’ll have to turn the power back on.”
“I hope you can do it from here, for the sake of your kneecaps.”
Dorane nodded toward the stairs. “There is a routing control over there, in the wall.”
“Okay, you know the drill, do it with your mind.”
Dorane snorted amusement. “It’s not that kind of technology,” John said over his shoulder, “Teyla, see if you can get the power turned on. If that’s a trick,” he added to Dorane, “you’re going to get really, really hurt.”
“I didn’t expect you back alive.” Dorane shrugged slightly. “There was no time for more tricks.”
John kept part of his attention on Teyla, as she moved around under the stairs searching for the control with the P-90’s light. Dorane continued, “But the Lantians discovered me. They invaded through the Stargate, destroyed my defenses, took away all my subjects… They left me here, meaning this place to be my prison. Their last act was to leave an explosive device on the Stargate’s dialing apparatus.”
“They must have been really pissed off. Like me.” Finding their repository turned into some kind of nightmare genetics lab and the people they had chosen as builders and custodians for it being used as guinea pigs, the Ancients must have gone completely berserk. Or maybe John was just projecting. Then he remembered the bomb craters outside, and thought maybe not.
“Here it is, Major,” Teyla said, her voice cracking with effort. Crap, something’s wrong, I have got to get her out of here, John thought. The overhead lights flickered and he heard a low-power hum.
Dorane put his hand on the door control, as if waiting for the power to come completely online. He said, “Supplies were very low, so I put myself and the remaining members of the Koan in the stasis containers I had used to secure subjects with particularly interesting results. I set my container to wake me periodicall
y so I could continue the experiments. I did not mean to let the Lantians stop me.” Dorane’s face changed, a look of weary relief passing over his features. “Finally. Your companion is strong. Almost too strong.”
The blow came from behind.
CHAPTER SIX
Plunging through the blue twilight corridors, Rodney estimated he had been on the run for about half an hour. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes, but he had run into another blast door and discovered that, while the lights were out, the main power grid was still functioning. That gave him some options. He had sealed the door behind him and, working quickly, flashlight clutched in his teeth, had reconnected some cabling in the circuit panel to deliver a substantial shock to the next person to touch the door. A Koan shriek muffled by the thick metal was his reward as he bolted away.
Now, using the detector to trace power signatures, he made his way rapidly through a maze of rock-walled passages. About twenty yards ahead of the Koan, he found a maintenance crawlspace roughly carved out of the stone. He managed to cram himself into it and scrambled through and down into another corridor on a lower level. The main lights were still on, which meant that Dorane hadn’t expected any of his visitors to make it down here. Sitting back against the wall, breathing hard, Rodney set the detector to map the power grid around him, which should supply him with a rough idea of the layout of rooms and passages in this area, and watched the alternate screen for life signs.
It would be nice to know what the hell had just happened. Kavanagh is working with the Koan? I knew the man was a jackass, but how the hell does that happen? The whole thing was a nightmare. And speaking of nightmares, if he was the only survivor… Sheppard and Teyla had walked off into a trap, Ford might or might not be alive, the radio was still dead and he had no way to contact the others on the surface for help. Rapidly calculating how much current it would take to blow out the last ZPM in the power grid and wondering how tough it would be to crack this area’s computer system if he could find a working console, he absently thought, Oh yes, dead man sitting here. Very dead. Dead, deader, deadest.
Then he saw two other life signs appear on the edge of the detector’s range, making their way in toward the signs still moving through the upper lab area. Rodney sat up straight, heart pounding with sudden hope. Sheppard and Teyla. The direction was right. Then all the life signs vanished.
They’re dead? Rodney thought, incredulous and horrified. Then he grimaced at himself. Every life sign, even the ones that must be Koan, had disappeared simultaneously. That was the apocryphal Wraith sensor-jammer Dorane mentioned, obviously.
Rodney tried his radio again and snarled in irritation when all he could pick up was static. He had to get back up to Sheppard and Teyla, but the route he had taken down here passed right through the last known position of the highest concentration of Koan. He checked the readings the detector had managed to take before the jammer had cut in, hoping for more options. Hmm, that’s intriguing, he thought, studying a high concentration of power signatures in this lower area. It just might be a lab or other work area. Labs meant tools, and weapons. His kind of weapons. Taking a deep breath, Rodney pushed to his feet.
John hit the floor face first, and everything after that was hazy and vague. He remembered being dragged up off the floor by Koan—he knew they were Koan from the smell, though he couldn’t get his eyes open all the way. Then he was being carried and had a strange upside down view of a dim corridor.
He came to when he was dumped face down onto a cold stone surface. He rolled over in time to get slammed on his back by another Koan. He punched it, feeling bone crunch under his fist in a particularly satisfying way, and it staggered back. But as he tried to push himself up another jumped on him, straddling him and pinning him down. He writhed and shoved, getting a knee up into a vital spot and a hand on the creature’s throat. Its snarl turned into a choked gasp, its claws digging painfully into his shoulders through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. Then somebody else slammed John’s head back into the stone.
He didn’t lose consciousness completely, but he was woozy enough that he couldn’t resist when the Koan moved around, locking his wrists and ankles into manacles. When he finally managed to fight past the throbbing in his head and the scene came back into focus, Teyla was leaning over him. There were two Koan standing behind her impatiently, as if they were waiting for her. And she still had her P-90 slung around her neck.
John blinked and squinted, for a moment thinking he was having a head-injury-induced hallucination. Something is wrong with this picture. Maybe it was him. “Teyla—What—”
She braced her hands on the stone thing he was lying on, shuddered, winced, then choked out, “I am sorry, Major.”
“Sorry for what?” John said. He knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. He felt weirdly pathetic, like they had been dating and she was breaking up with him and he had no idea why. His blurred vision was starting to clear, and he saw that the chamber they were in was high-ceilinged and round, almost like a large well. There were a couple of lights high in the ceiling focused in on the lower part of the well, leaving the top in half-shadow. There was a gallery up there with metal railings; a gate led to a narrow spiral stairway that curved down the wall to reach this lower level.
“I have to do what he says. He has something, a drug, it affects the mind, it forces you to obey him.” Teyla squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “He says you should understand it. It works on humans the way the Ancestors’ gene works on their machines.”
John stared. “Are you serious? Sorry, stupid question.” He tested the chains, putting his full strength, augmented by the adrenaline now pumping freely through his body, against each one, but the links held firmly. They were solidly cemented into the block and probably would have held a Wraith, let alone him. He was missing his tac vest and belt but his shirt, pants, and boots were still present and accounted for, which made the situation marginally less terrifying. He could feel that his sidearm was gone, as well as his knives, probably including the little one that he kept for the can and bottle opener. “He just—What, you can hear him in your head?”
She gritted her teeth. “Yes. It’s like nothing—” She shook her head violently. “I cannot make it stop. I cannot make myself stop.”
John was getting a scary picture of what had happened. Teyla hadn’t been ill up in the lab, she had been fighting off a drug she hadn’t even known she had been given. “Teyla, you’re strong, you’re the strongest person I know, you can fight it.”
She just took a sharp breath, her face strained with effort. “He gave it to Dr. Kavanagh, not long after we first arrived. Dr. Kavanagh did not know he had been infected, and was forced to pass it along to me. But it did not work on me as quickly as it should have. He has now given it to Ford also. It does not work well on those who have the gene or the gene therapy.” For an instant, tight anger replaced the fear and frustration on her face. “He killed Dr. Kolesnikova, I saw her body. He says the Koan have killed Dr. McKay.”
“No.” John’s gut went cold. Rodney’s dead. God, Kolesnikova should never have come here. I can’t believe Rodney’s dead.
“He is going to use us to take the jumper back to Atlantis, he wants to—” Teyla gasped in pain and her brow furrowed with effort. “He says I have to give you this.”
She lifted her hand. In it was a little box of black metal or plastic, hardly bigger than her palm. She turned it and as it caught the light he saw one side was all needles, like an old polio vaccination injector.
“By ‘give’ I guess you don’t mean you’re going to hand it to me.” John’s throat was dry. “Is that the mind-control drug thing?” He jerked involuntarily on the chains, feeling sweat break out all over his body; the thought of having Dorane in his head giving him orders he was helpless to resist…
“No.” Teyla stared down at the device in her hand as if she was holding a venomous snake and was powerless to drop it. “This is the retrovirus he gave the Koan, and the Thesian
s, to make them like the Koan so he could experiment on them. Some of the Thesians also had the Lantian gene—he said this made them all go mad.” She choked on the words, but couldn’t seem to stop herself. “He thought since you believed so strongly in the Lantians’ genetic superiority, you would benefit from the demonstration.”
“Hey, I did not say I believed in the genetic superiority of anybody, that’s stupid Nazi-talk from a bad movie, I said—” He couldn’t remember what he had said. She’s really going to do this. “Teyla, don’t! Teyla, try to fight it!”
“I am trying!” He saw her arm tremble. Her face was set in harsh lines, her jaw clenched with effort. Then she slammed the injector down onto the underside of his bare arm, jerking it away almost immediately.
John yelled, more from surprise than pain. It had been too quick to hurt much; he craned his neck to see the neat square of red marks on his arm. The skin there tingled and burned, and he felt a sudden flush of heat through his triceps.
Teyla stepped back, staring horrified at the injector in her hand. She started to speak and her voice cracked. She managed to say, “He is leaving you here, with the Koan that are too far gone into madness to obey him well. They may release you and let you live, to join them. Or they might eat you. It is their choice.” She turned away, nearly fell across the first steps of the stairway, then stumbled up.
“Teyla!” John yelled after her, but she didn’t pause, didn’t answer, didn’t look back. She reached the top and disappeared into the shadows of the upper gallery.
He swore, wincing as he dropped his head back against the stone. The warmth was already fading from his arm, though he could still feel the sting of the needles. Maybe Dorane was lying, maybe it was nothing. He didn’t feel any different, but he was still half-expecting to die of anaphylactic shock in the next few minutes.