A flash of unbridled anguish tightened Sheppard's features as the implications became clear. "Doc, you know what the limits are for the flight physical."
"Aye. I'm so sorry, John."
The Colonel closed his eyes. A familiar mask of control slid into place within seconds, but its edges were frayed. "Can you get me on my feet to go back to Polrusso?"
Carson hesitated, not sure he'd made himself clear. "Right now, lad, I don't think you'd be able to fly even as a passenger. The worst of the inflammation will subside in time, but only in the event of an evacuation would I want you going through the 'gate. Just rest here for a while. If the pain gets too bad, or you start to feel any nausea, let me know so we can adjust the meds."
With a quick, awkward pat to Sheppard's shoulder, he moved away, sure the other man wouldn't want anyone hovering while he came to terms with the shattering blow he'd just been dealt. Before Carson could leave the room, though, Sheppard spoke up again. "Just for the record, this isn't your fault, either."
Turning back, Carson asked, "Then whose, Colonel?"
Sheppard stared up at the ceiling, his eyes lifeless. "Does it matter?"
That point, at least, Carson was forced to concede. He'd never doubted his decision to join the expedition before this. Maybe in time, the doubts would fade, but right now he wondered if the risks they'd taken had ever been worthwhile.
"Next you must reconnect the tertiary data bus-third crystal from the left."
Teyla followed Dr. Zelenka's instructions precisely, determined to leave no room for error. Across from her, Corletti was standing on one of the rear seats to gain better access to the bank of Ancient crystals. "Dr. Z, which one was the grounding slot again?"
"Top compartment, all the way to the rear," the scientist replied patiently.
"Okay." Corletti tossed a sheepish smile over her shoulder as she reached in with her good arm. "I keep forgetting which ones I'm not supposed to move, and I don't want to fry us."
The Marine didn't show it, of course, but Teyla knew she had to be running on her last reserves of energy. Facing a seemingly endless series of challenges had drained them all, in spirit as well as physically. Still, no one had mentioned the end-of-life ritual since Halting's comment hours ago, and she refused to consider it herself. While they had the jumper, there still was a chance. A brief glance outside told her that it was slim. "What next?"
"That was the last reroute," replied Zelenka. "You may try the start sequence now."
"All right! Let's do this thing." Corletti climbed down and headed for the cockpit. "Powering up" She placed her hand over the panel and slid it forward.
The expected hum of energy never came. The pilot let loose with a string of curses that only ceased when she noticed Jinto listening in from outside the open hatch. "Dr. Z?"
"I have gone through the entire auxiliary power system schematic." Zelenka sounded almost as frustrated as Corletti. "Perhaps there is more damage than we anticipated."
Dropping into her seat with a groan, Corletti pushed back the strands of dark hair that had escaped from her braid. "It's the Ancient equivalent of a battery pack. Maybe it has a loose lead somewhere."
"Teyla!" Halling rushed to the hatch, the others hurriedly gathering their belongings behind him. "The gray now streams down the hills like water. It will be here momentarily." The look in his eyes warned her that they had run out of time. "The ceremony. If not for yourself, then do not deny it to Jinto."
Going to investigate, Teyla came to the rear of the jumper and looked outside. As she suspected, even were they to run, they would soon be outpaced, for the grayness moved like nothing she had ever encountered. It was not alive, and yet it held a malevolence that she could not define. She watched in repugnance as it easily overtook a herd of unfortunate animals attempting to flee before its relentless path. Their squeals of terror brought cries from those on the far side of the jumper who also watched. Within seconds the carnage was assimilated into the amorphous gray substance.
"Teyla?" Halling's voice was insistent. "We must begin now, with or without you."
"You must do what you think is best, but I will not give up so easily." Meeting the eyes of several, she then went back inside to the cockpit.
"Teyla!" She heard Halling's footsteps inside the jumper, and then felt his hand on her shoulder. "You need this, perhaps more than we, to make peace with yourself. There is no more time."
She turned to confront him. The plea in his eyes, Teyla knew, was out of concern for her, and yet for some reason it felt wrong. Before her stood a man she had known all of her life, calm in the face of impending death, preparing himself for that final, inevitable journey. Behind her in the pilot's seat, Lieutenant Corletti was equally calm, but determinedly refusing to give up. The Marine would not abandon her efforts until the grayness swept over her.
In that brief moment, Teyla understood that the genes bequeathed to her by generations long past, generations before the Wraith had even become as they were, had traveled to a distant galaxy in the bodies of the Ancestors and bred a world of humans who refused to surrender in the face of adversity. Neither Corletti nor Hailing was right or wrong, but Teyla knew now that a part of her was from both worlds. The ritual was a good and necessary ceremony-but it was one that should only be undertaken by those who were ready to die.
Glancing firstly through the rear hatch and then the windshield, she saw that the gray had now surrounded their elevated position on a hillock. Teyla turned her attention to the power unit and said, "And I am not yet ready to die." When Corletti tossed her a grim look, she added, "Perhaps a variation on the procedure you employed earlier?" She directed a well-placed kick into the side of the unit. The jumper hummed to life.
"Oo-rah!" Corletti beamed at her. "You just earned yourself an honorary commission as a Marine."
Dashing to the hatch, Teyla beckoned the rest of the group inside. The jumper soon filled with refugees, far more than she had ever seen the craft hold, for the last of her people, the two she had thought lost to the river the previous night, had finally staggered into the camp. The gray death pursued them relentlessly, drawing ever nearer as everyone piled inside. As soon as the last person stepped aboard, Corletti yanked the jumper off the ground, not waiting for the hatch to fully close. Just before it sealed, Teyla caught a chilling glimpse of a filament of gray only a body length away.
"Atlantis, Jumper Three is airborne," Corletti reported, her tone a mixture of relief and exuberance.
"Good work, very good work. And your jumper-starting secret is safe with me." There was a hint of a smile in Zelenka's voice, but it soon faded. "I only wish I could tell you to come home."
"It's okay, Dr. Z. We can outrun this crap for a while"
This time Teyla was sure the confidence in the young woman's voice rang of false bravado, but it had an effect on Halling and the others, for there was no more talk of rituals.
"I must return to Polrusso now," Zelenka informed them. "When I come back, I will have the means to stop this monstrous thing."
"We'll hold you to that. Safe trip."
The jumper climbed, and Teyla looked through the windshield at the astonishing sight below. The grayness had spread outward from its starting place up in the mountains, leveling everything in its path. It now flowed like water through and over the riverbanks, perhaps using the speed of the river itself to facilitate its progress. At the rate it now traveled the planet would surely be overwhelmed in days.
"Lieutenant!" Zelenka's animated voice broke in again, startling them. A few rapid words about halting the dialing sequence were spoken to someone off-radio, and then he was back. "Please, take a reading of the gray goo. Of what exactly is it made-not just the chemical breakdown, but the molecular structure?"
"Stand by." Calling up the HUD, Corletti watched a list of options scroll across the screen and struggled to manipulate the sensors with only her uninjured hand. After a few seconds the results came up on the screen. "Okay, I've got a mat
erial analysis, but it's Greek to me. Can I transmit it to you somehow?"
"Yes, yes. I am in Jumper Two, preparing to leave, but I have just had an idea." He rattled off a series of short instructions, and Corletti obeyed. Another minute passed before they heard an exul tant shout in his native language. "I believe it can be done!"
"What can be done?"
"Recalibration of the jumper's shield. Much like we calibrated it to repel water while on the sea floor, we can attempt to configure it to repel gray goo."
"Will that allow us to reach Atlantis?" Teyla asked.
"If I am right, Atlantis's shield can also be programmed to match the jumper's. Then you should be allowed to pass through without bringing any undesirables with you."
The survivors behind her broke into a hopeful murmur, loud enough that Corletti had to raise her voice. "All right, what do we need to do?"
"Wait one minute, please." Another pause, punctuated by a few hushed, unintelligible mutterings. "Ali, now. Please activate the shield. I will talk you through it."
With Zelenka's guidance, Corletti made the necessary adjustments. "Okay, that's it," the Marine announced at last. "Now how do we know if it's working?"
The response was subdued. "I can think of only one way."
Peering down at the mass of writhing gray below the jumper, Corletti glanced over at Teyla, looking for confirmation. Although her stomach lurched at the prospect of what was to come, Teyla turned in her seat to face Halling and the others. She did not have the right to endanger their lives, especially as she had denied them the ritual.
Halling offered her a tentative smile. "You must do what is necessary." Drawing Jinto closer to him, he nodded once, briefly, and turned his gaze to his son. "I love you."
At that moment, Teyla could not have been more proud to call herself an Athosian.
Corletti put the craft into a shallow descent and drew in a long breath. They would no doubt be dead before much longer in any case, and at the very least, a failure here would be swift.
Jumper Three settled onto a mass of gray goo-and was immediately engulfed by darkness.
onsciousness returned slowly, many of its usual signs jumbled or missing. He heard nothing and saw only blackness. There was no pain, which was strange because he had a distinct recollection of an extremely unpleasant toothache. A few seconds passed before other memories coalesced in his mind: the sandstorm closing in on him with a predatory howl-
Heart racing, Rodney jerked halfway off the bed. His bandaged hands were numb and failed to support him, but someone was immediately there, easing him back down into soft pillows. A gentle hand stroked his forehead, and a soothing, melodic voice broke through the hazy panic that had begun to set in. "Rest and do not fear. You are safe."
The human body, Carson had told him on several occasions, cannot remember pain. Well, Carson was full of it. The pain Rodney had recently endured would be imprinted on his psyche for all time. He was certain he'd felt his eyeballs burst, felt the skin being ripped away from his face. He remembered terror and agony and... And yet he was here, his skin whole and warm under the nurse's touch. She smelled of honey and jasmine, and the comfort she offered felt so incredibly pure. He found his pulse slowing and the memory of that shocking trauma fading. The drugs, no doubt. "Is Carson here?"
"I do not know of Carson."
All right, not a nurse. He was sure he would have remembered such a voice if he'd ever heard it on Atlantis. For some reason that didn't bother Rodney as much as he might have expected.
"You are in my home on Polrusso," the voice continued. "I am called Turpi."
Forgetting the bandages, Rodney lifted a hand to his eyes, and succeeded in knocking bound fingers clumsily against his face. "Why is it so dark?"
The woman -Turpi-caught his hand and lowered it to his chest. "Your eyesight will recover," she assured him, holding his arm in a loose grasp while her other hand still lay against his face. "But the damage was great, and it will take time for you to heal. You must leave the bandages in place for several days. If you remove them too soon you will lose your sight permanently."
"Permanently?" He should have been monumentally freaked out by that warning. Somehow, he wasn't. Which was worrying in itself, but even that argument failed to take root, and he found himself simply... accepting.
"Lie still. You have much healing yet to do "
"Wait." He wasn't sure why he'd said that. She'd made no move to step away, but even the idea of her leaving frightened him. Probably because you can't see, genius. "The others-the people traveling with me. Where are they?"
"I know of no others. They may still be in the village near the Stargate "
"We're not there now?"
"We live in a different village. It is some distance away."
Turpi's hand moved up and down his arm. The motion was soothing, but unusually dulled. "Why can't I feel my hands?" The flood of panic that he knew he should be experiencing refused, for whatever reason, to make itself known.
"Like much of your body they were badly burned. Your clothes and whatever possessions you had were taken by the sand. My father found you struggling and wrapped you in robes to protect you. He could not see the path to the cliff-dwellers' village, so he took you inland away from the storm."
As she spoke an image became sharper in his mind. He recalled a rider in swirling black robes, face shielded from the sand and hidden from view. The rider had been astride a white animal-a stallion, maybe, although it seemed to feature some traits that he'd seen in the llama-like village animals. The whole thing had a very Lawrence of Arabia feel to it, and although the image wasn't entirely clear, it reassured him nonetheless. If he'd seen this man-and he knew he had-then his eyes couldn't have been destroyed after all.
But he'd known that already, hadn't he? Turpi had promised that he'd regain his sight, and he knew on an instinctual level that he could trust her word. Her presence calmed him immeasurably, her hand on his cheek as soft as a newborn's. "We will get word to your friends when the storm abates. Rest, and heal. All will be right."
And it would. He remembered the crisis on Atlantis, but it seemed remote. They would be all right without him for a while longer. Secure, Rodney slid back into sleep.
When Carson first heard the discussion between Zelenka's and Teyla's jumpers over the com, he considered taking his earpiece out. He wasn't sure he could bear yet another loss if the shield modification failed. Looking across the crowded infirmary, he found Sheppard listening intently. A couple of hours of rest and medication had allowed the Colonel to sit up with only minor dizziness, and now he was fully focused on his teammate's plight.
Many of the woundedAthosians and sand victims who filled the infirmary were stealing occasional glances in Sheppard's direction, realizing that something important was going on. Changing tack, Carson went over to Atlantis's military commander. "Colonel."
He had to repeat the call before Sheppard glanced up. Carson mentally slapped himself. Of course Sheppard would have the earpiece in his undamaged ear, leaving him with only limited ability to hear the room around him. "Colonel, I think everyone would like to know what's happening with the jumper," Carson said, careful to enunciate. "It will have a large effect on our actions once the nanites reach the city"
Sheppard considered for a moment, then touched his earpiece. "Elizabeth, can you put this on the citywide channel?"
A second later, Carson heard the com chatter echoing from the PA system rather than through his earpiece. The Athosians notice ably straightened upon hearing Teyla's voice over the speakers, and Sheppard nodded, taking his earpiece out. "Good call, Doc"
Lieutenant Corletti was the first to report on the jumper's surroundings. "Well, um, it's dark. And gray."
"That's it?" asked Elizabeth.
With a faint smirk, Sheppard commented, "Rodney would have her head on a platter for that one."
Carson tried to smile in response, but couldn't quite manage it. Though he believed there was al
most no chance that Rodney could still be alive, it was a viewpoint the Colonel evidently didn't share, and Carson feared that acceptance would not come easily if no evidence of Rodney's fate was ever found.
"Now that the inertial dampeners are functioning again, I have no sense of our passage forward," Teyla added, "no motion at all. Beyond our shield it is just... gray."
"Can you send me another material analysis?" Zelenka asked from inside Jumper Two, about to depart for Polrusso. Several seconds passed before he replied, "Good. Dr. Weir, were they transmitted to the control room as well?"
"They were. Can you recalibrate the city shield to match that of Jumper Three?"
"I am sending you the procedure now. This is all that will be necessary to let Jumper Three through, and it will minimize the amount of energy required to maintain the city shield until the ZPMs from Polrusso are available."
"We're on it," said Elizabeth. "Good luck, Jumper Two. Be safe."
Carson watched Sheppard's expression flatten slightly as the sound of the 'gate activation signaled the departure of Zelenka and Lome. "They're big boys and girls," he reassured the Colonel. "You can afford to let them out to play without your supervision every once in a while" From the way Sheppard's eyes went cold, it became clear that the comment was a gross miscalculation. "Too soon?"
Sheppard suddenly appeared to find the far wall worthy of study. "Just a little."
An apology on his lips, Carson was interrupted by another report from Teyla. "We are now free of the gray, and have set a course for Atlantis."
The Athosians scattered throughout the infirmary reacted with noticeable relief. "We're very glad to hear it, Jumper Three," said Elizabeth. "How does the situation look out there?"
"The sky is no longer as clear as it was a short while ago. There appear to be more storm clouds gathering, though they look different ... an unnatural hue. I believe-"
"The goo's airborne," Corletti announced shortly.
Sheppard immediately looked to Carson. "Were we expecting that?"
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