Entanglement SGA 6
Author: Martha Wells
Date: 2007-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Speculative Fiction
Description: Leap of faith... When Dr. Rodney McKay unlocks an Ancient mystery on a distant moon, he discovers a terrifying threat to the Pegasus galaxy. Determined to disable the device before it's discovered by the Wraith, Colonel John Sheppard and his team navigate the treacherous ruins of an Ancient outpost. But attempts to destroy the technology are complicated by the arrival of a stranger -- a stranger who can't be trusted, a stranger who needs the Ancient device to return home. Cut off from backup, under attack from the Wraith, and with the future of the universe hanging in the balance, Sheppard's t
Publisher: Fandemonium Ltd

ENTANGLEMENT

The j um per spun sideway s and then end over end. The inertial dam peners didn’t go out, but the view flipped crazily in the port, the ground changing places with the sky. John heard the collective gasp, but the rum ble was already dy ing away. He
felt the y oke ease up and brought them sm oothly out of the spin, taking them up and away into the upper atm osphere.

John let his breath out, feeling sweat break out all over his body. He looked back at the others. Tey la was gripping the arm s of her chair, Rodney ‘s hands had left perm anent dents in John’s shoulders, Zelenka looked faint and was holding hands with a
very pale Miko. Ronon j ust looked im pressed, but he was gripping the hatchway tightly . John said, “Every body okay ?”

“We were upside down,” Zelenka said weakly . Miko patted his arm .

“I think we are well.” Tey la looked up at Rodney , her brow furrowed in concern. “What was that?”

John twisted around to see that Rodney ‘s face was white with shock. Rodney ‘s throat worked and he said, “It’s unstable. That sensor spike, right before the blast-

“It’s not a Stargate.”

Miko stared at him blankly , then gasped in horror. Zelenka took a sharp breath, shaking his head, say ing, “No, no, Rodney , it cannot be.”

ENTANGLEMENT

MARTHA WELLS

CHAPTER ONE
ohn Sheppard lowered the binoculars. Even now that he had had a few day s to get used to it, this view was still incredible.

They were on a m oon that orbited a gas giant, and the shape of the huge planet was alway s visible in the sky , banded with the red-brown clouds of perpetual storm s. It m ade a brilliant backdrop for the Ancient ruined city spread across the plateau.

The city went on for m iles, a roofless m aze of tum bled walls and pillars of indigo stone, with interconnected room s, halls, dry fountains and pools, open courts. It stood above a barren desert plain, and the strong cool wind carried sheets of dust that washed up against the city ‘s walls in continual waves. It was alien and exotic and beautiful; every thing that m ade stepping through a Stargate worthwhile. John said wearily , “There’s got to be som ething here besides rocks.”

“No. No, there really doesn’t.” Rodney McKay clim bed up the last few steps to j oin him on the terrace, looking over the acres of rubble-filled ruins with a grim ace. “Rather like Charlie Brown at Halloween,” he added sourly , folding his arm s.

John let his breath out, resigned. “Did y ou figure out what-”

“No.”

“Why the readings were-”

“No.”

“Or the-”

“No.”

John stared at him , depending on his sunglasses to convey the full depth of the extent to which he really wasn’t in the m ood. Rodney , im pervious to hints, dem anded, “What?”

John tucked the binoculars back into the pocket of his tac vest deliberately, and did not push Rodney off the platform . It hadn’t been a good day, or a good six day s. One of the m ost prom ising Ancient sites they had found in the entire tim e the
expedition had been in the Pegasus Galaxy was turning out to be a huge dud. May be the biggest dud since that intriguing room on the twentieth level of the southeast tower ofAtlantis had turned out to be for m aking fruit ripen really fast and not recharging the Zero Point Modules. The only saving grace was that nothing here had tried to kill them y et.

The Stargate address had com e out of the Ancient database in Atlantis, and the view of the ruined city on the MALP’s fuzzy cam era had m ade the entire science team dizzy with excitem ent. John’s `gate team had done a survey by j um per a week
ago, and the extent of the ruins and the energy signatures Rodney had been able to pick up had seem ed to confirm that this was a spectacular find. John had thought they had hit the j ackpot here, that they were going to turn up m ore Ancient tech than they knew what to do with and m ay be even a second ZPM. The first one that the relief m ission from Earth had brought had saved their asses, allowing them to raise the city ‘s shields and defend against a hiveship fleet, but it had to be used sparingly .

Since then, the team ‘s enthusiasm level had dropped drastically. The energy readings that had seem ed so encouraging at first j ust becam e scattered and erratic the further they got into the ruins. Even bringing in a team of archeologists and m ore

Ancient technology experts from Rodney ‘s lab hadn’t helped. The extra personnel had com e up with various way s to boost the sensors and m ade elaborate attem pts to triangulate the source of the energy , all with no luck.

Rodney squinted up at the planet filling the sky , the big red swirling cloud of a storm dom inating it now. “We’re com ing up on the eclipse,” he pointed out.

John took a last look around at the em pty city. “I know.” He started down the battered stone steps that wound down through this square tower. Technically it was night right now; this side of the m oon had a night phase when its orbit took it between the gas giant and the sun, but due to the reflected light from the planet, it wasn’t so m uch dark as slightly overcast. The only tim e it actually got dark was when the m oon’s rotation took it around the far side of the planet, and John needed to finish his check of their security points and patrols before then.

The steps wound down a central colum n to the ground level, to the walkway s between the crum bled structures. A ruined city of this size, with its narrow streets and overhanging structures, should have felt oppressive. But the gas giant provided a
constant ever-changing show, and the translucent quality of the blue stone brought light down to even these lowest levels.

They hadn’t found any signs of recent hum an habitation here, which at least m eant that the Wraith were unlikely to visit this m oon any tim e soon. That was im portant right now, and not j ust in the usual sense of not being eaten; the Wraith currently believed that Atlantis had destroy ed itself in a nuclear blast and the expedition had to keep it that way .

In the open court at the bottom of the steps, they m et Tey la, who was walking her patrol circuit. “Any trouble?” John asked dutifully .

Tey la tended to take m ost situations with tradem ark Athosian equanim ity, but from the tired edge to her expression, John could tell she was bored out of her skull, too. She said wearily, “At lunch there was a sm all altercation over rations am ong Dr.

Chandar’s technical assistants.”

Rodney snorted. “Spoiled bastards. I did without coffee for six m onths last y ear.”

John gave him a look. “We know. We were there.” He asked Tey la, “What rations?”

“The packages of snack cakes. Apparently there are only a sm all num ber left, and Petersen was accused of taking two. They would not stop arguing, so I took the disputed package and ate it m y self. I confiscated the rem ainder from the supplies and concealed them under the em ergency m edical kit in Jum per One. Dr. Beckett assisted m e so I gave him several.” She frowned a little. “I fear now that extrem e annoy ance led m e to overreact.”

John regarded her solem nly . “Did y ou punch any body ?” He thought in her position he would possibly have punched som ebody .

Tey la shook her head regretfully . “I did not.”

“Then y ou’re fine.” And Jum per One was full of the confiscated goods, so he figured there wasn’t a downside.

Tey la accepted that with a nod. She looked at Rodney , hesitated, and added, “I don’t suppose y ou have found-”

“No, we haven’t found a dam n thing!” Rodney snarled, teeth gritted. He turned abruptly , heading up the street.

John lifted a brow, watching him stalk away . “I think he’s starting to take this personally .”

Tey la’s m outh quirked. “And we are surprised by that?”

“Not really ,” John adm itted.

Tey la continued her patrol. John didn’t have any thing better to do for the next few m inutes since he had his security check routine tim ed to the last second by now, so he followed Rodney .

The big building at the end of the street was m ostly intact, with a few soaring spires still stretching toward the sky. The entranceway with triple archway s and heavy doors still in place had been a tem pting distraction, until they discovered that there was nothing inside except dust. Pulling his sunglasses off, John caught up with Rodney at the little archway to one side and the steps that led down.

The stairs were wide and spiraled down around a central colum n, and were lit by an array of battery lam ps. They led to a m ostly open room , with em pty corridors leading off from each wall. Like every thing else here, it was m ade of the sm ooth
blue stone, glossy and reflective where it wasn’t m arred by cracks or gouges where Ancient equipm ent had been rem oved when the city was abandoned. In the center was pretty m uch the only thing they had found so far: a circular bank of consoles set
into stone pedestals. There were side panels that opened to reveal a confusing m ass of cry stal and clear conduit, the usual m aterials that the Ancients used. Right now it was hooked up to half a dozen laptops, and a large collection of portable and not-so-portable m onitoring equipm ent.

On the third day of the m ission, when they had tracked the interm ittent power signatures to this room , Rodney and the other m em bers of the Ancient Technology team had gone nuts, certain it was a m aj or find. But the three m em bers of the
archeology team hadn’t been enthusiastic. “It is either very , very dangerous or very , very useless,” Dr. Baroukel had said, study ing it grim ly .

So far it was the second option all the way .

Now Radek Zelenka glanced up from an array of laptops spread out on a folding table, wiping sweat off his brow wearily . “Hello, Colonel, Rodney .” He waved around at their equipm ent. “Still nothing.”

Dr. Chandar, tinkering with the connections of one of the laptops, added, “There haven’t been any new fluctuations in the signature, so we haven’t been able to test the new triangulation m ethod.” He was one of the new scientists who had com e out on the Daedalus, and this was his first offworld m ission. Unlike the science team veterans who had com e to Atlantis with the original expedition, the new people had never been through an attack by a hiveship fleet, never seen their friends turned into
em pty husks by Wraith, never lived for m onths with the fact that they were out here on their own and m ight never see Earth again. Even now that the Wraith thought Atlantis had self-destructed, and the Daedalus ran regular support and supply m issions between galaxies every few m onths, this still wasn’t a safe m ission, and John preferred to go offworld with expedition veterans, people who knew that in their bones. Just because nothing had tried to kill them y et in this apparently em pty city on this uninhabited m oon, didn’t m ean it wouldn’t happen.

“Yes, I actually didn’t need the word `nothing’ translated.” Rodney sourly ey ed Chandar, the equipm ent, the cham ber, and the scientists and techs study ing the m onitors. “I wasn’t really expecting any thing to have changed in the past half hour.”

Miko Kusanagi, y oung, Asian, with m ost of her face dom inated by coke-bottle glasses, looked up from her laptop, waving shy ly at Rodney . “Dr. McKay , I have the new analy sis of the readings-”

“Right, fine, y es.” Rodney stam ped over to peer at her screen. “Not that I suppose it’s any different from the old analy sis.” This was Dr. Kusanagi’s first tim e offworld, though John wasn’t too worried about her survival skills. She had been with the expedition from the beginning, and had survived a y ear in Rodney ‘s lab, so she had to be m uch tougher than she looked.

John wandered over to the Ancient consoles, looking at the cry stals set in the sm ooth m etal surfaces. The archeology team had pointed out the places where other devices had been attached, the spots on the floor where they thought other equipm ent, long since rem oved, had once stood. “So we still don’t have a clue, huh?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Chandar said earnestly , “I still think it’s a m onitoring device of som e sort.” He threw Rodney a wary look. “McKay , I know y ou and Zelenka do not agree-”

Zelenka leaned back in his chair, and shrugged am iably . “We would agree perfectly , if we could find som e hint of what it could be m onitoring.”

Rodney waved a hand in weary resignation. “Yes, if Archeology would get off their collective asses and find som ething-any thing.”

John knew Archeology had to be bitching j ust as hard about Ancient Tech, but at least they had the courtesy to keep it am ong them selves. In the interest of fairness and not j ust to relieve boredom by m essing with Rodney, he pointed out,

“Archeology wants y ou to get off y our ass and find the location of the power source, so they know where to dig.”

“Yes, thank y ou, Colonel Obvious, I’m aware of that,” Rodney said with acid em phasis, gesturing so sharply he nearly hit Miko in the head. With the ease of long practice, Miko leaned out of the danger zone. “If y ou have any other earth-shaking revelations-”

Zelenka interrupted, “But Dr. Corrigan has told m e that he now believes m ost of this installation was dism antled at the sam e tim e as the city was abandoned. You would think that the Ancients would also have rem oved the power source, whatever it
was, but-”

“But som ething keeps doing that!” Rodney shouted, stabbing an angry finger at the console.

There wasn’t a big light show or any thing else im pressive, j ust a faint glow from the cry stals and a low bass hum that John could feel in his back teeth. But every laptop in the room went crazy, beeping, flashing, display ing rapidly -scrolling screens of data. Rodney snapped, “Move.” Miko scram bled out of the way , and Rodney sat down at her m onitor as the others bolted frantically around the room .

Used to this by now, John sm othered a y awn and checked his watch. During the eclipse they shut down operations every where but here, since the My stery Power Source Room needed constant attention in case it did som ething explicable.

“Rodney , y ou com ing or stay ing?”

Rodney waved a hand vaguely , and John correctly interpreted that as a dism issal.

John finished his pre-eclipse security check, and in the wider passage that led to the Stargate platform , he ran into Carson Beckett and a couple of the Marines assigned to help him . All three m en were covered with dust and blue sm udges, and they
sm elled a little like rotting lettuce. The two Marines looked sour and Beckett looked blissfully happy . “How’s it going?” John asked him . “Find som e good fungi?”

“Ay e, we’ve been very successful,” Beckett said, contentedly patting the specim en case slung over his shoulder. “There’s a lovely new species under that big slab Archeology is digging out.”

Beckett was the only one happy with this m oon. The Ancient database had hinted that there were som e species of fungi here that had been used to m ake som e of the m edicines m entioned in the Ancient m edical records, and apparently it had been
right. Beckett checked his watch, adding, “They ‘ve found what m ight be a sewer entrance a couple of streets over. I’m going to take a look down there first thing after the eclipse.”

“Great.” The two Marines looked a little desperate, and John m ade a m ental note to switch them out and let som ebody else have a turn.

They parted way s and John headed up the passage, clim bing the sm ooth steps to the Stargate platform .

Thègate stood on a flat-topped py ram id in the exact center of the ruins. It had the best vantage point in the city, with a good view of the only open ground with enough space to land the puddlej um pers, a large roofless enclosure nearly the size of a
football field that m ight once have been an arena or theater.

The naquadah ring of the Stargate gleam ed faintly in the reflected light from the gas giant. Off to one side, out of the path of an initiating worm hole, was the MALP they had first used to test the address. Sitting on the platform and leaning back
against the MALP was Ronon Dex.

“How’s it going?” John said, and sat down on the sunwarm ed stone.

Ronon shrugged slightly , apparently having learned by now that that was a question that didn’t necessarily need an answer.

It was helpful that Ronon had volunteered for the m ost boring guard duty post, but after seven y ears of being hunted for sport by the Wraith, John got the idea that he found it restful. It wasn’t a bad post; it was quiet, the gas giant and its satellites put on a continual show in the sky , people stopped by occasionally , and there were regular breaks for m eals and sleep.

And an Ancient ruin, abandoned for ten thousand y ears, was a far cry from a hum an city destroy ed by a Wraith culling, with burned ruins and bom b craters where science centers or weapons em placem ents had once stood, desiccated corpses in
the streets and recently orphaned children scrounging for food.

John leaned back, propping him self up on his elbows, tilting his head back to catch the last of the failing sun. “You want to be relieved?”

Ronon shook his head. It was too dark during the eclipse to m ake this post practical; they would depend on the life signs detectors and the instrum ents in the three j um pers for a warning of any thing approaching. Instead of taking a break during the
dark period, Ronon usually patrolled with the Marines on shift, m aking a circuit around the cam p.

They sat there in silence for a tim e, then Ronon stirred a little and asked, “They find out why the Ancestors put this here y et?”

“Nope.”

Ronon nodded, unsurprised. “Think they will?”

John started to give him the sam e answer, but he had a weird feeling, so he j ust said, “You never can tell.”

John was used to scientists having conversations while he was try ing to sleep. On m issions that required long hours in the j um pers or cam ping on alien planets, it was im possible to avoid. Unfam iliar noises would wake him instantly and have him
reaching for his pistol, but fam iliar voices didn’t disturb him , and if they did, the conversations were usually easy to tune out. In this cam p site, where the scientists were sleeping in the j um pers and John, Tey la, and the off-duty Marines had put their sleeping bags near the open ram ps, it was unavoidable. This particular conversation seem ed to be about energy signatures, and distances, and triangulation, but it also seem ed to be taking place at very close range. Unusually close range. John opened his ey es to see Rodney and Zelenka in the faint light from the dim m ed battery lam p. They were crouched over him on opposite sides of his sleeping bag.

Zelenka was say ing intently , “-if the source is interm ittent, and the calculations are correct-”

“Of course the calculations are correct!” Rodney broke in. “This could explain-”

“What the hell?” John asked evenly .

Rodney waved im patiently for him to shut up. “-all our anom alous readings-”

“-every thing that has puzzled us, the consistency of the signal y et the inability to determ ine direction-” Zelenka waved his hands excitedly .

“Exactly !” Rodney finished. He looked down at John. “Now what did y ou want?”

“I want y ou to get off m e,” John said, and thought he sounded very reasonable under the circum stances.

“The j um per,” Zelenka rem inded Rodney . “We need y ou to take us up in the j um per,” he explained to John. “Quickly , before we lose signal.”

“Right, right, the j um per,” Rodney agreed. He prodded John in the side im patiently . “What are y ou waiting for?”

“I’ll give y ou a thirty -second head start,” John prom ised him . “And I won’t use the P-90.”

“What the hell is wrong with y ou?” Rodney dem anded, outraged. “We’ve been looking for this energy source for day s, and y ou want to-”

“Wait, what?” John pushed him self upright, fully awake now. “You found it?”

“The cry stals beneath the central com plex, the ones we thought were drained,” Zelenka tried to explain, “they are a relay , the source is interm ittent-”

“It’s on the other m oon,” Rodney hissed, prodding John again. “Now will y ou get up and get the dam n j um per ready ?”

“Why didn’t y ou say so?” John asked him , reaching for his tac vest and gun belt.

“I will com e along as well,” Tey la’s voice said from the next sleeping bag over. “I am quite awake now.”

“Im m ediately ” wasn’t possible, no m atter how loud and im perative Rodney got. The j um pers only required a brief pre-flight, but there was a rule on all offworld m issions that any thing essential, or that could be identifiable as Atlantean if found by the Wraith, had to be stored onboard when not in use, so it wouldn’t have to be abandoned in an em ergency lift-off. Since that described pretty m uch every thing they had here, that m eant there were several cases of equipm ent and tools that had to be
shifted out of Jum per One to Jum pers Two and Three, in case it was needed while they were gone. The five cranky scientists sleeping in Jum per One also had to be shifted to Jum pers Two and Three to j oin the equally cranky scientists sleeping there. It all took under twenty m inutes, despite Rodney ‘s insistence that this was an em ergency and they should j ust take off with the equipm ent and extra passengers aboard.

Rodney had wanted Zelenka, Chandar, and Kusanagi to accom pany them , but Chandar had volunteered to stay here and m onitor the device on this end, rather than leave it to the techs. John felt com pelled to point out, “Kusanagi and Zelenka don’t
have m uch offworld tim e. And it was hard enough to get him to com e here.” This was only Zelenka’s second off-world m ission, and he wasn’t exactly a natural at it. The first one had been a brief foray to a culled planet, to try to get Rodney and Lieutenant Cadm an out of the storage buffer of a downed Wraith dart. It hadn’t exactly gone well.

Rodney waved the obj ection away . “Yes, I know. But he needs to get over it, and if Kusanagi’s going to advance, she needs field experience.” He hesitated uneasily , rubbing his hands together. “Are y ou thinking about Irina?”

And about every other scientist John had taken through a Stargate and not brought back. “You’re not?”

“We all know what the risks are.” Rodney looked away , grim acing. Just then, Ronon cam e walking down the ram p with a crate, and Rodney j erked his head toward him . “And speaking of which, why are we bringing him ?”

“Because he needs m ore m ission experience if he’s going to be on the team .” John knew Rodney was still holding the whole “hanging upside down from a tree” thing against Ronon. It was hardly surprising, since John had stolen a handful of Rodney ‘s popcorn ration once last y ear, and Rodney was still holding that against him .

Rodney said pointedly , “Nobody thinks that’s a good idea but y ou.”

“I think it is a good idea,” Tey la said, calm ly sorting through her pack.

“We’re not voting,” Rodney told her. “We-”

“That’s right, we’re not,” John cut him off. What they were really arguing about wasn’t bringing in Ronon, but replacing Ford, and he didn’t want to hear about it. It had been hard enough to m ake the decision; he wasn’t going to reconsider it now.

John had put off adding a fourth m em ber to their team , put off even thinking about it, about any thing but getting Ford back. Until they had found him on P3M-736, out of his head from the enzy m e, and John had watched him j um p into a Wraith
culling beam .

There hadn’t been a lot of options to replace him at first; John had wanted to m ake certain that all the team s had at least one, preferably two, Atlantean veterans to go along with the new personnel, and now they were all assigned and working
together com fortably. And he j ust hadn’t wanted to put a shiny new Marine in Ford’s place. Ford had been y oung, but he hadn’t been inexperienced, and it still hadn’t saved him . Ronon had survived seven y ears running from the Wraith with no support
network whatsoever; he was ideal for àgate team , if they could j ust teach him how to work and play well with others again. “We’re bringing Ronon,” John said, and Rodney flung his arm s in the air and stalked off.

John also took the tim e to arrange a check-in schedule with Maj or Lorne. “Think y ou can handle the excitem ent?” John asked.

“Yes, sir,” Lorne said, his expression wry in the light from the battery lam ps. Lorne was Air Force and John’s newly assigned 21C, and John had been a little surprised that he was fitting in so well on Atlantis. But then Lorne had been in the SGC for a few y ears, and was probably used to the crazier aspects of offplanet life. He also had the Ancient gene, so he could fly the puddlej um pers if necessary . Lorne added, “If the scientists start fighting again, I’ll j ust use the Wraith stunners.”

“Fire a warning shot first,” John told him . After that, they were ready to leave.

“Finally !” Rodney snarled as the j um per lifted off. He was in the left hand j um p seat, connecting his laptop into the j um per’s sy stem s. “If we lose this trace-”

“Did y ou lose it?” John asked, guiding the j um per rapidly up through the dark sky , the sensor im age of the gas giant outlined by the holographic Heads Up Display .

“No, but-”

“Then shut up.”

“Every one m oved as quickly as possible,” Tey la pointed out from the co-pilot’s chair, her tone placating. She had called the shotgun seat before Rodney , which John suspected was also pissing him off.

“How long will it take to get there?” Zelenka asked warily from the other j um p seat. Miko was sitting in the back with Ronon. She seem ed m ore excited than nervous, while Zelenka seem ed m ostly nervous.

The HUD popped up a proj ected ETA in response to John’s thought. John m entally converted the figures from Ancient. “About forty -five m inutes, give or take.”

Rodney nodded, his m outh set in a grim line. “I j ust hope the signatures are still traceable by then.”

John rolled his ey es. “Why don’t y ou get the cakes out from under the m edical kit?”

Zelenka looked up, startled. “Is that where they are? I thought they had run out.”

“Chandar’s techs were eating them ,” Rodney explained darkly , standing up to head into the back.

“Bastards,” Zelenka m uttered.

The other m oon looked red from orbit. When John took the j um per down toward the surface, following the energy signature, they skim m ed over a wide open plain with pink and brown soil studded with patches of tall grass and scrubby bushes. The
light had an odd quality ; bright but tinted by the gas giant filling the sky , unchangeable and undim m ed by the few wispy clouds.

“The j um per’s detecting a low oxy gen content in the atm osphere,” Rodney said, sounding preoccupied. “The levels vary between twelve and fifteen percent. Being out on the surface unprotected would be like try ing to j og around the top of Mount Everest.” He looked up, his m outh twisted. “That’s odd.”

“Why is that odd?” Ronon asked, standing to look through the cabin doorway .

Miko, sitting on the floor between the two j um p seats with her laptop, pushed back her glasses to look up at him . “We’ve never found an Ancient occupation site on a planet or m oon that couldn’t support hum an life.”

“I think perhaps what atm osphere is there is artificial,” Zelenka said, study ing his own laptop.

Tey la twisted around in her seat, startled. “That is possible?”

“Very m uch so, with Ancients’ level of technology,” Zelenka assured her. “If it was done here, there was perhaps not enough plant life and bodies of water to sustain the atm osphere, without whatever m echanism that supplied or created it. Since this m oon was abandoned, the atm osphere would have gradually leaked away , until it reached a stable level that the surface could support.”

“It’s a distinct possibility,” Rodney added, study ing his own data. “The j um per’s orbital scan picked up few open bodies of water, m inim al plant life, sm all am ounts of ice at the poles, but no sizable life signs, which m eans no hum ans, no aliens, no large fauna-”

“No Wraith,” John put in, though he wasn’t sorry to hear about the lack of large fauna, either. Since the planet with the thing that looked a lot like a Ty rannosaurus Rex, he was sensitive on that point.

“No Wraith, alway s a plus,” Rodney agreed. He looked up, wide-ey ed. “Oh, oh, oh, here we go.”

The j um per’s HUD was picking up a group of m anm ade structures, standing out against the flat terrain. Despite the lack of life signs, John kept the j um per cloaked.

As they drew nearer, John slowed the j um per, bringing it down for a closer look. There were several large low buildings, with flattened dom es, surrounded by stretches of pavem ent that were m ostly covered by sand. One dom e was partially open,
showing that at som e point it had been able to retract, allowing access to the building for air or space craft. “I think we found the spaceport,” John said, and had to think, I love it when I get to say things like that.

Rodney was on his feet, gripping the back of John’s seat and pointing over his shoulder. “Get closer!”

John lifted a brow. “You think that’s a good idea? If that thing snaps shut-”

Rodney snorted. “Oh, right. This from the m an whose last words were alm ost `hey, I want to get a better look at the big thing with the tentacles down there.”’ He waved a hand. “This dom e m ust operate like the outer doors in Atlantis’ j um per bay, and it’s probably been stuck open for ten thousand y ears.”

“Okay , fine. But I get to say Ì told y ou so’ if the building eats us,” John said, though he thought Rodney was probably right.

“I will m ake note of that,” Tey la com m ented dry ly .

“How com forting,” Zelenka added, sounding uneasy .

John guided the j um per down toward the half-open dom e. This close, it looked reassuringly stable; red lichen or m oss had crept up the sides and was growing in cracks in the dark m aterial. Still, he didn’t intend to go all the way in. As he hovered
over the dark opening, the j um per’s outer lights cam e on, play ing over the building’s interior, illum inating a m etallic floor and another set of bay doors leading to a lower level, also wedged partly open.

“Look,” Tey la said softly , pointing. “The far wall.”

John adj usted the angle, tilting the j um per downwards for a better view, and the lights swiveled to better illum inate the area. He saw the racks and walkway s for a j um per bay , all em pty . Now this was a cool find. “This is the spaceport, all right.”

His voice tense with excitem ent, Rodney said, “We need to check those other dom es. If they left even one j um per behind, or if there’s a repair facility , or spare parts-

“It would com e in handy,” John finished. They had lost a few j um pers over the past y ear. With the Daedalus m aking regular supply runs, it wasn’t as desperate a situation as it would have been before resum ing contact with Earth, but it wasn’t like they could m anufacture them y et. He thought this was a dam n good day ‘s work.

“But there is no city here, no Stargate as far as we know. Why would they put the j um per bay s in the m iddle of nowhere?” Tey la wondered, her brow furrowed slightly .

“The city could be underground.” Rodney stepped back to study his equipm ent again. “And actually that m akes m ore sense. If this power source is shielded-”

“Rodney, I don’t think it is here,” Zelenka said, shaking his head at his laptop’s screen. “These readings are alm ost identical to those on the other m oon.” He looked down to check Miko’s screen, then turned his chair, watching Rodney intently. “I think this is also a relay .”

Snarling under his breath, Rodney lunged over Miko to look at Zelenka’s screen. Zelenka leaned sideway s to avoid being shoved out of his seat and Miko sm ashed herself back into the doorway. John looked earnestly at Tey la and said, “It’s like a
scavenger hunt.”

She lifted a brow and her lips quirked. “I hope that is not what it sounds like.”

Rodney turned back, stabbing a finger at the port. “He’s right. Keep going, that way !”

“What, y ou don’t want to stop and explore the spaceport?” John protested. From the readings, they wouldn’t even need to use the awkward environm ental suits, j ust the SCBAs that were part of the j um per’s standard equipm ent.

“You have a spaceport at hom e. Right now we need to find the energy source.” Rodney leaned between the seats, nearly elbowing Tey la in the head as he pointed at the HUD. The j um per’s longrange sensors were busily assem bling a rough m ap
display . “Now go that way , toward the m ountains.”

“We can alway s com e back,” Tey la pointed out practically , fending Rodney off. “The spaceport does not appear to be in any danger of vanishing.”

John began, “Yeah, but-” Rodney was turning red and Zelenka was waving erratically toward the readings on his screen, and Miko was gazing up at him in m ute appeal. Ronon stirred restlessly but didn’t weigh in on either side. “Okay, fine.”

Disgruntled, John lifted the j um per out of the dom e and guided them away toward the distant m ountain range. “But next tim e we stop and look at the thing I want to stop and look at.”

After about fifteen m inutes of flight, the m ountains were beginning to loom larger in the port.

“Dr. McKay , Dr. Zelenka!” Miko said suddenly . “These readings-”

“Rodney , Miko, do y ou see this?” Zelenka dem anded.

Rodney snapped, “Yes, y es, shut up, I’m try ing to-”

“It’s spiking!” Zelenka y elped.

“Kids.” John kept his voice calm . “Share with the rest of the class. I’d kind of like to know what I’m fly ing directly into.”

“It’s a power signature.” Rodney , who was obviously in the m idst of a science-gasm , laughed a little erratically . “It has to be som ething enorm ous. It’s showing fluctuations, as though it’s in use-”

“How enorm ous?” John could see som ething on the horizon, a shape too regular to be part of the low m ountains. He squinted, try ing to m ake it out. Then the j um per’s sensors picked it up, creating a three-dim ensional shape in the HUD. Tey la leaned forward, staring intently at the im age. According to the sensors, it was a round structure, open in the m iddle, with a flat roof. It looked like nothing so m uch as a big stadium , at least a 100,000 seater. John said, “This enorm ous?”

Every body was staring at the HUD now. The j um per wasn’t finding any life signs, j ust the power signatures that were m aking the scientists frisky .

“Get closer,” Rodney whispered.

John gained a little altitude and dropped a lot of speed, approaching cautiously. They could clearly see the dark stone walls now, indigo like the city on the other m oon, streaked with the red dust. The building wasn’t featureless, there were lines and
squares em bossed in it in abstract patterns that were probably j ust decoration, but there were no windows on this outside wall. Moving slower still, John took the j um per up over the roof.

The open well in the center of the building was big enough to accom m odate at least two football fields. Inside it was a giant silver ring, fram ing… som ething. An enem y field, John thought, baffled. It was black and oddly m ottled as energy fluctuated across it. “What the hell?” he said aloud. There was pavem ent around the outer ring and a few other structures standing out from the m ain building. He knew what it looked like, but it couldn’t be.

Startled, Tey la said, “Is that som e sort of-”

“A giant Stargate,” Rodney finished, sounding caught som ewhere between awe and pure avarice. “It could be. That energy field-”

“If it’s àgate, it’s active.” John looked from the energy readings the HUD was display ing to the dark fluid surface. How the hell can it be active?

“A ship nearly the size of the Daedalus could pass through it,” Tey la said, fascinated. “Surely that m ust be its purpose, to transport large ships.”

Zelenka waved a hand wildly . “Yes, y es, it has to be for large transports, probably without hy perdrives, to send them to-”

“Yeah, right, but why is it active?” John thought that was the im portant point right now. “Who the hell dialed it?” There were still no life signs, so whoever had activated it had to be on the other end of the worm hole.

Rodney shook his head. “It’s been active interm ittently for the past week, or we wouldn’t have detected-When we found the cry stal relay cham ber, that m ight have triggered som e sort of autom atic-But the interm ittent activity suggests-” He stared out the port, his expression turning fraught. “We’re cloaked, right?”

“Yes,” John said, drawing out the word and giving Rodney a look.

Rodney nodded to him self, his face uneasy . “Then we should be fine. Try to get down a little closer.”

Keeping one ey e on the HUD, and wondering at Rodney ‘s definition of “fine,” John brought the j um per in low over the roof, following the curve around. There was no way in hell he was going to take them over the giant worm hole, if that was what it was.

The ring itself was thick, m ay be as wide as a boxcar, but it was bare of any sy m bols. “I do not see chevrons, or `gate sy m bols along the rim . How does it dial?” Tey la wondered, echoing John’s thought. “It m ust be com pletely different from -”

The field rippled as if a wave had crossed it, silver edging the black. Interference suddenly fuzzed out the HUD, leaving only an Ancient blinking error m essage. Rodney ‘s fingers dug into John’s shoulder, alm ost to the bone, and he gasped, “Go, go, go, now, get away from it-”

The j um per was already swerving up and away, responding to Rodney ‘s urgency and John’s startled thought, even before John could give it a new heading with the phy sical controls. Then John heard a rum ble reverberate through the j um per’s
m etal and the readouts went crazy . Suddenly an explosive concussion hit them like a giant hand; the j um per shivered and John fought the controls.

The j um per spun sideway s then end over end. The inertial dam peners didn’t go out, but the view flipped crazily in the port, the ground changing place with the sky. John heard the collective gasp, but the rum ble was already dy ing away. He felt the
y oke ease up and brought them sm oothly out of the spin, taking them up and away into the upper atm osphere.

John let his breath out, feeling sweat break out all over his body. He looked back at the others. Tey la was gripping the arm s of her chair, Rodney ‘s hands had left perm anent dents in John’s shoulders, Zelenka looked faint and was holding hands with a
very pale Miko. Ronon j ust looked im pressed, but he was gripping the hatchway tightly . John said, “Every body okay ?”

“We were upside down,” Zelenka said weakly . Miko patted his arm .

“I think we are well.” Tey la looked up at Rodney , her brow furrowed in concern. “What was that?”

John twisted around to see that Rodney ‘s face was white with shock. Rodney ‘s throat worked and he said, “It’s unstable. That sensor spike, right before the blast-It’s not a Stargate.”

Miko stared at him blankly , then gasped in horror. Zelenka took a sharp breath, shaking his head, say ing, “No, no, Rodney , it cannot be.”

Tey la threw a bewildered look at John, and he shook his head. He didn’t have a clue. His first im pulse had been to m ake a “that’s no m oon, that’s a space station” j oke, but he didn’t think any body would appreciate it at the m om ent.

Rodney stepped back over to his seat, bringing up a screen on the laptop there. “Look at the readings,” he grated out. “They ‘re distorted because of the interm ittent power source, the instability , the energy bursts-That’s why we couldn’t find the dam n power source, it doesn’t need one! It’s drawing it off subspace; it is the power source! That’s why it’s up here and the city and thègate are on the other m oon, why the j um per port is kilom eters away !”

“Okay ,” John said warily . “What is it?”

Rodney said, “It’s a Quantum Mirror.”

CHAPTER TWO
hey needed a place to land so they could run a sy stem s check and they needed to m ake a transm ission to base cam p, so John took the j um per back to the spaceport dom e. It was far enough away to shield them from any discharges
the Mirror m ight m ake, and he felt a pressing need to find a bolt-hole at the m om ent, even if it was j ust a powerless Ancient port with a broken roof.

Tey la and Ronon hadn’t had the benefit of reading the SGC reports about the m ore portable-sized Quantum Mirror discovered in the Milky Way, so Rodney launched into an explanation. The Mirror could access a huge num ber of other realities, all
alternate versions of this one. They could run into Atlantises that had been destroy ed by the Wraith, or that had collapsed from explosive decom pression on the bottom of the ocean, and those were j ust the good options. There was also the strong possibility they would run into realities where the Wraith had taken the city and forced the expedition to reveal the location of Earth, or where Atlantis and then Pegasus had been colonized by the slave population of a Goa’uld-controlled Milky Way.

Rodney went on and on, com ing up with one horrific scenario after another, until Miko looked sick, Zelenka pale, Tey la was wide-ey ed with dism ay, and Ronon j ust looked like he thought they were all insane. As the dom es of the deserted spaceport
appeared in the j um per’s port, John finally shouted, “Rodney , stop, we get it! Going through the Mirror is asking to be screwed! We’ll all be evil and y ou’ll have a beard! Now calm down!”

“I j ust want to m ake certain every one com pletely understands the unim aginable danger!” Rodney shouted back, red-faced and upset.

Tey la leaned across the cockpit to squeeze his arm soothingly . “It is all right, we understand.”

“Yes, Dr. McKay , we do,” Miko told him gently . “Do y ou need an aspirin?”

“Dam m it, no, I don’t need an-All right, give m e the dam n things,” Rodney grum bled, grudgingly accepting the tablets and a water bottle.

“You are preaching to choir, Rodney ,” Zelenka added. “No one can im agine the unim aginable danger like we can.

Leaning in the cabin hatchway , Ronon said, “I don’t understand.”

John gritted his teeth. He really wasn’t in the m ood right now for Ronon’s cavem an act. “Ronon.”

“I understand what it is,” Ronon clarified. “I don’t understand why we’re still here with it.”

Rodney sighed and pressed the water bottle to his forehead. “Because we have to find out if there’s the slightest chance that it could lead us to living Ancients. If it can’t, we have to try to shut it down before the Wraith find it.”

Zelenka buried his face in his hands. “Oh, God.”

You can say that again, John thought grim ly. As they reached the spaceport, he slowed the j um per, directing it into a hover above the broken dom e. The HUD popped up, telling him the im m ediate area was still negative for life signs and energy
signatures, and that the terrain sensors detected no instability in the floor below or the struc ture itself. He eased the j um per down, past the curved surface of the dom e.

The j um per’s outer lights cam e on, revealing bluegreen m etal walls and m ultiple levels of em pty landing racks. Below, the stone floor was covered with windblown sand, and a half-open hatch led deeper into the structure. The others were quiet,
watching as the spotlights illum inated the giant space, so m uch larger than Atlantis’ j um per bay .

John let the ship settle to a gentle landing and switched all the sy stem s over to standby. He leaned back and stretched, but his spine refused to unknot; he suspected that wasn’t going to change for the next few day s. He ey ed Rodney, who sat slum ped
glum ly in the j um p seat, his expression set and grim . Worried about him , John asked, “You okay ?”

“Oh, sure, y es, I’m fine.” Rodney rubbed a hand over his face. “We need to call Elizabeth.”

John raised Lorne on the j um per’s com m sy stem quickly enough, though there was a few seconds of transm ission lag. John briefly outlined the situation. Lorne, who had been in the SGC, obviously didn’t need Rodney to tell him about Quantum

Mirrors. He said, “Colonel, that’s… Dam n.”

“Yeah, that’s what we said,” John agreed. “Dial Atlantis and patch m e through to the gateroom .”

That took a few m inutes. By the tim e the connection was m ade, Miko had connected a laptop to the outputs in the rear cabin, running through a full sy stem diagnostic, while Zelenka was opening panels to do the m anual checks. The others were
sitting on the bench in the back, passing around the selection of packaged snack food from the j um per’s supplies. Tied to the com m sy stem , John waved at them , try ing to get them to bring him som ething. He was say ing, “Dam m it, there is a vanilla one left, I can see it in the box,” when Elizabeth’s voice cam e over the com m : “This is Weir. What’s going on up there, John?”

“Well, the good news is, we’re not dead,” he told her, swinging the chair back around again.

“Alway s nice to hear,” Elizabeth responded, a wry note in her voice. “The bad news?”

Rodney cam e forward hastily , dropped a package of cupcakes into John’s lap, and sat down in the shotgun seat. He said, “We found the source of the power signatures. It’s a gigantic Quantum Mirror.”

There was silence on the other end that had nothing to do with the brief transm ission lag. “How gigantic?” she said finally .

John ate the cupcakes, while Rodney outlined their little adventure so far. Zelenka cam e forward to listen, leaning on the back of Rodney ‘s chair.

Rodney said finally, “It com es down to this. The Ancients could have built this thing as an alternate m ethod of evacuating Pegasus at the end of the Wraith war. If they were able to find another reality where Pegasus was uninhabited, where it had
never been colonized by the Ancients, where the Wraith never existed, it would have been a viable option. The Mirror’s circum ference isn’t nearly large enough to accom m odate a city -sized craft like Atlantis, but y ou could m ove an enorm ous am ount
of people and supplies through with sm aller cargo ships. It would be m uch m ore efficient than dialing the Atlantis `gate back to Earth m ultiple tim es. But we have no idea if they were successful, whatever they were try ing to do with it.”

Sounding thoughtful, Elizabeth said, “We’ve certainly never seen any indication in the Atlantean database that the Ancients had an evacuation route other than Earth. And do we know if this thing has been active all this tim e, or if these power
fluctuations y ou’re seeing are recent?”

“Well, y es, that’s the problem .” Rodney waved a hand in agitation. “One of the problem s. We have no way to tell without exploring the installation to look for m onitoring equipm ent. But I find it hard to believe this thing has been sitting here for ten thousand y ears releasing m assive bursts of energy and activating the m onitor on the base m oon, without the Wraith ever noticing. I think it was dorm ant m ost of that tim e, that this activation is recent.” He drew a sharp breath. “I think we’ve been lucky .”

John had to agree. Except for the lucky part.

Elizabeth asked, “How do we know the Wraith haven’t already found it?”

“I think it’s safe to say that if they had, they ‘d be here right now, exploring through it for new feeding grounds.” Rodney flattened his hands on the j um per’s console, frustrated. “The Quantum Mirror at Area 51 was unim aginably dangerous. Two seconds after Dr. Jackson discovered the thing it dragged him into another dim ension where the Goa’uld were in the process of invading Earth. This Mirror has the bonus feature of being big enough to allow an invasion fleet to fly through it, as well as
being unstable. But if it was used for evacuation and it’s still set for the sam e destination, there m ay be living Ancients on the other side we could apply to for inform ation or help.”

“I don’t think that is strong possibility.” Zelenka took off his glasses and rubbed his ey es. “If a group did use it to escape, their first act once they were safely through would be to shut down the Mirror on their side, changing the setting, so no Wraith could follow them . It would not prevent another Mirror in y et another reality from finding them -the Mirror in Area 51 was kept shut down, but that certainly didn’t prevent other Mirrors from accessing it.

“Yes, y es,” Rodney agreed im patiently. “That’s why Ham m ond ordered it destroy ed. But there is a sm all chance that this Mirror is still set to the reality the Ancients fled to. If it isn’t, I agree that our chances of stum bling on it am ong the countless num bers of other realities is infinitesim al. And attem pting to look would be unim aginably dangerous.” Rodney ‘s m outh twisted sourly . “Judging by the SGC’s experiences, any reality we access is likely to be far worse off than we are. Far worse off.”

“You keep say ing ùnim aginable,”’ Zelenka grum bled. “I told y ou, we can all im agine it perfectly .”

“Hold it.” John ey ed Rodney. It had alway s been obvious that the Stargate networks, here and in the Milky Way, would have been built by interstellar spaceships. John felt like he was m issing som ething as far as building the Mirrors was concerned.

“So they had to go through first and build a Mirror j ust like this one in the other reality ? How does that work? How do y ou get there in the first place?”

“No one knows,” Rodney told him im patiently . “Quantum Mirrors exist in all realities sim ultaneously . Building one is a logical im possibility , but y et they exist.”

John looked at Zelenka, who nodded and shrugged. John said, “Okay ,” and decided to go back to im agining the unim aginable danger.

“Let m e sum this up,” Elizabeth said, obviously try ing to bring them back to the point. “You want to take a closer look at this installation, see if there’s any indication that we could use it to contact the Ancients, and if not, shut the Mirror down.”

Rodney leaned forward. “Exactly. We’ll need to enter the structure around the Mirror. The j um per’s sensors couldn’t get accurate readings with all the interference from the Mirror itself; the installation could hold any thing from a new Ancient
database to a working ZPM.” He added reluctantly, “I wouldn’t count on the ZPM. Quantum Mirrors don’t need external power sources; they are power sources, drawing the energy they need directly from subspace. I’d be surprised if the Ancients didn’t have a way to tap into that, to use it to power the auxiliary sy stem s in the building.”

“What about the discharges?” Elizabeth asked pointedly . “Didn’t the one y ou j ust experienced nearly dam age the j um per?”

“I was kind of curious about that part m y self,” John adm itted.

“Well, obviously, we’ll have to land outside the installation.” Rodney huffed in exasperation. “And I don’t see that we have a choice. It’s either leave the Mirror and chance the Wraith detecting it, or find out we’ve left open a portal to an invasion fleet from another reality , or-”

“I understand that, Rodney ,” Elizabeth rem inded him . “Dr. Zelenka, what do y ou think?”

Zelenka folded his arm s, looking uncom fortable. Sounding reluctant, he said, “This is too dangerous to ignore, Dr. Weir. If nothing else, we m ust try to shut it down.”

L C John?”

John shrugged. He didn’t see they had a choice either. “They ‘re right.”

The SCBAs, or self-contained breathing apparatus sets, each had an hour tank and a couple of spares, which could be refilled from the j um per’s environm ental sy stem with a setup Zelenka had j ury -rigged last y ear. Ronon had never used one of
the breathing sets before, and John wanted to m ake certain Zelenka and Miko rem em bered their training with them , so he had every body put a set on and they did a brief twenty m inute sweep outside.

Also, every body really wanted a look at the spaceport.

They could have spent a couple of day s here, and John j ust hoped they would have a chance to com e back. The place had been built to hold hundreds of j um pers and larger craft, the shape only teasingly hinted at by the landing slots high in the
walls. They found passageway s leading to two other dom es, and even if all were em pty , it would still be worth it to send a team back to look for tools and equipm ent in the repair bay s.

Standing with the others at the edge of the hatch that opened into the broken dom e’s lower levels, John shined his P-90’s light into the depths. He could see it was m ostly filled with the reddish sand, with a few straggly plants growing in it. “That’s kind of depressing,” he com m ented, his voice m uffled by the breathing m ask. It fit over the m outh and nose, and the tank attached to a stan dard pack.

Tey la nodded, frowning. “So m uch work went into this place. I hope it was not in vain.” She looked up, directing her light over the em pty racks. “I hope som e of them escaped.”

“I don’t know.” Rodney sounded grim . He turned around, looking up at the cracked roof far overhead. “The fact that this dom e was wedged open isn’t a good sign. Whoever was here last had to leave in a hurry , and lost power in the process.”

“There is no sign of blast scars,” Zelenka pointed out, obviously try ing to sound optim istic.

“If the dom e was stuck open the Wraith could have used the culling beam ,“John pointed out. Miko m ade a little choked noise and Zelenka stared upward nervously . Yeah, probably shouldn’t have brought that up, John thought with a wince.

“Thank y ou, Colonel,” Rodney said, witheringly . “On that note-”

“Right.” John nodded. The Mirror wasn’t getting any less dangerous. “Let’s go.”

John brought the j um per in low this tim e, barely skim m ing over the ground. The HUD stay ed active without him having to think about it, the sensors scanning for stray energy that m ight m ean another discharge, as if the j um per was as nervous as
they were. As they neared the building, Rodney leaned down to point over John’s shoulder. “There. There’s a door.”

“Saw it.” It was triangular, and set into the base of the structure above a short flight of steps. John put the j um per down about fifty feet from it, stirring up a sm all cloud of dust.

When John got the board locked down and stepped into the back, every one was gathering their packs and fum bling with the breathing sets. He clipped his P-90 to his vest and asked, “Now what’s rule one?”

“Ah, I know this one,” Zelenka said, looking up with his brow furrowed earnestly . “That would be to not scream , unless som ething is eating us, and we need y our attention im m ediately .”

John slung the pack with the air tank across his back. “Okay , that’s a rule, but it’s not rule one.”

“Oh, ah…every body stay together?” Zelenka tried again.

“The rule is `don’t be stupid! ”’ Rodney said with an irritable grim ace, checking his tablet one last tim e. “That’s the only one that m atters.”

Tey la interposed, “The rule is to stay with us at all tim es, do not rush ahead no m atter what the tem ptation, and alway s let us exam ine an area first before y ou enter.”

“I don’t think y ou have to worry about that with us.” Zelenka consulted Miko with a look. She nodded earnestly .

“Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I agreed to bring y ou guy s,” John told him .

When every body had their breathing sets on and their packs ready, John opened the ram p. The air released from the cabin caused another dust cloud, billowing out and away from the j um per. John went down the ram p first, Tey la with him . The
ground felt weird under his boots, the fine powdery dirt shifting over the m ore solid rock, and he paused to take a long look at their surroundings. There was nothing they hadn’t spotted from the air; the dusty pink plain, patchy with dry grasses and a few scrubby bushes, stretched away for em pty m iles, toward the foothills and then the m ountains that rose in the north. The gas giant hung low in the sky , the red-brown bands a fam iliar sight now. John signaled the others to com e out.

Rodney strode down the ram p first, his ey es on the life signs detector except for one wary glance around. Zelenka and Kusanagi followed him , with Ronon on their six. John used the j um per rem ote to close the ram p and set the cloak. Each team
m em ber had their own rem ote to get back in, and if som ething happened to John, both Rodney and Kusanagi could fly the j um per, though Rodney had a lot m ore experience at it than she did.

They m oved toward the door, Ronon facing away from it to keep watch as John exam ined it thoughtfully. It was m ade of blue-green m etal set into a stone fram e, with square patterns em bossed into the surface. Study ing the detector, Rodney said,

“Huh. I’m getting readings suggesting that the power is on inside.” He sounded intrigued rather than worried. “This isn’t a ZPM signature. I was right, it m ust be drawing power from the Mirror.”

It m eant they m ight not have to m anually pry the door up. “Can y ou get it open?” John asked him .

Rodney ey ed it, then stepped to the side, touching a sm all square set deep into the stone wall. The door started to slide upward, m oving a little sluggishly . Rodney looked at John, chin lifted. “Of course.”

Tey la stepped to John’s side to cover the growing opening, but their lights showed the cham ber inside was em pty. John m oved to the doorway, and soft white recessed lights cam e on in the ceiling, revealing a space that would have been j ust big
enough to slide the j um per into, if the door had been large enough. The walls were tinted the sam e blue-green as the outer door, and the floor em bossed with strips of dull silver m etal. There was another sealed triangular door j ust opposite, and a steady breeze.

Rodney held out a hand to feel the air flow, frowning. “It’s pressurized.” He looked at his tablet. “I’m reading close to twenty -two percent oxy gen.”

“Well, we knew the power was on.” John stepped cautiously into the room , signaling the others to stay back. This was the part where he m ade sure the inner door was going to open and the outer wasn’t going to shut and trap them inside. He crossed the room , pausing to hold a hand up in front of a silver disk set into the wall. Close up it still looked solid, but it was em itting a strong flow of air. “This is a vent.”

“But the power should have been on standby ,” Rodney obj ected from the doorway behind him . “That’s how Ancient sy stem s work. And there hasn’t been tim e to pressurize this entire structure.”

Zelenka added, “Perhaps the sy stem detected the j um per’s landing, and restored atm osphere to this section only .”

“But why should it?” Rodney waved a hand, still frowning. “This isn’t a landing pad, it’s a foot entrance. If there’s a j um per bay , it should be accessed through the roof.”

“Atlantis was pressurized when we arrived,” Miko pointed out hesitantly .

“Well, y es, I know that,” Rodney said acidly , “But-”

John tuned out the debate, touching the wall console next to the inner door. It slid open to reveal a corridor, gently curved to follow the shape of the building. The lights cam e sm oothly up, giving the dark blue stone a soft glow. John stepped in,
feeling the strong flow of air as the open door behind him created a breeze, the lower pressure sucking out the air inside. The rounded ceiling was about twelve feet high. “Looks good so far.”

The others followed him in, Rodney pausing to shut the outside door. John ey ed him . “That a good idea?”

Rodney shook the tablet at him . “I have no idea why , but this building appears to be pressurized. We can save the air in our tanks for em ergencies and exploring outside.”

“Okay.” John drew the word out, m aking Rodney glare at him , but John had to adm it he had a point. An hour wasn’t a long tim e to explore a building this size, and for all they knew it could take them that long j ust to find a lab or m onitoring equipm ent.

John shut off his breathing set, pulling his m ask down as the others followed suit. The air didn’t sm ell dusty or m usty or of any thing except em pty stone hallway s. “So where to now?” he asked.

“Good question.” Rodney glanced up from his detector with a thoughtful frown. “Let’s try this way .”

John put Ronon on their six again, and took the lead with Tey la, following the curve of the corridor. After a few m inutes walk, John could see a section ahead where the cool white light took on an unhealthy red tint. “Rodney, do y ou see that?” he asked warily .

Rodney peered down the corridor. “The quality of the light? Yes, it’s probably not a good sign.”

“A good sign of what?” Zelenka asked a little ner vously .

“How the hell should I know?” Rodney said in frustration.

They reached the edge of the red shadows and John stopped, shining the P-90’s light over the floor. Nothing seem ed different. Ronon, who was tall enough that his head was alm ost even with the bottom of the nearest light fixture, stepped close to
the wall, frowning. He said, “It’s a plant. It’s grown over the light.”

He lifted a hand and John said sharply , “Don’t touch it!” He realized a m om ent later the entire group had shouted the sam e words practically in unison. He shook his head. It was a good thing they hadn’t been try ing to sneak up on som ething.

Ronon stopped, looking back at them with a lifted brow. “It’s j ust a plant.”

Rodney rolled his ey es. “Yes, well, when y our skin falls off, let us know.”

“Alien plants can be very dangerous, and not j ust ify ou ingest them ,” Zelenka added m ore reasonably . “There were the flowers on PX5-237, that gave Sergeant Bates those nasty bites.”

Miko nodded. “Yes, the m old on PX3-58 1, that tried to chase Sergeant Stackhouse through the Stargate.”

Tey la winced. “I rem em ber that well.”

Ronon frowned at the fuzzy growth and stepped back carefully .

John m oved forward, his light revealing m ore patches of the stuff. “It’s like that algae we keep getting in the city, in the room s below the waterline.” The lowest levels of Atlantis had been flooded in the early stages of the catastrophic storm that had hit the city in their first y ear there. Even with all the repairs they had been able to m ake and the restored power from the new ZPM, those sections were still uncom fortably dam p and subj ect to occasional weird growths.

Tey la nodded. “Very like. And it seem s to be all over these walls. Should we take a sam ple for the botanists?”

“Screw the botanists,” Rodney said im patiently . “The gigantic Quantum Mirror that could kill us where we stand is our top priority at the m om ent.”

“Rodney , j ust calm down, we’re getting there,” John said pointedly .

After about fifty m ore y ards, Rodney said suddenly, “Stop.” His voice was tight with tension. John halted in step with Tey la, scanning the corridor ahead. Rodney continued, “I’m getting a life sign flicker. Som ething sm all.” He turned the detector, then pointed, his ey es still on the screen. “On that wall.”

In another instant their lights found it. It was a dull red lum py knobby thing, about the size of a dinner plate, flattened against the wall. P-90 raised, John took a cautious step toward it, squinting, try ing to get a better look. He could tell it had short stubby tentacles that it was using to cling to the wall; it looked a little like an octopus that had suffered m ultiple am putations. He said, “That’s… ugly .”

“Shouldn’t y ou be shooting it?” Rodney wanted to know.

Watching it carefully , Tey la pointed out, “It is not attacking us. I do not even think it knows we are here.”

“Yes, but it m ight attack,” Rodney said in exasperation. “Granted, it doesn’t seem to have any legs, or arm s, but-”

“What if we kill this one and that antagonizes the whole herd or whatever, and they attack us?” John said, taking another cautious step closer.

Rodney huffed in annoy ance. “Oh, fine. I see y our point.”

The wall here was thickly covered with the algae-like reddish growth, and the octopus had attached itself right in the m iddle of it. John didn’t want to kill the thing if it was harm less, but he needed to find out if it was safe to j ust ignore it.

He stepped close enough to the wall to get a better view of its head, stay ing well out of the short tentacle range. It looked like its m outh was a big pad, which it was using to suck the red growth off the wall. As John watched, one big purple ey e
opened and rolled to study him . Its stubby tentacles tightened protectively on its stretch of wall and it edged away from him a little. “It’s sucking up the algae,” he reported, stepping back. “I think we’d be a little m uch for it.”

Tey la frowned, play ing her light over the walls. “But if this building has been sealed since the Ancients departed, how did it get in?”

“There could be a door open som ewhere,” Ronon answered, still watching the corridor behind them .

“But this section m ust be sealed, or it couldn’t stay pressurized,” Zelenka told him . He looked a little j um py, and was clutching his tablet protectively to his chest, but other than that he seem ed to be doing okay so far. “Even if the air sy stem was som ehow activated by the j um per’s arrival.”

“No, this building was open at som e point.” Rodney squinted uneasily at the creature. “May be the Mirror’s energy discharges triggered som e sort of reactivation of the installation’s sy stem s, and it sealed and pressurized itself.”

“Let’s j ust leave the wall-octopus alone,” John concluded, and they kept m oving.

A little past that section, John alm ost walked by the tall triangle em bossed into the inner wall, thinking it was j ust decorative. Rodney stopped abruptly . “Wait, wait. Does this look like another door?”

“Not really .” John cam e back to contem plate it. It had a narrow blue-green m etal fram e, and there was a sm aller triangle set in the center panel.

“I wasn’t talking to y ou. Well?” he dem anded.

Zelenka was already exam ining the edge of the em bossed area, shining his flashlight into the m inute cracks. “These are seam s, so this whole piece m ay lift up, but why no wall console?”

His face intent, Rodney laid a hand flat on the center triangle. There was a faint pop of displaced air as the door started to slide upward. Rodney flinched back, then caught Zelenka by his j acket and pulled him out of the way. John j erked up his
weapon to cover the opening, Tey la and Ronon stepping up behind him . But the space inside was em pty , a stairwell with a wide set of steps spiraling upward. “This is interesting,” Rodney said, preoccupied.

Still covering the corridor, Ronon asked, “Why ?”

It was Miko who said, “There is no wall console, so only som eone with the Ancient gene could open the door.”

“It’s probably security feature,” Zelenka added, a little uneasily . “They didn’t want j ust any one to access the Mirror controls, perhaps.”

John stepped into the stairwell, looking up. The lights had com e on, but he couldn’t see any thing but stairs. Tey la stepped in to look, pointing out, “It would also keep out the Wraith.”

“Good point.” John glanced at Rodney . “Up? Or keep going around?”

Rodney had taken the tablet away from Zelenka and now waved it and the life signs detector in frustration. “I have no idea. In this one instance, y our guess is as good as m ine.

John lifted a brow, exchanged a look with Tey la, then said, “Right. Let’s try up.”

On the first landing there was a doorway that opened into what seem ed to be an em pty shaft. It had tiny blue lights set in narrow silver bands running down the sides, and seem ed to lead straight down to the floor below. “The elevator’s broken?” John suggested, leaning out to look down. Tey la stretched around the other side, shining her light down the shaft.

“Ali, better not to put y our heads in there,” Zelenka said, study ing the tablet. “I’m getting a low-level energy signature.”

As John eased away from the opening and Tey la stepped back, Rodney snatched the tablet again. “Wait, wait, wait. This looks like…” Brow furrowed thoughtfully, Rodney pulled a pen out of his tac vest and tossed it through the opening. It hung in m idair for a m om ent, then vanished.

Rodney and Zelenka had their ey es on the tablet’s screen, watching it analy ze the readings, with Miko craning her neck to see over Zelenka’s shoulder. John and Tey la stared at the spot where the dem aterialized pen had been. “Hope y ou didn’t need
that,” Ronon com m ented dry ly .

“Why would this be on the stairwell where any one m ight stum ble in?” Tey la asked, sounding m ildly horrified.

“It’s not a walk-in disintegrator, if that’s what y ou’re thinking,” Rodney said, still thoughtful. “Hold it, let’s try this.” He took out a sm all pocket flashlight, clicked it on, and tossed it into the shaft. It vanished. Rodney leaned cautiously out to look down.

“The energy signature is alm ost identical to the transporters on Atlantis, and this is the right location for a safety shaft. See, there it is.”

John looked. Down at the bottom , right about the level of the first floor, was the gleam of the flashlight. “Cool. So it’s a transporter-safety exit.” And the fact that the Ancients had seen a need for it…probably didn’t m ean any thing good.

Going up, they found three m ore levels, though the topm ost wasn’t nearly high enough to be at the top of the structure. There were obviously m ore levels that this stairwell didn’t access, that there had to be another way to get to.

Looking at the interior room s, John could see the walls were unusually thick, m uch thicker than they had to be to support the weight of the building. “They built this place to last,” he com m ented to Rodney, as Zelenka and Kusanagi scanned a room they had found off one of the landings. Every piece of equipm ent seem ed to have been rem oved, like the ruined city on the base m oon.

“Yes, I suspect they anticipated frequent quakes from the discharges,” Rodney said, m outh twisted as he studied the readings on his tablet.

John’s brows quirked. “So…the Mirror was probably unstable even back when they built this place?” They had heard another couple of low rum bles, but nothing close to the size of the first discharge.

“Yes. Doesn’t bode well, does it,” Rodney said with a grim ace.

Zelenka rej oined them , tucking his equipm ent back into his pack. “They certainly didn’t leave in a hurry ,” he said tiredly , wiping sweat off his brow. “Every thing was rem oved, very carefully .”

“Except the Mirror,” Tey la put in. Ronon was watching the corridor and she was standing on the landing, keeping a cautious ey e on the stairs.

“And either the instability caused it to activate,” Rodney said, his ey es on his tablet screen. “Or another reality accessed it.”

“So som ething could com e through that thing any tim e,” Ronon asked, flicking an uneasy look at Tey la.

“Yes. Any thing, at any tim e,” Rodney said, snapping his tablet shut. “Did I not m ake that abundantly clear before?”

“You did,” John told him . “But standing next to it and knowing that adds a little extra dram a.”

As they continued, they found m ore em pty room s that could have been labs or control areas, and a section of transparent wall filled with bundles of cry stal conduit. John saw the seam s in the floor by accident, his light catching one when the others had stopped to take readings again. It was j ust to one side of a broad blue-green band that he had thought was j ust m ore floor decoration. The bands lay about every ten y ards along the corridor. Signaling the others to halt, John went back to look at the last two bands, checking for seam s. As he returned, Rodney cam e over, asking, “What the hell are y ou doing?”

John knelt beside a band, shining his light on the seam . “What does that look like?”

“That’s j ust a decorative-Oh, wait.” Rodney dropped to a crouch, frowning as he ran his fingers along the little gap. “This is a door, a blast door. It m ust com e up from the floor-”

Tey la stepped closer, ey eing the floor uneasily, as John said tightly, “They ‘re all along this corridor, and from the size of the bands, the doors are a good foot thick. We don’t have any tools that could cut through this. And y eah, we have C-4, but the space we’d be trapped in is too sm all; we couldn’t blow the wall without killing ourselves. If they close for som e reason, like another explosion, we’d be screwed.”

“Of course we’d be screwed, we’re alway s screwed,” Rodney said, annoy ed. “What do y ou want m e to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” John snapped. “You tell m e.”

Rodney said rapidly, “Look, there’s been m inor discharges since we discovered this structure and the doors are still open. Either it takes a bigger energy burst to activate them , or after the danger is past, they open autom atically.” His m outh twisted as he thought that through. “If the power failed tem porarily , we would… probably have enough air to survive.”

“Right.” John considered going back. But if they did that, they m ight as well pretend the dam n Mirror didn’t exist at all and j ust leave. It wasn’t going to get any safer to do this. He said reluctantly , “We’ll keep going.”

“Good,” Rodney said, though his expression showed he knew exactly how wrong this could go. John looked up to see Zelenka and Kusanagi looking down with anxious faces. He suppressed the im pulse to tell them it was going to be okay. He had said
that too m any tim es when the outcom e had been any thing but okay . He j ust said, “We need to m ove faster.”

Zelenka said, “Of course, y es.” Kusanagi j ust nodded sharply , though she looked terrified.

After that they stopped checking the em pty labs, j ust glancing in and scanning briefly to m ake certain nothing useful had been left behind. They had passed two m ore open stairwells and John estim ated that they had traveled three quarters of the
way around the structure’s circum ference when they cam e to a sealed doorway in the inner wall. “I have a good feeling,” Zelenka said, scanning it thoughtfully . “All the other em pty labs were left open.”

“Try it,” John said, hoping this was it. “We’re due a little luck here.”

“Hold that thought,” Rodney m uttered darkly . He took one last look at the life signs detector, waved Zelenka out of the way , and touched the triangle in the center of the door.

It started to slide up and he stepped quickly aside so John and Tey la could cover the opening.

Bingo, John thought, as the door revealed a stretch of wall with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the Quantum Mirror. He stepped inside cautiously, Tey la following. It was a long room , curved to follow the inner wall, and there were three
banks of consoles set in the center of the floor, all of them blue-green m etal with the fam iliar cry stal touchpads and controls. “Yeah, this could be it.”

“Finally,” Rodney growled, striding in. As the others followed, John stepped to the window. It was curved outward into a bubble, the outside streaked with red dust. He didn’t have m uch perspective on how big the structure was from this vantage
point. The dark curve of the building was like a stadium , the Quantum Mirror the play ing field.

The black surface of the Mirror itself wasn’t visible, which was kind of a relief. The dull silver-gray wall of the naquadah fram e was high enough to block any view of it. John could see the fram e was j ointed, as if it had been laid down in sections,
each about the length of a train’s boxcar. Surrounding it was a large open plaza of dark blue pavem ent. Rodney stepped up beside him . “Yes. Yes, y es, y es. This could be the control center.” He turned back toward the banks of consoles.

“No, no, this is for m onitoring,” Zelenka was say ing, pacing back and forth between the consoles and the port, as if torn between which he wanted to exam ine first.

John noticed that the roof of the structure had som e kind of narrow proj ection sticking out over the inner area. He put a hand on the top edge of the port and leaned out into the bubble, try ing to get a better view. It looked as if it was j ust an extension of the roof. He thought he could see silver ribbing em bedded in it and wondered if it was recording data of som e kind from the Mirror, or if it was som ehow part of the energy shielding. He m ade a m ental note to direct Rodney ‘s attention to it once

Rodney was done exclaim ing hy sterically over the consoles.

Then Ronon said, “What’s that?”

John pulled him self out of the bubble. “What?”

“Right there.” Ronon leaned over to point, so John could sight along his arm .

It was a structure, standing on the plaza about m idway around the Mirror, a couple of hundred y ards from the fram e. It was dark-colored like the stone, m aking it hard to spot. It had curving sides, the walls shaded from black to blue to near purple at the round base; John j udged it was about the size of a two story house. It looked like a giant inverted tulip. He shook his head. “I don’t know. Som e kind of observatory ?”

Miko stepped up beside him , adj usting her glasses to peer at it. “It could be, but it doesn’t resem ble the m ain structure. The shape is very… and…” She trailed off, leaning forward to stare intently at the little building. “Dr. McKay, Dr. Zelenka, please, look at this.”

John’s brow furrowed. “What?”

Zelenka stepped up beside Miko, peering uncertainly . “That …is a spaceship.”

“What?” Rodney ‘s annoy ance fled as he stepped up to the port. “Right, those are drive pods. It’s j ust hard to tell because they ‘re vertical and-” He stared, his j aw dropping. “Wait, wait, what?”

“But it doesn’t look any thing like the j um pers,” John said. He was beginning to get that feeling, that feeling that things were about to take a very bad turn. “How do y ou go from square box to giant tulip?”

“There could be variations, am ong different Ancient cultures, as there is between Atlantis and som e of the other sites we have found,” Zelenka said uncertainly . “Corrigan or one of the other archeologists m ight be able to say .”

“Or it could be alien,” John said. Yeah, he had a bad feeling about this. Rodney was still staring at the ship, his face rapt.

Tey la was try ing to listen while keeping an ey e on the corridor. “But it has been here since this place was abandoned.” No one answered her and she added with som e concern, “Has it not?”

Rodney, Zelenka, and Miko didn’t answer, and Ronon was watching John, a wary line between his brows. Then som ething flashed along the Mirror’s fram e, and the port suddenly gray ed out into an opaque m etal shield. John stepped back, startled.

“What-”

“That was a discharge from the Mirror,” Rodney said, looking toward the consoles. “The port m ust be responding to it. But it doesn’t seem to be-”

John looked up at a m uted rum ble, like thunder; he felt it roll through the structure, shaking the stone and m etal underfoot, vibrating through his bones. Ronon twitched uneasily .

Nervously , Rodney finished, “-serious. On the other hand-”

“Okay , that’s it,” John began, “We’re-”

An alarm klaxon blared and John j erked up his P-90 in pure startled reflex as every one else flinched. “-leaving,” he finished. “What the hell?”

“It’s a security sy stem ,” Rodney bellowed over the noise, looking around the room in frustration. “Did one of y ou touch som ething?”

Tey la shook her head, wincing at the noise, and Zelenka and Miko held up em pty hands. Ronon was staring back down the corridor. John had been facing away from the port, and he knew none of the others had m oved. He said, “Nobody touched
any thing. We need to get out of here, m ove, now!”

Tey la headed for the corridor as John swept out an arm to herd Zelenka and Kusanagi after her. But Ronon stepped into their path to stop them , his face urgent. “Do y ou hear that? That crashing?”

Tey la’s face went still with concentration, her head tilted as she listened. Rodney was looking at the detector, say ing, “Still no life signs. The sy stem m ust have been on som e kind of delay . Opening the outer door should have triggered-”

“Shut up for a second!” John told him . In another m om ent he heard it too: in between each deep blare of the alarm , there was a heavy m etallic thud. “Oh crap,” he breathed.

Rodney was looking at him , ey es wide in alarm . “Blast doors. The blast doors are closing!”

John ducked out into the corridor. The nearest blast doors hadn’t shut, but the m etallic thuds were closer, the echo carry ing all through the building. “Ronon, which way is it com ing from ?” he shouted. If the doors were closing sequentially in one direction, they had a chance.

Ronon went still and cocked his head. “That way ,” he said a m om ent later, pointing to the right, the direction they had com e from . The direction of the nearest stairwell. That really wasn’t what John wanted to hear.

He y elled, “Run the other way , go, go,” and gave Ronon a shove to tell him to take the lead.

Ronon bolted and John waved the others after him . He took their six, wanting to m ake sure Miko didn’t fall behind. But she took off like an Oly m pic sprinter, keeping up with Tey la and Rodney easily, and it was only Zelenka that John had to worry
about.

Another discharge shook the floor underfoot, slowing them down. They m ade it about fifty y ards down the corridor when John heard the m etallic thuds becom e exponentially louder. He threw a glance over his shoulder in tim e to see a green m etal
blast door slide up to hit the ceiling, j ust at the curve of the corridor. He swore, turning back, and Zelenka panted, “What?”

“Just run,” John said, but he didn’t hear the next thud until ten seconds later, and that was j ust after Ronon shouted, “Stairs!”

We can m ake it, John thought, and grabbed Zelenka’s arm , urging him along.

Then a green wall slam m ed upward j ust in front of Ronon, so abruptly he bounced off it before he could stop. The others slid to an abrupt halt, and John whirled around in tim e to see the blast door j ust behind them thum ping into place. Rodney was
shouting, “They closed out of sequence! Dam m it-”

“Rodney !” John said through gritted teeth. “Think of som ething.”

Breathing hard, Zelenka stepped to the blast door, pulling out his tablet again, study ing it intently . “Door is solid m ass. This is not good.”

John looked back. Miko was frantically running her hands over the other door. She said, “There are no controls here-” Ronon growled and slam m ed his hand against the stone.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Rodney bellowed. In the im m ediate silence, he pressed a hand to his forehead and said thickly , “This is a safety feature.”

“Yes, but we did not know what to do, where to go, when the alarm went off,” Tey la said, turning to study the walls uneasily .

Exasperated, John began, “It trapped us here-”

“It stopped us here,” Rodney snapped. “We were nearly to the stairs and it stopped us-” He halted abruptly , his ey es narrowing.

Getting it an instant later, John said, “Because there’s a closer exit in this section.”

Zelenka and Miko were already converging on Rodney , Zelenka say ing rapidly , “It should have opened autom atically -”

“The m echanism could be dam aged-” Miko added.

“Look for seam s in the outer wall,” Rodney finished.

John scram bled with the others, running his hands over the stone, down the m etal bands. It felt like forever but it m ust have been only a few m om ents before Tey la said, “Here!”

Rodney practically flung her out of the way , running his hand down the band. “It’s not responding. Colonel-”

John stepped forward, pressing his hand to the band, but he didn’t think this was a natural Ancient gene thing. The doors below had responded easily to Rodney ‘s artificial gene, and there was no reason these should be different. The band didn’t
budge. “No, nothing,” he said tightly .

“The cry stals m ust be dam aged,” Rodney snarled, elbowing John out of the way .

Miko dropped to the floor, unslinging her pack and pulling out tools to hand Rodney and Zelenka as they pried at the band.

John felt another low rum ble travel through the build ing. He saw Rodney throw a worried look at the ceiling. It would be j ust our luck that this place picks now to collapse, John thought sourly. Then a section of the band popped open, revealing the

Ancient control cry stals set into the deceptively sim ple m atrix. Zelenka pointed, agitated. “There, there!” Rodney said, “I know, I know!” and rapidly switched around three of the cry stals.

A section of the inner wall next to the band slid sideway s, releasing a puff of stale displaced air. Inside was a circular shaft like the one they had found in the stairwell. The blue and silver light strips flickered on.

“The readings say the transporter effect should be working,” Miko reported tensely , study ing the tablet’s readout.

Rodney fum bled in the pockets of his tac vest. “Hold on, I’ll test it.”

Ronon said, “I’ll do it,” and stepped into the shaft. Rodney gasped in alarm and John and Tey la both lunged for Ronon, but he had already vanished. “Ronon!” John y elled.

“It works!” Ronon’s voice echoed up from below. “There’s a door down here.”

John swore, Tey la rolled her ey es incredulously , and Zelenka and Miko exchanged an appalled look. Rodney clapped a hand to his forehead and said, “That was not what I had in m ind.”

“Just go, com e on, one at a tim e,” John said. Miko went first, gripping her pack tightly, then Rodney shoved Zelenka in and j um ped after him . John gave Tey la a nod, telling her to go next. He had one hand on the edge of the doorway, ready to step in, when a gleam of light caught his ey e.

There was a sm all silver disk high up on the wall, standing out and angled so it was pointing at him . He froze for an instant, because he was dam n sure it hadn’t been there a few m inutes ago when they had been frantically searching for the way out.

He took a half-step toward it. Then from the transporter shaft, Rodney shouted, “Colonel!”

John shook him self, recalling that he didn’t have tim e for checking out m y sterious obj ects, and stepped into the shaft.

CHAPTER THREE

ohn suddenly found him self standing at the bottom of the shaft, facing Rodney . Rodney y elped and flinched backward, then shouted, “What the hell took y ou so long?”

John shook his head; they used the transporters constantly in Atlantis, the size of the city m ade it im possible not to. But without the cushioning effect of the cham ber it was j ust as disorienting as being grabbed suddenly by the Daedalus’ Asgard
transport beam .

This part of the shaft opened up into a larger well, with a darker green circle on the floor, which probably m arked the space it was a bad idea to stand in if m ore people were com ing down. The others were backed against the wall, watching Zelenka
and Miko work on an open panel. John stepped out of the circle, j ust in case the transporter decided to reverse abruptly , and said, “I thought I saw som ething.” He j erked his chin toward the door. “Can we get out of here?”

“Working on it!” Rodney snapped, turning back to the panel. He took Miko by the shoulders and shifted her out of the way .

“What did y ou see?” Tey la asked John, brows lifted.

“Som ething cam e out of the wall,” he told her. “A little thing, angled like it was pointing at us.”

Ronon looked up toward the top of the shaft. “A weapon?”

John shook his head. “No way to tell. Could have been a cam era, too.” All three of them pivoted, checking the walls. John couldn’t see any thing like it down here, but with the blue-green lights and the strips of em bossed m etal that m ight be decorative or som ething to do with the transporter function, there were too m any places for a tiny device to hide. He added, “Whatever it was, it could’ve j ust been autom atically tracking our m ovem ents.”

“Or som ething could be watching us,” Ronon added.

Tey la shook her head, though she still looked uneasy . “The life signs detector showed nothing.”

“But this structure is very large,” Miko put in, glancing back at them and adj usting her glasses. “And the shielding is unusual. If som eone was several sections away , I’m not sure the detector would find him .”

They all looked at her. “Oh,” John said, turning that unpleasant thought over. Considering they had no idea if the ship near the Mirror was Ancient or not, if it had been here since the Mirror had been abandoned or since y esterday, it wasn’t encouraging. “Great.”

Zelenka was say ing, “Ah, here, relay is dam aged-”

“Got it!” Rodney stepped back from the panel, lifting the m ask part of his SCBA unit. “Every one put y our breathing gear back on. This sy stem was designed to get people out of this structure as quickly as possible if the Mirror destabilized. We could run into som ething that m ight pop us right outside.”

“Im portant safety tip. Thanks, Rodney .” John adj usted his breathing unit, m ade certain every one else had theirs on, then gave Rodney the nod to open the door.

Rodney m ade a last adj ustm ent to the cry stals and the door slid sideway s. The first thing John noticed was that the door itself was nearly a foot thick, as heavy as the blast doors. The second was that the large room it opened into was not the ground floor corridor he had been expecting to see.

The ceiling was lower and instead of the dark indigo stone, the walls were the m etallic blue-green, with m ore strips of the tiny blue lights. Most of the illum ination cam e from square pillars, set with blocky white glowing fixtures, not unlike the ones in Atlantis. But the lights toward the back of the room weren’t on, leaving m ost of it in shadow.

John stepped through the doorway cautiously . He really didn’t like not knowing where they were in relation to the j um per. “Rodney ?” he said. “Any thoughts?”

Rodney stepped up next to him , say ing uncertainly , “I have no idea. I thought we were on the first level.”

“Yeah.” John thought, we j um ped into a strange transporter and we have no idea where it took us. Good one, John. “But we could hear Ronon when he called up the shaft. If this isn’t the ground floor, then it has to be above or below it. It couldn’t have taken us to another building.” He added uneasily , “Or, y ou know, planet.” Don ‘t let it be another planet.

“Unless there was a com m unications device in the shaft that was transm itting his voice back to us,” Rodney said. John stared at him , appalled. Rodney added hurriedly, “But what’s m ore likely is that we’re a level or two below ground. Think about it: escaping a m assive energy discharge by running outside the structure into the open is not the best option. It’s m ore likely that there’s a protected escape route down here.” He looked around, brow creased in worry . “Som ewhere.”

“Okay, that is m ore likely,” John adm itted. He glanced back at the others. Tey la and Ronon had stepped out behind him , and were gazing around the room suspiciously, flashing their lights into the shadows. Zelenka and Kusanagi had put their tools back in their packs and were anxiously watching him . “It’s okay . This happens all the tim e,” John told them , j udging this was a good tim e to throw honesty out the window and concentrate on reassurance.

“It does?” Ronon com m ented skeptically .

“Yes. Yes, it does,” Tey la said, spearing him with a look. She turned to give Radek and Miko a reassuring sm ile, adding, “We need only look for the way to the surface.”

“Right.” John turned back to the shadowy room . “Stay together.”

There was an open triangular archway at the back of the cham ber, leading to an alm ost identical space, but unlit. John had thought the lights would com e on once they got into the darkened section; they did in Atlantis, responding to any m ovem ent
now that they had been initialized by the Ancient gene. But the pillar-lights here stay ed dark. “That’s not good,” John com m ented, carefully exam ining the walls with his P-90’s light while Zelenka and Kusanagi got out flashlights. He didn’t see any thing like a console to turn the lights on m anually , either.

“This area m ust have taken som e dam age,” Rodney agreed sourly, looking from the life signs detector to his tablet. “Every body turn on y our breathing units; there’s a strong flow of air, but this section isn’t holding pressure.” He tucked the tablet under his arm and switched on his own unit, looking up with a wince. “I hope our hy pothetical escape route doesn’t need power.”

“Great,” John m uttered, switching his unit on. He caught a worried look from Tey la. Yeah, they were potentially in a lot of trouble here. They had about an hour’s worth of air in each tank, which had seem ed like a lot when they had had a clear path back to the j um per.

Rodney said uneasily , “At least the cham ber at the bottom of the shaft is pressurized, if we, ah…” He tapped the strap of his breathing tank significantly .

John j ust said, “Right,” and picked up the pace. The air at the bottom of the shaft m ight keep them alive, but stay ing there didn’t exactly offer a lot of options for searching for the way out.

They went through three m ore room s and a couple of corridors, all unlit. Then the escape route stopped being hy pothetical, but m ight as well have been m y thological for all the good it was going to do them . Their lights had started to find cracks in
the walls and the floor had becom e grainy with dirt and pebbles. Then they found the tum ble of rock blocking the end of the next large room . Rodney swore, and John agreed, “Yeah, this sucks.”

“But look at this,” Tey la said, directing her light toward the far wall. There was a narrow silver track set into the floor, partially concealed by dust and rubble.

“Huh, that’s intriguing,” Rodney m uttered, starting toward it. John used his longer legs to get there first, sweeping his light around to check the ceiling for any sign of im m inent collapse. It looked like the wall had buckled, the rock pushing through the m etal panels and piling up on the floor, but the roof hadn’t given way and didn’t look inclined to it. Rodney m oved back and forth, his flashlight flickering around im patiently, picking out a large rounded shape buried under the rubble. “There’s som ething under here, som e kind of sm all underground vehicle. It m ust use that track-”

“What, like a little subway ?” John asked.

Rodney waved his hands. “Yes, that is what an underground vehicle would be called, y es. But it’s obvious this is-

“Perhaps it goes to the spaceport,” Miko said, standing on tiptoes to see as she stood next to John. She had apparently taken the order to not get ahead of the m ilitary personnel literally , and he sure as hell wasn’t going to fault her for it.

“Yes, exactly.” Zelenka crouched with his flashlight, try ing to get a better look at the sm ashed m etal and glass under the rocks. “If this is escape route, it would m ake the m ost sense for the subway to head directly there, at very high speed. And it could have a self-contained power source, like a j um per, and wouldn’t be affected by power loss in the m ain com plex, as a transporter would.”

Rodney glared. “Of course! That’s what I was try ing to-

“So how do we get out?” Ronon asked.

“We’re working on it,” John said easily , before Rodney ‘s head exploded. They were still finding stuff; it wasn’t tim e to start the real worry ing until they had exhausted all the possibilities. “Right, Rodney ?”

“Yes, y es.” Rodney turned away from the crushed subway car, flicking his light around. “There should be alternate entrances, if this was a regular m ethod of transportation to and from the port. In which case, there could be som ething nearby…”

He stepped over the rubble, m oving toward the wall.

They spread out a little, searching, their lights finding m ore rubble and dust and buckled m etal. John kept a close ey e on the tim e, thinking about their air tanks.

Finally Zelenka halted, shining his flashlight toward the ceiling. “Wait, Colonel, Rodney ? What is this?”

John stepped over the rocks to reach his side, squinting. “That…looks like a hatch.” It was a door-sized panel set in a recess in the flat stone ceiling. From the chunks of m etal still attached, there had once been a stairway or ladder to access it. John saw with relief that it had a little console, which m eant Rodney could trick it into opening for them if there was any power left in this section at all. “Good j ob, Radek.”

“Yes, y ou get a gold star,” Rodney added, j oining them .

It was too high for even Ronon to reach while stretching up and standing on his toes, but fortunately there was no shortage of rocks. They piled up enough to m ake a sm all platform for Rodney to stand on and reach the console.

Zelenka stood below, handing Rodney tools and kibitzing. Ronon offered to hold Miko up so she could see too, but she declined. After a few m inutes of work and trading insults with Zelenka, the console popped and the hatch groaned, starting to slide
open. John stepped back as dirt and pebbles poured through the growing opening, a red landslide. Rodney hastily j um ped down as every one else backed away. Tucking his toolkit back into his pack, Zelenka said fervently, “Don’t be blocked, please-Hah, I see light!”

He was right; wan day light was visible through the cascade of dirt. There were m urm urs of relief. “Looks like we’re in business,” John said, try ing to get closer, squinting to see through the dust cloud. The slide trickled to a halt and he stepped up onto their awkward rock platform , looking up through the opening. It led into a m etal-walled shaft about eight feet long, and he couldn’t see m uch bey ond that but the curve of the planet dom inating the sky .

He still couldn’t see any thing when Ronon boosted him up, but he could tell the edges of the hatch were set securely in som e kind of stone platform . Ronon half-shoved, half-flung him , and John scram bled for a m om ent, sending another sm all
landslide down. The walls of the shaft were crusted with dirt, but he finally got a grip on a set of handholds form ing a ladder in the wall. He hauled him self up enough to brace his feet on the m etal of the shaft, then clim bed the rest of the way to the surface.

Poking his head out cautiously, he saw the shaft opened into the bottom of a sem i-circular pit with sides too regular to be any thing but m anm ade. Dirt was still trickling down the opening, and it looked like whatever covering that had originally
shielded it had been torn away , and the whole thing buried under weather-shifted soil, m ost of which was now down on the floor of the cham ber below.

John clim bed out and struggled through the loose sand toward the side, finding a set of steps by luck when his boot caught on the first one and he sm acked into the side of the pit. They were still m ostly buried, but provided enough purchase to m ake
the clim b easier than try ing to swim upward through a sea of shifting sand. His headset cam e on and Rodney ‘s voice dem anded, “What are y ou doing? What do y ou see?”

“I see sand. Lots of sand. Give m e a m inute.” At least the SCBA kept him from having to breathe in the dust. John reached the top of the pit, and swore in relief. The outer wall of the installation was about five hundred y ards away. The distance didn’t quite add up; he didn’t think the series of belowground room s had covered that m uch ground. Rodney m ust have been right about the transporter; it hadn’t been a straight shot down the shaft. It had taken them further outside the building, and Ronon m ust have called to them over an autom atically activated com m sy stem .

But however they had ended up out here, they were on the right side of the building. John could see one of the triangular doorway s as the structure curved, and the rock form ation not far to the south looked fam iliar. He fished the j um per’s rem ote
out of his tac vest. “Well hello, baby,” he m uttered as the readout told him the cloaked j um per was within close range. That m ust be the doorway they had used to enter the building, and the j um per was waiting only a short distance from it. “What, what?”

Rodney was y elling in his headset as in the background, Tey la said, “Dr. McKay , please calm down,” and Zelenka added helpfully , “You are using up all y our air, Rodney .”

“We’re near the j um per,” John reported, ignoring all the com m entary . He shoved off from the dirt-encrusted stairs and went back to the shaft. His arrival caused another sm all cascade and som e grum bling exclam ations from below.

He dropped to his knees beside the open hatch, unslinging his pack to get the rope out. He figured Tey la, Miko, and Radek would need it, all being too short to reach as far up as John had been able to, and Ronon could only fling them so far up the
shaft. There was no good spot to tie it off, the ladder set into the side j ust had handholds, not actual rungs he could wrap it around. John settled for anchoring the rope by bracing his body across the shaft, planting his butt and his feet against the stable stone and m etal rim . He said over the radio, “Tey la, y ou’re next.”

She m anaged it with som e scram bling, and another sm all landslide as m ore crusted dirt was dislodged. She struggled out, shook a spray of red sand out of her hair, and looked around. “We have been lucky for once,” she said, her voice wry .

“Hey , hey , watch it,” John told her seriously . “Rem em ber, we talked about that.” He said into his headset, “Com e on, McKay .”

Tey la lifted a skeptical brow at him , taking up the slack of the rope and bracing herself to help anchor it. “Yes, y ou believe if we speak of luck, it goes away . I do not share y our superstitions.”

“You were willing to hum or the people on P6S-221 who thought wearing hats kept the Wraith away -” John leaned back, steady ing the rope as Rodney started his clim b. “You can hum or us.”

Tey la shifted to take m ore of the weight. “Wearing a hat because our hosts asked it was sim ply courtesy . I am not going to encourage y our prim itive-”

Rodney ‘s head appeared near the top of the shaft and John reached down to give him a hand up. Rodney was looking down, apparently addressing Zelenka, “I can’t tell if it’s a power access port or not, do I look like I can m ake a com plete assessm ent while hanging in m idair?” John and Tey la heaved and Rodney dragged him self up, scram bling out of the shaft to thum p down heavily on the sand. Breathing hard, he told John, “If the j um per’s nearby , I don’t see why y ou couldn’t have gotten the winch and saved us the trouble of-” Rodney froze, ey es going wide, and that was when the shadow fell over the pit.

John threw a look over his shoulder and got a heartfreezing view of a big dark shape hovering over them . He twisted around, j erking up the P-90. It was a ship.

He heard Tey la take a sharp indrawn breath and Rodney gasp, “It’s-It’s-”

Gritting his teeth, his whole body tight in anticipation of a culling beam , John whispered tensely into his headset, “Ronon, fall back, get them away from the hatch, now, do it now.”

But it didn’t look Wraith; it didn’t look like any thing John had ever seen before. It was larger than the j um per, curved into a conch shell-like spiral, dark purple shaded to pink… It m atches the tulip ship, John thought in shock. This thing went together with that ship like Lego bricks. A faint flush of cool air cam e from it, sm elling of ozone; a cloud of dust rose slowly around it. John registered Ronon’s terse, “Com e on,” a m urm ur of alarm from Zelenka, Kusanagi’s breathless, “Hurry , Doctor.”

“I sense no Wraith,” Tey la was whispering, her P-90 aim ed at the thing loom ing over them . “This ship is not of the Ancestors?”

“I have no idea,” Rodney m anaged. He winced. “It’s not killing us y et. That’s probably wishful thinking.”

John couldn’t see any thing that looked like the m uzzle of a weapon. Since it had been m ay be thirty seconds and they still weren’t dead, he added, “Rodney , when I say go, grab the rope and get back down there. Tey la, y ou’re right behind him .”

Tey la flicked a worried look at him , but nodded. “But, I, it’s-” Rodney swallowed noisily . “Right.” He edged back toward the shaft, his ey es still on the ship. “What about y ou?”

“I’m going to be right behind Tey la,” John assured him . “Go!”

Rodney swung his legs into the shaft and grabbed for the rope. John shifted, bracing his leg against the edge of the hatch, but Rodney let go of the rope, grabbing onto the dirt-encrusted ladder and half-clim bing, half-falling down. “Tey la, go,” John snapped.

She twisted around and grabbed the rope, and j ust as she swung down into the shaft, the ship m oved. It rolled with a sudden rush of air, dust sheeting over the pit, and John twisted his face away. He felt Tey la’s weight leave the rope and he rolled to
crouch on the edge of the opening, try ing to disappear into the dirt and sparse tufts of grass. He couldn’t go down y et; if he fell he would slam Tey la and probably Rodney into the rocks at the bottom of the shaft. Then he heard Rodney y ell “Go, go, we’re clear!” and Tey la’s breathless confirm ation. John swung his legs over the side, scram bling for purchase. Then the shadow and the loom ing weight overhead were suddenly gone.

His heart pounding, John looked up. The ship was lifting away from the pit. It rolled gracefully , with a sound like wind rustling through pines, then m oved out of sight toward the south.

John slid down another foot before he m anaged to stop him self. He couldn’t hear the ship any m ore, but he watched the edge of the pit warily. So did it leave? Wraith ships didn’t have cloaking technology, but it sounded like the consensus had been
that this wasn’t a Wraith ship. And John had to adm it that the evidence was in favor of it; if it had been som e new kind of Wraith ship it would still have a culling beam , and he, Rodney, and Tey la would be well on their way to getting stuck to the wall of a hiveship as future item s on the dinner m enu. John winced as his headset crackled and Rodney ‘s voice whispered furiously , “What the hell are y ou doing? Get down here!”

“It left. I’m try ing to figure out where the hell it went.” John dragged him self out, getting another ton of sand down his pants in the process, kneeling in the dirt to untangle him self from the rope.

Tey la’s voice overrode Rodney ‘s to ask, “Are y ou all right?”

“I’m fine. Rodney , j ust out of curiosity , when did y ou last check the life signs detector?” John kept his head down as he m ade his way to the half-buried steps at the edge of the pit.

Rodney was say ing to som eone else, “Oh please, I have no idea what it is and unless y ou’ve got a copy of Jane’s Fighting Intergalactic Spaceships hidden in y our pack, neither do y ou.” He answered John, “When y ou first clim bed out, there was nothing on the screen but us. The ship m ust have been out of range. Or it’s shielded against the detector, which frankly would be j ust our luck. And if it’s still out there, I’m not getting a reading. So basically it could be any where so be very , very careful!”

John scram bled to the top of the steps and took a cau tious peek over the edge of the pit. “Oh, crap.”

“What?” several different voices dem anded.

“I found it. It landed.” John cautiously eased back down, digging his binoculars out of a tac vest pocket. “Guess where.”

John could hear Rodney thum ping him self in the forehead. “It’s next to the j um per, isn’t it?” Rodney said bleakly .

“Yeah. May be about twenty y ards from it.” John wiped sweat and dirt off his forehead and lifted up enough to focus the binoculars on the alien ship. “That’s not an accident. It has to be able to see through the j um per’s cloak.”

“An Ancient ship would have that ability ,” Radek put in, sounding unnerved.

Tey la said, “But if they were som ehow Ancestors, they would see we are hum an, and try to contact us.”

“They could be like us, hum ans who have found and learned to use Ancient technology ,” Miko added cautiously .

“May be they are try ing to contact us,” John pointed out. With the binoculars he could see m ore detail on the ship, including bulbous proj ections that m ight be sensor devices or weapons, and a curved depression in the hull that could be a hatch. He put the binoculars away , checked his watch, and grim aced. They didn’t have a lot of tim e left on the air tanks, and all that clim bing and suppressed hy steria had to have used up an extra share of oxy gen. “If they wanted to lure us out into the open, all they had to do was fly behind the building and wait till we cam e out.”

Then Ronon said, “May be they j ust want to m ake sure we’re good to eat first.”

John shook his head wearily . There was a m om ent of silence, then Tey la said, “Ronon. That was unnecessary .”

“We have fifteen m inutes of air left,” Rodney added, his voice grim .

“I know.” John didn’t see that he had a lot of choice. “I’m going to get the j um per and bring it over here. If I’m not back in seven m inutes, get back to the building. Tey la’s in com m and.”

Rodney was already sputtering, “What? Alone? Are y ou out of y our m ind?”

Easing up to the top of the steps, John didn’t see how com pany would help if the ship decided to fire on him . “Yeah, alone.”

“Sheppard, I’ll go,” Ronon said as Tey la began, “Colonel-” and Rodney started, “We could try -”

“Ronon, stay with the others and do what Tey la say s. That’s an order. Every body shut up now. That’s also an order.” Wincing, John stood cautiously, already feeling like he had a target painted on his chest. But there was no sign of m ovem ent from the ship.

The others interpreted “shut up now” as “continue to argue in furious whispers” but it kept John com pany as he crossed the suddenly endless stretch of open ground between the pit and the cloaked j um per. He m oved at a j og, because he j ust didn’t have tim e to take it slow and cautious. He gave the other ship as wide a berth as possible.

The argum ent was still raging in his headset. He heard Rodney say, “You’re discounting the possibility that it could have com e through the Mirror!” and Radek reply, “I am not discounting! I see no reason to theorize in advance of m y data!” John hoped Kusanagi’s earlier guess was right, and the ship was occupied by Pegasus Galaxy hum ans who had stum bled on Ancient technology and figured out how to use it. The other option was aliens, and he really wasn’t com fortable with that.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe there were benign aliens. He had seen all the SGC reports and he knew about the Tok’ra and the Nox and all the assorted others, and he had m et an Asgard in person, though he still thought Herm iod was a creepy little
bastard. But his gut reaction wasn’t ever going to change. In an argum ent where Rodney had called John a xenophobe, Rodney had pointed out that John’s perception of aliens had been adversely affected because his first experience with one had
involved being pinned to a dinner table by a life-sucking vam pire that wanted to eat his entire species. John had replied, y eah, so what? and that was pretty m uch the end of rational discourse on that subj ect.

Of course, if it was hum ans in there, that certainly didn’t m ean they were out of the woods. Instead of sitting in there thinking hey , other people with a spaceship, let’s contact them , it could be hey , another spaceship, let’s kill them all and steal it.

But they could have done that with one burst of fire into the pit and they hadn’t, and that was all John had to go on right now.

“Colonel! What’s going on? What is the alien ship doing? What-” Rodney dem anded.

“Nothing, y et.” The ship was j ust loom ing silently on the sand, like a giant m etal conch shell.

Forty y ards now from the square dent in the sand that m arked the j um per’s position, John debated the relative m erit of glaring suspiciously at the strange ship versus try ing to pretend it wasn’t there. Thirty y ards and he was starting to think he was hom e free.

Then the dent in the purple hull m ade a m etallic clunk and started to slide open. “Crap,” John m uttered, spinning to face it. He kept the P-90 aim ed toward the growing opening, still backing toward the j um per.

“What? What is it?” Rodney said urgently . The others had gone quiet.

“The hatch is opening,” John said through gritted teeth.

The hatch slid all the way up. The interior was too dark to see any thing but a shallow airlock. Then a helm eted head peeked out.

John stum bled to a halt because he was having a The Day the Earth Stood Still m om ent. Except this figure was a lot sm aller and m ore tentative than Gort. It was m ay be a little over five feet tall, hum an-shaped from what he could tell; every thing
was concealed in the dark blue folds of a loose outfit that m ight be a pressure or environm ental suit of som e kind. The helm et was dark glass, opaque, and attached to a sm all purplish-gray unit strapped to its back. It was gripping one side of the hatch, braced as if to leap back into the ship, its whole stance convey ing uncertainty and trepidation rather than hostility . John was still m ostly expecting it to shoot at him , though its hands were em pty .

They stared at each other for a very long m om ent. Then it lifted a gloved hand slowly, fingers spread in what had to be a greeting. Five fingers, John noticed. Slowly, he took one hand off his P-90 and waved back. He said, “Uh, hey there. I
actually can’t do this right now, because I’m running out of air, and I have to m ove m y ship.”

In his headset, he heard Rodney say , “What? Who are y ou talking to-Oh. Oh, God.”

The figure hesitated, then a voice, light and a little tinny as it was filtered through whatever com m device the helm et used, said, “Oh.” Then it added, “I-I’ll wait here.”

They stared at each other for a m om ent m ore, then John said, “Okay.” He reached into his vest and triggered the rem ote. He heard the welcom e hiss and thum p as the j um per’s ram p opened behind him , felt the cool breeze as the conditioned air flowed out. He backed up until his heel caught the end of the ram p and he barely m anaged not to fall on his ass. Fortunately the cloak extended far enough that the hum an-alien-person-whatever would have m issed that part.

John bolted inside, hitting the switch to close the ram p. He went im m ediately to the cockpit, say ing, “I’m in the j um per. You guy s okay ?”

“What? What happened?” Rodney shouted into his headset. “What was it? Hum an, alien, what?”

“We are fine,” Tey la answered, sounding relieved. “What did y ou see?”

“The hatch opened, som ebody stepped out.” The j um per was already powering up as John dropped into the pilot’s seat. The HUD flashed on, showing him the energy signatures and relative position of the alien ship. He saw with relief that as far as the j um per could tell, it was the only other ship in the area. And the sensors were only reading one life sign, but the handheld detector hadn’t read any thing, and this one m ight only be registering because the person-alien-whatever was standing in the hatch. Though som ething about the tentative way it had peeked out had suggested that it was alone. John wasn’t going to count on that, though. “He’s wearing an EVA suit and helm et; he m ostly looked hum an, but I couldn’t tell.” He hesitated, then dropped the cloak. The ship obviously had instrum ents that could see through it, and he wanted to try to keep this whole thing at the cordial level it had started out on.

“You were com m unicating with it, y ou could have asked if it was hum an,” Rodney pointed out in exasperation.

“Well, y eah, but that seem ed kind of rude. Get ready , I’ll be there in a m inute.”

He lifted the j um per up to a low hover, then took it through a decorously slow turn and back toward the pit. The sensors inform ed him the ground was stable, confirm ing that there was som e kind of stone construction buried under the dirt. He set her
down close to the edge of the steps and opened the ram p. It was going to take the j um per som e tim e to re-pressurize, so he rapidly changed out his own air bottle, then loaded a pack with spares. He carried it down to the shaft and lowered it with the rope.

And since there was no point in doing it the hard way again, he got the collapsible chain-link ladder out, secured it to the ram p, and dropped it down the shaft.

Tey la cam e up first, m oving im m ediately to the edge of the pit to keep watch. “He is still standing in the hatchway , watching us,” she reported quietly as John gave Rodney a hand up out of the shaft.

“Good,” Rodney said, heading toward Tey la and ducking to keep his head down. “If there’s only one of them in that thing, then no one is inside powering up weapons.”

John had thought of that too, but they were still at their m ost vulnerable right now. Leaning down to help Miko over the edge of the shaft, John said, “Rodney , j ust get in the dam n j um per.”

Radek m ade it to the top, sweating and nervous, with an im passive Ronon right behind him . John sent Radek into the j um per after Miko, and he and Ronon hurriedly dragged the ladder up. Getting every body into the j um per and closing the ram p
didn’t m ake him feel any m ore secure.

As the j um per re-pressurized the com partm ent, John dropped his pack and went forward to the cockpit. The others were already crowded inside, looking out the port at the other ship, Miko in the shotgun seat with Tey la and Zelenka standing behind
her, craning to see. John m oved Rodney out of the way so he could sit down in the pilot’s seat, and Ronon ducked in, standing in the hatchway. They had a good view of the other ship, still sitting quietly in the sand near the j um per’s previous position. The occupant had vanished.

“He went inside when y ou closed the ram p,” Miko reported, flushed with excitem ent. She was holding one of the video cam eras, aim ing out the port. John was glad som ebody had rem em bered to take DV of the ship.

The HUD was cy cling through different sensor screens and Rodney shook his head, his m outh twisted. “We’re not getting m uch data. I don’t think it’s an energy shield that’s blocking us. It seem s to be the m aterial of the hull itself.”

John nodded decisively . He could sy m pathize with the j um per; he had nothing at the m om ent either. “Right. So what are our options here?”

“Should we not go outside and try to speak to the pilot again?” Tey la said, study ing the ship intently , her brows drawn together. “He does not seem hostile.”

“Not y et,” Ronon contributed grim ly .

John wasn’t exactly an optim ist about this, but he couldn’t side with Ronon on that one. “No, I don’t think he’s hostile. Unless he was faking…I think he was scared.”

“We could run away ,” Radek offered. Every one turned to look at him . He shrugged eloquently . “I j ust wanted to put it on the table, I’m not say ing we should do it.”

Rodney gave him a withering look. “You know, this is why I don’t bring y ou along on these things-” He stopped suddenly and snapped his fingers. “Wait, we’re being very stupid.”

`° We?”’ John asked him pointedly .

Rodney sat down in the other j um p seat, opening the laptop and its interface into the j um per’s sy stem s. “Well, all right, y ou. He’s probably try ing to contact us right now, that’s why he went back into his ship.”

“Ah.” Zelenka m ade an annoy ed gesture. “You are right.”

John frowned. “But the j um per should pick that up autom atically .”

Intent on the interface, Rodney huffed in exasperation. “No, because its com m sy stem has been adj usted to scan our frequencies and the range the Wraith use. If he’s broadcasting in a different range, which he probably is-” He went still, his face transfixed, one hand going to his headset. “It’s there. This is… It’s an Ancient frequency .” He tapped the key pad hurriedly and the transm ission filled the cockpit.

It was the light hesitant voice John had heard earlier, still tinny and now distorted by bursts of static. “…of the Eidolon ship…hear m e? Are y ou there?”

“Interference from the Mirror is causing the disruptions,” Zelenka whispered.

“Did he say Eidolon?” John glanced back at Tey la and Ronon. “Any body heard that before?”

“Never,” Tey la said, frustrated. “And I could not tell if he is say ing he is the Eidolon ship, or he thinks we are.” Ronon shook his head, shrugging.

John chewed his lower lip, ey eing the controls. “Yeah, I didn’t get that either.”

Rodney was m aking frantic m otions at John. “Will y ou answer him ?”

“Okay , okay .” John opened the channel, cleared his throat, and said, “We’re here. Sorry about that. Uh, we… forgot that we didn’t have the radio on.”

Rodney glared and said furiously , “Excuse m e! Yo1u’re m aking us sound like idiots. What are y ou going to tell him next, that we startle easily because things try to eat us a lot-”

John glared back. “Do y ou want to do this? Then shut up.

“Dr. McKay , Colonel!” Miko pointed urgently at the com m readout. “He can hear us.”

Crap, John thought, staring at the com m panel.

The voice corrected carefully , “I’m fem ale.”

“Oh.” Miko bit her lip in em barrassm ent. “Sorry .”

John m outhed the words, “Every body, quiet. Especially Rodney.” He said aloud, “Sorry about that, again. We’re peaceful explorers, and, uh-” They weren’t telling any one that they were from Atlantis any m ore, hoping to keep from spreading the inform ation that the city hadn’t self-destructed. Necessary, but it had m ade quite a hole in the standard “we com e in peace, let’s not try to kill each other” speech. Try ing to get som e idea whether he was talking to a hum an or not, he said, “We’ve never

seen a ship like y ours before. Is Eidolon the planet y ou com e from ?”

“No, I’m not from …here.” There was a static-filled hesitation, then the voice blurted, “I cam e to this plane of existence through the Quantum Mirror.”

There was a collective gasp from the others and Rodney pounded on the back of John’s chair. “Okay,” John said slowly, stalling. The first question that occurred to him was “was that really a good idea?” but he m anaged to keep that one to him self.

He said, “Why ?” Though if she was the scout for an invasion force, she probably wouldn’t com e out and say so.

“I was with m y line study ing the-” There was another burst of static and John thought he heard “…no alien races but I believe that….” m ore static, then “…com m on ancestor.”

Rodney was now doing som e kind of little dance behind him . John said carefully , “Say again? What was that last part?”

There was an edge of desperation in the voice. “I said, I believe we share a com m on ancestor. We call them the Creators. They originated m uch of our technology, including m any things we still do not understand fully, like the Mirror.” Holy crap, John thought. If that’s true He was aware of Miko bouncing in her seat, Tey la lifting her brows in astonishm ent and Rodney and Radek having som e sort of fervent sign language “I told y ou so” thing. The voice was continuing, “I didn’t intend to com e here.

I was col lecting data from the Mirror. There is a sim ilar com plex around it in m y reality , a ruin of the Creators’ civilization, and m y research-” static fuzzed out a few words “-exploring it. The Mirror activated suddenly and m y ship was pulled through. I tried to return, but the Mirror on this side seem s to be m ore dam aged, m ore unstable.” There was another hesitation. “I am alone here and…I need help.”

“Oh, y eah, apparently y ou have to watch that. Quantum Mirrors suck people in suddenly .” John looked up to see even Tey la m aking urgent “get on with it” m otions. “What kind of help do y ou need? Besides, obviously , y ou’d like to get back hom e.”

“That, y es. And m y ship is dam aged. I know how to repair it, but I need m aterials. I was try ing to scavenge supplies from the ruin and-It caused the security sy stem to activate.” She sounded deeply em barrassed. “I apologize for that. When the m onitors cam e on, I saw y ou. I tried to turn it off, but I’d apparently rem oved a necessary com ponent from that console. By the tim e I replaced it and regained control of the sy stem , y ou were outside. I went to m y ship and tried to call y ou on m y com m unications sy stem , then took the shuttle out to look for y ou. When I saw y our ship, I was so relieved.”

Rodney leaned over John’s shoulder suddenly, cutting off the com m m ic for the cockpit. He said, “That explains every thing we found on the first level. Som e of the doors m ust have been open, letting in the native plant and anim al life. When she
arrived, she m ust have activated the autom atic sy stem s, and the building sealed itself and pressurized. And that m eans-”

“She has the Ancient gene,” John finished, lifting a brow.

Rodney switched on the m ic again, say ing briskly, “Hello, Dr. Rodney McKay speaking. I’m a scientist with experience with this technology. Can y ou tell m e what indication y ou saw that the Mirror wasn’t form ing a stable connection to y our
reality ?”

“Yes.” The voice sounded m ore certain. “Yes, m y instrum ents show that the Mirror is experiencing periodic energy fluctuations, like the one that occurred j ust a little while ago. I’ve tried sending transm issions through, and then a probe with a recorded m essage, but I received no response, and from the energy discharge I believe the probe was destroy ed.”

“You realize the Mirror m ay not be set to the sam e destination,” Rodney told her. “Finding y our reality again could be problem atic, to put it m ildly .”

“Oh, but in m y reality , our research suggests that the instability was preventing the Mirror from switching destinations, even when it was shut down and reactivated. That’s why I believe that if I could j ust activate it successfully , I could go hom e.”

Rodney frowned, throwing a look back at Zelenka. Zelenka shrugged, m outhing the words, “It’s a possibility . J

“I know that,” Rodney m outhed back, glaring irritably . He said aloud, “Right, y es. I’d have to take a look at y our readings.”

“Will y ou do that?” she asked anxiously . “Look at m y data? My equipm ent is in m y ship, which is in the open portion of the ruin, near the Mirror; this is only a shuttle unit.” She hesitated, then said tim idly , “Will y ou help m e?”

CHAPTER FOUR
very body looked at John. He took a deep breath. Well, here goes, he thought. “What’s y our nam e?”

The answer cam e im m ediately , “I am Trishen, of the line of Freny a.”

“Trishen, give us a couple of m inutes to talk it over.” John cut the channel.

Every body started talking at once, which John had expected. Rodney out shouted them all with, “This is an incredible opportunity ! We’ve taken far, far m ore stupid chances than this-” The environm ental control display interrupted, inform ing them that the com partm ent had repressurized. John switched his breathing set off, pulling his m ask down as the others followed suit. Rodney , by force of will and m ore practice, got his m ask1 off faster and continued, “-and we can’t pass this up because of y our m ilitary paranoia-”

“Rodney !” John lifted his brows. “I didn’t say I was against it.”

“-and pointless suspicion in cases where-Oh.” Rodney flung his hands in the air, deflating.

“Besides,” Miko quickly added in the gap while Rodney was try ing to switch gears, “If she shares her data with us, it will be m uch easier to discover how to shut down the Mirror.” She looked around at their expressions, startled. She added hastily,

“Oh, no, I m eant after we help her to get back to her reality .”

“Yes, we m ust find som e way to help her, whatever we do,” Radek said, shaking his head. “It would be a terrible thing, trapped here and cut off from her com panions. There are m any day s when I’m not happy to be here m y self, I can’t think what it would be like-” He m ade a vague gesture. “Alone.”

“I agree,” Tey la said, leaning forward in her chair, her face intent. “I can only think how we would feel if it was one of us trapped in their reality , and we had no m eans of retrieving her.”

That one had crossed John’s m ind, too.

Rodney m ade an abrupt gesture. “This is what it com es down to. From what we found, it takes the Ancient gene to get into the upper control areas of the installation, and she’s apparently been researching Ancient technology in her reality . She could even be m ore closely related to the Ancients than we are, and an exchange of data with her could give us the m issing pieces to puzzles we’ve j ust barely begun to discover.”

John leaned sideway s to see Ronon, who was propped in the cabin hatch. “Ronon. What do y ou think?”

Ronon looked away , his m outh twisted, though he seem ed m ore uneasy than cy nical. “It sounds like a wom an. It could be a trap, but…” He shrugged uncom fortably .

Tey la added, “But if she m eant us harm , it would have m ade m ore sense to act when we were caught in the open.

Ronon nodded. John interpreted that as m eaning that Ronon would like to be suspicious but j ust couldn’t see his way clear to it. That pretty m uch sum m ed up how John felt.

Rodney folded his arm s. “Hum anitarian consider ations aside, if the Mirror is now too dangerously unstable to operate and she can’t go back, that leaves us the opportunity to invite her back to Atlantis.” He lifted his chin. “Her and her spaceship.”

“I adm it, that occurred to m e also.” Radek scratched his head ruefully. “It would be terrible thing for her, but not necessarily for us. And she has already been here for m ore than a day as m easured by this m oon’s orbit. If there was a possibility she would experience entropic cascade failure, it would already have happened.”

Ronon stirred, frowning. “What’s that?”

Radek turned to him , explaining, “If m ore than one copy of the sam e person exists sim ultaneously in one reality, the newcom er experiences a quantum instability that causes m assive cellular disruption throughout the entire body.” He winced. “You becom e fuzzy , it’s painful and terrible.”

Ronon ey ed him skeptically . “That doesn’t m ake sense.

“Nothing involving Quantum Mirrors m akes sense,” Rodney said in annoy ance. He looked at John and dem anded, “Are we going to do this?”

“Yeah.” John let out his breath. It was still a risk, but the fact rem ained that they didn’t have a single reason to believe this wom an wasn’t exactly who and what she said she was. And Tey la had pegged it; he couldn’t help thinking how he would feel if they lost som eone through the Mirror, knowing he or she was right on the other side and unable to do a dam n thing about it. And if they couldn’t get Trishen back hom e, talking her into returning to Atlantis with them was a hell of a lot better option than leaving her sitting out here with no idea where the nearest inhabited world was. “We’re going to do this.” He glanced at his watch, and the HUD helpfully popped up a diagram of the planetary sy stem , with the current positions of the gas giant and the base m oon. “The planet’s blocking a direct transm ission back to base cam p. We’re going to have to bounce a signal off one of those other m oons.

Rodney nodded sharply , his face caught between relief, trium ph, and trepidation. “I’ll m ake a data packet to update them on our situation. We should get an answer in a few m inutes.”

“Right.” John turned his chair back to the console, and key ed on the com m channel. He said, “Trishen? We’re going to help y ou.”

There was a little negotiation first.

According to Trishen, her ship and the little shuttle’s shielding had been specifically adj usted to deal with the Mirror’s discharges. Both had been specially designed research vessels, developed after the other Eidolon ships had suffered near m isses
sim ilar to the one that had alm ost taken out the j um per. She asked if they wanted to m ove the j um per into the installation’s inner ring, next to her base ship. “That would be a big no,” John told her. Rodney was m aking em phatic boom gestures and m outhing the words “quantum instability.” John added, “The instability interferes too m uch with our ship’s sy stem s. We need it to stay on this side of the installation.” The reason he didn’t give her was that while he didn’t think she was ly ing to them , he didn’t see any reason to be stupid about this, either. “Do y ou know if there’s a direct passage from the outside through to the Mirror?”

“Yes, it’s on the far side of the structure. I found it when I was looking for any thing I could scavenge for m y repairs. It’s a large doorway, perhaps m eant to accom m odate ground vehicles. There’s a fairly direct passage through it to the Mirror platform , though that section of the installation seem s m ore dam aged, and isn’t holding pressure.” She hesitated, then offered, “If y ou would like to follow m e in y our ship, I can go back in that direction and show it to y ou.”

“That would be fine,” John told her.

He cut the com m channel, and Tey la frowned worriedly , say ing, “I think she has realized we are som ewhat distrustful.”

Rodney leaned forward, watching as the conch shellshaped shuttle lifted off in a cloud of swirling dust. “Yes, well, she should have picked up on that when our first reaction to seeing an alien spacecraft was to fling ourselves down a twenty -foot
drop.”

“You notice she didn’t offer to give us a ride over there.” John took the j um per out of standby, lifting it up to a low hover. “Not that we would have accepted, but we’re both being careful here. That’s not a bad thing.” The HUD didn’t read any signs of weapons powering up, but since it couldn’t read life signs inside the other ship either, he had no idea how accurate it was. Trishen’s shuttle m oved slowly away , following the curve of the installation, and John guided the j um per after it.

“You think if she had…designs on us she would try harder to appear m ore trusting?” Radek asked, craning his neck to watch. The purple-shaded stem of the shuttle was centered in the viewport, the indigo wall of the installation loom ing over them both. “Haven’t we said we would go to her ship any way ?”

“We’re not all going,” John told him . “Tey la, Rodney , and I will check it out first.” The others were all looking at him , and he shrugged one shoulder. “I’d j ust rather not put all our eggs in one basket.”

“Yes, that’s a very com forting analogy , Colonel,” Rodney said, preoccupied. “There’s the door. She’s right, it’s probably a cargo entrance.”

The shuttle slowed to a hover in front of a big square hatch, set deeper into the side of the building and at least three or four tim es the size of the other entrance. The sand drifts were higher on this side, washing up to the door’s threshold, so it was
im possible to tell if there was a road or ram p leading up to it. John clicked on the com m channel again to say , “We’ve got it. We’ll see y ou on the other side.”

There was a brief acknowledgem ent from Trishen, then the shuttle lifted up, vanishing over the top of the building.

While Rodney was busy downloading diagnostic program s and data he thought he m ight need from the j um per’s sy stem s, and Zelenka and Tey la were recharging the air tanks, John took Miko aside. Or as aside as he could get in a rear cabin only
slightly larger than a Winnebago. He said, “Look, I don’t want to scare y ou, but…” It was hard to say this when she was looking up at him with big worried ey es, m agnified even m ore by her glasses. “If worse com es to worst, not that I think it will, but-”

Miko blinked. “You want to know if I can fly the j um per back to the base m oon if I had to.”

“Uh, y eah.”

She pushed her glasses up, considering the question with a grave expression. “I think so. The navigation is relatively sim ple, and the guidance sy stem assists with re-entry. With Dr. Zelenka’s extensive knowledge of all the sy stem s, I don’t think I would have any trouble.” She winced. “As long as nothing is shooting at m e.”

“Right.” John folded his arm s, chewing his lower lip. Her training had included the basics of how to avoid an incom ing hiveship. Which wouldn’t do her m uch good against an alien ship of unknown capabilities that had dem onstrated an ability to see through the cloak. “Just fly really fast.”

Miko went to help with the air tanks, and Ronon took her place, looking down at John with a stony expression. He said, “Why aren’t y ou taking m e?”

“Because Tey la is good at first contact. Your idea of first contact is stunning people unconscious and ty ing them up,” John told him . He was long over any pique caused by their initial encounter with Ronon, but he wanted to m ake his point. “And I need y ou here to protect Radek and Miko. And no m atter what happens, y ou stay with them , and y ou do what they say .” He added with em phasis, “That’s an order.”

Ronon flicked a look toward the front of the j um per. Rodney was in the cockpit, disconnecting his laptop from the j um per’s sy stem s, practically bouncing with nervous excitem ent. Miko and Tey la crouched on the floor, getting the tanks reattached
to the field packs, and Zelenka was earnestly explaining som ething to Tey la about the interfaces. Ronon turned back to John, and actually looked sheepish for an instant, as if he had forgotten there were other considerations besides whether John trusted him to go fight aliens or not. “I won’t leave them .”

John held his gaze, and believed him . “Good.”

As they were ready to leave, the j um per received a reply from base cam p, which had relay ed their transm ission through thègate to Atlantis. It was j ust an acknowledgem ent that the report had been received and a brief form al m essage from

Elizabeth which translated to “Be careful and don’t get killed.”

The others went into the cockpit and sealed the cabin door, and John, Rodney, and Tey la got their breathing sets attached and switched on. John opened the ram p to a view of the em pty plain stretching out to the m ountains, the gas giant hanging
heavily above them . The light was a little dim m er since the m oon had entered its night phase, though like the night on the base m oon, it would never get m uch darker than this. This m oon’s eclipse was still a couple of hours off. John’s ears popped as the rear cabin’s air flowed out, and he said, “There’s got to be an easier way to do this.”

“Ask Zelenka,” Rodney grum bled, adj usting his pack and squinting against the dust as they started down the ram p. “I’ve been telling him to work on converting the cloak to a shield, to m ake a tem porary barrier to hold in the air while the rear cabin hatch is open, but he’s baffled by the elem entary principles of-”

“I can hear y ou, Rodney ,” Zelenka said in their headsets.

“I know y ou can hear m e, otherwise why bother?” Rodney dem anded.

John interrupted with, “We’re clear. Lock it up tight and don’t open the door to strangers. And I want radio silence until I tell y ou otherwise.”

“Yes, Colonel,” Zelenka replied. “Take care.”

John waited until the ram p sealed and the j um per vanished under its cloak, then led the way to the installation.

The heavy m etal door was set into a deep recess, the sill covered with drifts of the red sand, the whole m ore than big enough to fly som ething the size of the j um per through. With his pocket flashlight, Rodney found the wall console buried in the
side of the recess. He said, “Ready ? Here we go,” hit the console, and backed hurriedly out of the way .

John and Tey la covered the door as it groaned and the m etal split diagonally into two triangles, one section sliding down and the other up. It revealed a cavernous passage, poorly lit, leading deep into the structure. It looked dam aged, with broken
lights and shattered stone and m etal debris scattered on the dusty floor. If there had been any kind of airlock arrangem ent, it was long gone. “Okay .” John lowered the P-90 a little and stepped inside. “I say we leave this door open.”

“I’m reading one life sign,” Rodney reported, “On the other side of the structure. She m ust be waiting for us at the far end of this corridor.”

They started down the passage. It ran straight for a little distance, then took an angle to the left, then back, but Trishen was right, it was obviously heading through to the inner side of the building and the Mirror platform . There were blocky pillars along the walls, but only a few of the white lights set into them were lit, and there was a constant whistle of escaping air. “Looks like the Wraith cam e through here,” John said, shining his light up into som e twisted m etal girders. Sm aller passages led off into other parts of the building, som e open and dark, others closed off by blast doors.

“Or the Mirror itself,” Rodney said, ey eing the dam age thoughtfully . “A severe discharge could have caused those im pacts that look like energy weapon scars.”

Tey la frowned. “I j ust realized. Trishen did not m ention the Wraith.” She threw a pensive look at John. “Perhaps there are none in her reality .”

John shrugged a little dubiously . “May be. You’d think she would have asked about it otherwise.” If John was trapped in another reality , he thought that would have been pretty high on his list of questions.

“We m ay be looking at the best possible scenario, that the Ancients were able to discover a reality with an uninhabited Pegasus,” Rodney rem inded them , sounding testy . “I did say that was a possibility .”

“Yeah, but then why aren’t they still there?” John felt com pelled to point out. “She said we were descended from a com m on ancestor that had left freaky advanced technology scattered every where. That sounds j ust like here.”

“Not being psy chic, I won’t know until I ask her,” Rodney retorted. “The Ancients could have been wiped out by the sam e plague that hit the Milky Way. Or only a sm all group m ay have m anaged to go through the Mirror in the first place.” He waved the life signs detector. “Obviously, they planned this installation to accom m odate a m assive evacuation, but if they were cut off by the Wraith advance, only the people working here and any one left on the base m oon m ay have m anaged to m ake it through.”

“To succeed, only to die any way ,” Tey la said quietly . “It is a bleak fate.”

Rodney tapped the detector against his hand, his ey es on the intriguing gaps in the wall where m achinery had been attached. “True, but they did m anage to seed the hum an race in the new reality. That was obviously very im portant to them ,
considering how often they spread their genetic wealth around.” He checked the life signs detector again, and his voice betray ed a little nervousness. “We’re nearly there.”

“Yes, there is light ahead,” Tey la added, her ey es on the end of the corridor.

Ahead, as the passage angled again, John saw dim natural light, and a m om ent later he could see the large square doorway opening out into the Mirror platform . Trishen, still in her EVA suit, stood j ust inside it. Behind her John could see the stone
platform stretching out to the big silvery wall of the Mirror’s fram e. “She’s holding som ething,” he said, low-voiced. She had a round dark obj ect in her arm s.

“We’re holding things,” Rodney said, tense and im patient.

“Yes, and a lot of the things we’re holding are guns,” John told him , exasperated.

“It does not look like a weapon,” Tey la pointed out softly . Then she adm itted, “Unless it is an explosive of som e kind. But that seem s unlikely .”

John thought it was unlikely too, unless Trishen was a suicide bom ber, but it still m ade him uneasy. He signaled the others to halt about ten long paces from her. Even at this distance, her helm et didn’t reveal m uch. The faceplate wasn’t as reflective here in the dim m er light, and he could alm ost see the outline of her forehead and ey es, though the lower part was still opaque. The thing she was holding looked like a black m etal soccer ball, except the bottom seem ed to be flattened slightly. He lifted a hand in greeting, and said, am iably , “Hi. What y ou got there?”

Trishen j uggled the thing a little, caught between returning the greeting and answering the question. “It’s a data display device. I thought I could show y ou som e of the readings from the anom alies that occurred when I tried to send the probe
through.” She sat down awkwardly, placing the thing on the dusty m etal floor. She m ade a vague gesture. “We can go out onto the platform for a closer look at the Mirror if y ou like, but if we’re out here for any length of tim e we should stay inside the structure, for the shielding.” She touched the device and som ething slid open in the top. Suddenly a glittering haze of color burst out of it.

John and Tey la both flinched backward, j erking up their weapons. Then John saw it was actually a holographic display, showing the three-dim ensional figures that were the Ancient equivalents of charts and graphs. Tey la threw him an abashed
look; John didn’t exactly feel like an expert intergalactic explorer at the m om ent either. Trishen was staring up at them , startled at their recoil. She said hurriedly , “It is only a three-dim ensional display -”

Rodney stepped forward, giving John and Tey la an exasperated look. “Yes, they have actually seen a hologram before, they ‘re j ust-Never m ind. I’m Dr. Rodney McKay, she’s Tey la Em m agan, he’s Colonel Sheppard.” He eased forward, staring
intently at the glittering colum n and digging a cam era out of his vest. “You use the Ancient sy stem for num bers and sy m bols?”

“Yes.” Trishen looked uncertainly from John and Tey la to Rodney , then evidently decided to talk to the rational person. “For this ty pe of data, it’s the best m ethod. You use them as well?”

“To a certain extent.” Rodney m oved closer, crouching to get a better look. “This is j ust a recording device.” He showed her the cam era, then nodded toward the figures suspended in the display. “This one is the progression of energy signatures?

That was directly after y ou deploy ed the probe? Can y ou bring up the sequence that y ou took when y our ship was drawn through the Mirror? You did record that, right?”

“Oh, oh, y es, this is m y initial reading.” Sounding relieved, Trishen leaned forward, placing her gloved hands on the surface of the device. John m otioned for Tey la to stay in position where she could cover them and m oved up beside Rodney.

Trishen was m anipulating the device in som e way John couldn’t quite see, and m ore figures blossom ed in the display . She said, “And as y ou can see the variation with the singularity ‘s later signatures is pronounced.”

“Yes, the instability is starting to grow and extend across the lower right quadrant,” Rodney m uttered, shifting a little closer. He set the cam era aside to get his tablet out, and rapidly brought up a series of files. “What were y our figures for the accretion surface?”

After that it got a little over John’s head. Rodney and Trishen talked num bers and quantum singularities in perfect accord long enough that John signaled Tey la to relax. She lowered the P-90 and cam e to stand next to him .

Then Rodney said, “Hold it, hold it, I need to check som ething.” He sat back, key ing his radio. “Zelenka. Zelenka. Radek, answer the dam n-” He looked up at John in sudden anxiety . “Why aren’t they answering?”

John lifted a brow. “What does radio silence m ean, Rodney ?”

Rodney glared. “Oh, for the-Tell him he can talk, then!”

John said, “Go ahead, Dr. Zelenka.” He had had his radio open the entire tim e so the others could listen in.

“I am here, Rodney ,” Zelenka said in their headsets, sounding perfectly com posed. “You need to reference the data the j um per m anaged to gather before the disruption?”

Rodney pushed to his feet with a grim ace and walked away a few paces, presum ably to berate Zelenka in relative privacy .

Trishen looked from John to Tey la, as if not quite sure which one of them to talk to, and asked uncertainly , “Do y ou live in this sy stem , or did y ou com e here to research the Mirror, as we did in m y reality ? I didn’t think there was any one else on this m oon. I listened for com m unications traffic and flew around the circum ference in m y shuttle, but I saw nothing except these ruins.”

Tey la answered, “No, we live far away. We only discovered this place a short tim e ago.” She hesitated, flicking a look at John as she gauged how m uch to say. “We have explored m any ruins of the Ancestors, but we have never before found a device such as this Mirror.”

John thought this was a good tim e to ask, “You didn’t send any distress calls or any thing like that, did y ou? Because there’s som e things out here whose attention y ou really don’t want to attract.”

Trishen m ade a little gesture, turning her palm s up. “No. My ship has an autom atic beacon, but I turned it off. I adm it, I was afraid.” She did som ething on the device that caused the hologram display to freeze, and twisted around to face them . “We had long speculated that the Creators cam e to our galaxy fleeing a terrible force.”

John looked away , out toward the platform and the loom ing fram e of the Mirror. He hated giving the bad news. “It’s true. The Ancients were wiped out in this galaxy .

Tey la added, “The enem y y ou speak of is called the Wraith. They use hum ans for food, and have destroy ed m any worlds.” She tilted her head, watching Trishen carefully . “There are no Wraith in y our reality ?”

“Food,” Trishen repeated nervously. She laughed a little weakly. “I was hoping that part wasn’t true.” She looked up. “No, m y people have never been attacked by any thing.” She hesitated again, then added tentatively, “I have never seen people like y ou before.”

John exchanged a baffled look with Tey la. The hell? He said, “Uh, okay .”

Tey la began, “I am not certain I understand what-”

“That’s it,” Rodney interrupted, cutting off his radio with a sharp gesture. “Our data confirm s it. The problem is definitely with the accretion disk itself, it’s size is causing the singularity to react to any energy fluctuation with these instabilities. The Ancients m ust have had som e sort of tuning process to get it to work in the first place.” He turned to Trishen. “I need to see the whole range of data before the Mirror activated and pulled y our ship in, every thing y our research group collected. Do y ou have that with y ou?”

Trishen nodded anxiously . “Yes, but this device doesn’t have enough storage space to contain it. Can y ou com e to m y ship to view it on the sy stem there?”

“Of course, I-” Rodney stopped, flustered, obviously recalling their situation. He looked at John, brows lifted. “Ali, can we do that?”

John had been thinking about their next step, and had been ready to say y es. It was what they had agreed to do, and he wanted a look at the inside of that ship as bad as Rodney did. But that last com m ent of Trishen’s had thrown him a little and he
couldn’t exactly pinpoint why. “People like y ou” com ing from som ebody from another planet, let alone another reality, could m ean any thing, from his and Tey la’s relative heights to their skin or hair color to their obvious hair-trigger wariness. Or the way she had heard them bitching at each other over the com m sy stem . Whatever it was, though, she seem ed okay with it. He said, “Yeah, we can do that.”

Trishen gathered her equipm ent hurriedly, and she and Rodney stopped in the big doorway out onto the platform , both taking readings. “If the Mirror discharges while we’re out on the platform , the concussion wave would slam us into the walls with
possibly lethal force,” Rodney explained, study ing the detector intently .

“Great.” John was looking at the ship, sitting on the platform about a hundred y ards away. The oddly organic shading of blue and purple on the hull didn’t fade into the darker stone of the installation as m uch from this angle, so it was easy to see the round shape of the hatch and a sm all ram p leading up to it at the base. The conch-shell shuttle seem ed to fit neatly into the top of the tulip, not easy to recognize as a separate craft unless y ou knew to look for it.

Rodney adm itted that the readings suggested that for the m om ent the Mirror was not inclined to kill them , and they started across the platform toward the ship. They were m oving quickly, Rodney and Trishen a few steps ahead. Trishen said, “I’m beginning to wonder if m y ship’s energy signature itself is causing the increase in the Mirror’s instabilities. If it’s affecting the accretion disk, even from a distance-”

Rodney launched into a theory of his own, and Tey la took the opportunity to say , low-voiced, to John, “She said `people like us.’ What could she m ean?”

“I don’t know. Unless she’s got fur or scales or som ething under that suit.” Tey la looked up sharply , her brow furrowed in worry , and John said, “That was supposed to be a j oke.”

“She said we shared the Creators as a com m on ancestor. She m ust be very close to hum an.” Tey la shook her head helplessly . “She sounds entirely hum an. And I think she is harm less to us.”

“Yeah, probably ,” John found him self reluctant to adm it it. They had j ust gotten burned too m any tim es in the past. “But we don’t know what the rest of her people are like.”

“I should ask m ore questions,” Trishen was say ing. “When I return, our historians will be very angry with m e if I have no answers for them .” She m ade a vague gesture back toward John and Tey la. “I don’t even understand how y our hierarchy is organized.”

Rodney began, “Yes, of course. I’m head of the expedition’s science team , and our-” John cleared his throat pointedly. It was m ission policy not to go into detail about their organizational structure on short acquaintance, and he wasn’t ready to relax the restriction on that y et. Rodney threw John a glare, not happy to be rem inded, and finished, “But if y ou could tell m e m ore about the collection m ethod y ou used for y our energy readings-”

As they reached the ship, Zelenka’s voice in John’s headset said, “Colonel, I’m hoping it is still okay to talk, but y our transm issions are breaking up very badly . If y ou rem ain close to the Mirror, we will not be able to hear y ou.

John said, “Copy that,” and clicked an acknowledgem ent.

Trishen touched a control on the black data device, and the round hatch started to rotate, spiraling open instead of sliding up in one piece. John caught Rodney ‘s ey e, telling him with a slight j erk of his head to hang back. Rodney huffed im patiently
but fell back a little, obviously torn between eagerness to see the inside of the ship and the paranoid caution they had all had beaten into them by life in the Pegasus Galaxy .

The open hatch revealed what a seem ed to be a standard airlock, except the walls were dark-colored, alm ost m atte black. Following Trishen’s lead, John stepped in, seeing it was big enough for all of them without crowding, which was a relief. He
signaled Rodney and Tey la to com e in, noticing the controls were recessed into the wall surface, barely visible.

The outer hatch shut and the lock cy cled quickly, and John’s ears popped again. Rodney was bouncing with im patience. As the inner hatch dilated open and Trishen m oved inside, John took hold of the handy strap on the back of Rodney ‘s tac vest,
m aking certain he rem em bered to let John go first.

The interior was poorly lit, the light purple-tinted, and if John hadn’t been already used to the relative dim ness outside he would have been tem porarily blind. The funny sm ell struck him next, even filtered as it was through the SCBA’s breathing
m ask. It was peaty and rich, like walking into the organic fertilizer storage bay in the Botany lab. Not unpleasant, j ust different and not what he had been expecting. As Rodney and Tey la stepped in behind him , John looked around, squinting, still wary, seeing that the walls were a dark purplish rubbery substance. Tey la was looking around too, frowning uncertainly. There was a scatter of weird-looking tools and equipm ent near a wall cubbie, as if som eone had been m aking a repair. Trishen was fussing
with her suit, gesturing around a little anxiously with the air of som eone hoping her guests would excuse the m ess. She said, “The atm osphere in here should be breathable for y ou, since we can both tolerate the air inside the pressurized portion of the installation. I’ve been lucky that none of m y environm ental sy stem s were dam aged.” She laughed a little nervously . “Though I didn’t know what I would do if I was trapped here long enough to run out of provisions.”

Deeply preoccupied, Rodney said, “We have plenty of food in the j um per.” He was standing near the center of the space and looking upward. John stepped up beside him and saw a shaft that ran straight up through the ship, with arching struts and supports that gave it the look of a gothic cathedral. Turning back to Trishen, Rodney continued, “And if we’re com patible enough to tolerate the sam e oxy gen m ix, then we should be able to-” Rodney ‘s voice clim bed an octave and the sentence ended on a gasp.

That m ade John whip around, j erking the P-90 up, m ade Tey la turn autom atically and lift her weapon.

Trishen was taking off her helm et, silver hair spilling out in a long braid as the back plate opened. Tey la gasped with astonishm ent and horror, and John saw what Rodney had seen, the dead-white paleness of Trishen’s skin, glowing even in this bad
light. He whispered incredulously, “Son of a bitch.” In the next instant she had lifted off the helm et and he saw her face clearly, the gill-like slits to either side of her nose, the glim pse of m alform ed teeth past her pale lips. John snapped, “Don’t m ove,” and stepped in front of Rodney , backing them both up until he was even with Tey la, Rodney behind them .

Trishen stared blankly at the guns pointed at her. There was surprise in the y ellow slit-pupilled ey es, and that j ust pissed John off all the m ore. She said, “I don’t understand.” Her voice was hushed, but without the distortion of the helm et’s com m unit, it was obviously a Wraith’s voice.

Behind John, Rodney choked out, “This can’t-This can’t-” He burst out, “Tell m e we’re not this stupid!”

“We are this stupid,” John said through gritted teeth. “Look, Trish, sorry we can’t stay, but unlock the hatch or I’ll blow y our dam n head off.” He didn’t know why he hadn’t already killed her. He told him self it was a bad idea to fire enough rounds to kill a Wraith in the sm all confines of this cabin. But he knew it was because she was sm all and fem ale and unarm ed, and staring at him with this look of fear and betray al, and he j ust couldn’t m ake him self pull the trigger.

Trishen whispered, “It isn’t locked. Just touch the control pad beside it.” She stood frozen, still holding the helm et. “I don’t understand-”

John didn’t want to hear it. He said, tightly , “Rodney .”

Rodney unfroze and ducked back to the hatch, and a m om ent later John heard the airlock start to cy cle. He felt the tightness in his chest ease a little; he had been certain she had done som ething to seal them in here. Now all they had to worry about was m ore Wraith dropping out of that shaft leading into the upper levels of the ship.

Sounding sick, Tey la said, “Colonel, this is not possible.”

“I wish, Tey la, but it really is.” Tey la should have been able to tell Trishen was a Wraith, and the fact that she hadn’t was j ust one m ore kick in the ass. John heard the hatch open behind them and Tey la pivoted to cover it. “Rodney, can y ou fix it so she can’t trap us in there?”

“On it,” Rodney m uttered, and John heard thum ps and a weird tearing noise.

Trishen shook her head a little, still pretending incom prehension. “I wouldn’t do that. Why would I-”

“Sorry , but y ou’re j ust going to have to do without these provisions,” John said with acid em phasis.

“Got it,” Rodney said, his voice tight. “I can only override the outer door’s safety for a few seconds, so hurry . On m y m ark…Go!”

John felt the rush of air pouring out as the outer hatch spiraled open. Still covering Trishen, he took two long steps back as Tey la and Rodney ducked out, then turned at the last second and leapt through the closing hatch.

Out on the Mirror platform , under the dim light of the gas giant, John backed rapidly away from the ship. He and Tey la kept their weapons aim ed, but nothing lunged out after them . Breathing hard, Rodney flung up a hand in frustration, say ing,

“That ship, that was hy brid Wraith Ancient technology, I should have seen it!” There was rage and disappointm ent in his voice, both of which John got com pletely. Their cool alien contact had turned into j ust a frigging Wraith trap. Though at the m om ent John was still in the rage end of the spectrum . “That textured wall m aterial is an organic, the sam e thing they use on the interiors of the hiveships and cruisers! I can’t believe-hy brid Wraith and Ancient tech!” Rodney finished m iserably, “We could be very , very dead, and by we I m ean all of hum anity .”

“It’s got to be new,” John said. Past the adrenaline rush of rage, he was starting to realize j ust how bad this was. This ship could see through the j um per’s cloak. Rodney right, we are so screwed. As they m oved further away from the ship, John tapped his radio. “Zelenka, can y ou read m e?”

The answer cam e readily , though so thick with static John could barely understand him . “Yes, y es, Colonel, what is wrong?”

“It was a trap, she’s a goddam n Wraith,” John told him . “Move the j um per, now, j ust get it out of there. Send a m essage to base cam p when y ou can. I’ll contact y ou when we’re clear.”

Zelenka sounded flabbergasted. “Yes, we’ll m ove it. But-But how can this be?”

“When y ou figure it out, let us know!” Rodney snapped.

“But I did not sense Wraith, even when I was looking right at her,” Tey la protested, alm ost anguished. “How is that possible?”

John shook his head. Tey la should have known Trishen was a Wraith the first tim e the shuttle appeared. Oh y eah, screwed. “She has to have som ething that blocks y our Wraith-sensing thing, like the shielding on her ship.”

“Hello, that doesn’t m ake sense!” Rodney protested.

John wasn’t in the m ood for an argum ent about sem antics. “Whatever, Rodney , y ou know what I m ean!”

Rodney began, “But-” Then a trem or traveled through the pavem ent under their feet and John heard a low rum ble, like distant thunder. Rodney snarled in frustration, “Oh fine, now the Mirror’s discharging!”

“Run,” John ordered and they bolted. They m ade it through the cargo door before the trem or started to escalate, but the open corridor didn’t provide any protection.

Over the growing rum ble, Rodney y elled, “Keep going, find the nearest side corridor!”

John had noted the last branching passage that wasn’t sealed off. He found it j ust past the first angle in the m ain corridor, an em pty doorway with a shattered blast door, leading into darkness. John flicked on the P-90’s light to see it was filled with broken cry stal and stone debris. They could get trapped down here if the end was blocked, but from Rodney ‘s increasingly urgent gestures, there wasn’t tim e for another choice. They m anaged to get about twenty y ards down it when the rum ble turned
into a dull roar and the floor shook hard enough to knock Tey la off her feet. Rodney caught her, and John caught him , and they dropped into a huddle against the base of the wall. The shaking intensified, sending dust and chips of loosened stone down on
their heads. John pushed them both down and huddled over them , covering his head with his arm , hoping the whole building didn’t com e down on top of them .

But the shaking died away, the sound fading into silence, except for the pounding echo in John’s head. He pushed him self up off Rodney and Tey la, pulling the P-90 up to flash the light across the ceiling. There was a network of cracks, still leaking a
fine haze of debris, but no sign of im m inent collapse. “You guy s okay ?” he asked. The breath m ask had m ostly kept the dust out of his m outh and nose, but his ey es burned with it, and the violent shaking m ade him feel like he had been pum m eled by som ething.

Rodney sat up and sneezed, shifting his m ask awkwardly . “You kneed m e in the back and Tey la’s P-90 hit m e in the ey e,” he reported, “But other than that-”

“We are fine,” Tey la finished, wincing as she held a hand to her head. “I-”

She took a sharp breath, and John looked at her worriedly . “What is it?” He didn’t think any of the dislodged stone had been big enough to cause a serious inj ury , but-

She rolled her ey es and said wearily , “Now I sense Wraith.”

Rodney swore. “Well, better late than never.”

John nodded grim ly. Whatever Trishen had that could block Tey la’s ability m ust be shut down now. And that was weird, that she had even given herself a nam e; none of the Wraith they had run into that had condescended to speak to their cattle had
ever done that. He tried his radio. “Zelenka, do y ou copy ?” No answer but static.

“That last discharge is still disrupting the atm osphere,” Rodney said, wiping dust off his forehead. “We’re not going to be able to reach them for a while.”

More good news. John grim aced. “Com e on, we need to get out of here.”

They all clim bed to their feet, wincing, and Rodney said, “Yes, having failed to die in the m oonquake caused by the Mirror’s periodic bursts of quantum instability , we can now get back to running from the Wraith.”

“I do not understand why a fem ale Wraith would com e here alone,” Tey la said, sounding bitter. She checked her P-90, adj usting the tangled strap. “We have alway s believed they were few, and never left the hiveships.”

“We couldn’t read life signs inside her ship,” John rem inded her, starting back down the passage. “She could have had a dozen m ales and drones in there waiting for her to walk in with dinner.”

Rodney gestured in annoy ance. “None of this m akes sense. That ship, this elaborate story she told us. She couldn’t have faked that data-She cam e through the Mirror.” Rodney froze for an instant. “Oh, no. She cam e through the Mirror. She said we had a com m on ancestor-Startled, Tey la added, “She told us she had never seen people like us-”

“She m eant people who were this easy to catch,” John said sourly .

CHAPTER FIVE
arson Beckett folded his arm s, looking over Dr. Chandar’s shoulder at the m onitor. “I don’t suppose y ou can tell what’s happening up there from that thing.” He was down in the Ancient m onitoring room , watching the tech team work.

The underground ruin wasn’t exactly a pleasant place to be, with air that was stale and too warm , and inadequate light from the battery lam ps, and he really should have returned to Atlantis by now. But he was anxious for word of Rodney and Sheppard
and the others, and of the wom an they had contacted, and at least here he could get the news first hand. The other team s still on the base m oon were continuing their research for the m om ent, though the general feeling was that the sole purpose for this city ‘s existence was as a support center for the Mirror installation on the other m oon.

Dr. Chandar, taking the question in a far less irritable m anner than Rodney would have, sat back with a preoccupied frown. “Not exactly, no, but now that we know that this device is m onitoring a Quantum Mirror, it’s possible to interpret its readings m ore accurately .”

Carson frowned at the innocuous device. In the past day, it had begun to flash m uch m ore frequently, and he was finding it worrisom e. “So j ust how unstable is the Mirror?” From Sheppard’s last report, they knew the people in the other reality hadn’t m eant to use the dam n thing, that their efforts to study it had probably caused the Mirror in this reality to activate. It all sounded very dangerous and uncertain.

Chandar shook his head, his expression worried. “There is som e odd variance in the readings. It’s alm ost as if the Mirror’s singularity is becom ing increasingly unstable-”

Carson flinched at a burst of static from his headset, the m ilitary channel suddenly alive with chatter. Maj or Lorne’s tense voice overrode the others with, “All personnel, all personnel, we are evacuating im m ediately. We have incom ing Wraith
darts on sensors.” He added sharply , “Move it, people, now!”

“Bloody hell,” Carson gasped.

Chandar looked up, wide-ey ed. “But-This sy stem is uninhabited, the Wraith shouldn’t have any interest in-

“It’s the Mirror, lad, they ‘re after it.” It was j ust as Rodney had said in the first transm ission. The reactivated Mirror’s bursts of energy m ust have drawn the attention of a hiveship, and the Wraith had com e to investigate. Carson pulled Chandar out of his chair and shut the laptop. The techs were already scram bling to gather their equipm ent, m oving with sternly controlled terror. “Now get y our things and m ove!”

Just as they finished breaking down the tem porary lab, two Marines arrived to lead them to the j um pers. Burdened with a couple of bulky equipm ent cases, Carson followed the Marines through the narrow streets with Chandar and the others,
fighting the urge to hunch his shoulders and duck. 1They were all sweating even in the cool air and one of the older techs, O’Keefe, was getting a bit red-faced with exertion and stress. Carson had been walking these streets for the past few day s, and they had never seem ed so claustrophobic and confining. He uneasily rem em bered his recent near m iss, when Laura Cadm an had pushed him out of the path of a culling beam , and she and Rodney had been caught in it. That had all turned out badly enough,
though in the end they had both survived. He didn’t think they would be that lucky again.

He heard the tense acknowledgem ents on the headset as Lom e ordered Jum per Three, already loaded, to leave. Carson didn’t see it pass overhead, but he heard thègate activate. One of the techs recently arrived on the Daedalus said nervously,

“They won’t leave us, will they ?”

Audley, one of the Marines, flicked a disgusted look back at him , obviously not appreciating this sentim ent. Carson didn’t particularly appreciate it either, knowing j ust how far the m ilitary contingent was willing to go to protect the science team .

O’Keefe, another Atlantis veteran, answered the m an, gasping derisively , “Bloody unlikely .”

“They m ight dock Maj or Lorne’s pay ,” Audley said, with acid sarcasm .

The other Marine, Ram irez, j ust grinned and added, “Yeah, after the Colonel shot him .”

More Marines m et them at the last turn, hurry ing them out onto the plaza. Corrigan and Rousseau from the archeology team were still outside, tossing a last few cases into the already -cloaked j um per. As Carson’s group started across the pavem ent,
he heard the distinctive whine of a dart. Marines shouted, “Move it, m ove it!” and they dashed for the j um per.

Every one tum bled up the ram p, stum bling over the loose equipm ent, pushing forward to m ake room . Sergeant Benson shouted, “That’s every body, Maj or!” and the ram p started to lift upward. Carson sat down hard on the bench and Rousseau fell
into his lap. She said breathlessly , “Pardon, Carson.”

“Quite all right, love.” He helped her stand, then stepped over a couple of people to reach the cockpit.

Lorne was in the pilot’s seat, study ing the HUD with a worried frown. “Maj or,” Carson said, watching him anxiously . “What about Sheppard’s team ? Can y ou get a m essage to them ?”

Lorne glanced back at him . “I already tried. We’d j ust picked up a transm ission packet from them when the darts showed up on longrange. I sent them a warning, but I don’t know if they got it.” He j erked his chin up at the HUD. “We’ve got lots of com pany here.”

Carson focused on the HUD. It was the life signs screen, and there were lights appearing on it, all around their position. Wraith, beam ing down from the darts. “Good lord,” he m uttered. “They m ust suspect we’re here.” He hesitated, a cold sensation growing in his stom ach. “You don’t think they found the others…”

“I hope not, Doc,” Lorne said, but his expression was grim . More life signs appeared on the screen, close to the j um per, and Lorne swore. He looked back at the rear cabin, at the scientists and techs under his charge, and grim aced. “Dam m it. I hate to do this, but we can’t hang around.”

The j um per lifted sm oothly off the pavem ent, heading for the Stargate.

“So this whole thing was a Wraith trap?” Colonel Caldwell said, his voice com ing in over Atlantis’ com m sy stem , a little too loud in Elizabeth’s currently crowded office.

Elizabeth sat at her desk, still study ing her copy of the last transm ission from John’s team . In the puddlej um per bay above the gateroom , the team s from the m oon base cam p were still unloading their equipm ent. As soon as Maj or Lorne had
brought her the transm ission, she had called Caldwell, wanting to get the Daedalus on its way as quickly as possible. The ship had only arrived this m orning, and hadn’t finished offloading the supplies it had brought y et. Lorne and Carson Beckett were sitting across from her, and Chuck, Laroque, and several other m em bers of the operations staff were clustered in the doorway . She really should have sent every one back to work, but she knew they were as anxious as she was.

“I don’t know, Colonel,” she answered Caldwell. From what Zelenka had said in the last transm ission, John and the others had assum ed the contact from the Wraith calling itself “Trishen” was a trap. But that didn’t feel right, som ehow. “The Mirror itself is genuine, obviously . And m aking them believe they were being contacted by an alien ship… That seem s a bit im aginative for the Wraith. We’ve never seen them do any thing quite so elaborate.”

“Unless they suspected y our team was from Atlantis, and wanted to try to get som e inform ation out of them ,” Caldwell said.

“That’s a possibility,” she adm itted. As far as they knew, the Wraith still believed Atlantis had been destroy ed, but they would certainly still be looking for survivors who had escaped with Ancient technology. “This m akes it all the m ore im perative that the Daedalus reach the sy stem as soon as possible.”

“No need to convince m e, Doctor, I understand that y ou have personnel in danger. And we can’t allow the Wraith to get their hands on that Mirror, not to m ention sensor technology that can see through the Ancient cloak. I’ll be breaking orbit
im m ediately .” Caldwell sounded som ewhat sourly resigned, and Elizabeth winced in equal parts chagrin and annoy ance.

She hadn’t m eant to im ply that she thought Caldwell would resist the idea of a rescue m ission, or that he wouldn’t understand the im plications of what the team had found. But their working relationship had gotten off to a rocky start when she had had to squash his attem pt to replace John, and things hadn’t exactly been going sm oothly since. She felt it would work out eventually ; she and John had had clashes and argum ents at first, too. But then John, for all his quirks, was far less prickly than Caldwell and had alway s been m uch easier to get along with. And at this point the original expedition m em bers had all been through too m uch together to let disagreem ents get in the way of friendship.

Frustrated, Elizabeth frowned at her laptop screen and didn’t apologize to Caldwell. She wondered if he understood that som e of her closest friends were on that lost j um per. She j ust said, “Thank y ou, Colonel.”

Maj or Lorne sat forward, his expression urgent, and Carson waved frantically at her. She added, “I believe Maj or Lorne and Dr. Beckett would like to accom pany y ou.

Caldwell sounded slightly m ore resigned. “Then tell them to get ready to be beam ed up.”

He signed off, and there were m urm urs of relief from the people waiting outside. Maj or Lorne pushed to his feet, looking relieved. “Thanks, Dr. Weir. We’ll bring them back.”

Elizabeth nodded firm ly . “I know y ou will, Maj or.” And she thought privately , I hope y ou will. She kept the worry off her face, but she had the bad feeling that this was going to be m ore com plicated than j ust a Wraith trap.

CHAPTER SIX

onon hated waiting. He could stand the stillness and silence required for hunting and stalking, but this was different.

Pacing the rear cabin was the only outlet for his frustration. Sheppard had ordered them to m ove, and Kusanagi had been try ing to take the puddlej um per toward the hills to the south, but the Mirror’s last abrupt discharge had forced them down in
the grassy plain not far from their original position. Now Ronon couldn’t even help Kusanagi and Zelenka by volunteering to stare at a screen; the interference had turned all the sensors to glittering m ulti-colored static. They had sent the transm ission to the cam p on the other m oon, but now the com m wasn’t working either, and they had no idea if there had been a reply .

And the whole thing had been a trick, a Wraith trap. He should have seen past it, even if the others hadn’t. That was the whole reason he was here. But he had never heard a Wraith speak like that before. Speak to people as if they were equals, not
j ust prey . The voice on the com m had sounded as m uch like a hum an wom an as Tey la or Kusanagi, and he had been deceived by it as easily as the less wary Atlanteans.

“Still nothing. I can’t get through this interference.” In the j um p seat, Zelenka ty ped on one of the little portable com puters, glancing worriedly at the hazy cloud hovering in the air where the HUD was norm ally display ed. “Surely they weren’t hurt.

They were m oving away from the Mirror or they would not have been able to get that last transm ission through.”

In the pilot’s chair, Kusanagi tapped the control board im patiently . The holographic display j ust responded with m ore fuzzy bursts. She said, “I don’t understand how Trishen could be a Wraith. The data that Dr. McKay described-”

“Yes, I don’t see how Wraith could fake those readings, not well enough to fool Rodney ,” Zelenka said. They shared an uneasy look. “Perhaps Wraith from som e other reality have com e through the Quantum Mirror.”

Ronon felt his.) aw tighten. “That’s all we need.”

“Perhaps they ‘ll fight with the Wraith here and kill each other.” Zelenka saw the expression on Ronon’s face and shrugged philosophically. “Well, we can hope. Wait, wait-” Looking back to his sm all screen, he waved a hand excitedly. “I’m receiving sensor data-” He touched his headset. “Colonel Sheppard, are y ou there? Can y ou hear m e, any one? Rodney , Tey la?”

Kusanagi’s hands m oved com petently over the board. Her face intent, she said, “The HUD is com ing back online. The life signs detector should show us-” But when the HUD screen popped up, she gasped. “Dr. Zelenka-”

Zelenka flung his arm s up in frustration. “I can’t get through to the others! Do prdele! There is still too m uch interference!” He turned his chair, looking at the HUD, then froze. “Oh, no.“1

Ronon stepped forward, leaning on the back of Kusanagi’s chair. He couldn’t read the language scrolling along the sides and bottom of the im age, but he knew that glowing dot in the center was a ship. “Wraith.” He felt his lip curl into a silent snarl.

This was j ust getting worse. “A hiveship?”

Zelenka shook his head, going pale as he studied the screen. He said faintly, “Too sm all. It’s a scout ship, already in orbit. The interference from the Mirror m ust have concealed its approach.” He touched his radio headset again, his voice tight with urgency . “Perhaps they did not detect-“Another screen popped up in the HUD, displacing the longrange sensors, flashing with urgency .

Ronon knew this one, too. It was the j um per’s life signs detector, blinking dots superim posed over a grid. It was picking up three signs close together, m oving through the lower level of the giant building behind them . And five m ore signs m oving
toward those. Ronon’s hands tightened into fists. “They ‘re heading right for them .”

John led the way back down the passage, glancing warily at the ceiling, checking for signs of im m inent collapse. The dust was a thick haze in the air, glittering in their lights.

His voice tight, Rodney whispered suddenly , “Wait, wait, I’m getting life signs.” John looked back to see him study ing the detector, his face set in a grim expression. “Five, out in the m ain corridor. We were right, she m ust have had com pany .”

John fell back a step to look at the detector’s screen. It was still fuzzy from the Mirror’s interference, but he could see the five signs were m oving fast down the corridor from the direction of the Mirror platform , blocking the clear path to the outside.

“Crap. Com e on.” He turned back the other way , deeper into the building, hoping this passage wasn’t blocked.

Tey la kept an ey e on their six, say ing sourly , “At least I can sense them now that they are not in Trishen’s ship.”

“It’s still only an assum ption that they cam e from her ship,” Rodney corrected her sharply. “If they have som e kind of advanced shielding now that our sensors can’t penetrate, they could have been concealed any where-” He stared at John, appalled. “They could have already found the j um per. That ship has sensors that can penetrate the j um per’s cloak-”

Still try ing his radio and getting nothing but static, John shook his head. “They had tim e to get away .” He didn’t want to say any m ore, because it was all too frigging possible the Wraith had found the others.

His ey es on the detector again, Rodney reported, “They ‘re turning down this passage.” His voice was urgent. “We need to-”

“Yeah.” John increased his pace to a fast j og.

A short distance up ahead the corridor took an abrupt turn, ending in a triangular hatch. John stepped back to the corner to cover the passage behind them , while Rodney hurriedly wrenched off the wall console and Tey la watched the door. Rodney
said in frustration, “And how the hell do they know we cam e this way ? As far as we know, they don’t have bio-sensors this exact and they can’t use the Ancient devices-”

“The corridor floor was covered with sand,” Tey la pointed out, her voice grim as she kept a wary ey e on the door. “Our tracks led them to us.”

John flicked off the P-90’s light before he risked a look back down the passage. He could hear a faint scraping that m ight be footsteps. “Now would be good, Rodney ,” he whispered harshly .

“No, really ?” Rodney snapped, “I thought we’d j ust stand around here and wait forGot it,” and the doors were sliding open, releasing a rush of air.

In another m om ent they were through the hatch, with the doors sealed safely behind them . Rodney pulled two of the cry stals from the wall console on this side and tucked them into a vest pocket. “That should hold them for…a m inute or so,
any way .”

“That’s all we need,” John said, flashing his light around. It glinted off cool blue stone and em bossed m etal. They were in a large foy er, with three open corridors heading off in different directions. Tey la shone her light across the floor. No sand, so they wouldn’t leave tracks. This section was pressurized and the seals m ust have kept out the dust and dirt. The Wraith would be expecting them to head for the outer edge of the installation, toward the j um per’s last position, so John picked the corridor leading back toward the inner ring and Mirror platform . “This way .”

They started down the new corridor, and not far along they were rewarded with another set of branching passages. His ey es on the life signs detector, Rodney said in relief, “We’re good. They picked the wrong corridor.” As if in response, a low vibration trem bled through the floor; the Mirror was still dangerously active. “They m ight be doing som ething that’s setting off that interference,” Rodney added with a grim ace. “If they have darts or another ship close enough to affect the Mirror’s nim bus, it could be causing those energy bursts.”

Tey la said reluctantly , “There m ay have already been another Wraith ship in position to attack the j um per. Once we entered Trishen’s ship, the trap would have been sprung.”

“Yes, but the problem is that the trap wasn’t sprung,” Rodney bit the words out. “Why didn’t she lock the hatch before she showed us what she was? It doesn’t m ake sense! If she had j ust left her helm et on, she could have kept us there, out of radio contact, with no chance to warn the j um per until the attack was over.” He waved his free hand, warm ing to his point. “Trust m e on this one, if Miko was in a dogfight with darts or Ronon was m anfully wrestling drones in the rear cabin, Radek would have m entioned it!”

“I don’t know,” John said, teeth gritted. The radio was still picking up nothing but static. “You said that data wasn’t fake. If these Wraith got that ship and that shielding technology from som e place they went to through the Mirror-”

“May be.” Rodney shook his head, frustrated. “I still think we could actually be dealing with Wraith from another reality .”

“I believe y ou are right,” Tey la told him . “She did seem different. And it is strange that she gave us a nam e. I did not believe they had nam es, even am ong them selves.”

“But it doesn’t m atter which reality they cam e from .” Rodney ‘s face was grim , his m outh a hard line. “We have to shut this Mirror down perm anently , now. Even if it destroy s this entire installation in the process.”

John exchanged a look with Tey la, j ust in tim e to see a flicker of hope in her ey es. If this new technology spread to all the other Wraith… That wasn’t an option. They couldn’t let it be an option. “What do y ou need?”

“I don’t know y et…” His expression intent, Rodney dug into one of the pockets of his tac vest, pulling out the cam era he had used to record Trishen’s data display . “But this m ight tell m e.”

Rodney needed a place to concentrate with a little less threat of im m inent painful life-sucking death. He would have preferred his m ain lab at Atlantis, but that not being available, he settled for following Sheppard and Tey la further up into this
section of the installation.

A short distance down the passage they found a stairwell and went up a couple of levels, further away from the area the Wraith were searching. The power was fluctuating all through this section, lights blinking out at random , doors wedged partly
open, drafts where bursts of recy cled air cam e out of broken vents. Now that Rodney knew that Trishen m ight be m onitoring the security sy stem , he set his equipm ent to scan for the video signals. But fortunately the sy stem didn’t seem to be active here.

Sheppard found an em pty lab where m ost of the vents were working, providing enough air to let them turn off their SCBAs and save the tanks. Rodney sat down on a broken stone plinth and said, “Don’t talk to m e.” He ignored Sheppard’s ey e roll, got the cam era out, and started reviewing the play back and the data downloaded to his tablet. Sheppard and Tey la took up guard positions on the door, and Sheppard tried to raise the j um per again.

The static on the radio seem ed to be dy ing down, but Sheppard still couldn’t get any response. Rodney swal lowed in a dry throat, put that out of his m ind, and tried to concentrate.

At one point, Sheppard showed the life signs detector screen to Tey la, telling her, “The interference keeps m essing with the signal, but it looks like the Wraith are leaving this section, heading in toward the Mirror platform .”

She frowned. “Perhaps they are going to Trishen’s ship. But I wonder why .”

“May be they ‘re having a m eeting,” Sheppard said. He sounded sarcastic, but then every thing Sheppard said sounded sarcastic, even things like “pass the salt,” and Rodney had alway s put it down as an unintentional by product resulting from the com bination of his unidentifiable accent and his slacker attitude. Sheppard seem ed com pletely unaware of it, though it probably explained the recurring problem s with his m ilitary career. And of course, the dam n Mirror could pick now to have one of its catastrophic discharges and wipe out the Wraith on the platform , but Rodney knew their luck didn’t run that way , and if the Mirror was going to kill any body that way it would be them .

Then his headset crackled and Rodney heard a babble of fam iliar voices. Startled, he looked up as Sheppard hurriedly key ed his radio, say ing, “Jum per One, please respond. This is Sheppard.”

Over the rush of static, Rodney heard Zelenka say ing, “Colonel! Such a relief to hear y our voice!”

Rodney felt the tightness in his chest unclench j ust a little. The Wraith hadn’t found the j um per. So far, despite the Mirror, the Wraith, and what was apparently a group inclination for suicidal behavior, they had all m anaged not to get killed. He went back to verify ing the direc tional indicator on that elusive power signature that kept reappearing in the data. “You too,” Sheppard replied to Zelenka, exchanging a look of relief with Tey la. “What’s y our situation?”

Zelenka began, “We thought-” In the staticobscured background, Miko said som ething urgently and Sheppard’s pet cavem an growled. Zelenka finished, “Yes, y es, I’m telling him ! Colonel, there are Wraith every where.”

Rodney rolled his ey es and spared a m om ent to contribute, “You don’t say .”

“Zelenka, I need y ou to define èvery where,”’ Sheppard persisted. “Is it a hiveship?”

“No, not y et,” Zelenka replied hurriedly . “The j um per has detected a sm all ship in polar orbit, m atching our data on the energy signatures for a Wraith scout ship.”

Tey la’s brow furrowed. “We m ust assum e a hiveship is on the way .”

Ah ha. Here we go. “Got it.” Rodney pushed to his feet. He stepped over to Sheppard and Tey la, tapping the tablet’s display. “I was certain I saw this but I wanted to verify the location. Trishen’s equipm ent registered an energy pulse com ing from along the top of the installation.” He pointed up for em phasis. “If I’m correct, that pulse is designed to generate a containm ent field j ust above the Mirror’s accretion surface, to stabilize the singularity ‘s event horizon. Without it, the singularity keeps try ing to expand, pushing at the naquadah fram e, the structure of the installation, the bedrock beneath it. Like the rest of the installation, the pulse generator is drawing power from the Mirror’s subspace conduit, but som ething is causing it to only function erratically at the m om ent, which is why the discharges are occurring. And the energy signatures of the j um per and any Wraith darts m ay be disrupting the pulse itself whenever they com e within range, causing the discharges to occur m ore frequently .”

Rodney tucked the tablet under his arm . “The Mirror is already dangerously unstable. The key to rendering it unusable is going to be in destabilizing it further-”

“So y ou want to blow up the thing that’s generating the pulse?” Sheppard said.

Watching Rodney intently , Tey la asked, “Can we use the j um per’s weapons?”

“The shielding!” Zelenka was say ing in the headset. “The shielding m ay prevent-!”

Rodney waved at them all to shut up, even though Zelenka couldn’t see him . “Yes, and no. We need to disable the pulse generator, but taking the j um per up into a firing position above the roof m ay j ust trigger another violent discharge; we could be sm ashed into the building before we have a chance to fire. And the shielding on the installation’s inner ring and the roof m ust be designed to deflect the full force of the energy spikes that the Mirror can generate; the j um per’s energy drones m ay not be able to penetrate it.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “But the good news is, the pulse array stretches along the entire circum ference of the roof, and we should be able to disrupt it at any point.”

Sheppard was watching Rodney as if he didn’t have a clue what Rodney was say ing, as if he wasn’t even sure Rodney was speaking English, but Rodney had learned long ago that was j ust as deceptive as the involuntary sarcasm . Proving it,

Sheppard said, “So we need to get up there and disable one section so the whole thing will shut down. And the Mirror will do what?”

“The Mirror is going to-” Rodney hesitated uneasily, thinking it over. The singularity would take tim e to collapse, but the discharges would becom e m ore violent im m ediately. “We’re going to have to get back inside the installation as quickly as possible. The instability should cause the singularity to begin a collapse, but it’ll take som e tim e. Hours, probably day s. After the initial reaction, we should be able to lift off in the j um per and get away.” Rem em bering all his practical experience was with a Quantum Mirror the size of a bathtub rather than an Oly m pic stadium , he added, “Theoretically .”

“Right.” Sheppard looked at Tey la and got a grim nod in response. In Rodney ‘s headset he could hear Zelenka and Kusanagi unhelpfully debating the possibility of the collapsing singularity punching a hole straight through the m oon and taking all m atter in the area with it. Sheppard asked, “What about the j um per? Are they going to be safe out there during this?”

“In a word, no.” Rodney touched his headset. “Radek, does y our life signs screen show the Wraith any where near that big freight corridor?”

Zelenka answered, “No, they are not there. We can not see their positions exactly -there is still m uch interference-but we saw them m ove into the center section.”

Rodney nodded briskly. “Good. I need y ou to m ove the j um per, still cloaked, into that passage. That’s what it was designed for; there’s plenty of room . Look for a stable bay along the side and take the j um per into it. That should shield y ou from the initial reaction discharge and cut down the chances of the Wraith stum bling into y ou if they com e back down that way .”

Tey la lifted her brows doubtfully and looked at Sheppard. Sheppard got that expression he alway s got when som eone other than him wanted to do som ething crazy with a puddlej um per. There was a static-laden silence from the radio. Then Zelenka said, “Ali… Colonel, is that good idea?”

Rodney m entally rewrote Zelenka’s next perform ance evaluation to include the term “m utinous.”

But Sheppard j ust said, “Affirm ative, Zelenka, take the j um per inside.”

The com m was chim ing for attention, but Trishen hesitated, leaning on her control console. Unlike her drive, her sensors had survived the abrupt unplanned trip through the Quantum Mirror, and her holo display showed the newly arrived ship in
orbit. She had seen the energy signatures when it had used a transport beam to send a landing party to the installation, and the effect that had had on the dangerously unstable Mirror.

She should answer the com m . Except… som ething’s wrong, she told herself, grim ly ey eing the screen. She hadn’t been able to sense the hum ans’ presence. But these newcom ers were not hum ans, and she could taste the m atrix of their m inds, j ust
on the edge of her awareness.

It felt wrong. There was nothing she could articulate, no one elem ent that seem ed to warn of danger. But deep inside her, a buried instinct said, fear this.

The hum ans had spoken of Wraith, of the danger of revealing her presence in this place. Of course, then they went m ad and threatened to kill y ou, she told herself ruefully .

Their fear she had been able to understand; she was too different from them , perhaps they had never seen an alien being before. It was the hate that baffled her.

When she had first glim psed them on the security cam era she hadn’t known what she was looking at. They were so alien, so unlike Eidolon, all different sizes and colors. Then one had looked directly at the cam era, and she had had a sudden clear
view of his face. It had been like looking at one of the ancient holo recordings of the Creators.

She had gripped the cold m etal of the console, staring in shock. If the Creators were alive in this reality… This is incredible; all our questions could be answered! But surely Creators would know how to override their own security m easures. She had
turned the dam n sy stem on accidentally when try ing to power up the com plex and it had taken her hours to figure out how to keep it from locking her in constantly . If she hadn’t had the Creators’ gene, it would have been im possible.

That was when she had realized that they m ust be hum ans. The Eidolon knew that the first hum an colonies had died out even before the Creators, the first victim s of the plague that had eventually destroy ed the Creators’ civilization. She had been
desperate to speak to them , and not only for the value to Eidolon science. She wasn’t accustom ed to being alone, to being separated from her own kind; she was desperate to speak to any one.

The com m chim ed again and she grim aced at it. The hum ans could have been ly ing about the danger… Why ? They weren’t afraid until they saw y our face, until they saw y ou weren’t one of them . Before that, she thought they had honestly m eant
to help her. She knotted her fists. She still needed that help. You should be able to deal with this. You’re not a child, y ou’re an adult, skilled in y our calling, an expert in the Creators’ lost technology. She was also alone, trapped away from her world, away from the protection of her m other and her m ale lineage, and it frightened her in a way that struck her to the core.

She had to find out who was on that newly arrived ship. She took a deep breath and closed her ey es. She carefully stretched out toward that tenuous m ental connection, toward the alien ship in orbit.

It cam e alm ost im m ediately .

Hunger They had traveled far from the hive, chasing the elusive energy traces that m ight indicate Lantian technology, and there had been little to feed on along their route. There were tantalizing hints from other hives that a new feeding ground
existed, rich bey ond m easure, that Lantian technology m ight lead to it.

Trishen retreated, startled. She didn’t think they were aware of her; there was som ething prim itive about m ost of the m inds in the m atrix, and she could tell there was no fem ale onboard. That can’t be a good sign. She pushed harder, slipping past the higher levels of awareness, choosing an individual m ind at random .

She saw with his ey es.

He was walking through the ship. It was prim itive too, at least this section of it. She caught sight of another crew m em ber, and was baffled by the heavy m ask of what looked like bone concealing his-its?-face. Another passed by, but this one looked
like an Eidolon m ale. That doesn’t m ake sense. The hum ans had acted as if they had never seen an Eidolon before. Trishen opened her senses further, try ing to understand. Then she gagged, her throat nearly closing at the stench of death; the sweetness
of rotting flesh was thick in the air. There’s been an accident, she thought, bewildered, a hull breach. But she could see the crew, Eidolon and the m asked beings, passing in the corridor as if nothing was wrong. And the stink; had they j ust left the bodies where they lay ? And there was web every where, thick bundles of it. What in the nam e of the Creators are they doing? she wondered incredulously .

Then the being she was riding stopped in front of a sm all cham ber, in front of a m ass of web, and she saw a body trapped in it. A hum an fem ale, naked except for a few rags, slum ped over with only the web holding her upright. Dead, surely she
was dead. He reached toward her, his hand on her chest, and Trishen’s thoughts dissolved in horror. No. It can’t be. This can ‘t be.

The hum an j erked and scream ed.

Trishen fled, snatching her awareness away. Back in her own body she shoved away from the console, staggered blindly to the wall. Bile rose in her throat as her body tried to revolt. Wraith. Not Eidolon. Wraith. The species that had destroy ed the

Creators.

This… explained a great deal.

Ignoring the chim ing of the com m unit, she leaned on the wall, breathing in the clean air of her own ship. Squeezing her ey es shut didn’t help; the hum an fem ale’s horrific death was burned into her brain. Now y ou know why the hum ans ran from
y ou, she told herself.

Now she understood the hate, too.

They found the roof access on the upperm ost level, a lift platform that took them up into a circular structure with one section open to the outside. The elevator doors opened and John stepped out cautiously, Tey la beside him , warily survey ing the
scene. The flat roof stretched away , an em pty expanse of dust-streaked blue stone, under a sky that was starting to dim as the m oon’s orbit took it into eclipse again. John said, “This the right place?”

“No, the elevator took us to another dim ension.” Rodney was already checking his various screens.

John exchanged a startled look with Tey la, then he rolled his ey es in annoy ance and they both glared at Rodney . “McKay .”

“What?” Rodney dem anded, not looking up.

Brows lowered and sounding distinctly testy , Tey la began, “Considering where we are-”

John finished in a flat voice, “That wasn’t funny .”

On the headset, John heard Zelenka confide in an undertone to either Kusanagi or Ronon, “Rodney thinks he is hilarious.”

“I can hear y ou, Zelenka, and all right, fine, y es, this is the right part of the roof.” Rodney checked his tablet again. “The array is straight ahead, on the inside edge.”

John waited while Rodney did a last check through of all his equipm ent. Mirror: probably not about to discharge and kill them . Life signs: currently clear except for the three of them . Wraith darts: none close enough to detect. Scout ship: at the far
end of its polar orbit, out of range for at least the next half hour. Then John stepped out into the open, try ing to ignore the sensation of being fully exposed to the view of every Wraith in the entire sy stem .

As they started across the open expanse of the roof, Radek reported that they had reached the freight entrance and that Miko was m aneuvering the cloaked j um per down the corridor. A m om ent later John heard a y elp and a faint m etallic crunch.

Miko snapped, “Shim atta!”

John winced in genuine pain. It was his favorite j um per. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Radek replied hurriedly . “It’s a sm all scratch, I’ll fix it when we get hom e.”

Rodney snorted in exasperation. “It’s `The Bobbsey Twins Try to Park a Puddlej um per.

“Just be careful,” John told Radek.

As they neared the edge of the roof, John saw a wide square trench, close to thirty feet across and about five feet deep, apparently running the full circum ference of the building, j ust as Rodney had predicted. The far side curved up into a blue-
green m etallic housing that he hoped was for the pulse generator, form ing a square block that extended out over the edge of the installation like a porch roof. Okay, this is what I saw from the window bubble in that m onitoring room . There were a scatter of low stone platform s of different heights along the trench, probably bases for equipm ent that had been long rem oved.

John j um ped down into the trench and Rodney and Tey la used the little set of steps. After a little searching, they found the nearly invisible seam s of a large square access port. Rodney set his tablet down and unslung his pack, taking out his toolkit.

He tapped his radio. “Radek, we’ve found it. Pull up the database on Ancient conductivity and energy control-”

“I have it, Rodney ,” Radek replied. “And we have found a nice bay to sit in.”

Study ing the sky uneasily , John asked, “How long is this going to take?”

Still holding the toolkit, Rodney rolled his ey es. “A long long tim e, if som eone interrupts m e every ten seconds to ask-”

Then Tey la shouted, “Colonel!”

John turned, saw the white flash. Wraith were beam ing down on the inside edge of the trench, between them and the lift platform . He y elled, “Wraith!”

He opened fire with Tey la as the Wraith m aterialized. A high-fly ing dart m ust have picked them up on its sensors, beam ed down this search group. There were at least seven of them , m ales and drones, and that was too m any. One drone dropped,
then another. The others were lifting stunners. In his peripheral vision, John saw Rodney turn, aim his pistol at his tablet where it sat on the pavem ent, squeeze off two shots. Good, John thought, right before the stun blast hit him in the chest.

John saw the ground rushing toward him , and slam m ed into it.

Dazed, Rodney opened his ey es when som ething tugged at his SCBA. No, no, what the hell? I need that. He fum bled for the chest strap with num b fingers, try ing to hold on to it. The next tug was violent, ripping the m ask away , taking the tank and his
tac vest with it. It y anked him around so that he was sprawled on his side; Rodney choked on a breath, the thin air laden with dust, and stared upward.

There was a Wraith drone standing over him , faceless in the bone m ask it wore. He choked on an outcry , his throat closing. He tried to scram ble away but his m uscles were lim p, his body like an unstrung puppet.

The drone stepped back and Rodney saw Sheppard ly ing on his side a few feet away . His j acket, vest, and SCBA had been pulled off and tossed aside. Tey la lay in a crum pled heap not far bey ond Sheppard, another drone j ust now dragging off her
vest and breathing unit, ignor ing her startled outcry and her weak attem pt to punch it. Rodney gasped, “No, we need those,” the words cam e out in a weak wheeze and Rodney felt the first pressure on his lungs. The Wraith had taken their weapons, the headsets. And their air.

Hy poxia. Ten or twelve percent oxy gen, j ust enough to die slowly . It m eant gasping for breath, m uddled thinking and inability to m ake decisions, fatigue, and other things that weren’t going to m atter because they were going to be fed on, they were going to die, very , very painfully and very , very soon.

He saw Sheppard shove at the pavem ent, try ing to push him self up and falling back helplessly. He looked feral and desperate and furious, like a trapped predator. He m et Rodney ‘s gaze, and for a m om ent there was nothing there but wide-ey ed
despair, before Sheppard looked away. It’s not fair, Rodney thought, feeling the odd detachm ent of incipient hy steria. It should have been quick, an explosion; Rodney had been m entally prepared for them all to die in an explosion, eventually. Not this, they didn’t deserve this.

At least he had destroy ed his tablet, with its inform ation on the Mirror. Sm all consolation, he told him self bitterly .

A m ale Wraith stepped into Rodney ‘s view, its long white hair and dead pale skin alm ost glowing against the dark stone. It had at least a dozen bullet holes in the dull silver arm or on its chest, but it m ust have fully regenerated already. It wore
som ething around its neck, a gray bulbous device with nodes clam ped over the slits on its face. Som e sort of breather unit, Rodney thought. It nudged the shattered tablet with a foot and hissed with displeasure. Then it paced toward them , standing over them , barring its teeth in a sneer. It said, “How did y ou get to this m oon?”

Right, there’s no Stargate here. Rodney groaned under his breath. There was j ust no good answer to that question.

Tey la tried to push herself up, shaking the hair out of her ey es, her face set in a snarl nearly as intim idating as the Wraith’s. Sheppard looked up at it with narrowed ey es, sneering back. “We walked.”

The Wraith hissed and leaned down toward him , lifting a hand. Rodney choked out, “No! Stop, God-” But the Wraith only slapped Sheppard, the open-handed blow slam m ing him back into the pavem ent. Rodney winced away .

Tey la m ade a strangled noise of rage, nearly shoving herself upright. Rodney didn’t see the drone, not until it stepped in, swinging the butt of its stunner, striking her across the face. It knocked her flat; she twitched once and lay unm oving. Rodney shouted, “Dam m it, we’re stunned already , y ou didn’t have to-” He ran out of air at that point and slum ped, gasping.

Ignoring him , the m ale Wraith grabbed Sheppard by the shirt, dragging him up as if he weighed no m ore than a rag doll. It turned, slam m ing him down on his back on the nearest platform . Sheppard was m oving slowly, dazed and weak, but he
clawed at its hand, tried to kick it in the chest. “There is no Stargate on this m oon,” the Wraith said, apparently thinking that it had to spell out the problem . “You cam e here in a Lantian ship.”

“What ship?” Sheppard m anaged to wheeze. The Wraith hit him again, snapping his head back against the stone.

It’s going to kill him , Rodney thought, sick with the certainty. It’s going to kill all of us. He found him self say ing, “We were brought here-” He had to pause to gasp in another breath, wheezing out, “By Wraith. Other Wraith, not y ou, of course-We escaped, we were trapped here-”

The Wraith let go of Sheppard and he rolled off the platform , collapsing into a lim p heap on the dusty stone. It stalked toward Rodney , say ing, “You have Lantian devices. How did y ou get them ?”

“We stole them . When we escaped.” It was an incredibly ludicrous lie. Rodney didn’t know if he was stalling, try ing to put off the inevitable, or j ust try ing to get the Wraith to take him first so he wouldn’t have to watch it happen to Sheppard and Tey la. He wheezed, “I suppose they ‘re holding out on y ou, m ay be y ou’d better check into that.”

The Wraith canted its head to stare down at him , as if it was seriously considering this. “The alien ship is Lantian. Where did it com e from ?”

Rodney said, “What alien ship?” In retrospect, not the best response.

It snarled, drew its hand stunner, and before Rodney could even flinch it shot him again.

Rodney fell back against the pavem ent, his body suddenly an inert slab of m eat. Bastard, Rodney thought in outrage, barely m anaging to drag in another breath. Wait, what j ust happened? By alien ship, it m ust have m eant Trishen’s ship. Then these Wraith hadn’t known about it before they arrived here, they weren’t allied with her. And…that wasn’t going to help because they were going to kill them all any way .

The Wraith turned away , then froze, staring upward. A shadow fell over the roof, and Rodney heard a rushing blast of wind.

Then every thing dissolved into white light.

Rodney hit a soft rubbery floor, unable to even tense at the im pact. His ears popped from the sudden transition to a pressurized environm ent, and he gasped in a real breath. He was in a room with dark walls, dim ly lit. He lay sprawled next to

Sheppard, who was half-twisted on his side; Tey la was a few feet away , a fall of red-brown hair partially obscuring her face. Alive, still alive. For now.

Rodney tried desperately to m ove and couldn’t even twitch; the second stun had com pletely im m obilized him . Where the hell are we? he thought, sick terror settling in his stom ach. He knew they had been picked up by a transport beam , but a

Wraith culling beam should have left him com pletely unconscious. He couldn’t see Tey la’s face, but Sheppard’s ey es were closed, his brow furrowed in pain. If he was out, it was probably from that last punch.

Then a figure m oved into his narrow field of vision. White hair, a Wraith… Trishen.

This…doesn ‘t m ake sense, Rodney thought, startled and incredulous. That noise he had heard right before the transport beam m ust have been her shuttle. She stole us from the other Wraith? That was m ore support for his theory that she was from a
different reality , not working with these Wraith at all.

She hesitated, then slowly m oved toward them . His heart pounding, Rodney concentrated on keeping his ey es slitted and his breathing even. They had alway s suspected that m uch of the pleasure Wraith took in feeding cam e from the terror of their
victim s, from attem pts at resistance. He didn’t think she would want to feed on them when she didn’t believe they were conscious. This would be a very , very bad tim e to discover we’re wrong about that.

Then she knelt next to Sheppard. Rodney went cold. He tried to m ake his throat work, tried to say som ething, to argue, distract her, stall, but the second stun blast had frozen his vocal cords. She reached out tentatively, cautiously, and lightly touched Sheppard’s hair.

If she had been hum an, Rodney would have said her expression was caught between curiosity and wariness. She touched Sheppard’s face, j ust above his right brow, then put the back of her hand against his cheek. She looked like som eone daring to
touch a sleeping tiger; frightened and aware this probably wasn’t the best idea, but too overcom e by curiosity to resist the opportunity .

Rodney felt a pain between his ey es that he was certain was an aneurism , then he rem em bered to take a shallow breath. She m ust have heard him because she started, j erking her hand back, looking around nervously. Then she pushed to her feet
and hurriedly backed away .

Rodney shuddered inwardly with relief. He saw her glance around, lean down to pick som ething up. Then he realized som e of their equipm ent had been beam ed up with them . Oh fine, that’s handy, he thought bitterly. Squinting, he could see the
pile of their tac vests and SCBAs, at least one of the P-90s. She was gathering all of it, carry ing it away . He heard a few thum ps and bum ping noises, then finally a low power hum .

He waited, tense and hy peraware of every sound, but she didn’t com e near them again. She said she had never seen a hum an before. If she was telling the truth, if her species really had been created by a band of refugee Ancients from this
reality … We’d be like living artifacts, relics of an alm ost m y thical past.

He j ust hoped she m eant to keep them alive.

CHAPTER SEVEN
onon knew the others were dead when he heard Sheppard shout, “Wraith!”

The radio went to static and Zelenka slam m ed his hand on the console, shouting, “Rodney ! Colonel, Tey la!” Kusanagi gasped in horror.

They stared at the useless screens while tim e crawled. Then the three life signs winked out like candles.

Kusanagi m ade a noise in her throat, pressing her hands over her face. Zelenka pushed out of his seat and stum bled out of the cockpit into the rear cabin; Ronon heard him retching.

Ronon j ust turned away. He stared blindly at the j um per’s curved wall, his fists knotting. He should be used to this. He had seen so m any people taken by the Wraith that it had all blurred into a haze of rage and pain and loss. He shouldn’t feel it like this any m ore. He didn’t want to feel it like this any m ore.

Zelenka stepped back into the cockpit, wiping his face with a cloth. “We m ust do som ething.” He steadied him self on the back of the co-pilot’s seat, dropping into it and study ing the screens again. He said hesitantly, “Did it sound like… Did they have the chance to dam age pulse generator, do y ou think?”

Kusanagi shook her head. “I don’t think Dr. McKay would have had tim e-” She pressed her hand over her m outh and shuddered, then took a sharp breath. She m anaged to finish, “Tim e to get into the device. And there has been no discharge. It m ust still be operating.”

“I can do it,” Ronon said. Zelenka and Kusanagi turned to stare up at him blankly , and he explained, “Go up to the roof, see how far they got. You can tell m e what to do to it over the radio.”

Startled, Zelenka frowned at him , then looked at Kusanagi. She said softly, “It m ay be the only way.” Ronon saw she had tears running down her cheeks, though she seem ed unaware of them . “We can’t leave the Mirror to the Wraith. If they can use it to get this superior technology -”

“Yes. Yes, we have to do this.” Zelenka looked up uncertainly . “Perhaps I should go with y ou-”

“No.” Ronon shook his head. He could see the little m an was terrified of the prospect. And he had sworn to Sheppard that he would protect these two. He had also sworn that he wouldn’t leave them , but he thought this was m ore im portant. “I’ll m ove faster alone.”

Zelenka hesitated, then nodded, his m outh set in a rueful line. Kusanagi turned back to the control board, awkwardly wiping the tears off her face. “You’ll have to wait until they leave the area.” She frowned at the life signs screen. The lighted dots were still m oving around that section of the roof. Ronon allowed him self a grim sm ile. The Wraith were searching, try ing to figure out what the three hum ans had been up to. That m eant nobody had broken. Kusanagi said, “If the Wraith realize we were try ing to sabotage the pulse generator-”

Zelenka studied the screen worriedly . “Surely they won’t leave it unguarded.”

Ronon bared his teeth. He was looking forward to the chance to deliver som e pay back. “Good.”

John’s first conscious thought was relief that he could draw a full breath. His second thought was that his face hurt. A lot. And his head. And pretty m uch his entire body. He heard Rodney say worriedly, “Shake him again. Careful, he m ight have
brain dam age.”

John blinked, wincing. “How will that help if I have-” It hurt to talk. “Ow.”

He m anaged to get his ey es open all the way when som eone touched his shoulder. It was Tey la looking anxiously down at him , her hair in a disordered tum ble and a darkening bruise on her cheek. “Are y ou all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, are y ou okay ? What-” Wraith, John rem em bered. Gritting his teeth, he shoved him self upright. Rodney lay a short distance away, one arm flung over his ey es. He looked like he felt like hell, but otherwise he seem ed unhurt. John looked down at him self, his shirt was torn where the Wraith had grabbed him , but there was no feeding m ark. What do y ou know about that? They were all three alive and they hadn’t been fed on, and John really hadn’t been expecting that.

Their prison was an em pty cabin, the walls and floor the sam e dark rubbery substance they had seen in Trishen’s base ship. This place had the sam e sm ell too, earthy and a little acrid. There was an oval hatchway looking out into another com partm ent, but John could see the faint shim m er in the air of a force shield blocking it. He said, “We’re in Trishen’s ship?”

“We believe so.” Tey la looked around the room , her expression grim . “Apparently she beam ed us up, away from the other Wraith.”

“Who stunned m e twice, and y es, I have a m igraine, thank y ou for asking,” Rodney added, his voice tight. “We’re in her shuttle, but I think it’s docked with the base ship now.”

“Great.” John spotted som ething on the floor, a round blue thing, a foot or so inside the hatchway . He squinted at it suspiciously . “What’s that?”

Tey la’s lips thinned. “It contains water, and som e item s that m ay be packaged rations.”

John grim aced in disgust. The caretaker on the first hiveship they had encountered had liked to feed her hum an prey before she fed on them ; Trishen m ust have the sam e taste. John rolled to his knees, and Tey la grabbed his arm to steady him .

After a m om ent of dizziness, he m anaged to shove him self to his feet. Glancing up, he froze. “What the hell?”

The ceiling arched up into a circular dom e, and in the center was a bulbous m ottled purple thing, covered by a chased silver m etal web. It looked organic and alien and possibly about to do som ething to them . Tey la looked up with a worried wince.

“I do not know.”

From the floor, Rodney said, “It’s not a death ray , it’s the rem aterialization m echanism for the beam ing device.” He lowered his arm to peer suspiciously at it, and am ended, “It’s probably not a death ray .”

“Okay.” Probably not a death ray was likely as good as the situation was going to get. John looked around the cabin again, as Tey la stepped away to m ake a circuit of the walls. John didn’t see any thing that looked like an obvious surveillance cam era, but the ship was too alien to really tell. And the beam ing device thing worried him . He said, “So she could beam us out of here any tim e she wants.” Into the thin atm osphere, with no breathing units. “Or beam som ething in here with us.”

Rodney pulled his arm down again to give John an acid glare. “Yes, please continue to com e up with as m any horrible death scenarios as possible; really , it’s helping m y headache.”

“You seem to enj oy it when y ou do it.” John m ade it to the force-shielded hatchway , peering out into the next com partm ent.

“Yes, but when I-” Rodney gave in grudgingly . “All right, fine.”

From what John could see, the outer com partm ent wasn’t m uch larger than this cabin, em pty except for open storage units set into the walls. The only visible exit was in the opposite wall, another oval doorway, with a sealed hatch. He stretched out
a cautious hand, flinching back when the field zapped him . Wincing, he tucked his hand under his arm .

Tey la had crouched down, testing the field to m ake sure it went all the way to the floor. “I do not see any way we can get through this.”

John nodded, looking down at her. “No equipm ent, no breathing gear, no weapons…” He lifted his brows.

She flicked him a rueful look and tapped her ankle, the gesture telling him that the Wraith hadn’t found the knife she kept strapped to her calf. Right. It was better than nothing. He looked at the outer com partm ent again, and said, “May be she wasn’t ly ing about wanting to fix the Mirror. Or m ay be she j ust wants dinner.”

Still on the floor nursing his headache, Rodney said, “The fact that this is the Pegasus Galaxy and the worstcase scenario is alway s a statistically likely probability notwithstanding, I don’t think she’s allied with the Wraith that arrived in the scout ship.

They tried to question m e about her ship, called it àlien,’ as if finding it here was as big a surprise to them as it was to us. And I don’t think she’s like the Wraith of our reality .”

Tey la pushed to her feet, turning to watch him dubiously . “What do y ou m ean?”

“She was acting,” John said, poking sourly at the force shield.

“Since when do Wraith act?” Rodney started to struggle into a sitting position, and Tey la m oved to help him . “I don’t think she was ly ing about never having seen a hum an before.”

Frowning, John stepped over to him and leaned down, offering Rodney a hand up. “Why ?”

Rodney gripped John’s hand and groaned as John hauled him to his feet. Rodney ey ed him a m om ent, then m ade an erratic gesture. “Som e of our equipm ent was beam ed up with us. She cam e in here to get it while y ou and Tey la were unconscious. It j ust didn’t look like…she had seen a hum an before.”

“Whatever. If they don’t eat hum ans, they eat som ebody else.” John looked around again, frustrated. He hated being locked up. “You want to check these walls, see if there’s any way to-”

“Wait.” Tey la was staring intently toward the door. “Som eone is com ing.”

John turned, stepping sideway s so he could see into the outer com partm ent. The hatch was sliding up. Yeah, here we go, he thought.

Trishen stepped through the hatch into the outer com partm ent, stopping j ust inside it as if she was afraid, as if they weren’t across the room and trapped behind this force shield. Instead of the concealing environm ental suit, she was wearing a dress, purple-gray in the tinted light, with a utility belt around her waist holding various tools and pouches. She also had a silver wristband with control pads on it, like the others John had seen Wraith wear, but m ore com pact.

“Long tim e no see,” John said easily .

Trishen didn’t com e any closer. She pressed her hands together; if she had been hum an, John would have said she looked nervous but resolved. And he wished like hell she would stop doing that, stop acting like a person, because it was pissing him
off. She said stiffly , “What were y ou try ing to do to the Mirror?”

Rodney lifted his chin and folded his arm s. “Why should we tell y ou?”

She blinked at him . “I know what y ou think I am now, I know why y ou were afraid. But I am not one of them . My species m ay appear sim ilar, but we do not…use sentient beings for sustenance. I won’t harm y ou.”

John exchanged a look with Tey la, whose expression of grim skepticism said she wasn’t buy ing this either. John said, “Okay . Then drop the force shield and let us out of here.”

Trishen had the audacity to sound pissed. “I can’t. I know y ou would kill m e.”

Tey la lifted her brows, her expression dry . “We would be fools to believe y ou when y ou can offer us no proof.”

Trishen shook her head in apparent frustration. “I’m not ly ing! There are no hum ans in m y reality . We know that the Creators tried to seed a hum an race at the sam e tim e they created us, but their early colonies died out from som e sort of plague.”

Rodney snorted with annoy ance, giving them all a sour look. “Do y ou people have all day to stand here and argue this point? Because I don’t.” He turned to Trishen, waving a hand dism issively. “Let’s stipulate for the m om ent that I believe y ou’re telling the truth. If y ou don’t intend to feed on us, what exactly do y ou want?”

She took a step forward, her fists knotting. “There’s an array on the roof that has an effect on the Mirror’s accretion surface. Were y ou try ing to destabilize it?”

Rodney gave her a withering look. “Of course we were. And again, why do y ou ask?”

John shot him a glare and Rodney glared back. Okay fine, if she knows what the pulse generator is for then she probably already realizes what we were doing there, John thought. But Rodney needed to be a little m ore reticent with the inform ation,
here.

She took a sharp breath. “If y ou help m e stabilize the Mirror, I will let y ou go. I’ll take y ou back to y our ship-”

“No.” Rodney ‘s m outh twisted. “Next question.”

Trishen shook her head, frustrated and angry . “I j ust want to get back to m y own reality -”

Rodney ‘s voice was acid. “Yes, well, I’m sorry we can’t m ake y our welfare a priority , since we’re a little m ore concerned at the m om ent with saving the lives of our entire species.”

It was her turn to glare at Rodney . “The Mirror is not a weapon. I thought y ou understood that.”

Rodney gave her the little “y ou’re so stupid” laugh, the one guaranteed to send his science team colleagues into paroxy sm s of fury. “Please, not counting any stray Ascendants, I’m the Pegasus Galaxy ‘s forem ost expert on Quantum Mirrors, and y es, it’s not a weapon.” His expression hardened. “But y our ship is.”

Tey la shifted uncertainly , throwing a look at John. Yeah, he really didn’t want to put those cards on the table. He said, “Rodney .”

Trishen m ade a sharp gesture, apparently genuinely exasperated. “This ship has no offensive weapons! You’re the ones with weapons-”

Rodney set his j aw. “Our weapons are woefully inadequate against the Wraith, and m ost of the hum ans here have no weapons, they ‘ve been bom bed back into a preindustrial level of technology -”

John stared at him incredulously . “Rodney !”

Rodney raised his voice, out-shouting John to finish with, “-so the Wraith, y our nearest genetic relatives in this reality , can keep them like cattle and feed on them at their leisure!” He shot a look at John and said, lowvoiced, “I know what I’m doing.”

John hoped like hell Rodney knew what he was doing, that he hadn’t j ust issued an invitation to a whole different set of Wraith from another reality to invade Pegasus and feed on its nearly helpless inhabitants. He j ust said, “You’d better.”

Ignoring him , watching Trishen narrowly, Rodney said, “The Wraith destroy ed the Ancients, drove the last of them out of this galaxy by sheer force of num bers, but they never defeated their technology. The weapons, the sensors, and the cloaking
device on our ship are the only way that we can put up any effective resistance whatsoever. Do y ou see where I’m going with this?”

Trishen stared at him , and it was hard to read the expression in those alien ey es. “My sensors. They use technology left behind by the Creators-y our Ancients. That’s why I could see y our ship through its cloaking device.” She shook her head. “If y ou think I will give it to the Wraith-I have no reason to do that! I j ust want to go hom e.”

“I don’t think y ou’ll give it to them .” Rodney stepped forward, his face grim as he ham m ered his point hom e. “I think they ‘ll take it. And if they know there’s m ore in y our reality , I think they ‘ll go through the Mirror to get it.”

Tey la was watching Trishen with clinical detachm ent. She added, “And if y ou believe y our resem blance to them m akes y ou safe, y ou are wrong. They will feed on their own kind when no hum ans are available. And there are far too m any of
them awake now; for the past y ear they have been in search of a new feeding ground.”

John added, “So if y ou’re not going to eat us, let us go.

Trishen stood there, staring at them , breathing hard. “I can’t-I have to think about this.” She turned in a whirl of skirts and vanished back through the hatch, the door sliding shut after her.

John let his breath out, pacing a few steps away and rubbing his ey es. His j aw hurt, they were stuck here, and he wasn’t seeing m uch hope of keeping this ship and its technology away from the Wraith. He wasn’t seeing m uch hope of keeping them
away from the Wraith, either. “I see where y ou’re try ing to go with this, Rodney , but we could have tried to string her along a little.”

“We don’t have tim e for that.” Rodney turned to him im patiently . “Ahiveship is probably on the way here right now.

“Do we have tim e for this?” Tey la asked him pointedly . “You really think she will see reason and release us to destroy the Mirror?”

Rodney ‘s j aw set in stubborn certainty . “She’s a scientist. Yes, I think she’ll see reason.”

“She is a Wraith, whatever she calls herself.” Tey la’s voice was hard. “She will have no concern for any thing except feeding and her own hive.”

Rodney waved an arm , frustrated. “Then why isn’t she m aking a deal with these Wraith?”

John shook his head in exasperation, glaring up at the death ray /beam ing thing in the ceiling. “We don’t know that she isn’t.”

Tey la paced away from the door, frowning. “And I still cannot believe that she is what she claim s to be, even if it is true that she cam e here through the Mirror. Why would the Ancestors who escaped to her reality deliberately recreate the Wraith?

It m akes no sense.”

Rodney said im patiently, “It does, if y ou consider the plague; she said her people thought thèCreators’ and the other race they tried to seed were wiped out by it. If it was at all sim ilar to the plague that destroy ed the Ancients in the Milky Way, we know how virulent it was, that they never discovered a cure.” Rodney paced, warm ing to his theory. “If these Ancients thought the only way to pass along their DNA was to use the Iratus bug m utation, which they already knew could be com bined with hum an DNA-” He stopped, facing them , pointing toward the sealed hatch. “If they controlled its developm ent, bred out the need to feed off sentient beings, m ade it as hum an as they could without allowing it to be susceptible to the plague, they could have produced som ething like Trishen. A Wraith-like being with pronounced hum an behavioral characteristics who has the Ancient gene.”

Tey la shook her head, looking away . “I hope y ou are right,” she said quietly .

“And she didn’t say her species couldn’t feed on sentient beings, Rodney ,” John pointed out. “She said they didn’t.” He lifted his brows. “That’s a big difference.”

The Wraith were taking their tim e searching the roof, so Ronon went into the j um per’s rear cabin, sitting on the bench to check his gun and sharpen his knives. Much as he would like to take on the whole group, he knew destroy ing the Mirror was
m ore im portant.

Sheppard, Tey la Em m agan, and McKay had died for it.

Finally Zelenka ducked into the rear cabin, say ing anxiously , “They are leaving the roof. There are only two left near the place where the others-Two, that’s good?”

Ronon’s m outh twisted in grim am usem ent. “That’s good.” He pushed to his feet, sliding his long knife back into the scabbard.

From the cockpit, Kusanagi said, “I can lift the j um per further up the shaft.” Ronon looked through the hatchway to see the HUD pop up a skeletal outline of the space directly above the j um per, showing the straight shaft and then what looked like a large doorway , m ay be two levels up. The im age was fuzzy on the edges, the Mirror still interfering with the ship’s scanning abilities. Kusanagi pointed. “There. That opening, m ay be it would give y ou a quicker route to the roof.”

Ronon nodded. “Try it.”

While Kusanagi slowly guided the j um per up the shaft, Ronon let Zelenka fuss around checking his radio and m aking sure his air tanks were topped off. The odd thing was that Ronon thought Zelenka was doing it because he really wanted Ronon to
com e back alive, not because he was afraid of being left with no one to guard him . “You have enough guns?” Zelenka asked him finally , waving a hand around at the supplies and weapons stored in the overhead racks. “There are extras.”

“I’ve got enough,” Ronon said, but he took a few of the sm all explosives m eant for throwing, the ones called “grenades.”

Kusanagi found the opening, a shattered hatchway leading into a space that m ight be for unloading freight, and rotated the j um per so the ram p was facing it. Ronon took a last look at the life signs screen, com m itting the Wraith’s current positions to m em ory. The handheld detector wouldn’t work unless som ebody with the Ancestors’ blood, like Sheppard or McKay or Kusanagi, was close enough to touch it. But Kusanagi and Zelenka could follow his progress with the j um per’s screens, and warn him
if the Wraith were about to cross his path. Ronon had survived a long tim e without that kind of help, but he wasn’t fool enough to turn it down when it was freely offered.

He waited in the rear cabin while Kusanagi sealed the cockpit door to keep the air in, then opened the ram p. All that was left of the hatchway into the freight bay was j agged m etal and broken stone, leading into a dark dusty passage. Ronon didn’t
wait for the ram p to open all the way ; he caught the edge of the hatch and swung across, landing on the platform . The m etal creaked under his boots, but didn’t give, and a m om ent later he was m oving fast down the passage. He heard the ram p closing
behind him , and Kusanagi’s soft voice on the radio, whispering, “Be careful.”

“Will y ou two sit down?” Rodney asked in exasperation.

“In a m inute.” John wasn’t pacing because he was stir-crazy, he was pacing because he was try ing to keep sore and strained m uscles from stiffening up. If they had a chance to do any thing, he wanted to be able to m ove. Rodney was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall, and Tey la, who did look stir-crazy , was pacing on the opposite side of the room from John.

They had poked all around the cabin, looking for a way to disarm the force shield. Rodney had used Tey la’s knife on the rubbery wall-covering near the doorway, cutting through it to get to the controls to open and close the hatch. But those controls
didn’t affect the force shield, which was apparently generated by a separate unit som ewhere on the other side of the wall. John figured that was why Trishen had used it to m ake their little prison; she had seen Rodney finesse the control panel for the ship’s outer lock and had to know an inside hatchway wouldn’t hold him long.

Rodney let his breath out, rubbing his face. “I don’t suppose it’s a good idea to try the rations she left. Or the water.”

“It could be drugged.” Tey la ey ed the box with disapproval. “If she truly does not m ean to feed on us, then she m ay have other designs.”

Rodney frowned at her. “Drugged how?”

“It could turn us into zom bies,” John told him , picking a fate worse than death at random . His throat was painfully dry too, but he didn’t think it was worth taking the chance.

Rodney contem plated the ceiling of the cabin in m ock despair. “Yes, I’d worry about brain dam age from the oxy gen deprivation and the head inj ury , if I didn’t know y ou were alway s like this.”

John was watching Tey la. She had stopped pacing, and was rubbing her tem ple, her expression strained. She said abruptly , “I have been sensing Wraith, which is to be expected. But they seem…closer now, than they did before. Very close.”

“How close is very ?” John asked. The cabin suddenly felt a lot sm aller and even m ore cage-like. If Trishen had cut a deal with the other Wraith… “Inside the ship?”

“Wait, m ay be y ou’re sensing Trishen.” Rodney shoved to his feet, steady ing him self on the wall with a wince. “She could be in a cabin next to this one-”

“It is not her.” Tey la shook her head, her lips pressed together. “I have never been able to sense her presence, even when she was standing in front of m e.” She looked at John, lifting a brow. “These Wraith are close, and angry .

John heard som ething outside and stepped to where he could see the sealed hatch in the outer com partm ent. A m om ent later it slid open and Trishen stepped in. John stood on his toes and craned his neck, try ing to see if there were any m ore Wraith
lurking in the passage behind her.

Trishen m oved nearly to the force-shielded doorway . It was still hard for John to read her expression, but her body radiated tension. She looked at Tey la. “Were y ou telling the truth about the Wraith searching for new sentients to feed on?”

Folding her arm s, Tey la ey ed her deliberately. “To the best of m y knowledge. There are not enough hum ans to support the num ber of hives, and on som e worlds they have already culled entire populations. We know they grow increasingly
desperate.”

Trishen looked away, taking a sharp breath. “They ‘re at the outer lock, try ing to break into the ship.” She pressed her hands together, as if steeling herself. “I don’t have any weapons to stop them , and I can’t repair the shields on the base ship, or the drive.”

John shook his head with a grim ace. Crap. I knew this was going to happen. Tey la’s face hardened and she threw a grim look at John. Rodney threw his arm s in the air in exasperation, say ing, “Well, that lim its y our options, doesn’t it? I told y ou they would want this ship, and they ‘re going to want to know where y ou got it. Believe m e, y ou won’t like the way they ask the questions!” He added with bitter em phasis, “And if y ou don’t let us go now, y ou m ight as well kill us y ourself.”

John snorted derisively to him self, thinking there wasn’t a chance in hell of that. So it caught him com pletely by surprise when Trishen said, “I’ll let y ou go, but listen to m e first.” She hesitated, shook her head a little. “I could take this shuttle, leave this sy stem , but it isn’t m eant for long-range trips, and I know I have nowhere to go.” She looked at Rodney, intent and desperate. “You told m e y ou thought y ou could m ake the Mirror functional. If y ou agree to do that, or at least to try, I’ll agree to destroy m y base ship, so there is no possibility the Wraith will get its technology . If the Mirror can be activated, I’ll take this shuttle back to m y reality , and then y ou’ll be free to do what y ou like to the Mirror.”

Tey la lifted her brows, startled. Rodney stared at Trishen, so taken aback it was obvious he hadn’t really expected her to give in either. He said, “Wait, that… sounds reasonable. That would work for us.” He looked at John. “Right?”

John j ust really hoped this wasn’t a trick, because otherwise he didn’t see what the hell they were going to do. He asked Trishen, “What if he can’t fix it?”

“Oh, fine!” Rodney obj ected, turning to John in outrage. “Let’s cast doubt on m y abilities right now! That’ll help!”

Trishen shook her head im patiently. “I understand it m ay be im possible to m ake it operate again. I won’t try to stop y ou from destabilizing it, if it com es to that. I’m trusting y ou to j ust give m e a chance.” She hesitated nervously. “I’m also trusting y ou not to kill m e.”

“Yeah, we’re trusting y ou about that, too,” John felt he had to point out. If the only thing she really wanted was to get back to her hom e reality, then this had half a chance of working. He threw a look at Tey la, got a sharp nod in reply. Rodney was m aking get on with it gestures. John said, “You’ve got a deal.”

Trishen nodded tightly, and touched a control on her wristband. John saw the force shield shim m er. He m oved forward, waved a hand to m ake sure it was really gone, then stepped through. Trishen backed away hastily, all the way to the far wall,
which was fine with him . He said, “Where’s our weapons?”

“In that cabinet.” She pointed and he headed for it. The door was dark m etal, thin and pleated into tiny ridges, alm ost like fabric. She began, “I have to unlock-” But when John touched it, the door slid open. She laughed a little, sounding startled rather than am used. “You really are descended from the Creators.”

John didn’t bother to reply , hauling out the P-90 that lay atop the pile and taking rapid inventory of the rest. Only one pistol, still holstered in Tey la’s gun belt, but all three of their tac vests were there, Rodney ‘s pack, and the SCBAs.

Rodney said, “It was set to respond only to the Ancient gene? Colonel Sheppard is a natural carrier, I have it artificially .” He added, “What?” when John shoved his pack at him with a m eaningful glare.

“We don’t have tim e to chat.” John handed Tey la her gun belt and tac vest and rapidly checked the P-90, m aking sure it hadn’t been dam aged or tam pered with. So they had a tem porary deal; he didn’t want to give Trishen any m ore intel on them than they absolutely had to.

“We have no other weapons?” Tey la asked, buckling on her gun belt as she kept one ey e on Trishen.

“That’s it. At least we’ve got plenty of am m o.” John pulled on his vest, clipping the P-90 to it, thinking, so far so good. He found a stray headset caught in the velcro on the vest and hooked it over his ear, switching the base unit on. He winced at the roar of static he got in response. He looked at Trishen, who was still watching them nervously . “We’ll have to use y our com m sy stem to call our ship.”

Rodney had torn open his pack, m uttering a quick inventory of the contents. “Yes, I’m going to need Radek and Miko to work on this too, but first things first.” He turned to Trishen. “Does the base ship have a selfdestruct?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s a research vessel, there was no need for one. I was going to overload the drive. Should we-”

Rodney held up a finger. “First, I’ll need to convert y our shields to a cloak. The Wraith scout ship won’t detect the shuttle’s lift off, and when the base ship is destroy ed, they ‘ll assum e every thing went with it. Hopefully any Wraith on the ground close enough to notice the shuttle’s sudden disappearance won’t survive the explosion.”

Trishen nodded, starting out of the com partm ent. “Yes, that’s an excellent strategy .”

Following her, Rodney ‘s m outh twisted in grim am usem ent. “We’ve had som e success with it in the past.”

She led the way down the passage, past two other sm all com partm ents. The shuttle was filled with weird sem i-organic devices, in colors from black to purple to pink. John had to adm it, disturbing as the organic part was, it didn’t look like a Wraith
ship. But then the lack of webbing and skeletons and cocooned captives m ade a big im pact.

Trishen stepped into a sem i-circular cabin filled with the organic control consoles. Several round holographic display s floated in the air, m ost of them data readouts. She pointed to one of the consoles. “These are the controls for the shields. Can y ou-

”

“Yes.” Rodney studied the rapidly shifting display floating above it, and touched a few of the colored pads. “It’s extrem ely sim ilar to At-” Rodney turned the word into a cough, and finished hurriedly, “To shield consoles I’ve seen before. It should only take a few m inutes.”

Tey la kept her expression perfectly neutral and John rubbed the bridge of his nose, thinking that was close. Trishen’s version of the Pegasus Galaxy wasn’t likely to have an Atlantis, unless the Ancients had built one there, but the nam e m ight have
appeared in their history som ewhere. Even if the Mirror was destroy ed, John j ust didn’t want to send Trishen hom e with the idea that there was any thing in this reality worth having.

But she hadn’t appeared to notice Rodney ‘s near-m isstep. She nodded, say ing, “Good. I’ve already set the drive to build up power, but I have to m anually disengage the failsafes because-”

Rodney nodded, absorbed in the controls and readouts. “Because the drive is specifically designed not to do what y ou’re try ing to m ake it do, right. Get to it.”

She hesitated. “I need to use the m ain console in the base ship…”

John got it. She didn’t want to leave them up here alone, since Rodney was obviously capable of operating the shuttle without her help. He said, “I’ll com e with y ou.

She nodded, relieved, and started back into the passage. John followed her, Tey la with him . The passage led into a lock that apparently connected it to the base ship. It was open, but John stopped, lifting a brow.

The shuttle apparently fit into the base ship in such a way that its deck was at a right angle to the base ship’s deck. The hatch was looking down the base ship’s open central core; straight down, so it appeared as if they should be falling down it
already . “Just step through,” Trishen said, noticing his hesitation. “The artificial gravity adj usts autom atically .”

“Okay ,” John said, figuring he had a fifty -fifty chance of breaking his neck. He stepped through and suddenly found him self standing on the sm all stair platform , clinging to the railing.

Tey la lifted her brows. “That is clever.”

“Yeah.” John grim aced, waited until Trishen had stepped through, and gave Tey la a signal to guard the hatch area. She nodded and he followed Trishen down the stairs that spiraled around the core area.

Com partm ents opened off the platform s on each level, m uch like the shuttle, only on a slightly larger scale. John realized he could hear a high-pitched buzz from below. Trishen had said the other Wraith were try ing to break in. “Is that from the outer hatch?”

She said, “Yes, I think they ‘re using som e sort of cutting tool to get into the control panel, but that should take them som e tim e.” On the next to lowest level, she stopped at another control area, bigger than the shuttle’s cockpit, with m ore of the floating display s. She started hitting control pads, and said, “Main console to shuttle. I’ve turned on the internal com m throughout the ship, so y ou can-Rodney ‘s voice on a loudspeaker interrupted, “Notify y ou when I’m ready , y es, y es, get to work.”

John left her to it, going down half a level until he had a view of the hatch for the m ain airlock. The buzzing noise from outside the hatch didn’t get any louder, but it was still m aking John’s nerves twitch. He listened to Rodney and Trishen talking back and forth on the com m , m ostly incom prehensible techno-babble. It sounded like Rodney had finished converting the shields to a cloaking device and they were j ust waiting on the drive build-up.

Then Rodney ‘s voice said abruptly , “Wait, what the hell is that?” John tensed, pushing to his feet and stepping back onto the platform . Before he could ask what the hell was what, Rodney said, “Trishen, do y ou have a view of the outer hatch?”

Alarm ed, Trishen hit a control. One of the display bubbles expanded to a view of the outside of the ship. The vantage point looked like it was up on the shuttle, and the im age was blue-gray, as if it was from a nightvision scope; the daily eclipse m ust have started.

There was a cluster of drones and a few m ale Wraith around the ship. Three of the drones had strange tools about the size of an AT-4 Rocket Launcher, and were j ust pointing them at the outer hatch. The beam s cam e on, so intense the glare
washed out the im age. Sounding appalled, Trishen said, “They ‘re cutting the hatch out!”

Rodney ‘s voice was sour. “They m ust have heard the drive build-up and decided not to bother try ing to take the ship intact. That’s ty pical.”

John ducked back to the steps to look at the outer lock from this side. Even from here, he could see a hot blue glow growing in the center of the hatch. Oh, hell. “Hurry it up, guy s, they ‘re burning through the inner hatch!”

He heard Rodney ask Trishen, “Can y ou seal off that section? Oh, at what point does that m ake sense!” John guessed the answer had been “no.” Rodney added urgently , “Then keep going, overload every thing-”

The blue glow was getting larger. The hatch was steam ing, giving off a sharp odor far too close to burning flesh for John’s com fort. He m oved back up a few steps, crouching to keep the P-90 aim ed at the outer hatch. The m etal of the whole central
core was starting to trem ble and over the whine from the cutting tools he could hear a m uted reverberation that had to be the overloaded drive. Trishen pushed away from the controls, say ing, “It’s done! We have to get away -”

John saw the blue glow of the cutting beam s suddenly expand, the black hatch m aterial turning white with heat. He y elled, “Go, now!” The hatch exploded inward, and John fired down at the first of the drones that slam m ed through the white-hot rem nants. The first two drones collapsed in the lock; they would regenerate in a couple of m inutes but right now they were dead weight, slowing the others down, forcing them to clam ber over the tem porarily inert bodies.

Trishen bolted out onto the platform , then started up the steps.

John fired at the hatch again, then pushed to his feet and darted up the stairs after her. At the next platform , he turned to fire down, catching a m ale Wraith j ust as it stuck its head out into the central well to look upward. It fell back and John charged up the stairs.

From above, Tey la fired her 9m m down the central well. John reached the shuttle connection platform and backed toward the hatch, firing to cover Tey la as she drew back from the railing. Then som ething hit him , sending him staggering. The
right side of his body went instantly num b, and he sagged, barely clinging to the railing; he m ust have been clipped with the edge of a stun blast. Tey la shouted in alarm , firing down the stairs, and John knew the Wraith were alm ost on them . “Tey la, get out of here!”

Then Rodney ducked out of the hatch and grabbed John’s num b arm , hauling him across the platform .

Tey la em ptied her second clip as John and Rodney reached the shuttle’s hatch. Turning, she shoved both of them through. The gravity field grabbed them and John slam m ed into the shuttle’s deck, Rodney landing half on top of him . John m anaged
to turn his head in tim e to see Tey la land on her feet beside him . A Wraith snarled up at them from the platform directly below, j ust lifting its stunner to fire. John awkwardly scrabbled for the P-90 with his good arm , but Rodney and Tey la were y elling,

“Now, now!”

The hatch slid shut.

John let his head drop back. “Yeah, that was close,” he gasped. “Thanks, Rodney , Tey la.”

“Close?” Rodney shouted incredulously . “Shut up! And y ou’re welcom e!”

Tey la let her breath out in relief, sliding down the wall to sit on the deck. She looked at the sleeve of her j acket, where there was now a hand-shaped rip in the gray m aterial. “Very close,” she said with a rueful grim ace.

Too close, John thought. A little less m om entum , and that thing would have had her. He heard m uted banging on the lock, and tried to shove him self upright. “We need to get out of here-” He felt a thum p through the deck that sounded a lot like a docking clam p releasing, then a gentle push as the shuttle lifted away from the base ship.

Trishen’s voice called from a nearby com partm ent, “We’re away !”

“That’s nice.” Rodney shoved him self into a sitting position, planting an elbow in John’s num b side in the process. He called back to her, “Are we cloaked?”

“Yes, it seem s to be working!”

Rodney rolled his ey es. “Seem s to. Oh, that’s fine. We’ll know for certain when the scout ship starts shooting at us.” He y elled, “Is the base ship blowing up?” He added in a lower voice, “Please, please blow up.”

Som ewhere below the hatch, m uted by distance, thin air, and the shuttle’s shielding, John heard an explosion.

Rodney slum ped in relief. “Thank y ou.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
he sky was a deep purple when Ronon m ade it up to the roof, the big planet that filled the sky alm ost blocking all but the last light of the sun. He paused in the doorway of the little dom e that sheltered the lift platform ; it was too dark to
see m ore than the outlines of the various lum ps and proj ections on the roof, but he couldn’t hear any m ovem ent.

“Ronon, they are still heading away from y ou,” Zelenka whispered in his headset. “Five hundred y ards, a little further. They are m oving fairly slowly , crossing back and forth in a search pattern. I think they are looking for the puddlej um per.”

He heard Kusanagi add, “Perhaps they think the others landed on the roof, that the ship is still there, cloaked. They m ust suspect we are from Atlantis.”

“Suspecting is fine,” Zelenka told her. “As long as they don’t know for certain. And even the possibility of a j um per doesn’t tell them the city is still there. It would be unreasonable for them to believe that none of us escaped through the Stargate before the destruction.”

Using the low platform s as cover, Ronon headed for the roof’s edge. There was still j ust enough light for him to see the darker shadow of the trench. He took out the little battery lightstick and crouched low, cupping his hand over it to shield the
beam , and flashed it over the floor of the trench. He m oved along the edge until the light found disturbed dust, the m arks of tracks and scuffling. Then the light caught the glint of the m etal shells cast off by the Atlantean weapons. It happened here, he thought

He j um ped down into the trench, landing lightly , and paced down it. After a few m om ents’ search, he frowned. This was the right place, but som ething im portant was m issing. He touched his headset. “They aren’t here.”

“The Wraith?” Zelenka asked, a little startled. “The detector shows they are still searching-”

“No. The others.” Ronon had thought he would find their bodies. The Wraith discarded hum an corpses like trash, leaving them where they fell; they would never have bothered to m ove the bodies after a feeding. Som ething else caught the light and he crouched, running his fingers through a scatter of plastic and m etal debris. The rem ains of one of McKay ‘s com puters. He allowed him self a grim sm ile; the destruction was thorough, nothing left to give the Wraith any inform ation, any hint that

Atlantis still lived.

“Oh, y ou m ean …no bodies?” Zelenka hesitated. “But then perhaps they are alive? If the Wraith beam ed them up, their life signs would disappear from screen-”

“May be. That doesn’t m ean they ‘re alive now.” Ronon stood, m oving to the m etal housing that shielded the device they needed to destroy. He felt along it, looking for an access panel. If the others were alive… They would be aboard that Wraith scout ship.

The j um per couldn’t take on a Wraith ship that size. Ronon would have to figure out a way to get onboard. And then get off again, if he found them alive. And he couldn’t believe he was planning som ething this m ad, but then the Atlanteans seem ed
to encourage this kind of thinking. Sheppard would do it, he thought. So would Em m agan.

He shook his head. This first, he told him self. Ronon’s fingers found an indentation in the m etal; an access panel. “I found-”

The sudden explosion sent him to the ground, crouching low. A m om ent later he realized it couldn’t be the Mirror; the blast hadn’t even m ade the building trem ble. “Zelenka, what was that?”

Zelenka was cursing in his own language again. “We heard it, but whatever it was was too close to Mirror platform for our sensors to detect the source. Wraith scout ship is still in orbit, we’re detecting no darts-”

The Wraith had no reason to blow things up near the Mirror. And explosions m ade Ronon think of Sheppard and McKay. He stood, feeling for purchase on the housing, and found a spot to plant his boot; he pushed him self up. Craning his neck, he
could j ust see over the top.

It was too dark to see m uch, but near the far side of the Mirror’s fram e there was a large scatter of debris that was sparking with energy. It was right about where the strange Wraith ship had been. “It’s been blown up,” Ronon reported. “The Wraith fem ale’s ship.”

Then his headset crackled with static and he heard, “This is Sheppard. Ronon, is that y ou?”

“Sheppard?” Ronon grinned, j um ping down from the housing. That explained the explosion.

On the headset, Zelenka dem anded incredulously , “What? Colonel? Colonel, y ou are all alive? Rodney and Tey la?”

Sheppard’s voice answered, “We’re all fine. Zelenka, what’s y our position?”

“The sam e one we had before,” Zelenka said, sound ing deeply relieved. Ronon could hear Kusanagi laughing and clapping with j oy in the background.

Sheppard said, “Good. Just stay there for now and wait for instructions.”

Ronon broke in, “Sheppard, I’m on the roof, near the pulse generator.”

“There are Wraith up there with him ,” Zelenka added hastily . “Well, not with him , but they have turned and are heading back in his direction. I think they are only heading back toward the explosion, but-”

Ronon heard McKay in the background this tim e, then Sheppard said, “Ronon, we’re going to beam y ou off the roof, back outside the installation, near where the j um per is.

“Uh, okay .” Ronon studied the dark sky uneasily . Beam ? “Where are y ou?”

“That’s a long story ” From Sheppard’s tone, Ronon didn’t think he was going to like this story . “I’ll tell y ou once we get y ou out of there.”

Nobody had liked John’s brief sum m ation of their plan: John could practically hear Ronon’s expression of deep cy nicism over the radio, Radek had m uttered in Czech, and even Miko had said doubtfully , “Dr. McKay thinks this is a good idea?”

“Yes, y es he does,” Rodney had inserted into the conversation. “Now j ust shut up and do it.”

The j um per rendezvoused with the shuttle, and with both ships cloaked, they headed toward the m ountains. They were looking for a spot where they could land and regroup; they needed the breathing room , and Rodney needed the j um per’s
equipm ent to com e up with a way to fix the Mirror.

The flight away from the installation would only take a few m inutes, but John could tell it was going to be an awkward few m inutes. He and Tey la were standing back in the m ain com partm ent area, watching Trishen in the cockpit while Rodney
worked at pulling m ore data out of the term inals. Trishen was fly ing the shuttle using only the instrum ents and a couple of bubble display s; there wasn’t any thing like a viewport, and that was m aking John’s nerves j um p. He was used to fly ing by instrum ent, but no windows at all j ust felt all kinds of wrong. And Trishen didn’t trust them , and they didn’t trust her. Even Rodney, who had pushed the “let’s work together” solution, was j um py and uncom fortable in the confined space of the com partm ent and passages.

At least they had intel on the Wraith’s m ovem ents. The shuttle was still receiving data from sensor buoy s Trishen had placed around the Mirror when she had first arrived. She had set one of the holographic bubbles in the com partm ent to display
the video feed, and they had a good view of the Mirror platform .

The eclipse was waning, the light getting steadily brighter. They could see the base ship’s glowing debris field, and the Wraith clim bing around the Mirror’s fram e. John asked Tey la, “You think they know what it’s for y et?”

Tey la studied the little figures m oving in the display, her brows drawn together. “It is hard to tell. As the shuttle was lifting off, I could sense their frustration, their anger at being thwarted, that was all. There was no feeling that they had m ade a great discovery .” She shook her head. “But they m ust realize the Mirror is a portal to som ewhere.”

“They probably think it’s j ust a giant Stargate, like we did at first,” John said, then snorted at him self. Just a giant Stargate, like that’s som ething to sneeze at. The Wraith m ight think it went to som e hidden refuge of the Ancients, som e nice new feeding ground for them . Well, it could, if we don’t get the dam n thing shut down. He stretched, rolling his shoulders, wincing as sore m uscles and bruises protested the m otion. From the cockpit, Trishen glanced up, saw he and Tey la watching her, and
quickly looked down at her term inal again. John let his breath out. He really hated this. There was j ust too m uch about her they didn’t know. He lowered his voice and said, “If she can do that m ental com m unication thing… she could tell them where we are without even touching a radio.”

Tey la didn’t look happy either, but she said, “But she released us, destroy ed her ship. She seem s as if she truly wishes to escape them , and this reality .”

John shrugged, resigned. “Yeah, I know. I’m j ust… paranoid. Every tim e we trust som ebody new they turn around and stab us in the ass.” And he couldn’t help thinking that her description of the Eidolon or whatever they called them selves was too good to be true. “And if the Wraith in her reality don’t feed on hum ans or any other kind of people-like alien, what do they feed on?”

“She does have water and som e sort of rations in this ship.” Tey la’s lips twisted and her brows indicated skepticism . “Though I find it hard to believe that her kind are entirely hum an in that respect. Perhaps, unlike the Wraith here, they are able to feed on the life force of anim als.”

John nodded to him self “Well, we’re never going to find out, and I’m okay with that.”

They reached the foothills a short tim e later, and found a low plateau for a landing site. It was stony and bare of the tall red grass that would betray the presence of two cloaked ships, and sheltered by high bluffs and rocky overhangs.

The shuttle was bigger but John had m ade it clear that they were doing any j oint research in the j um per. It was awkward, as they would need to keep the ram p down and every one would have to wear SCBAs the whole tim e, but he didn’t want any
unpleasant surprises. Rodney agreed with an im patient grim ace. “Yes, let’s skip the possibility of an intruder control sy stem that leaves us all helpless now that we’ve introduced her to the other m em bers of our little group,” he m uttered, watching Trishen as she was absorbed in her instrum ents. She was carefully guiding the shuttle into a landing on the stone shelf. “I thought she’d at least try to keep one of us as a hostage, and that we’d waste an hour threatening each other and arguing about it.”

“Yeah.” John had thought so too, and he wasn’t sure if the fact that she hadn’t gone that route m ade him less suspicious or m ore so. “May be she realized j ust how badly that would go over.” Who knew, it could be com m on sense. Controlling a hostage was harder than it looked, and Trishen had been working on the Mirror for a while now without success; she knew she needed their help, or specifically Rodney ‘s help. And that she wasn’t likely to get it if they thought she was a danger to them .

Once the shuttle was down, John got on the headset and talked Miko through landing the j um per. The j um per’s sensors couldn’t pick up the cloaked shuttle, though the cloaked j um per appeared as a ghostly outline on the shuttle’s display. John figured
the two ships crashing into each other at som e point would be the perfect cap to this day , but the j um per set down safely on the stony ground about thirty y ards away .

They got their SCBAs on, and went out to m eet the others. Ronon cam e down the ram p first, ey eing Trishen warily. She was standing back near her shuttle’s open hatch, holding the black sphere that was her portable term inal. She was wearing the
helm et part of her environm ental outfit, but hadn’t bothered with the rest of the concealing suit. With the dead-white skin of her hands visible, it was a lot m ore obvious what she was. Ronon began, “How do y ou know-”

John cut him off, “We don’t know any thing. We j ust know that this is the deal we m ade, and so far she’s keeping up her end of it.”

“Seriously , we’ve gone over it all already ,” Rodney told him wearily . “Several tim es.”

Zelenka stopped in the hatchway , peering around Ronon. “Proboha ‘ He looked at Rodney , his ey es wide above the SCBA m ask. “She’s a Wraith.”

Rodney glared at him in irritation. “What, did y ou think it was a cruel j oke?”

Zelenka gestured in annoy ance. “Of course not! But y ou said she was not like the Wraith of our reality . I was hoping there wouldn’t be so m uch…with the hands, and every thing.”

John took Zelenka’s arm , turning him so they weren’t facing toward Trishen. “Listen, we’ve got a tem porary deal with her, but don’t let down y our guard, don’t let her get y ou alone.” He gave Rodney a m eaningful look, including him in the adm onition. “Don’t forget what she )J is.

Rodney j ust nodded tightly . With an aghast expression, Zelenka said, “I don’t think that will be a problem .”

Rodney rolled his ey es. “On that note, let’s get to work.” He waved im peratively to Trishen, calling her over.

Under Ronon’s highly suspicious gaze, they got two laptops set up at the end of the rear cabin, and Trishen put her portable term inal on the ram p. It was a little reassuring that she still seem ed j ust as nervous of them as they were of her.

Miko was using the station tied into the j um per’s sy stem s in the cockpit, so she could keep an ey e on the HUD. John ended up in the j um per’s cockpit with her, Rodney, and Tey la, not so m uch for a secret m eeting out of Trishen’s hearing, but
because the cockpit was pressurized and they could take off the SCBAs long enough to eat and drink som ething.

As they stood around knocking back water and power bars, Miko looked up from her laptop to tell them , “We were so afraid! And y ou all look-”

Rodney interrupted her with, “Work now, sy m pathy later.” He crum pled a wrapper. “I want this over with as soon as possible.”

John could get behind that attitude.

Rodney and Tey la went back outside, but the HUD showed that the interference from the Mirror had calm ed down enough to send another databurst back to base cam p, so John stay ed to record a brief report. He j ust hit the highlights: Wraith, m ore

Wraith, what they were planning to do. Miko added com pressed files with copies of Rodney ‘s data on the Mirror, and sent it. It worried him that they hadn’t gotten a reply back from the last transm ission Zelenka had m ade. But if it had com e during the Mirror’s last big discharge, the j um per’s com m m ight not have been able to receive it.

John went back outside, where Tey la and Ronon were standing out in the open space between the two ships. This spot was shadowed by the cliffs, which were striped with red and y ellow m ineral deposits. The sky was reassuringly em pty of
any thing but the gas giant, growing brighter as the m oon m oved further out of the eclipse.

Trishen was working on her term inal while Rodney and Radek pointed at different laptop and tablet screens and argued. Ronon stood with one hand not-so-casually on his energy gun. “Every thing okay ?” John asked.

Ronon shrugged one shoulder. “So far.”

Rodney and Radek had to go back and forth into the shuttle a few tim es, to take special readings or copy over som ething else from her stored data. John m ade sure they were never alone with Trishen, while Tey la and Ronon kept an ey e on their
perim eter. The active cloaks on the ships m ade things a little awkward, since neither the shuttle nor the j um per were visible unless y ou were standing in them , and people occasionally got lost m oving from one ship to the other and had to be directed back on course.

Then Miko’s voice cam e over their headsets, shouting, “There are Wraith! There are two darts! I m ean, incom ing!„

“Every body inside.” John turned, scanning the sky . There was nothing visible y et, but the HUD would have picked them up long before they were in visible range.

“Me too?” Trishen asked uncertainly , standing up and clutch1ing her term inal. Zelenka had already shifted his equipm ent away from the hatch, further back into the rear cabin. Rodney was standing, his ey es on the handheld life signs detector.

They couldn’t chance sending Trishen across the open area to the shuttle. “Yeah, y ou too,” John said, try ing not to sound too grudging about it.

Trishen edged up the ram p a little, still stay ing as far away from them as possible.

Miko cam e out of the cockpit, stepping up beside John, uneasily peering up at the sky . “They should be-Yes, right there.”

She pointed and John m ade out the shape of the darts, nearly lost against the colors of the gas giant. Ronon stepped past Miko, stationing him self between her and the hatch opening; he was watching Trishen rather than the darts.

After an endless m om ent, John could tell the darts’ course was taking them off to the west. He said, “Rodney ?”

Rodney shook his head, his ey es on the life signs detector. “There’s nothing on the ground.” He looked up, squinting to follow the dart’s progress. “They didn’t beam down.”

He and John exchanged a look of weary relief. Yeah, John had had m ore than enough Wraith for today, too. The darts zigzagged back and forth a few tim es, then finally turned, heading east. Considering it, John said, “Funny how with this whole
m oon to search, they ‘re pay ing so m uch attention to these m ountains.”

Rodney ‘s brow furrowed suspiciously as he glanced up at the retreating darts. “I’ll check again for signal leakage, but if they knew where we were, they ‘d attack.”

Trishen looked at them , at Zelenka clutching his laptop and nervously study ing the sky , at Miko still squeezed in between John and Ronon, at Rodney intently watching the life signs detector. Trishen asked, “This is how y ou live?”

John j ust looked at her, having no idea what to say to that. They were so m uch safer, so m uch better off, than m ost of the other hum an inhabitants of Pegasus, that the question was im possible to answer. Ronon looked away, his face set in a sardonic
grim ace. Tey la said, coldly , “Yes. But we have weapons, and the Ancestors’ cloaking devices. Others do not.” Canting her head thoughtfully , she added, “They have com e this way because they sense y our presence, have they not?”

Trishen hesitated, and John swore under his breath. He had had the feeling there was another shoe about to drop, but he had hoped to put it off for a while longer. Trishen m ade a frustrated gesture, say ing, “I didn’t think they would be able to. Their m inds are so … different. But they only have a vague awareness of m y existence. Obviously they can’t pinpoint m y location.”

“What?” Rodney stared at her. “Hello, were y ou not standing right there when I explained the plan to m ake it look like we were all dead, so the Wraith would stop looking for us?”

Ronon grunted in a way that clearly m eant I told y ou so.

John ignored both of them , pointing out to Trishen, “You could have m entioned this earlier.”

“I didn’t know,” she insisted. “I’ve kept m y self closed off from their m inds, I thought that would be enough.” John’s expression m ust have convey ed what he thought of that excuse. Sounding urgent, she added, “But y ou can use it to y our advantage. I can distract them away from y ou.

Rodney clapped a hand over his ey es in exasperation. John j ust said, “I hope y ou’re right about that.”

The work was interrupted twice m ore by searching darts, but Trishen was right in that they didn’t seem able to pinpoint her. And the base m oon hadn’t responded to John’s transm ission y et, giving him som ething else to worry about. He knew it was
all too possible for the Wraith to have followed the signal traces the Mirror was sending to the m onitoring station in the ruined city . Lorne would’ve gotten them out of there, he told him self. Lorne better have gotten them out of there.

Rodney finally said, “All right, we’ve got it.” He m otioned every one to gather around the ram p, and turned the laptop, which was display ing a partial schem atic of the top half of the installation. “As I suspected all along, the key is in the pulse generator that stabilizes the Mirror’s accretion surface. Since it was first constructed, factors that affected the required degree of stabilization have changed. Now these factors could be any thing from the decreasing levels of oxy gen in the atm osphere, changes in the ozone lay er caused by the Mirror itself, orbital drift, and so on. There was apparently no com pensation m echanism for this because the Mirror was m eant to be abandoned-” He glared at John, who was m aking “get on with it” gestures.

“Fine. The instability has kept the Mirror active since Trishen’s ship cam e through, and it’s still connected to the correct destination; we j ust have to m ake that connection stable enough for transport by adj usting the pulse. We’ve done the calculations, but the corrections are going to have to be m ade directly to the consoles that control the array .”

“Okay .” John thought it sounded deceptively easy . “Do we have a clue where that is?”

“Yes, y es, I’m getting to it.” Rodney hit a few key s to change the schem atic, bringing up another section. “From the exploration that Trishen m anaged to do before we arrived, we suspect it’s here, on the roof, above the section of the installation where the environm ental and security sy stem controls are located.” He indicated a highlighted spot on the roof, not too far from the observation area they had found when they had first m anaged to get into the building.

“You suspect?” Tey la said, before John could. “What if y ou are wrong?”

Rodney gave them all a sour grim ace. “I’m not wrong. According to every thing we’ve discovered about this place so far, and the exploration Trishen did before we arrived, the controls we need have to be in this section.”

Zelenka shifted forward. “The good news is, once the shuttle has passed through the Mirror-which should take only seconds-we can shut the entire pulse generator down from that location. It’s m uch m ore effective m ethod of destabilizing the Mirror
than j ust destroy ing a section of the array itself, as we originally planned. Instead of dram atic discharge, the singularity is likely to j ust collapse inward and disappear.” He shrugged. “And we will probably not be killed.”

“And the Wraith can’t find these controls and turn it back on?” John said, wanting to be absolutely certain.

Rodney signed in annoy ance and folded his arm s. “That would be a y es, since it’s the entire point of this insane exercise.

“It would do no good to turn it back on.” Zelenka m ade m otions indicating som ething big getting suddenly very sm all, and then waved his hands rapidly . “Som e of the phy sical structure of the Mirror m ay rem ain, but the quantum com ponents will no longer exist in this reality .”

“Thank y ou, Dr. Zelenka, that was the answer I was hoping for.” John sm iled engagingly at Rodney . “I assum e y ou’ve got som e way for us to land on the roof without triggering another discharge from the Mirror?”

Rodney appeared to take a lot of pleasure in say ing, “For once, y ou assum e correctly. Trishen’s shuttle em its a field which keeps it from disrupting the pulse array, and we’re going to tem porarily adj ust the j um per’s cloak signatures to m im ic that field. That should allow us to fly above the Mirror platform and land on the roof without triggering another discharge.”

“Which would cause us to crash and die,” Zelenka added helpfully .

Rodney checked his watch. “We’ll have to tim e our arrival for the m om ent that the Wraith scout ship’s orbit takes it out of scanning range. It’ll be out of range for only forty -five m inutes, so we’ll need to m ove quickly. Not that the scout ship wasn’t out of range the last tim e we tried the roof, but it gives us a slight advantage.” With a wince, he added, “Very slight.”

“This is where I can help,” Trishen said, sitting forward. “I can draw the darts away from the area with m y shuttle.”

Rodney ey ed her, as if reluctant to let her participate. Not too far away. Even once we enter the corrections, the Mirror won’t be stable for long. We’ll need y ou to be ready to go through as soon as we m ake the adj ustm ents.” He looked at John
im patiently . “Well?”

John nodded. It sounded like a plan. It also sounded like their only option. “Let’s do it.”

“Looks pretty quiet,” John said, study ing the j um per’s screens as he guided it in a sm ooth arc above the installation’s roof. The adj ustm ents Zelenka had m ade to the j um per’s cloak m ust be working; the Mirror hadn’t m ade so m uch as a grum ble.

“Good j ob, Radek.”

“Thank y ou, Colonel,” Zelenka said from the right hand j um p seat. “It’s nice not to crash.” Rodney was in the co-pilot’s seat, com paring a tablet to the energy signatures the j um per was display ing on the HUD. Tey la was sitting behind John, with Kusanagi and Ronon watching from the rear cabin. Trishen’s shuttle should be paralleling their course, though it was invisible to both instrum ents and visual contact. Rely ing on Trishen not to crash into him wasn’t exactly John’s favorite part of this trip.

“I do not see any Wraith on the platform ,” Tey la said from behind him .

“Yeah, they ‘re probably inside.” The life signs screen wasn’t showing any Wraith in the open at all; they were probably busy ransacking the building, looking for m ore intel on the Mirror. Most of the darts were out of the im m ediate area, searching the m ountains and the surrounding area. “Rodney ?”

“Will y ou slow down? Hold it-” Rodney sat forward, pointing out the viewport. “Here we go. Right there.”

John slowed, bringing the j um per in a little lower. Rodney was pointing at a sm all dom e on top of the roof, not far from the trench that bordered the curved housing of the pulse array. It was the sam e dark stone as the rest of the building, and from
the air it looked like one of the round elevator-access kiosks. The HUD popped up a terrain sensor screen, com paring this dom e to the other structures on the roof, and John could see it was som ewhat larger. He hit the com m channel. “Jum per One to Trishen. We’re about to set down. If y ou can proceed to the south side of the com plex and circle around, we’d appreciate that.”

“Yes, y es, I’ll do that,” she replied. She sounded a little nervous. It caused John to recalculate all the way s she m ight possibly be planning to screw them over; except he couldn’t think of that m any way s. If she really didn’t want to feed on them , then the only thing they had that she wanted was her way hom e, and they were giving her that.

John put the j um per down gently near the dom e as the others were adj usting their SCBAs, getting their m asks on, and grabbing their equipm ent. They lowered the ram p and John went out first with Ronon and Tey la. The stirred dust settled slowly in
the thin air, and he could see the dom e had a triangular doorway, sheltered by a low porch roof extending out from the structure. “We’re clear. Tey la, y ou’re with Miko and the j um per. Ronon, find a good vantage point and keep an ey e out for com pany .”

Tey la nodded, telling them , “Good luck.” Ronon j ogged off toward one of the platform s that offered a good view of this section of the roof.

John went to the dom e with Rodney and Zelenka. The door slid open to reveal a round cham ber with a circular bank of consoles on stone pedestals in the center. It wasn’t pressurized, though it had the round silver vents in the walls. But the lights that
were set into the dark blue ceiling and along the top of the pillars glowed gently as they stepped inside. “Well, this m akes sense,” Rodney said, acidly thoughtful. “Recognize it?”

“No. Should I?” John circled warily around the room , P-90 aim ed, m aking certain there weren’t any lurking surprises.

“It’s laid out like the inexplicable cham ber of tantalizing energy signatures back in the ruin on the Stargate m oon.” Rodney frowned as he selected a console, hitting a couple of touchpads. A holographic display blinked into life above it.

“Oh, good,” Zelenka said wearily , sitting down on the floor and opening his laptop. “Because we had such good luck with that room .”

“Great,” John said, and went out to watch the j um per, the life signs detector, and the sky .

Then things started to go wrong.

First the Mirror started to rum ble again, a long low sustained groan, as if m am m oth granite blocks were grinding against each other under the installation. Vibrations traveled through the roof, j ust strong enough for John to feel through the soles of his boots. He ducked into the control room to see Rodney frantically checking his tablet. “It’s not building up for a discharge,” Rodney said, before John could ask. “Signatures are still norm al, pulse generator is erratic but working. We should be fine,” he finished briskly , lifting his chin.

John pointed back over his shoulder. “Okay , because it sounds really -”

Rodney glared. “I know! Believe m e, I know! But it’s fine!”

John went out to the observation porch again. The pulse array at the roof’s edge blocked the view from here. He key ed his radio and said, “Ronon, this is Sheppard. Can y ou see the Mirror from y our position?”

Ronon’s answer cam e a m om ent later. “Yes.”

John thought, note to self.- teach Ronon to use proper radio protocol. “Is it doing any thing?”

“Like what?”

John saw Tey la suddenly appear out of nowhere as she stepped out of the cloaked j um per, her expression caught between annoy ance and am usem ent. John said, “Oh, glowing, turning colors, transporting an arm ada of alien spaceships into the
galaxy -”

Ronon sounded thoughtful. “No, it looks the sam e.”

“Thank y ou, Ronon. Sheppard out.”

Tey la shook her head and turned back to the j um per, disappearing as she stepped onto the ram p.

John waited, and paced. The low rum ble from the Mirror didn’t seem to increase, as far as he could tell. Then Tey la reported via headset, “Colonel, Miko say s the screens show that the darts are returning.” Her voice was tight with tension. “They are all m oving to the south, toward the shuttle.”

John grim aced. “Trishen, y ou copy that?”

“Yes.” Her voice in his headset sounded hum an, y oung, and very tense. “What should I do?”

Tey la stepped out of the j um per again, her ey es worried. John m ade his voice even, telling Trishen, “You want to widen y our flight path and vary y our pattern. They couldn’t pinpoint y ou in the m ountains, so they can’t do it here. Just stay out of their way .”

“Oh y es, I see.” She sounded a little calm er.

“Okay. Just call if y ou have any problem s.” John exchanged a look with Tey la, who shook her head and winced. Trishen had suggested this part of the plan herself, and he had j ust assum ed she could handle it. Yeah, there’s one of those assum ptions again. And they couldn’t even see the dam n shuttle on the j um per’s sensors and follow her progress.

They had been here half an hour already for what Rodney had described as a five m inute j ob, darts were circling the plain to the south and the Mirror was keeping up its steady grum bling threat. John stepped back into the doorway of the lab.

“Rodney -”

“Busy !” Rodney snarled. He was standing at the center console, hitting touchpads and glaring at the results. Radek was still on the floor with the laptop and the tablet, apparently com paring one screen to the other while m aking little abortive gestures suggesting it was an effort not to tear his hair out.

“Rodney , this is going to be tight. I need an ETA,” John persisted.

“I don’t know,” Rodney said through gritted teeth.

And every thing’s been going so well up to now, John thought. “What’s wrong? I thought y ou had this all worked out.”

“So did I.” Rodney pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. He looked frustrated and desperate. “It should work, but it won’t. The sy stem isn’t accepting our corrections.”

“What does that m ean?” John dem anded.

“It m eans our corrections are so far from being right that the sy stem is refusing to im plem ent them because it would cause the entire installation to disappear in a m assive naquadah explosion!” Rodney rubbed his face, then slam m ed his hands down on the console. “That’s what it m eans.

“Figures cannot be right!” Zelenka shook his head furiously , hair fly ing. “There m ust be an error in our calculations, som ewhere-”

Miko’s voice in the headset said im patiently , “I’ve j ust run it again, Dr. Zelenka, it isn’t-”

“We’ve run it over and over again, it’s not an error, we don’t have tim e for this!” Rodney snapped. He knotted his fists, as if it was an effort not to punch the console. “We’re m issing som ething.”

“Right, right. We took account of orbital drift-” Zelenka began to tick the various points off on his fingers. “-of increased ionization in atm osphere, of degradation of singularity field-”

On the other channel, John could hear Miko m uttering darkly to herself in Japanese. He stepped back out onto the porch and resisted the urge to beat his head against the wall. In his headset, Ronon’s voice rum bled, “Sheppard. What’s going on?”

John told him , “Som ething’s wrong with their…som ething. What’s y our situation?”

“The sam e. This area’s clear.”

“Copy that.” John was going to have to put a stop to this, they j ust didn’t have the tim e to m ake the dam n Mirror work. But he found him self reluctant to doom Trishen. She had held up her end of the bargain so far, and if they couldn’t send her back to her own reality, he didn’t know what the hell they were going to do with her. Even if she didn’t need to feed on hum ans, they couldn’t chance the Wraith finding her. It’ll have to be Atlantis, he told him self reluctantly. And once she had seen it, they couldn’t let her leave. Not unless the SGC had som e sort of settlem ent program for displaced aliens in the Milky Way . And that was only if they could prove she was safe around people. “Ronon, Tey la-”

From inside the room , Zelenka was say ing, “The field phase adj ustm ent-”

Rodney snapped his fingers. “Wait.”

John knew that tone. He stepped back into the control room .

Rodney fum bled at his headset, say ing urgently . “You, Trishen! When did y ou say that data was recorded?”

John heard Trishen’s voice on the radio channel. “As m y ship was pulled into the Mirror. That’s why I was so close to it, to collect the data from the buoy s-”

“Yes, y es, on the other side of the Mirror!” Rodney crouched down, shouldering Zelenka aside to get to the laptop key board, ty ping frantically . “The phase is-”

“Inverted!” Zelenka clapped a hand to his forehead. “Ali, we are fools!”

“Yes, exactly !” Rodney nodded urgently, still ty ping. “Well, not m e, but y ou, y es. We’ve never had a chance for data collection during an active Quantum Mirror activation. Obviously, as the accretion surface prepares for the transition, it inverts the phase. Kusanagi, are y ou getting this?”

Sounding relieved, Miko’s voice replied, “Yes, Dr. McKay , I’m running m y figures again now!”

John prom pted, “Rodney , still need an ETA.”

Rodney pushed to his feet, giving John a harried grim ace as he turned to the console. “We’ve got it. Just let m e-Radek, dam m it-”

“Enter the num bers, here, here!” Radek stood up, holding the laptop so Rodney could see the screen.

“Colonel,” Tey la said in John’s headset. “The Wraith scout ship is within range again and the darts are com ing back in this direction.”

“Crap,” John m uttered. The Wraith had to be wondering why the Mirror was being so dam n active, and they m ust suspect that som eone was m essing with it. The darts were com ing back to sweep the open areas for any signs of activity. He said,

“Copy that, Tey la. Ronon, fall back to the j um per. Zelenka, y ou too, get out of here.”

Zelenka hesitated, and Rodney waved him off. “I’ve got it, go on!”

Zelenka nodded tensely, j am m ed the tablet under his arm and grabbed his laptop. He headed for the door and John followed him , watching until he reached Tey la at the j um per’s ram p. They both disappeared as they stepped through the cloak and

John went back to the control room . “Rodney , now would be good-”

Rodney shook his head, the reflected blue glow of the consoles’ screens giving his face an unhealthy cast. “The sy stem ‘s accepting m y com m ands now, I have to m ake these last adj ustm ents.” He touched his headset again, say ing, “Trishen, y our

sensors should detect the change in the accretion surface when the Mirror becom es safe to activate. When that happens-”

Sounding m ore confident, Trishen’s voice replied, “Yes, I lower the shuttle over the surface. I’m ready .”

Rodney cut the channel. “Oh, that’s good. I’m glad every one’s ready to go,” he m uttered, still hitting touchpads. “Unfortunately the giant Quantum Mirror decided not to follow our schedule-”

John debated j ust dragging him away from the console. “Rodney , there’s no tim e now, we can com e back when the scout ship’s out of range-”

“We can’t wait, the hiveship could get here any m om ent-”

“Then we forget this and blow up the pulse array !”

“That’s not helping!” Rodney shouted. He gave John a look that com bined im patience and desperation. “Two m inutes, that’s all, j ust two m inutes! Look, j ust go, I’ll pull the cry stals out of the door, they ‘re not going to know I’m here-”

“Rodney, I’m not leaving y ou here alone!” John y elled, then he realized the reason they were shouting at each other was that the dull roar from the Mirror had gradually grown louder. It was resonating through the stone now, like the building was one giant soundboard. “Are y ou doing that?” he asked.

“No!” Rodney stared at the console. The Ancient display was flashing sy m bols that John knew m eant “danger.” Data, graphs, and im ages were scrolling through it too rapidly to read. “That has to be a discharge but it’s not registering-The sy stem can’t even recognize what’s happening. It’s as if som ething else is controlling it.” Rodney backed away from the console, swallowing nervously . “I think we need to get out of here.”

“Oh, y ou think?” John said incredulously , and they both turned to run.

As they reached the door, the roar of sound escalated suddenly into an ear-piercing blast and the stone underfoot rippled, sending them both staggering sideway s. John caught him self on the wall, then caught Rodney, keeping them both upright. It
felt like the entire giant structure of stone and m etal had turned into j elly. Rodney knotted a fist in John’s shirt and pointed. John looked up and saw a silvery haze filling the air above the Mirror platform , extending upward until it vanished from sight high in the upper atm osphere. He could see two darts caught in it, tum bling helplessly in slow m otion, as if the air was solidify ing around them . Crap, John thought, staring, I think we broke the giant Quantum Mirror He pushed away from the wall, hauling

Rodney with him , and ran toward the invisible j um per.

The stone j olting underfoot m ade it hard to m ove in a straight line. Just as John was thinking that now would be a really bad tim e to overshoot the ram p, Ronon appeared so suddenly in front of them that John slam m ed into his chest.

Ronon grabbed them both and fell backward. John tum bled through the cloak, landing heavily on the ram p between Rodney and Ronon as the j um per snapped into visibility around them . Tey la and Zelenka stood over them , both looking horrified,
and Tey la dodged forward to hit the control to raise the ram p. Every one was try ing to talk but the noise was still so intense John could barely hear any thing over it. He scram bled up, staggering to his feet and lunging for the cockpit.

Miko pushed out of the pilot’s chair, gesturing helplessly to the HUD. The screens were flashing random diagnostics, distorted readings, static. John dropped into the chair, checking the board. Com m was dead, sensors were going crazy. The building
was shaking so hard he could feel the j um per starting to bounce. If Trishen’s shuttle was still in the air, it was caught in that field, whatever it was. Oh y eah, this is not good.

John knew the instant the ram p shut because the shielding dropped the sound to a bearable level. Rodney stum bled up beside him , catching hold of the co-pilot’s seat to steady him self. He stared out the port in horror. “Can we lift off?”

“Good question.” John could feel the j um per’s resistance through the control y oke. The only thing that did seem to work was the terrain sensors, and they were showing a pressure build-up on the outside of the hull; the shaking had to be clim bing the Richter scale to an apocaly ptic level. Stay on the ground and be crushed, lift off and break apart, John thought. Six of one, half dozen of the other If the building collapsed under them … He would rather be in the air. His radio was dead so he raised his voice to y ell, “Don’t take off y our breathing units! Find a seat and strap in!”

“Oh God,” Rodney said thickly , dropping into the copilot’s seat and hastily buckling the straps. John looked back to see the others taking seats on the rear cabin benches, reaching for the safety straps.

The next instant the j um per lurched forward as if som ething had snatched it off the roof. John slam m ed back in the seat, the force a solid punch right to his chest. The Mirror platform filled the port as the j um per was sucked down toward it.

The next slam was forward into the port, and the world went silver, then black.

CHAPTER NINE
arson found Maj or Lorne in the Daedalus’ m ess. The long com partm ent was m ostly em pty, with only a few off-duty crew m em bers having coffee or early dinners. Carson took a seat across the table from Lorne, adm itting, “I keep
wanting to ask y ou if there’s been any word, but that’s not likely in hy perspace, is it?”

Lorne shook his head, and didn’t have to check his watch. He had the air of a m an who had been watching the clock for so long he had an intim ate awareness of the passage of m inutes and seconds. “Not for another half hour or so. That’s still our
proj ected arrival tim e.”

Carson tasted his coffee and winced. It was terrible, but unfortunately, the tea was worse. He had been clock-watching him self, in between reading the reports about the previous Quantum Mirror incidents. He had a better understanding now of j ust
what Rodney and the others m ight have gotten them selves into. He was still hoping that in the tim e the Daedalus had been underway, Sheppard’s team would have found their way back through the Stargate on the base m oon. Colonel Caldwell m ight not
be happy about the wasted trip, but then Colonel Caldwell can lum p it, he thought.

Som e of the old guard tended to be a little resentful of Caldwell, wanting to close ranks against an outside authority, against som eone who hadn’t spent the last y ear isolated and under the constant threat of the Wraith. Carson didn’t think it was a fair or logical attitude, but he didn’t know Caldwell very well, and the m an was hard to read. That m ight be part of the problem . We’ve all been living in a close-knit little com m unity for so long, we’re too used to each others’ way s. An outsider, especially som eone who was seen as a potential rival to Elizabeth’s and Sheppard’s authority , was bound to have a hard row to hoe.

And there was a rum or that Carson kept hearing, that Caldwell had suggested Sheppard had killed Colonel Sum ner unnecessarily, that Sheppard could have rescued him if he bothered. If the rum or was true, it would explain a great deal of the
tension. The m an should review the report on poor Colonel Everett, Carson thought uncharitably. Or stop by the m edlab the next tim e Carson and Biro were autopsy ing a Wraith victim . Carson shook off that unpleasant im age. He told Lorne, “Perhaps
when we com e out of hy per there’ll be a m essage from hom e, say ing they arrived safely som etim e after we left.”

He saw Lorne sm ile wry ly . He supposed he had been sounding a bit like a Polly anna again. Carson sighed. “I know, I know, I’m som ething of an optim ist. It helps balance out Rodney .”

“I wish I was an optim ist,” Lorne adm itted. “I should have-” He cut him self off with grim ace, and put m ore sugar in his coffee.

Carson watched him a m om ent, then said firm ly , “You didn’t abandon y our post, lad. You had to get the others out, and that1 needed both j um pers. What were y ou going to do, hide out there alone? That wouldn’t have done any body any good.”

“I know, Doc, there wasn’t a choice.” Lorne still didn’t say it like he believed it. He shook his head. “If we don’t find them -”

Then Carson felt the low steady thrum of the ship’s engines change in pitch. After all these long hours en route, he hadn’t been aware of the engine noise at all, but the slight change m ade him sit up straight. The Daedalus was com ing out of
hy perspace. Startled, Lorne set his m ug down with a thum p and checked his watch, say ing, “We’re early .”

“Thank God for that.” By the tim e Carson shoved out of his chair, Lorne had already raced down the corridor. Carson caught up with him at the lift and they m ade it onto the bridge together. Heart pounding, Carson followed Lorne through the m aze of consoles and suspended screens to the forward area. Colonel Caldwell was on his feet, watching one of the console screens over the operator’s shoulder.

The view out the big port didn’t tell Carson m uch. He could see the m oon, presum ably the correct m oon, hanging red and full in the lower quarter of the port.

Caldwell glanced up at their arrival. “We’ve got a little problem , gentlem en.”

“Colonel?” Lorne asked warily . Carson swallowed frustration, supposing that if the sensors had picked up puddlej um per wreckage and hum an bodies, the m an wouldn’t use quite those words to announce it.

Caldwell folded his arm s, frowning at the screen. “We’ve found the Quantum Mirror, exactly as described. But there’s no sign of the j um per.”

Maj or Mey ers at the right hand control board touched som e buttons, study ing her screen carefully . “Sir, I’m still not picking up any life signs, and there are no ships in the area.

“Not even Wraith?” Beckett asked, feeling his heart sink.

“We’ve identified som e orbital debris that looks like it m ight be from darts, several of them .” Caldwell saw Carson’s expression. He added, “The Mirror is interfering with our sensors, Doctor, and we j ust got here. At the m om ent, all it m eans is that we’ve got a lot of searching to do.”

Carson swallowed in a dry throat, and nodded. It didn’t m ean they had all been captured-taken-by Wraith. It j ust m eant that they had had to go to ground som ewhere, to hide in som e other part of the sy stem .

One of the airm en said, “Sir, we’ve got a sensor scan of the structure.”

Caldwell stepped over to the m an’s station. “Let’s see it.

The im age that form ed on the screen could have been a weather satellite’s view of a m assive hurricane. It seem ed to cover half the m oon’s surface, the sensors rendering the detected energy into angry swirls of color, spiraling outward. It looked
like the im ages the j um pers had collected of the killer storm that had nearly destroy ed Atlantis, like a powerful m alevolent entity . Baffled, Carson said, “What the bloody hell is that?”

Lorne shook his head a little, staring incredulously . “That’s not the-”

Caldwell’s expression was grim . “That’s the Mirror.”

“Colonel, answer m e! Are y ou all right? Colonel!”

John pried his ey es open. Rodney was leaning over him , pale and wide-ey ed with anxiety. “Yeah. What?” Groggy and finding it difficult to think, John couldn’t figure out why his perspective was so skewed. He was ly ing on his side, on a painfully knobby surface, but he could see part of the cockpit’s ceiling past Rodney ‘s head, and he didn’t think he had ever seen it from this angle before. It was like an Escher print or a Twilight Zone episode. And Rodney was clinging to the pilot’s seat like he needed it to keep him self upright, and his breathing m ask was down around his neck. John didn’t seem to be wearing his any m ore either, though he could feel the tank j am m ed into his back. He asked vaguely , “You okay ?”

“No, no, I’m not, actually .” Rodney laughed a little, with j ust a touch of hy steria. “But back to m y original question-No, never m ind. First things first. You need to get off the console.”

“The what?” John’s head hurt and his ears were ringing, but he could hear Tey la and Miko in the rear cabin. Miko sounded frightened and shaky, and there was a note of urgency in Tey la’s voice that worried him a lot. He tried to sit up, and that was when he realized the thing his knee was j am m ed against was the j um per’s DHD, and it suddenly dawned on him why every thing looked so strange. He was on top of the control console, wedged between it and the port. And the j um per was sitting at an
odd angle, tilted slightly forward. Oh crap, we crashed. No, som ething the Mirror? grabbed us off the roof. He looked over his shoulder, out the port. It was dark outside, but the cockpit’s em ergency lighting fell on a dart sm ashed up against the j um per’s nose. A Wraith arm , unm oving, was sticking up out of the wreckage, the hand clenched as if grasping for som ething. John blinked. “Uh o.

“Yes, that’s a brief but accurate sum m ation.” Rodney took John’s arm , try ing to pull him upright. “We’re on the Mirror platform , and the deck has a couple of feet of incline, so I suspect there’s another dart underneath us. The inertial dam peners m ust have held on until the last possible instant or we’d all be sm ashed to bloody pulp, y ou especially . Next tim e y ou tell us to strap in, y ou should actually do it too.”

“Rodney , is he all right?” Tey la called from the rear cabin.

“Not really , no,” Rodney called back.

“I’m fine.” John shoved away from the port, then gasped as little knives stabbed his back, ribs, and right knee all at once. He gritted his teeth against the pain and said, “Any body hurt?”

Still try ing to pull John off the panel, Rodney winced. “Radek and Ronon didn’t finish strapping in either. Radek’s still unconscious but Ronon’s com ing around.” Rodney braced a foot on the base of the DHD, grabbed John by the tac vest and hauled him up. “Oof, y ou’re heavy when y ou’re half-conscious,” he gasped. “And trust m e, this is not a good tim e for m y back to go out. Did I m ention there are Wraith every where? There are life signs and dart energy signatures all around us.”

We could be seriously screwed here, John thought, grabbing the pilot’s seat and dragging him self upright and off the console. The blood rushed from his head and he squeezed his ey es shut, holding onto Rodney, riding out the wave of dizziness. His
side hurt in one particular spot when he took m ore than a shallow breath, and he knew he m ust have a couple of cracked ribs. “Do we have the cloak, weapons, radio?”

“No, we have nothing, we’re down to em ergency power.” Rodney ‘s voice was hard, edgy with fear. “The Mirror’s field m ay have overloaded the cry stals in the m ain bus. I have to check under the console. Please don’t throw up on m e.”

“I’m not going to throw up.” John got his ey es open. The em ergency lighting was on, but all the other screens in the cockpit were dead. His heart was pounding, the adrenaline helping clear his head. They couldn’t stay in the j um per without power for weapons or the cloak, the Wraith could cut their way in, j im m y the hatch controls from outside, or j ust blow them up. They had to get to a place they could defend. “If we can’t fix the j um per, we need to m ake for the building.” He pushed away from the pilot’s seat and m anaged to stagger past Rodney , who im m ediately crouched down and started to rip open the panel under the console.

Tey la was j ust inside the rear cabin hatch, stuffing am m o into her vest pockets, two extra P-90s slung over one shoulder. She m et John’s ey es, her face tense and desperate. Yeah, John didn’t know how they were going to get out of this one either.

Past her he saw Zelenka ly ing on the deck unconscious, the front of his blue uniform shirt spattered with blood; Miko was j ust fixing a bandage to a gash on his forehead. Ronon sat on the bench, m ostly upright but listing to one side and holding his head.

Every body looked bruised, scraped, battered. Tey la handed John a P-90 and said, “I can sense the Wraith. They are confused, angry . Hungry .” She took a sharp breath and added, “If they have been away from their hive for som e tim e, and have not run across any inhabited worlds to cull, the drones m ay not have been allowed to feed.”

“Great.” That was about all they needed. John got the P-90 clipped to his vest.

Rodney pushed out of the cockpit, and from his desperate expression, the news wasn’t good. “The m ain power cry stals are dead. If it’s what I think-” He stepped across to the rack with the em ergency supplies, pulled out a padded case, and tore it open. His m outh twisted in despair. “Yes, it’s what I think. The field drained all of them , even these spares that weren’t connected into the sy stem . Unless we want to live out the rest of our very short lives in this j um per, we have to go.”

John hadn’t thought it would be any thing else. The j um per j ust felt… dead. “Right. Every body, check y our breathing units. Miko, y ou’re on the life signs detector. Rodney get a P-90. Ronon, can y ou carry Radek?” John hoped like hell Ronon could carry Radek, because he wasn’t leaving any body behind.

Ronon spat blood out onto the deck and shoved unsteadily to his feet. He was well on the way to developing two perfect black ey es. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

It took tim e they didn’t have to scram ble for extra am m o, and to get their breathing gear back on, and John m ade sure they were stocked up on grenades. They had sm oke, flash-bangs, and fragm entation, and that m ight give them j ust enough of an
extra edge. Miko grabbed the m edical kit and Rodney stuffed the tablets and laptops into a couple of supply packs. John checked Miko’s sidearm , m aking sure it was loaded and that she had extra clips in her vest. He knew she was checked out on it on the firing range, but he didn’t think she had had to use it in earnest before.

Once Ronon had Zelenka slung over one shoulder and his energy gun in his free hand, John said, “Are we clear?”

“Closest life sign is one hundred y ards,” Miko reported, her ey es wide and bruised in the dim light. “But they are all around us.”

Right, John thought. “Stay together,” he rem inded them , and nodded to Rodney .

“Oh here we go.” Rodney , his face set in bleak m isery , hit the em ergency release for the ram p. “Nice working with y ou all.”

As the ram p started to drop, John saw that the sky was dark, the gas giant eclipsing the sun again. The j um per’s hatch was facing the Mirror’s fram e, the flat dull silver wall of it loom ing over them , but it was dim ly lit by a m uted white glow. The light was com ing from above, from the Mirror, which was a little freaky. And he hadn’t thought enough tim e had passed for another eclipse but whatever, it would help cover their retreat. “Keep y our lights off,” he said, and swung down to the pavem ent, wincing as his weight cam e down on his right leg.

Tey la j um ped out behind him , P-90 ready. As the others clim bed out, John looked cautiously around the side of the j um per. A cold wind m oved over the vast stretch of the Mirror platform , stirring dust, cutting right through the m aterial of his shirt.

In the ghostly light from the Mirror, he could see a scatter of wrecked darts, som e nearly intact and som e crum pled sm oking wrecks. The j um per was nosed into the dart he had seen through the port, and the long outline of a second dart was sticking out from under this side. Score two for us. There was no m ovem ent nearby , and he stepped out to get his bearings on the nearest entrance to the installation.

And he stopped, staring. “Uh.”

And he stopped, staring. “Uh.”

Tey la m oved up beside him , then halted in shock. “Colonel, what-How-”

John’s ey es couldn’t m ake sense of it. He stared, but it wasn’t an optical illusion or a head inj ury . The installation was different.

There were towers evenly spaced along the flat roof, caught in the reflected light from the glowing Mirror. Tall narrow ones, with gracefully angular spires, like the ones on Atlantis.

John had a really bad feeling about this.

The others gathered behind him , and Miko said in astonishm ent, “Dr. McKay , I’m reading a breathable atm osphere now, twenty -one percent oxy gen.” She added, “Oh, I think we are-I think we m ust have-This is-

Rodney dragged his m ask down, took a deep breath. He groaned. “Yes, this is…bad. Very , very bad.”

John pulled his m ask down too. The air was cold, full of ozone and the acrid scent of the charred darts, but there was plenty of it. As the others pulled their m asks off, he asked, “Rodney, where the hell are we?” But he had the sinking feeling that he already knew.

“The Mirror.” Rodney sounded sick. “Som ething m ust have activated it before I finished adj usting the pulse array . The accretion disk was still unstable and it created a gravity well and pulled us in. And the darts, every thing in range.

Tey la shook her head uncertainly . “But then we are…in the other reality ? Trishen’s reality , where there are nothing but Wraith?”

There was a m om ent of horrified silence. John bit his lip, searching for a reaction that didn’t involve a hy sterical scream .

His voice flat, Ronon said, “You’re j oking.”

“Yes, y es, I’m kidding, hah hah, it’s a hilarious j oke!” Rodney snarled. “Face it, we’re in another reality . With the Wraith or Eidolon or whatever they call them selves.”

John swallowed down panic and m anaged to say evenly , “Rodney , is the Mirror still connected to our reality ? If we can getup over the fram e, can we j ust j um p into it? Or would it-”

Rodney blinked. “Dissolve us instantly in the crushing gravitational forces the unstable accretion surface m ay be generating?”

John ey ed him worriedly . “Yeah, that.”

“I have no idea,” Rodney adm itted, sounding bleak. “But I suspect this Mirror was specifically designed only to be used by spaceships or other vehicles with heavy energy shielding. An unprotected hum an body wouldn’t survive the transition. And if it doesn’t activate, that would be worse. I’ll have to find a m onitoring console.”

Zelenka, slung over Ronon’s shoulder, m uttered, “My vsichni zem rem e.”

Rodney snapped autom atically , “Will y ou stop with the profanity y ou think we can’t understand? Tone and context m ake it perfectly obvious what y ou’re-Wait, are y ou conscious?”

“I wish I was not.” Zelenka sounded sorrowful.

Miko looked up from the life signs detector, say ing anxiously , “Colonel, the Wraith are m oving. I see signs-

Tey la j erked her chin. “Over there.”

John turned and saw three m ale Wraith, about a hun dred and fifty y ards away, standing near one of the crum pled darts. The Mirror’s light reflected silver off their clothes and hair, and they seem ed to be looking around in angry confusion. He
didn’t think that confusion would last long.

There were dark triangular shapes along the wall of the installation that looked like hatches or passages leading inside, and they had to get under cover. “Com e on.” As they started away, John pressed the button on the j um per rem ote, hoping there was j ust enough em ergency power left. The ram p responded sluggishly, m oving upward to close, and that was a relief. John wasn’t sure why it m attered, why keeping the Wraith out of the em pty j um per for a little while longer m eant som ething, but it did. John looked back in tim e to see the ram p seal itself, and the em ergency lights in the j um per’s nose flicker and die.

Tey la dropped back to cover their six, with Ronon, still burdened with Zelenka, and Miko and Rodney close behind John. Rodney, holding his P-90 tightly and watching the nearest darts, said, “Yes, I understand being proactive and getting off the
platform and away from these Wraith, but what about the Wraith that live here?”

“If y ou have any suggestions, Rodney , feel free,” John hissed. He was try ing to m aintain a quick j og, but all he could m anage was a quick lim ping hobble, and it wasn’t im proving his outlook on life at the m om ent.

“What, do I have to think of every thing?” Rodney dem anded. He threw a glance back and stopped abruptly . “Oh, y ou have got to be kidding m e!” he said in outrage.

“Rodney , keep m oving!” Then John looked back.

Across the giant length of the Mirror, a big dark shape was lifting off the platform . The shadowy outline was j ust rising high enough for the Mirror’s light to bathe it, and John could see the rough brown hull, the flattened saucer shape that was still
weirdly organic, like a giant fungus. “Son of a bitch,” John said. This j ust keeps getting better. It was about half the size of the Daedalus, and there was no telling how m any Wraith were aboard.

Tey la gasped. “That is the Wraith scout ship. How could-It was pulled through the Mirror as well?”

“Pulled out of orbit?” Miko said, horrified.

Rodney waved a hand wearily. “Apparently so. Trishen’s ship was a com pletely different conform ation and design. That’s definitely from our reality. And its shields m ust have protected it from the power drain that destroy ed the j um per’s cry stals.” He rubbed his ey es. “How m uch worse can this get?”

Light flashed from the lower part of the ship, the distinctive blue-white ripple of the culling beam . John said, “And I think that answers y our question.” The ship had j ust beam ed som ething onto the platform , probably drones. “Com e on, keep m oving.” Because it was that or die out here in the next five m inutes.

From Ronon’s shoulder, Zelenka m oaned, “Oh, God.”

They were only about sixty y ards from the installation when Tey la shouted, “They have seen us!” and opened fire.

John y elled, “Ronon, take point!” and dropped back to her side. Several Wraith were running toward them from the north side of the platform , a dozen or so others from the south, and stunner fire flashed in the dark. John pitched a couple of sm oke grenades across the platform , then opened fire.

More Wraith converged on them , but the chem ical haze confused their aim j ust enough, and Ronon turning to pick them off with single shots m ade them wary. John kept the group m oving as fast as he could, and he really hoped the door they were
heading toward would open. Rodney was beside him , firing, shouting, “I have the feeling they think we’re responsible for this!”

“I don’t think that’s going to m atter, Rodney !” John shouted back.

Then lights flashed in the sky and John looked up to see another ship. At first he thought it was Trishen’s shuttle, but realized this conch-shell shape was different, m ore convoluted, and it was half again as large. It flashed a spotlight over the Mirror platform , picking out the wrecked darts and the m oving Wraith. The Wraith stopped, snarling as the light crossed over them , firing up at the ship.

“Hold y our fire,” John said, and the others stopped shooting. The Wraith were distracted and he wanted that to last as long as possible. “Now run.”

With one last sprint, they reached the wall of the installation and one of the big triangular hatchway s, set deep into the stone. John said, “Rodney , get the door,” as he, Tey la, and Ronon took up guard positions.

“No life signs inside,” Miko reported tensely , “But the shielding m ay be interfering.”

“Please open,” Rodney was m uttering as he pried off the console. “If things could j ust go well, j ust this once, I’d really appreciate-”

“Put m e down, put m e down,” Zelenka said with a groan. “I can walk.”

Taking the opportunity to reload, John gave Ronon a nod. Zelenka still sounded woozy , but they would be bet ter off if Ronon had both hands free.

Ronon bent down, setting him on his feet. Zelenka staggered but stay ed upright and Ronon gave him a careful push, steering him over to Miko and Rodney .

More Wraith were firing up at the Eidolon ship. “Why won’t they shoot back?” Ronon said, his voice a frustrated growl.

“Yeah, that would com e in handy.” John squinted up at the strange ship, gleam ing pink and purple in the Mirror’s light. “But they ‘re probably talking on the com m .” If the Eidolon m ade som e kind of deal with the Wraith… John didn’t think they could get m ore screwed than they already were, but that wouldn’t help.

“Perhaps Trishen was not ly ing about their ships being unarm ed,” Tey la said, watching the scene uncertainly . “Perhaps-”

Then the Wraith scout ship drifted upward, the whine of its drive adding to the din of the Wraith’s weapons and the rushing sound of the Eidolon ship. The scout ship rotated, light pulsed along its sides and John y elled, “Get down!”

He ducked with Tey la and Ronon, and Rodney grabbed Zelenka, pulling him down beside Miko in the slight shelter of the hatch. The blast im pact rattled the ground, a flare of heat and light washing over the platform . John looked up to see debris
raining down; the Eidolon ship had vanished in the blast.

“What the hell was that?” Rodney said, looking up in horror. “I thought y ou said they were probably talking!”

“Yeah, well, they didn’t like what they heard.” John’s ears were ringing again, and the Wraith weren’t distracted any m ore. “Just get the door open!”

“Oh, y es, right, escaping from certain death, it slipped m y m ind!” Rodney y elled, turning back to the wall console.

John could see the Wraith m oving around in the shadows, regrouping. Then Rodney said, “Got it!” and the hatch slid open.

They scram bled through into a big room , a couple of dim lights com ing on inside as Ancient technology sensed their presence. Most of the cham ber was lost in shadow, but there were low stone partitions and platform s at odd intervals, m eant to
hold equipm ent that wasn’t there any m ore. It looked a lot like an interior room in the installation in their reality, with dark blue stone walls with em bossed abstract designs and the blue-green m etal strips on the floor. Rodney hit the wall console to shut the hatch, pulling the panel open to rip the cry stals out. His m outh twisted grim ly , he said, “That’s not going to hold them for long-I had to disconnect the security seal to get it to open.”

“Crap.” John started away from the door, flicking on the P-90’s light to check the shadows, thinking, if this is a dead end, it’s going to be a literal one. They needed to get further into the building, where they could pick the Wraith off in the endless m aze of corridors.

Ronon, already ranging ahead and tall enough to see over the partitions, said, “Over here!”

John caught up with him , flashing the light over another door. It had the em bossed panel in the center and no wall console; a security door like the one they had first found in the installation, locked to any one without the Ancient gene. John reached
for the panel.

“Wait!” Miko, holding tightly to Zelenka’s arm to keep him standing, was study ing the detector. “Life signs, eight of them , fifteen y ards that direction.” She j abbed the detector toward the door for em phasis.

From behind them , som ething slam m ed into the outer hatch with a m uted thunk. Rodney flung up his arm helplessly . “Eight versus, what, sixty or seventy ? I vote for eight.”

John said, “Here we go,” and hit the panel. He ducked under the door as it started to slide up, Tey la and Ronon right behind him .

It was another big room , softly lit. In the center there were eight people gathered around a console, watching a holographic display of the Mirror platform . They scattered back at the sudden intrusion, som e of them cry ing out in alarm . No, John
corrected him self, seeing the dead white skin, the long silver hair, not people. They were Wraith or Eidolon, whatever they called them selves. All m ales, but som e were sm aller, slight enough to be teenagers. Instead of the black and silver the Wraith alway s wore, their clothes had colors, shades of dark red, purple, blue. They were unarm ed, and John m ade a split-second decision. He snapped, “Hold y our fire.”

Ronon growled. He didn’t lower his weapon, but he didn’t shoot. The hatch was sliding shut behind them and Rodney was already pulling the cry stals. There was another door on the far side of the room , sealed.

Beside John, study ing the Eidolon with narrowed ey es, Tey la said, “They are like Trishen, I can’t sense them .”

The Eidolon were staring in astonished horror, exactly like … exactly like a bunch of bloody desperate arm edto-the-teeth aliens had j ust burst into the room . In utter astonishm ent, one of them said, “What are they ?”

John raised his voice, say ing harshly , “Just stay back, don’t try to stop us, and nobody ‘11 get hurt.”

Behind him , Rodney said, “You sound like a bank robber.”

John drew breath to tell him to hurry the hell up. Then a m uted blast sent Rodney staggering back from the door.

John caught his arm as he reeled, hauling him away from the shattered hatch as Tey la turned to cover them . They didn’t have tim e to run; they barely m ade it to the side wall, taking cover behind som e m etal crates. Ronon shoved Miko and

Zelenka down behind him , j ust as arm ored drones swarm ed into the room .

Som e headed straight for them , others for the Eidolon. John opened fire, dropping three before one reached the first Eidolon. Too shocked to run away, the Eidolon j ust stared in horror as the drone grabbed him by the throat. The drone didn’t
hesitate at all, slam m ing a hand into the Eidolon’s chest before a shot from Ronon’s energy gun blasted it. Rodney recovered enough to lift his P-90, firing through the hatch with Tey la. Drone bodies were piling up out there, but m ore stunner fire struck the crates, the walls behind them .

John reached into his vest for a fragm entation grenade, but j ust then one of the older Eidolon rushed toward the hatch, slam m ing som e device onto the wall beside it. A drone grabbed him , pinning him next to it and slam m ing a hand into his chest to
feed. John fired a burst into its back, but the creature was oblivious to the bullets striking its body, to any thing but its prey. The device lit up, then light rippled across the hatchway. The drones on the other side try ing to push through the opening slam m ed into the light, staggering back as if they had hit a solid wall. Force shield, John thought, concentrating his fire on the drones still in the room . It was a portable force shield, like the one Trishen had used in her ship to hold them prisoner.

The rem aining drones in the room finally fell, Ronon dropping the last one with a shot to the chest.

Tey la shook her head, sitting back with a gasp of relief. “I cannot believe we are still alive.”

“When did y ou becom e a pessim ist?” John stood, scanning the fallen drones cautiously .

“About five m inutes ago,” Tey la said grim ly .

John didn’t see any blinking self-destruct things on the drones’ arm or. May be they had been so distracted by the close proxim ity of dinner that they hadn’t thought to activate them . Or they had been told not to, because the Wraith wanted at least a couple of hum ans alive to question.

Ronon stepped out from around the crates, looking over the fallen drones, shooting one that wasn’t quite dead enough. John said, “Ronon, watch the other door.” He gave Tey la a nod, and she shifted to cover the Eidolon now. Three of them were
down, one stunned and two fed on, and the others were still huddled on the opposite side of the room .

John twisted around to check the rest of his team , gritting his teeth as his inj ured ribs protested the m otion. Miko and Radek, crouched back against the wall, looked shell-shocked and sick. Rodney, m ore used to certain death, didn’t look so good either.

John asked, “Every body okay ?”

“Oh, we’re fine,” Rodney said, m aking a helpless gesture and rubbing his forehead. “Kusanagi, life signs? How surrounded are we?”

“Just us.” Miko checked the detector, then j erked her chin toward the drones clustered outside the hatch. “And them . Nothing behind us, or to either side.”

John thought, breathing room , that would be nice. He said, “Rodney , any chance the consoles in this room are what we need?”

“Oh, probably not.” Not looking optim istic, Rodney turned to Zelenka. “Can y ou help or do y ou j ust want to sit there and nurse y our concussion?”

Zelenka glared up at him from under his bloody bandage. “I’m fine, give m e y our hand, prdelaty bastard.”

John circled around the crates, heading warily toward the force shield-sealed hatch, the P-90 ready. The drones on the other side stirred, straining against the field as John cam e near it, the faceless m asks all turned toward him . He felt a chill walk
down his spine; they were starving and he was a walking steak. But the field seem ed to be holding.

He backed away, then twitched at nearby m ovem ent, j erking up the P-90. The Eidolon who had activated the force shield lay sprawled next to the dead drone that had fed on him ; his ey es were still open, aware, and he was breathing in harsh
gasps. It was harder to tell than with a hum an, but John could see the withered texture of the blue-tinged skin, the shrunken flesh around face and neck. It-He had sacrificed him self for the other Eidolon trapped in the room . Wraith j ust didn’t do that.

“May I go to him ?” a voice said.

John turned to see one of the Eidolon who had taken cover by the far wall, cautiously getting to his feet. He had spoken to Tey la and was pointing to the withered being at John’s feet.

Tey la looked at John, brow lifted. He nodded, and she told the Eidolon, “You m ay .”

John backed away, out of arm ‘s reach, as the Eidolon m oved past him . It was one of the y oung ones, sm aller than a m ature Wraith, with m ore hum an features. Its voice hadn’t been as deep, either. It threw him a frightened look, then went to kneel
by the dy ing Eidolon.

Yeah, that was pretty m uch our fault, John thought. He m entally pushed that aside to deal with later and crossed back to the control area, asking, “What’s the word, Rodney ?”

Rodney shook his head, looking distinctly unhappy as he scrolled through the holographic display. Zelenka was leaning heavily on one of the consoles, his expression suggesting he was about to be sick. Miko was balancing the life signs detector and a
tablet, holding it so Rodney could see it. Rodney said, “This is only m onitoring equipm ent for the platform , I can’t get good readings for the accretion surface with this, j ust the m inor discharges it’s still throwing off.”

“Okay .” John bit his lip, looking at the consoles. “That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.”

Rodney glared at him . “Yes, well, im agine how I feel.” He took a sharp breath, threw a glance at the Eidolon still backed against the wall, watching fearfully. He lowered his voice. “There was m onitoring equipm ent for the accretion surface in the pulse control room up on the roof. If that still exists in this reality, I should be able to see if the connection is stable enough to transport us back. If so, then we can try to steal a ship and m ake it through before the Wraith blow us up. And I know I’m sim plify ing it, but that’s our best bet. Actually , it m ay be our only bet, unless we want to m ake a break for the m ountains, learn to grow crops, and hide out for the rest of our lives on this m oon.

Zelenka m uttered, “I don’t want to learn to grow crops.

That’s a hell of a long way through this building, John thought, but he wasn’t keen on the crops option either. He said, “Let’s go.”

The inner doorway led to a corridor, lined with square pillars that were set with m ilky cry stal lights. Many of the lights weren’t on, as if this section was only partially powered. John had Rodney pull the cry stals from the door behind them ; the Eidolon inside could still call for help, but John didn’t want them ducking out to see which way the alien intruders had gone.

Once they were m oving down the corridor, Tey la said, “What about the Wraith? We cannot leave them here, with access to this Mirror.”

His tone clipped, Rodney said, “If-When-If we get back to our own reality, we have to destroy the pulse array im m ediately. That scout ship could raid this installation for technology, bring Eidolon prisoners back to our reality to teach them how to build it, render the Ancient cloaks useless, including the one we used to hide Atlantis, and be free to feed on every one we know.” He looked up, lips thin with anxiety . “Every one, basically .”

“We got that, Rodney ,” John said. Nothing had changed. They had the sam e problem as before, j ust less chance of surviving the possible solutions.

Moving quickly, they found a stairwell that only went up one level, then they cut through a dusty unused section with no power. Past it, they found a big room with partial power, and one of the triangular doorway s that in their reality had m arked
the lift platform s.

But it wouldn’t open at John’s touch and Rodney swore, tearing the console off the wall. “What the hell?” he said, startled. “The cry stals are gone.”

Tey la looked up sharply , alarm ed. John thought, Crap. Their tim e had j ust run out. “Back the other way , now.”

They were alm ost to the door when Miko waved the tablet urgently . “Colonel, energy signature!” She turned back across the room , pointing to an em pty section of the blue stone wall. “It’s a transporter! Life signs!”

John turned with Tey la, covering the wall. A seam was already form ing down it, splitting into doors. Then he heard a startled y elp behind him . He risked a look back, j ust in tim e to see a curtain of energy ripple across the open doorway. Rodney
stepped back, his face horrified. “Force shield. We’re trapped.” Ronon tried to push a hand through any way , flinching back when the field zapped him .

“Get behind us,” John said, because this was it. He aim ed the P-90 at the transporter, setting his j aw. “Ronon, don’t fire, wait for m y order.” Rodney grabbed Zelenka, pushing him back with Miko, and Ronon stepped up beside John, snarling under his breath.

The transporter doors slid open and a m ale Eidolon stepped out, then another, until eight of them m oved out of the bay. The two in front were unarm ed, but the others in the back were holding long rifle-sized obj ects, with a shape suggestively like
the Wraith stunners. We can’t get captured, John thought. Even if Trishen wasn’t ly ing, these were aliens. They had no idea what the Eidolon m ight want, how interested they would be in Atlantis’ existence even in another reality, what they m ight want
from hum ans. Obviously thinking along the sam e lines, Rodney whispered harshly , “They ‘ve never seen hum ans before, they could want any thing from us. It’s like the XFiles in reverse.”

John grim aced. He hadn’t even thought about m edical experim ents. “Thanks, Rodney , y ou had to bring that up.

Then the first Eidolon lifted his hands and said, “We m ean y ou no harm .”

Beside John, Tey la shifted uneasily, throwing him a worried look. It would be nice to be able to believe that. John swallowed the dry ness out of his throat, and m ade his voice hard. “We don’t want to hurt any body either. We’re j ust try ing to get out of here.”

There was a flicker of light from the transporter behind them , and then another Eidolon pushed out through the group, a sm aller fem ale. The m ale tried to stop her, say ing som ething too low to hear.

Tey la whispered, “Is that Trishen?”

“I don’t know,” John m urm ured back. He still had no idea how this was going to go; it felt like they were breathing on borrowed tim e. “I could never tell Wraith apart.

“It’s her,” Ronon told them quietly .

“Of course it is,” Rodney snapped. “Oh, this is j ust fantastic.”

Trishen shook her head, pushing past the m ale and stepping out to face them . She said, “It’s m e, Trishen. Please put down y our weapons.”

John heard Ronon snort. That pretty m uch sum m ed up his feelings. He said, “If y ou want to talk, we can do that j ust as well while we’re holding our weapons.”

Rodney said acidly , “Trishen. Your ship was pulled into the Mirror, too. How lucky for y ou, since I was locked out of the sy stem before I could m ake the last adj ustm ents to the pulse array .”

“What? She did this?” John asked, startled, then thought, oh com e on, of course she did.

His voice rising with anger, Rodney told Trishen, “The early activation caused a gravity well to form above the accretion surface, drawing in every thing in range, including y our new Wraith friends who in the interest of interspecies cam araderie
are going to try to blast their way in here so they can feed on every thing that m oves!”

There was a m urm ur from the other Eidolon, a gentle stir. They were all staring, and the weight of those watching ey es m ade John’s skin creep. In a weird way , it was worse than being stared at by Wraith. Wraith looked at y ou with that frightening
com bination of hunger and lust, the lust without any seem ing awareness that the thing they wanted was a living sentient being. But at least y ou knew what a Wraith wanted from y ou. John had no idea what the Eidolon really wanted, except that considering the way things were going, it was probably worse.

Trishen stared, then said in helpless exasperation, “No, I didn’t do it! I was as surprised as y ou. I-”

She stopped at another flicker from the transporter, as som eone else beam ed in. The m ales parted this tim e with no argum ent, and another fem ale stepped forward. Every hair on the back of John’s neck stood up in individual alarm . Her features
were m ore distorted than Trishen’s; further from hum an, closer to Wraith. She was taller than Trishen, and her long hair was a dark red. She was wearing som ething black and flowing that looked liquid against her dead white skin.

“Careful,” Ronon said in a low-voiced growl. “That’s a hive queen. She can get inside y our head, if y ou let her.”

“Yeah, we know,” John said quietly , thinking of the Wraith caretaker, when he had found Colonel Sum ner being questioned by her, as she slowly drained out his life.

The Queen looked at them with flat opaque ey es, and said, “This was not m y daughter’s doing.”

Daughter? John exchanged a look with Tey la. Tey la rolled her ey es, exasperated. She whispered, “We were not negotiating with a scientist as we thought, but with a Hive Queen.”

The Queen said, “We had been attem pting to activate the Mirror, to retrieve her. When y ou m ade the adj ustm ents to the pulse generator, it m ust have allowed the connection. With unanticipated results. It was not our intention to bring y ou, or the others, here.”

“Well, whatever y our intention, y ou brought them here. Any idea what y ou’re going to do about it?” John asked. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the answer.

But she said, “The few ships we have left here are scientific research vessels, unarm ed. We’ve called for help, but it won’t arrive for several day s, and from what we have seen, that ship has weapons far superior to any thing we can bring to bear.”

The Queen’s ey es flicked from Rodney to John to Tey la, coldly thoughtful. “Does y our ship have weapons?”

May be it was a legitim ate question under the circum stances, but John didn’t like giving the answer. It m ight be the only bargaining point they had. Try ing to stall, he said, “Our ship is dam aged, or we’d be in it right now.”

She tilted her head, obviously picking up on what he hadn’t said. “But if it was repaired, could it destroy the Wraith ship?”

John countered, “That depends. Can y ou activate the Mirror and send us back?”

She inclined her head. “Yes. We were able to activate it successfully once, we should be able to do so again.”

John felt the others stir behind him , and he lifted his brows, exchanging a startled look with Rodney . He hadn’t been expecting that concession; he was torn between m ore suspicion and relief at the first glim pse of an actual way out of this.

Trishen spread her hands, say ing, “We had an alliance. We can still cooperate.”

John felt he had to point out, “You know, every tim e y ou want to cooperate, we alm ost get killed.”

Trishen gestured in helpless exasperation. “Yes, but it’s not m y fault!”

“We don’t have a choice,” Rodney whispered harshly . “If they have the right Ancient cry stals, the j um per is repairable.”

Tey la nodded. “I dislike this as m uch as y ou, but we m ust take the chance.”

“Yeah, I know.” John didn’t see any other option. He looked at the Eidolon Queen, still watching them im passively. “Our ship is arm ed, but those weapons are only powerful enough to destroy the darts, the sm all fighters that are wrecked all over the platform . The scout ship has shields to protect it that we can’t get through.”

The Queen accepted that without argum ent. “I appreciate y our candor.” She looked thoughtful. “But there is a way ?”

Rodney said briskly, “Yes, there’s a way. But we’ll need unim peded access to our ship, som e m aterials to repair it, the Quantum Mirror, and y our beam ing technology.” He hesitated. “The Wraith shields m ay be configured to prevent any thing from being beam ed aboard. We’ll also need a way to get around that.”

The Queen j ust nodded. “I think I can provide that.”

CHAPTER TEN
he Queen said, “There is a m onitoring area nearby . We will continue this there.” She touched a control on her wristband, and the force shield across the door disappeared.

“Well, that sounds… best,” Rodney said, as she headed for the door, with Trishen and three of the m ales in tow. He added to John, “I suppose we should follow her.”

“I suppose we don’t have a choice.” John lowered the P-90 as she passed.

Ronon dropped back to warily cover their six and they followed the Queen down the corridor, the other Eidolon trailing them at a careful distance. One of the m ales with the Queen spoke to her, his voice low and urgent. John had trouble reading his
expression, but it was probably suspicious.

That didn’t bother John; the suspicion, at least, felt norm al under the circum stances, and he knew how to react to it. It was every thing else he wasn’t sure about.

“I don’t like this,” Ronon said, a growl under his voice.

Rodney snorted derisively , looking back at him to say , “No, really ? Because the rest of us have alway s hoped som ething like this would happen.”

Beside John, Tey la whispered, “They have not asked for our weapons. Even with the best of intentions toward an alliance, we would not let aliens walk our corridors arm ed.”

“Yeah.” That one was bothering John, too. He didn’t know if it was m eant to be a sign of confidence or a trap, or what.

Rodney m uttered, “Thanks, y es, I needed som ething else to worry about.”

Behind them , Zelenka whispered, “But what does that m ean?”

“We don’t know,” John told him .

One of the other m ales with the Queen slowed to walk even with them , looking at them with open curiosity. It was a y ounger one with m ore hum an features, which for som e reason creeped John out even m ore. Then the Eidolon asked Tey la, “Are
y ou all the sam e species?”

“We are,” she said, perfectly com posed, though John could see the tension in her shoulders.

John rolled his ey es. He supposed it wasn’t m eant to be insulting. The Eidolon were like the Wraith; all the adult m ales here were close to the sam e height and build, with barely any noticeable variation in skin or hair color. But he still wanted to take it that way .

The Eidolon looked them over again, as if try ing to decide if Tey la was serious. He asked, “Do they need m edical attention?”

Ronon had black ey es and vivid discolored bruises on his face. Zelenka, leaning on Miko’s arm , won the prize for m ost obvious concussion, and the cut on his forehead had bled through the quick bandaging j ob. John’s knee was stiffening up again, his
side hurt with every quick m ovem ent, and he and Tey la st1ill had the bruises from their first encounter with the Wraith. But he didn’t want any help from the Eidolon, no m ore than what it took to get them hom e. Especially help that involved phy sical contact. He said, “No, thanks.”

The Eidolon looked from Tey la to John, startled and uncertain. “You are the leader?”

John flicked a narrow-ey ed look at him . “Yes.”

The Eidolon shook his head slightly , his white hair shim m ering with the m ovem ent. “Our leaders are all fem ale. It is…odd to see fem ales in a subordinate role.”

John gritted his teeth. “They ‘re not subordinates.”

Rodney frowned, pointing out, “Well, technically , as far as rank and pay grade go-”

John glared at him . “Yeah, technically , but not like he m eans.

Tey la broke in hastily , say ing, “The leader of our… com m unity is fem ale. Colonel Sheppard speaks for her here.”

Trishen dropped back, say ing uneasily , “Edane, go back with the others.”

Edane protested, “But I was only curious-”

“Perhaps there will be tim e for questions later,” she told him .

John lifted a brow, exchanging a sour look with Rodney , thinking, Hell, I hope not. And he wasn’t sure if Trishen had chased the y oung m ale off because she was afraid they would freak out and kill him , or because he m ight reveal som ething.

Two turns of the corridor and a security door took them into a large control room , lit by overheads and lights in the square pillars. There was a row of observation windows across the far wall, looking out onto the Mirror platform . A bank of consoles
stood in the center, a couple of different holographic display s floating in the air above them . The Queen went straight to the consoles, passing her hand over a touchpad, and the windows turned to an opaque m ilky cry stal.

One of the older m ales, the one who had been m aking the obj ections to their presence on the way here, had followed the Queen to the control board. Apparently the group skeptic, he said, “If this fails, they will attack in force, and we haven’t had tim e to evacuate m ore than a few of our people.”

Trishen turned to him im patiently . “Kethel, they will attack in force any way . And y ou y ourself said that our ships won’t arrive for day s; we have no choice.”

The Queen didn’t acknowledge either of them . Apparently the others were allowed to argue, but she wasn’t under any obligation to even pretend to listen. She turned to regard John steadily. “First I will try to secure y our ship. I assum e y ou have m aterials aboard it that y ou can use to build som e sort of destructive device, to be beam ed aboard the Wraith vessel?”

John m et her gaze steadily . “That’s the idea.”

Rodney added, “I m ay need m ore m aterials from y ou.” He strained his neck to see the control station without going any closer to the Queen. “I won’t be certain until I can evaluate what we already have.”

“If we have the necessary m aterials, we will provide them .” The Queen turned back to the console. She nodded to Kethel, who reluctantly began to hit the touchpads.

Zelenka leaned in between John and Rodney to whisper, “Rodney , there is enough C-4 for this?”

Rodney gave him an annoy ed look. “Of course not. But com bined with the energy drones-”

“Ali, I see.” Zelenka nodded, then clutched his head and winced in pain.

“Oh y es, Dr. McKay ,” Miko said, lifting her brows in com prehension.

“The energy drones?” John stared at him . He wasn’t keen on the Eidolon getting a look at those. “Can’t y ou j ust-”

“No, j ust shut up and trust m e,” Rodney whispered.

Then Kethel said, “The alien ship is accepting our com m unication.”

“What?” John said, startled. “What are y ou telling them ?”

Kethel gave him a glare. “Our vessels can’t get close enough to lift y our ship off the platform without being fired on.”

John had thought the Eidolon m eant to do som ething else to get the j um per off the platform . He didn’t have a clue what that som ething else could be, but he hadn’t thought it involved j ust asking the Wraith for it. “And they ‘re j ust going to let y ou have it.”

His skepticism m ust have crossed the cultural and species barrier j ust fine, because the Queen looked at him , her ey es a flat black. “They killed seven of our line when they destroy ed our survey ship, which was unarm ed and gave them no provocation, and three others when they invaded this installation. I do not wish them to have control of this Quantum Mirror, any m ore than y ou do. I am prepared to negotiate for what I need to destroy them , nothing further. And I have no com punction against ly ing to them .”

“Okay,” John said slowly. That was sort of reassuring, except for what the Queen hadn’t said. She hadn’t com m ented on how the Eidolon in the control room had died, or what the Wraith were likely to do to any they caught. She wasn ‘t surprised, John thought, realizing what else had struck him as wrong. Just like the other Eidolon who had witnessed it. Nobody asked, nobody said `what the hell is that?’ May be it was j ust a cultural m iscom m unication thing, m ay be Trishen had told them what she had sensed from the Wraith back hom e, but John didn’t think so. It was confirm ation of what he had suspected about Trishen: The Eidolon m ight not need to feed on other sentient beings, but they weren’t unfam iliar with the concept. Though he didn’t have any intention of asking about it j ust at the m om ent. He said, “You sure they ‘re going to listen to y ou?”

The Queen didn’t answer. She stepped around the console, m oving to the open area in front of the windows.

Trishen shifted closer to them , her arm s folded and her shoulders hunched a little anxiously . “The holovid will only pick up the area im m ediately around her. They won’t be able to see y ou.”

“Oh, that’s very reassuring,” Rodney said in a sour undertone.

The blue glow of a holo-proj ection form ed in the air a few steps in front of the Queen. Then a m ale Wraith appeared in it.

John tensed, tightening his hold on the P-90; he had been prepared for a hologram , and the im age was translucent, but som ehow that didn’t m atter m uch. Tey la stirred uneasily and Ronon shifted position, his hand flexing on his gun’s grip. Rodney
m uttered, “This could go very badly .”

The Wraith started to say , “You will com ply with our orders-”

The Queen said, “Quiet.” Her voice reverberated harshly , and John would have sworn she got taller. “Where is y our m istress, or is she afraid to face m e, even over this distance?”

The Wraith froze. In a different tone, it said, “She is not with us.”

“Then return to her. Leave this place the way y ou cam e.

The Wraith hissed, recovering a little. “That is im possible.”

“I can m ake it possible.”

The Wraith hesitated again. John thought, it didn’t know that. It thought it was a possibility, but it wasn’t sure. The Wraith m ight have thought the Mirror’s activation was an accident. Or som ething we did. Then the Wraith said, “We want the hum ans.

They are of our feeding grounds, they belong to us. Return them and we will leave y ou.”

John felt Rodney shift uncom fortably beside him . Tey la gave him a look, pressing her lips together. This was the part John was m ost worried about too.

But the Queen said, “You have destroy ed one of m y ships.”

The Wraith hissed, open-m outhed, barring its teeth. The Queen lowered her chin, staring him down. Finally the Wraith said, “What do y ou want?”

She said, “The hum ans’ ship.”

It snarled. “Im possible.”

“Then we have no further reason to speak.”

It glared at her. The Queen gave the im pression that she could stand there all day without blinking. Oh, this is j ust great, John thought incredulously. The Eidolon didn’t have a card to play, except their Queen’s ability to bluff the Wraith into tem porary subm ission. And he had the feeling that if there had been a Wraith Queen aboard that ship, then things would be going a lot worse right now. Finally the Wraith said, “How do we know y ou have the hum ans?”

The Queen didn’t m ove, but Trishen started, then turned to them urgently , whispering, “She wants one of y ou to com e forward, to look as if y ou are a prisoner-”

John flicked a look at Tey la, saw they had both had the sam e thought. The Eidolon have a m ental com m unication thing going, j ust like the Wraith. But that didn’t change the fact that the Wraith needed to know that the Eidolon had som ething they
wanted. Keeping his voice low, he told Trishen, “I’ll do it.” He unclipped his P-90 and pulled the 9m m out of his holster, handing both off to Miko and Radek. Tey la and Rodney looked like they wanted to obj ect-every body looked like they wanted to obj ect-but if the Wraith got the idea there was a tem porary hum an-Eidolon alliance, this plan was over before it had gotten started.

John stepped past Trishen to where Kethel was waiting uncertainly . John whispered, “Drag m e over there and throw m e down.”

The Eidolon grabbed his arm and an instant later John hit the floor at the Queen’s feet. He landed on his bad knee and went sprawling, unable to choke back a y elp. Not that hard, he thought, bracing on his forearm , unsteadily levering him self up a
little. He heard a m uffled protest and a scuffle behind him , and snuck a look under his arm . Tey la had stepped in front of Ronon, having planted an elbow in his chest to stop an instinctive surge forward. Rodney looked like he was holding back a loud
obj ection, and Miko and Radek both had expressions of startled sy m pathy .

John pushed up a little m ore, pressing a hand to his side as a cracked rib protested the m ovem ent. He squinted up at the holographic Wraith. It stared down at him , its face twisted into an avid expression.

The Queen said, “You see.”

The Wraith didn’t take its ey es off John. The Queen shifted and the hem of her skirts brushed John’s arm ; his instinctive flinch away from her was com pletely genuine. It m ust have looked convincing, because the Wraith said, “If I allow y ou to take the ship, y ou will return them to us.

“You will not interfere when I take the ship, and we will speak further.” She lifted a hand, and the hologram vanished.

John breathed out in relief. The Queen stepped away im m ediately , turning to face the consoles. You’re welcom e, John thought sourly . He shoved him self into a sitting position, try ing to get his good leg under him so he could stand.

Then som ebody said, “Did I inj ure y ou?”

John looked up, startled, to see Kethel loom ing over him . For a m om ent he thought the Eidolon was being sarcastic. But Kethel kept staring at him like he actually expected an answer.

Then Tey la and Rodney and the others reached them . Ronon grabbed John’s arm and hauled him to his feet, sneering at Kethel. Addressing every body, John said, “Relax, I’m fine.” Kethel seem ed alm ost em barrassed, and the Queen was very
clearly not acknowledging this little exchange. John alm ost wondered if this was som e odd alien courtesy , that she was try ing not to m ake Kethel’s m istake worse by drawing attention to it.

Still facing away from them , the Queen said, “Are these creatures… Are all the Wraith like that one?”

John wasn’t sure what she m eant, if she was asking about the Wraith’s appearance or violent tendencies. Rodney answered her, lifting his chin to say , “Actually , that one seem ed a little m ore am enable to reason than usual.”

Watching the Queen narrowly , Tey la said, “They think of nothing but feeding and culling, and hunting our people. It is their entire reason for existence.”

The Queen tapped her long-fingered hands on the blue m etal of the console. John wondered j ust how m uch she could sense from the Wraith, if they could sense any thing from her. She said, “I believe y ou are correct. They seem … curiously
unable to visualize any thing outside the scope of their own concerns. What has caused that?” She turned to look at Tey la, tilting her head. “Is it genetic?”

Tey la wet her lips, hesitating, as if the idea that she was having an actual conversation with a Hive Queen was weirding her out as m uch as it was John. “We do not know. They have alway s been as they are. From what we have learned, even the

Ancestors did not entirely understand them .”

The Queen nodded, a flicker of som ething in her expression that was gone too quickly to read. She said, “On the top level there is a m aintenance bay with a roof access, large enough for y our ship. If they allow us to retrieve it, I will have it brought there.” With that, she strode out of the room , sweeping Trishen and several of the m ales with her.

Kethel lingered behind, say ing, “I will take y ou there when y ou’re ready .” He hesitated, then added, “I apologize for inj uring y ou.” He m oved away to wait with the other Eidolon.

Every body stared after him . Brow furrowed, watching the Eidolon with deep suspicion, Ronon com m ented, “That was weird.”

John had to agree. Frowning, Rodney said, “Did a Wraith-like being j ust show rem orse over alm ost knocking y ou unconscious?” He waved a hand beside his head. “The cognitive dissonance is causing m y perception of reality to fade in and out, so I wasn’t sure I heard right.”

“Yeah.” John was alm ost the sam e height as the adult Eidolon, and never having sm acked a hum an around before, Kethel m ust have assum ed John was j ust as strong as he was. And now they know we aren ‘t. Probably not a good thing. He took his pistol and the P-90 back from Radek and Miko, say ing, “Whatever. Let’s get up there.”

It’s working so far Rodney thought. At som e frightening point in all this, that had becom e his m antra. Not that he believed in m antras. He actually hated m antras.

The Eidolon had sent another ship to get the j um per off the Mirror platform , intending to lift it with a tractor beam and ferry it over to the installation. Rodney and the others watched the process via one of the holographic screens in the m aintenance bay, a big round room with two triangular hatches form ing a square portal in the roof, easily large enough for a craft several tim es the size of the j um per. Various sm aller cham bers with work areas opened off several archway s in the walls, and there was a raised plat form with som e kind of control station toward the back. The Eidolon were occupy ing it, so Rodney hadn’t m anaged to get a look at what was up there y et. Safe from the Wraith, the Ancients who had fled here hadn’t bothered to gut this installation the way they had the original version.

On the display of the Mirror platform , Rodney could see that the eclipse was starting to pass, the warm er light of the sy stem ‘s prim ary washing out the Mirror’s silvery glow. The Eidolon ship stirred up dust on the platform as it m oved to hover over the puddle j um per, which was still wedged awkwardly atop the crushed darts. The Wraith hadn’t fired on it. Yet. If Rodney survived this, he was definitely com ing out of it with another ulcer.

Kusanagi was chewing on her fingernails, Ronon was glowering at the screen, and Sheppard was doing his stoic m anly calm act. Cradling her P-90, Tey la shifted uneasily and said, “If the Wraith fire now-”

“We’re screwed,” Zelenka finished darkly .

“There are degrees of screwed,” Rodney said, wanting to disagree with Zelenka j ust to distract him self. But they had no idea how far the Eidolon’s good will would extend, and if this didn’t work… Oh y es, ulcer He grim aced. May be two. Didn’t that cause blood poisoning?

Zelenka began, “If one of those degrees of screwed is very -

Sheppard said, “They aren’t firing.” The stoic thing didn’t quite conceal his relief.

The j um per was lifting off the platform in the Eidolon tractor beam , som e debris from the sm ashed darts drawn up with it, glittering in the sunlight. The display ‘s orientation changed, following the Eidolon ship as it headed up toward the installation roof. Overhead, the triangular hatches groaned and started to slide open. Rodney felt his ulcers unclench a little. He rubbed his hands together briskly . “Right, here we go.”

While the j um per was being lowered gently into the bay, Trishen brought them a case of replacem ent cry stals, asking, “Will any of these do?” They were in pristine condition, gleam ing faintly in the light from the m ilky glass overheads. Rodney swallowed hard, controlled the urge to grab the entire case and run away , and m anaged to ask, “Did y ou m anufacture these?”

“No, we don’t know how y et,” she said, regarding the case regretfully . “We gather them from sites left behind by the Creators.” Looking up at Rodney with sudden hope, she asked, “Do y ou know how to-”

“No.” Glum ly , he chose a selection of replacem ent cry stals.

Then he gathered every body on the j um per’s ram p, say ing, “Two team s, one works on repairing the power train, the other rem oves the drones and builds the bom b. Our tim e is extrem ely, one m ight say fatally, lim ited, so every body works.

Every body except Ronon; we don’t want him touching any thing delicate or potentially explosive.

Ronon contem plated Rodney in silence, then said, “I’d rather stand watch.”

“It’s better if I do cry stals,” Zelenka said, poking cautiously at his new bandage. Kusanagi had changed the dressing but now that his bruises were starting to turn greenish-black, he looked, if any thing, worse. “If I pass out in the m iddle, nothing will explode. You had better take Miko, and perhaps the Colonel. Tey la can help m e.”

Rodney sighed in annoy ance. “No, actually , the Colonel is the last person we want handling the drones.”

Sheppard actually looked offended. “Why not?”

Rodney rolled his ey es, and considered m entioning various reasons, such as Sheppard’s belief that all the j um pers were his property, leading him to stand around looking personally violated whenever any one m ade absolutely necessary but tricky
adj ustm ents to vital sy stem s, not to m ention his habit of dem anding to know how long it was going to take at ten second intervals. To save argum ent, Rodney decided to go with the real point of concern. “As we discovered in Antarctica, the drones don’t have to be m ounted in a launching device in order to activate. Carson, the m ost incom petent natural gene carrier that we have, m anaged to fire one with the weapons chair right off Peter’s work bench. It m ay be im possible for y ou to set them off j ust by direct phy sical contact, but I’d rather not m ake the experim ent while I’m sitting next to a pile of C-4. Neither Kusanagi nor I have ever had m uch luck with the chair, so we should be safe. Fairly safe. Marginally safe.”

Sheppard’s brow furrowed. “Oh.”

They got to work.

The energy drones were only accessible from outside the j um per, tucked into the hull below the drive pods, so Rodney and Kusanagi had to pull the housing, then carefully rem ove each drone from the launch rack. Detaching connections on one
end of the rack, Rodney did a double-take as Kusanagi lifted out a drone. They were bullet-shaped, with trailing tentacle-like filam ents; in flight, they looked like glowing squids. He asked tightly , “Did that j ust …quiver?”

“Urn, no, Dr. McKay . I’m shaking,” Kusanagi adm itted, gently lowering the drone to the floor.

Rodney relaxed. “Well, stop it. Do y ou have low blood sugar?” He felt his vest pockets, looking for a power bar.

“No, it’s… fear.” She winced, pushing her glasses back up on her nose.

“Oh.” They stared bleakly at each other for a m om ent, and he knew it wasn’t handling Ancient energy m issiles that m ade her afraid. If she wanted reassurance, he was aware he had lim itations in that area; he would have to send her to talk to Sheppard or Tey la. But she didn’t ask for it, j ust sm iled wanly . Rodney nodded, letting out his breath. “Yes, well, that’s a rational response to the situation.”

When they had m ost of the drones out, Rodney crawled out from under the drive pod, intending to go inside and check Zelenka’s work. Som e of the Eidolon were watching from a safe distance, including Edane, the y oung one who had tried to talk
to Tey la. They seem ed to be m ore curious about the technology than any thing else, and spoke am ong them selves in a perfectly ordinary way . It was still incredibly unnerving.

As Rodney was heading around the bulk of the j um per toward the hatch, Edane stepped forward, say ing, “Please let m e help. Our technology is different, but I think I know enough that I could assist y ou.”

“Oh, no, I appreciate the offer, but y ou know, classified m aterial, regulations-” Rodney backed toward the ram p where Ronon had stationed him self “We j ust can’t-”

“He m eans `no, thanks,”’ Ronon said, with an unfriendly grin, and Rodney bolted inside.

Just inside the hatchway , he alm ost ran into Sheppard, who dem anded, “What happened?”

Rodney shook his head, waving it aside. He was a little annoy ed at him self for overreacting. “Nothing, nothing.” Inside the rear cabin, they had the lower side panel open and Tey la was crouched beside it, rem oving the drained cry stals from the m atrix. Rodney scanned their work with a frown, while Sheppard glared suspiciously out the hatch. “I’m going to m ake sure Zelenka isn’t about to short out the m ain bus.”

Rodney went forward to the cockpit, where Zelenka was crouched under the console. “What was that?” Zelenka asked, blinking up at him worriedly .

“One of the Eidolon asked to help.” Rodney waved a hand, dism issing it. “Seem s to m ean well, but…”

“Largèbut,”’ Zelenka agreed fervently . “Working in close quarters-”

“Yes, huge enorm ous `but.”’ Being in a sm all enclosed space with an alien who m ight be able to suck the life out of y ou with a touch wasn’t exactly Rodney ‘s notion of an ideal work environm ent either. May be the uncertainty of not knowing
whether the Eidolon could feed on them -No, no, the certainty would definitely be worse. Rodney sat on his heels to look inside the console, taking the light away from Zelenka to flash it over the cry stals. “How is this going? You’ve got the polarity aligned properly ?”

“No, I thought I’d ignore such fine details so we could explode when drive pods engage.” Zelenka clutched his head, wincing. “It’s alm ost done.”

“Good, good. Ah…” Rodney threw him a look, his m outh twisting uneasily. He was responsible for get ting Zelenka and Kusanagi into this, adm ittedly way out of their depth and norm al working conditions. And it was a different situation, but it still gave him som e unwilling insight into how Sheppard felt about losing Ford.

Rodney didn’t like thinking about Ford, especially that last encounter on P3M-736. The glim pses of the real m an under that enzy m e-driven insanity had been m ore disturbing than any thing else, m aking y ou think it was som ehow still possible to
reason with him , to bring him hom e. But at least Rodney had accepted that he was gone, and wasn’t sublim ating his issues by try ing to adopt Ronon, Conan the Barbarian’s less progressive cousin, like certain Air Force Colonels he could m ention.

Whatever, he felt the need to apologize to Zelenka, and he hated that. “I’m …ah. Sorry .”

“What?” Zelenka stared, then peered into the console. “What did y ou do?”

Rodney m ade an im patient gesture. “About this. Before we left base cam p, Sheppard asked m e if I was certain I wanted to bring y ou and Kusanagi, and I said y es, that y ou needed the experience.” He let out his breath. “This wasn’t the experience I m eant.”

Zelenka frowned. “I adm it, I do not like crashing in j um pers, or shooting, or fear, but… It was very fine to see the spaceport, and the giant Quantum Mirror, before it tried to kill us.”

Rodney lifted his brows. “So y ou’re okay with all this.”

“No, no, I still blam e y ou for bringing m e here, but…” Zelenka shrugged. “This is our lives now.”

“Right.” It was, sadly , true. Rodney pushed to his feet, going back to work.

John didn’t kiss Zelenka when the j um per powered up, but he felt a little like it. They weren’t free and clear y et, but he didn’t feel quite so m uch at the m ercy of the Eidolon’s whim s. He put the board on standby and pushed out of the seat, stepping into the rear cabin. “Good j ob, Radek.”

“Yes, Dr. Zelenka,” Tey la added with relief. “That was very well done, especially under these circum stances.”

Zelenka nodded, sinking down on the bench. “Yes, very good. I’m going to lie down now.” Then he slum ped over.

John lunged forward to catch him , easing him down to the padded bench, while Tey la lifted his legs up onto it. John tried to check his pulse, but Zelenka j ust batted at him without waking and snored. John said, “I can’t tell if he passed out or fell asleep on his feet.” He straightened up, wincing as his own inj uries rem inded him that abrupt m ovem ents weren’t a great idea. “I guess the snoring is a good sign.”

Watching Zelenka with concern, Tey la gave John a quick nod. “I will stay with him .”

“Just m ake sure he doesn’t fall off the bench. That’d be about all he needs.”

John walked down the ram p, noting that there were only five m ale Eidolon watching them now. There were a few others up on the raised platform where there seem ed to be another control area.

Rodney received the news that the j um per was working again with a preoccupied grunt and a “Hello, didn’t I say stay away from the bom b!” From what John could tell at a distance, Rodney and Miko were alm ost done: the currently inert energy drones were wired together in a bundle, with C-4 packed in. They were carefully attaching the detonators now. The theory was that when the C-4 exploded, it should sim ulate an im pact on a target, which should cause the energy drones to detonate.

Rodney kept say ing it had worked in the lab with a single test drone a few m onths ago, so it should work on this larger scale. Rodney also freaked out every tim e John so m uch as looked at the thing, so John stay ed over near the ram p with Ronon.

He was waiting there when Kethel approached. The Eidolon stopped a cautious distance away , and said, “The Matriarch wishes to speak with y ou.”

“The what?” John said, then realized he m ust m ean the Queen. “Okay .” He looked around at Rodney and Miko, who were watching uneasily . “I’ll be back.” I hope.

As John started away, Ronon followed him , loom ing at John’s elbow. John stopped to tell him , “Stay with the j um per.” By that he m eant, “guard the others.” Tey la was the only one not distracted by a delicate task at the m om ent, and she was occupied with Zelenka.

Ronon’s expression said he got the m essage, but he didn’t look happy . “That a good idea?”

John looked up at him , narrowing his ey es. “That’s an order.” Having to glare Ronon into subm ission all the tim e was going to give him a crick in the neck.

Ronon looked sullen, gave Kethel a look that prom ised death at som e point soon, and went back to the j um per.

John followed Kethel to the back of the m aintenance area, through an archway into one of the sm aller control room s. The Queen was standing at a console, and when John approached she touched a panel. A holographic display sprang to life,
showing a 180 degree view of the Mirror platform . There was a group of drones and a few m ale Wraith m oving along the Mirror’s giant fram e. Looking for the controls, John thought, frowning at the display. The scout ship was still hovering dangerously
near the Mirror. If this Mirror had been as unstable as the one in their reality , it would have been erupting continuously .

The Queen said, “They have been try ing the lower level entrances into the com plex. Fortunately, we have had tim e to block all the passageway s with containm ent fields, and the evacuation of our personnel is nearly com plete.” Trishen had told them that the Eidolon were evacuating the installation through the underground passage to the spaceport. In this reality it had never been blocked by a collapse. The Queen added, “The Wraith have attem pted to contact us three tim es, with increasing im patience.” She didn’t sound particularly worried, m ore as if she considered the Wraith’s im patience as a sign of incom petence on their part.

John tried to look like it didn’t worry him , either. “We’re nearly done with the bom b. It shouldn’t be m uch longer.” At least, that’s what he thought she wanted to know. He wondered if the Eidolon were so used to doing the m ind-to-m ind thing that they didn’t com m unicate very well without it.

“Then I will answer their next call, and suggest that there m ay be an arrangem ent soon.” She turned to another display, one that was all abstract shapes and blips and dots. John thought it m ust be a life signs detector screen, though the distance m easurem ents were all different from the Ancient version. “They do not seem to be venturing out past the installation.”

“They want control of the Mirror, they ‘re not going to leave the platform .” He shrugged. “That’s going to m ake this easier.” Marginally easier.

“It wouldn’t m atter if a few escaped. It is only the ship that confounds us.” She turned off the display . “I will wait for y our word that the device is ready .”

John thought that was a pretty clear dism issal, except he realized he had a question. “Why are y ou helping us?” It was probably a bad idea to bring this up, but he j ust had to know. He was starting to wonder if Trishen hadn’t given them the whole story, about why the Ancients’ attem pt to seed hum ans in this reality had failed. If som e of them had survived the plague, but the early Eidolon had fed on them to extinction, before figuring out another way to survive. If by helping them now, the Queen was working off som e kind of weird species guilt.

Instead, she looked directly at him , her flat dark ey es expressionless. “Why did y ou help m y daughter?”

John hesitated, then gave her the truth. “I didn’t know what else to do with her.”

He m ight have been im agining it, but he thought he saw a faint trace of am usem ent in her expression. She said, “I am aware that if I had waited only a few m ore m inutes to enact m y plan for her return, none of this would have happened.”

She turned away again, and John had the feeling that that was the best answer he was going to get.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ohn returned to the j um per; he hadn’t really expected to find any thing wrong, but it was good to see Ronon standing on the ram p, warily keeping watch.

At Rodney ‘s urgent wave, John halted, keeping what Rodney evidently considered to be a m inim um safe distance from the bom b. Rodney j um ped up, heading for the j um per’s hatch, say ing in passing, “I’m putting together the rem ote detonation control now.”

Miko stood up, taking off her glasses to rub her ey es. She looked dead tired. “You okay ?” John asked her.

She nodded, fum bling her glasses back on as she walked over to him . “Yes, it’s j ust …we were attaching the detonators for the C-4. It was very…tense.”

John nodded, ey eing the bom b. “McKay and touchy explosives are alway s a fun com bination.” There were seven drones wired together with the C-4 blocks, the drones’ tentacles hanging out every which way. He j ust hoped it worked like Rodne1y
thought it should.

Then a rum ble shook the stone floor underfoot. “Oh, hell no,” John said under his breath. Miko stum bled as the rum ble escalated suddenly and the whole building seem ed to sway. John caught her arm to steady her. On the ram p, Ronon sway ed, but stay ed upright. The few Eidolon left working on the other side of the bay looked around, startled. Dust trickled down from the seam of the giant hatch overhead. Just as John was about to grab Miko and run for the j um per, the rum ble died away. Thinking, don ‘t let that be what it sounded like, he asked, “Earthquake? Or m oonquake?”

“Oh no,” Miko said, looking anxiously at the bom b. “Mirrorquake.”

Then Trishen leaned over the railing of the upper control area, calling urgently , “Dr. McKay , we think the Mirror is destabilizing again!”

Rodney ducked out of the j um per, harried and angry . “Yes, the quake that shook the entire surface of this m oon would possibly indicate that there j ust m ight be a problem ! Did y ou m ake the adj ustm ents to the array ? Because the wrong sequence-”

Trishen shook her head, m aking a helpless gesture. “It’s not working any m ore.”

“What do y ou m ean `not working?’ The array or the adj ustm ents-” Rodney bolted for the stairs.

John told Miko, “Stay with Ronon,” and ran after him .

John reached the top of the steps right behind Rodney , bum ping into him when he stopped abruptly . Rodney said, “Oh, now, fine, look at this.” He flung both arm s in the air, annoy ed. “This, this is what we couldn’t find in our reality .”

In the m iddle of the dais was a big round console, with an ornate silver rim inset with blue cry stal panels. The air above it was alive with glowing diagram s, scrolling data, curves and graphs and figures in Ancient. In the center was a glowing silver
pool, som e sort of holographic m iniature of the Mirror itself Looking at it, John felt prickles of unease clim b his spine. The surface was disturbed, rippling continuously, like a puddle in the rain. If the Mirror was actually doing that… That j ust can ‘t be good. The holographic readouts seem ed to agree; m ost of them were blinking in alarm .

A few Eidolon were watching the display s, and Kethel was carefully m anipulating a set of touchpads on the console’s rim . With a harsh tension in his voice, he said, “It’s still not responding. This is the sam e sequence that worked earlier.”

Trishen m oved to the console, pointing toward one of the graphs. She told Rodney , “The accretion disk field has changed radically from -”

Rodney m oved forward, half around the console, as John trailed after him . His expression grim , Rodney said, “Yes, this is about the cap to m y day.” He rounded on Trishen, m aking an abrupt gesture. “The connection to the Mirror in our reality is effecting this Mirror, and accelerating the destabilization. The singularity is detaching.”

Kethel turned to him , face twisted into the expression Wraith m ade when they hissed in anger. Instead, he said, “It can’t be.”

“Oh, but it is!” Rodney snarled. “Check y our figures!” He turned urgently to John. “I’ve seen this before, on the equipm ent we were using to m onitor the Area 51 Mirror as it was being m elted down. When the outer rim was destroy ed, the singularity detached, closed in on itself, and vanished. Fortunately, we were expecting it, and all it took with it was a sm all concrete bunker and a naquadah generator.” Rodney grim aced at the Mirror display. “This one’s going to take this entire installation with it.”

Trishen hit m ore touchpads on the console’s edge, bringing up different data display s, enlarging others. The Queen cam e up the stairs, stopping at the top, her cold ey es narrowed slightly .

“Rodney .” John kept his voice tightly controlled. “What does that m ean for us, exactly ?”

Rodney ‘s j aw was set as he glared at the blinking display s. “It m eans we need to hurry . We need to do this now.

So there’s still a chance to do it at all, John thought, relief undoing a few of the knots in his spine.

The Queen glanced at Kethel, who nodded sharply , say ing, “Even if he’s wrong-”

“I’m right!” Rodney shouted.

“-nothing can be served by delay .” Kethel waved a hand toward the holographic im age of the Mirror, which rippled like it was experiencing a rip tide. “This will surely only get worse.”

The Queen’s dark gaze turned to John. “The explosive?”

John flicked a glance at Rodney , and in response got a nod and hand-wave com bination that he hoped m eant “y es.” John told her, “We’re ready .”

First, the Queen had to contact the Wraith and get them to lower their shield. John wasn’t looking forward to that part. Hell, he was worried about all the parts, but at the m om ent, m ostly that one.

One of the work stations toward the back of the m aintenance bay had the com m equipm ent, and Kethel was using it to set up the contact with the Wraith ship. He was wearing a weird organic headset device, frequently using it to speak to the

Eidolon ships in orbit. John, Rodney, Tey la, and Ronon watched from a short distance. Miko and Radek were in the j um per, ostensibly so they could run a few last diagnostics on the repair. John also wanted Miko in there as a little extra insurance. She and Rodney hadn’t rem oved all the drones, and if the Eidolon changed their m inds about cooperation at the last m om ent, the arm ed j um per would be a powerful deterrent.

Standing nearby , Trishen shifted uneasily , say ing, “This is m y fault. If they hadn’t activated the Mirror again to get m e back, none of this would have happened.”

John folded his arm s, keeping his ey es on the display s that Kethel was m anipulating. One held a real-tim e im age of the Wraith scout ship where it hovered above the platform . He was starting to get used to Trishen’s voice, but it was easier to talk to her if he didn’t look at her. He said, “We’re not in any position to point fingers.” He didn’t really care whose fault this was or wasn’t at this point; as long as they could get back hom e and perm anently disable their Mirror, he was fine with it.

Rodney was standing next to John, arm s folded, rocking back and forth on his heels im patiently. “Besides,” he said, “This is a far m ore effective m ethod of destroy ing the Mirror in our reality. And by far m ore effective, I m ean incredibly dangerous.”

John and Tey la exchanged a bewildered look, and John frowned at him , asking, “What? I thought when we got back we’d still have to destroy the array .”

Rodney shook his head at the ceiling, as if asking it to witness what he had to deal with. He said pointedly, “The two Mirrors are still connected, that’s what caused that m inor discharge, and y es, com pared to what’s com ing, that was m inor. As long as that connection lasts, they are the sam e Mirror. Actually, they ‘re alway s the sam e Mirror, all the Mirrors are the sam e Mirror, but that’s too com plicated to explain to y ou. But right now, because of the connection and the continued destabilization, they ‘re m ore one than usual.”

Tey la ey ed him worriedly . “You are say ing that when this Mirror destroy s itself-”

Rodney waved an im patient hand. “The singularities are sharing the sam e reality. It’s good for us in that the destination can’t be reset, so there’s no possibility of losing the connection for our reality. It’s bad for us in that when this Mirror goes, the other one will go, except there is no other one, they ‘re both one. It’s a form of quantum entanglem ent.”

John j ust stared at him , brow furrowed. May be he was m issing the point here, but this sounded bad. “Rodney -”

Kethel said, “They are accepting the transm ission.” The Queen stepped sm oothly into position in front of the com m unications console.

John tensed, shifting his grip slightly on his P-90. Tey la had her arm s folded over her weapon, outwardly casual, but like John she was holding it so her finger was near the trigger. Ronon was watching the other Eidolon, who were all gathered near

Kethel.

A m om ent later the hologram appeared in a haze of blue static. It resolved into a m ale Wraith, possibly the sam e one that the Queen had spoken to earlier. It bared its teeth, dem anding, “Why did y ou refuse to speak with us?”

She inclined her head and, with a faint trace of am usem ent in her voice, said, “I had nothing to say.” Before the Wraith could react, she added, “I have decided to com ply with y our request. One of m y ships will m ove into position above this structure, to beam the hum ans to y ou. Lower y our shield and send coordinates.”

This was the other part that John was worried about. From what the Eidolon had said, their transporter was m ore sim ilar to the Asgard beam than it was to the Wraith culling beam . A quick test had shown that it couldn’t get through the Wraith’s
shielding, any m ore than the Asgard beam could. Since the Daedalus had destroy ed a few hiveships by beam ing aboard nuclear warheads, all the Wraith they had encountered had been extra careful about m aking preventative adj ustm ents to their
shields.

The Wraith stared at her, unblinking. Then it said, “Send them outside, we will take them .”

“If I open a passage in or out of this facility , y ou will attack.”

It hissed at her. “We have an agreem ent.”

There was som ething in the Queen’s tone that suggested she was talking to a som ewhat backward child. “Then lower y our shield and send the coordinates.”

The Wraith snarled. The Queen stepped out of pick-up range, and Kethel cut the transm ission, the hologram disappearing in an angry flash of light. The Queen ey ed the spot where it had been, as if an afterim age of the Wraith’s form still lingered.

All em otion gone from her voice again, she said, “They will com ply . Their lim itations m ake their actions easy to predict.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve noticed,” John said, and thought, so far so good.

Rodney grim aced, say ing in a low voice, “They ‘ll give us coordinates for a hold area. If we could get the device closer to the m ain drive, it would be m ore effective, but what’s she supposed to say ? Òh, give m e the coordinates to y our weapons
and shield control com partm ent too; no reason, j ust curious.”’

Since Rodney ‘s idea of a low voice wasn’t all that low, Trishen heard him any way . She said, “We can get those coordinates with a sensor sweep.”

Rodney ‘s ey es lit up. “Wait, y our sensors can get past their hull plating?”

She nodded, explaining, “One of the ships in orbit has special equipm ent for scanning ruins and underground structures left behind by the Creators. Once the Wraith shield is down, its sensors should be able to get a partial schem atic.”

Kethel looked up from his control board, telling the Queen, “We’re received the inform ation, and they have lowered their shield.”

Trishen went forward to one of the consoles, picking up another headset and speaking quickly into it. After a m om ent, she set it aside, say ing in relief, “Yes, it worked. They ‘ve m anaged to get the data.”

A schem atic started to form above the console, next to the real-tim e view of the scout ship. It rotated, offering alternate views, but there wasn’t m uch detail, j ust blots and blurs of energy , dark spaces apparently indicating large com partm ents.

Rodney nodded. “Good, good. We’re going to want to beam it right here.” He pointed to a spot on the schem atic, one of the brightest red blots. “Right where all these highoutput energy signatures are, the drive, shield generators, and weapons.”

Kethel looked at the Queen, and she gave him a nod. “Beam the device.”

With every body else, John looked at the bom b where it sat near the j um per, but he kept one ey e on Trishen. All the Eidolon had been careful to keep a non-threatening distance, but she was standing only a few paces away, close enough for easy
conversation. If the Eidolon were going to screw them and send them instead of the explosive to the Wraith, it would be now. And if that happened, John intended to take Trishen with them .

A haze of light sparkled around the bom b, and it vanished with an audible pop. Okay, still not screwed, John thought, the tension in his shoulders relaxing j ust a little. He heard Tey la exhale in relief, and saw Ronon shift his stance slightly ; he hadn’t been the only one tensing for a last-second double cross.

“Give it a m inute,” Rodney m uttered, his gaze on the overlapping im ages of the Wraith ship.

Kethel put a hand on his headset, apparently listening to a com m unication from the ship that had done the beam ing. “Confirm ed arrival.” He pointed at the schem atic of the scout ship. “It should be in what we believe to be the m ain engine com partm ent.”

“Perfect.” Rodney pulled som ething the size of a radio base-unit out of his vest pocket. It looked like it had started life as som e other kind of handheld control device, but had recently undergone som e m aj or alterations. There was a sm all readout screen with Ancient characters and a couple of touchpads. “Signal is good. And here we go.” Rodney pressed a touchpad.

John looked at the im age of the scout ship. It didn’t appear to be exploding. He had a bad feeling about this.

“No,” Rodney said under his breath. “No, no, no.” He pressed the touchpad again. John looked at the detonator, saw that the Ancient characters were now blinking an error code. Rodney said through gritted teeth, “Nothing’s happening.”

“What do y ou m ean `nothing’s happening?”’ John dem anded. “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Mouth twisted with angry despair, Rodney popped the cover off, studied the weird com bination of Ancient and Earth technology inside, and shook his head. “It should be working, but it isn’t. If there’s som e sort of interference with the signal-I can try to boost it-” He turned away , heading for another em pty console, ignoring the Eidolon who scram bled out of his way .

Kethel looked from the schem atic to his section of the control board, his face set in a frustrated snarl. “It m ay have been the transport beam . If our coordinates were off-”

John knew they didn’t have tim e for a post-m ortem on why the frigging rem ote detonator wouldn’t work. “In a m inute, they ‘re going to find it-” They were going to find it, open fire on the Eidolon ships, then break into the installation. John turned to Kethel. “Can y ou beam us over there, to the corridor where y ou beam ed the bom b?”

Kethel stared. “To set it off directly ?” He shook his head, looking at the screen again. “It’s too dangerous for living beings. If our coordinates were off enough that the device was beam ed inside a bulkhead-”

Fine, John got why that was a bad idea. “What about here?” He pointed to another m ore open area, only one level up from the bom b.

“The bridge?” Kethel asked, astonished and sounding like he thought John was com pletely crazy . “But-”

“Sure, there’s probably only a couple of them in there right now.” John thought it was a great plan. Okay , not a great plan, but a plan. The only plan he could think of.

“I agree,” Tey la said, looking urgently from Kethel to the Queen. “It is our only choice.”

Ronon j ust shrugged. “Sounds good to m e.”

John added, “Look, y ou beam ing us in there to take them on is the last thing they ‘ll expect.” He did a quick inventory of his tac vest, m aking sure he had am m o and grenades. Tey la was doing the sam e. Ronon j ust checked the set of his knife in its scabbard.

“He’s correct.” The Queen’s gaze was fixed on the im age of the scout ship. “This m ust be done.”

Kethel looked at the screen again. He shook his head slightly , as if he m eant to refuse. Then he said, “Once on their bridge, I m ight be able to activate their selfdestruct.”

John stared at him . “Wait, y ou, what?”

Edane, the y ounger Eidolon that kept wanting to talk to them , stepped forward. “I’ll go too.” He looked around at the few rem aining Eidolon. “Surely I’m not the only one.

Rodney cam e back from the console with the detonator, his expression caught between horror and incredulity . “This is insane, we can’t possibly get through the ship to the bom b. And how are we getting back?” he dem anded.

“You’re not going,” John told him . “You need to stay here to deal with the dam n Mirror.” If they didn’t succeed, the scout ship m ight be too occupied with shooting at the installation and the Eidolon ships to worry about the Mirror or the cloaked j um per, and Rodney m ight still have a chance to get him self, Radek, and Miko back hom e. But Rodney did have a point. John ey ed Kethel. “How are we getting back?”

Trishen had been hurriedly digging into one of the equipm ent cases stacked up to be transported out, and now cam e back with a handful of little silver buttons, each set with a flat green stone. “We have em ergency transponders. Sim ply touch this
cry stal and it will signal the ship to beam y ou back here.” She looked at the im age of the scout ship, adding worriedly , “As long as their shield rem ains down, these should work.”

Fam ous last words, John thought. He j ust said, “So let’s go.”

With a few m om ents of scram bling, they were ready. Kethel was bringing two other y oung m ale Eidolon, Edane and Caras; John wasn’t happy about it, but Kethel m ight be able to activate the ship’s self-destruct and render the bom b unnecessary,
so he was willing to put up with it. Kethel also had a handheld scanning device that would help them locate the engine com partm ents where the bom b had been sent, j ust in case the self-destruct proved elusive. The Eidolon also had weapons, long elegant
silver-gray devices about the size of sawed-off shotguns.

“Those are stunners?” Tey la asked Kethel. John had assum ed they were j ust a different m odel of the Wraith version.

“No.” Kethel glanced at her, distracted. “They are energy weapons, the blast is fatal. Stunners are forbidden.”

Tey la lifted her brows, obviously not getting it any m ore than John did. So shooting to kill is fine, stunning and asking questions later is forbidden, he thought. John j ust said, “Okay . That’s handy .”

Rodney cam e back to shove the detonator into John’s vest pocket, say ing, “I tried boosting the signal, still nothing. Hopefully y ou won’t need this. And if y ou do need it, the dam n thing probably won’t work, but there it is.”

“Great. Wait for us in the j um per,” John told him , taking the detonator out of that pocket and putting it in a m ore convenient one.

Rodney shook his head im patiently . “I need to m onitor the array -”

John glared. He didn’t want Rodney out here alone, distracted with the Mirror, with no one to watch his back. “Rodney , j um per, now.”

Rodney glared back, unim pressed. “Yes, because I respond so well to that sort of thing. What are y ou going to do, threaten to shoot m e in the foot?”

John j ust stared at him , narrowing his ey es. “You want to stay out here alone with the folks who look like Wraith?”

Rodney looked around, apparently realizing it was j ust going to be him , the Queen, and the scatter of other Eidolon left in the room . “All right, fine,” he snapped, and started toward the j um per.

John told Kethel, “We’re ready .” Kethel signaled to the Eidolon who had taken his place at the control console. White light flashed.

Abruptly another room shim m ered into existence around them , John’s ears popping at the sudden transition to a pressurized space.

They were in a large dim ly -lit cham ber with dark walls of a rubbery black substance. There was a raised center dais, with three consoles each supported by weirdly organic-looking stalks. John spun around, opening fire on two surprised Wraith
standing in front of a large irregularly -shaped viewport. Ronon and Tey la fired at the sam e tim e, and both Wraith j erked and twitched under the com bined onslaught. They dropped, sprawling on the deck.

John pivoted, checking the room , as Ronon m oved around the dais to watch the door. Tey la finished her own survey of the cham ber, say ing, “We are clear.”

John pulled the detonator control out of his vest. “Let’s see if this is going to be easy .” He hit the touchpad. The readout did the sam e thing that it had before, blinking the error code. And he hadn’t heard any thing, either. “Any body hear an explosion?”

he asked, hoping against hope.

“Nothing,” Tey la said with a grim ace. Ronon and the Eidolon shook their heads.

Kethel was already stepping up onto the dais, exam ining the consoles. “I’ll look for a self-destruct. Perhaps som ething onboard is still interfering with the detonation signal.” Edane and Caras were warily looking around the control area.

John shoved the detonator back in his pocket and pulled out the life signs detector. There were blips m oving on the level im m ediately below, but none com ing toward them . The Wraith probably didn’t realize any thing had been beam ed aboard y et,
and were still waiting for the Eidolon. That wasn’t going to last long.

Looking around, Caras asked, “What is that sm ell?” John had barely noticed it; the air had that sour taint com m on to every Wraith ship John had been in, the sick stench of death and rot.

Ronon sneered. “Their supplies.”

Caras stared at him , uncom prehending, and Ronon didn’t elaborate.

Kethel frowned down at the console, his hands flat against the surface. From his expression, the news wasn’t good. John knew the Wraith sy stem s weren’t any thing like the Ancients’ or what he had seen of the Eidolon’s. The interfaces weren’t
touchpads or buttons, but thin m em branes that the Wraith apparently m anipulated by passing their hands over them . John asked, “Any luck?”

Kethel shook his head, wiping his hands off on his coat, as if disgusted by the contact. “It’s not responding to m e. If I had tim e-”

The blips John could see were starting to m ove rapidly. “No tim e, we’ve got to get down there.” He headed for the door, checked the detector again, and hit the slim y control-thing on the wall. The door m em brane folded open, revealing a long
curving corridor, the dark ceiling arching overhead, draped with shrouds and strands of web. As Tey la led the others out, John hung back with Ronon, pulling out a fragm entation grenade. When the others were all out in the corridor, he gave Ronon a nod
and they both tossed their grenades onto the dais, Ronon landing his directly atop one of the consoles. John hit the control, closing the hatch. The m uted thum p from inside didn’t sound destructive enough, and he asked Kethel, “Can y ou j am this door?”

“Yes.” Kethel pulled out a tool that looked like a scalpel, slit open the bulbous control panel, and stuck his hand into it, m anipulating the slim y things inside.

John figured that would slow the Wraith down, but the ship had to have alternate controls for the shields, and they had to m ove fast. He looked deliberately at the Eidolon, say ing, “Any tim e y ou want out of here, if y ou get separated, cornered, whatever, j ust hit y our transponder. If y ou fall behind, we’re not going to have tim e to com e back for y ou.”

Kethel looked at Edane and Caras, giving them a sharp nod to reinforce the order. Life signs detector braced over the P-90, John headed down the corridor.

They found the first cocooned body only a few paces along, cram m ed back into a cubby in the wall. John glanced at it only long enough to see it was dead, withered to a husk, with the gaping wound of the feeding m ark in its chest.

“What is that?” Edane asked, in what sounded like horrified fascination. He tried to stop, but Kethel took his arm and pulled him into m otion again.

“What do y ou think it is?” Ronon countered.

John really didn’t want to get into this j ust now. He said, “Just keep m oving.” They passed two m ore desiccated bodies webbed to the wall, then a dozen m ore, all dead. More passages led off the first corridor, dim and web-draped. Kethel guided them with his scanner, finding a path toward the big blot of energy signatures where the ship’s drive was located. John caught som e blips off the detector, but m ost of the Wraith seem ed to be down below. His headset cam e on and Rodney ‘s voice
suddenly dem anded, “Can y ou hear m e?”

John flinched, startled. “Yes, dam m it.”

“I had to boost the gain before I could get through,” Rodney explained im patiently . “Did y ou try the detonator again? The signal m ight have-”

“Tried it, didn’t work. Are y ou in the j um per?”

There was a hesitation. “I’m near the j um per.”

John swore. “Rodney -Later.” John signed off, his ey es on the life signs detector. Four strong blips, com ing up toward them from the lower level, m oving rapidly. That’s an elevator He held up a fist to signal the others to stop, ignoring the slight scuffle behind him as the Eidolon belatedly realized what that m eant. Where the hell is Hah, got y ou. The corridor had widened a little and there was a m em brane stretched across an indentation in the bulkhead.

Ronon stepped forward with John as Tey la covered the corridor. The m em brane slid open, and four m ore surprised Wraith died in the elevator doorway. With a wary glance at the bodies, Kethel stepped forward. “The drive area is one level
below.”

Tey la told him , “We cannot take this elevator, they could shut it down and trap us.”

John tried the detonator, j ust for luck, and got the error code again. Son of a bitch. He shoved it back in his pocket and checked the life signs detector. As he expected, the blips on this level were m oving their way . The level below, at least in this area, still looked clear. “We need another way down, now.”

Kethel nodded, ey es on his scanner. “I’m reading a m aintenance passage…this way .”

They found it around the corner, in another intersection of passages. It was a ribbed shaft like som ething’s gullet, with m ultiple ladder rungs down the sides, leading down into a cham ber lit with dim red light. John exchanged a wince with Tey la and
grabbed for the first rung.

Halfway down, Rodney ‘s voice burst into John’s headset again, alm ost m aking him lose his grip on the slick m aterial of the ladder. “The Queen say s the Wraith know y ou’re there.”

“We know they know that, Rodney,” John said through gritted teeth. The rungs had been spaced for adult m ale Wraith only, and Tey la and the two y ounger Eidolon were m oving slowly, having to awkwardly stretch to reach them . Kethel slowed
down, waiting for Edane and Caras, and John waited for Tey la, m otioning Ronon to go ahead. “Rodney , what the hell are y ou-”

Rodney said in annoy ance, “I’m entering the last codes for a pulse array adj ustm ent. The detachm ent of the singularity started to accelerate, but this should-Oh, oh, that’s… unusual. Hold on a m inute.”

Ronon clim bed around John, then swung down, dropping to the bottom of the shaft and landing in a crouch. As the others caught up, John clim bed down the rest of the way, rem em bering at the last m om ent not to drop the last few feet; his knee j ust
wouldn’t take it right now.

The shaft opened into a wider corridor that curved out of sight j ust past a couple of m em brane-sealed hatchway s. John pulled out the life signs detector.

Kethel checked his scanner, nodding toward the first hatchway . “It should be there-”

That was about the m om ent John’s screen registered a dozen or m ore blips headed straight for them . He y elled a warning, ducking across the corridor and hitting the control to open the hatch. Ronon and Tey la m oved instantly, taking cover with

John in the hatchway , but the Eidolon were slow to react.

Kethel and Edane reached the hatchway j ust as the first group of drones burst around the corner, but Caras was still in the m iddle of the corridor. He took a stun blast in the face, dropping his own weapon before falling to the ground in a lim p
sprawl. Edane ran for him , as John and the others fired on the drones, driving them back.

Edane reached Caras, stooping to touch the transponder. The Eidolon’s body vanished in a flash of blue-white light. More drones poured into the corridor, and in a m om ent Edane would be hit, with no one to trigger his transponder. John y elled, “Go,
go! Get out of there!”

Edane looked at the drones, wide-ey ed. Then he touched his transponder and vanished.

John and Tey la kept up steady bursts of fire, with Ronon using his energy gun, and the first few drones dropped. The others retreated back around the corner, a few leaning out to take shots. John had tim e to notice the m em brane sealing the hatch
still hadn’t opened. “What the hell is-” John reached around, hitting the door control again, a narrow m iss from a stun blast m aking his fingers go num b for an instant. “It’s locked! Kethel-”

Kethel stepped past him , slashed open the control surface, and shoved his hand inside. John leaned out to cover him .

Abruptly the door m em brane folded open. As Tey la turned to cover the room inside, a stun blast hit Kethel in the side. John m ade an instinctive grab for him but Kethel staggered backward, away from the hatchway , and fell, sprawling on the deck.

John stepped back into cover as m ore stun blasts hit the wall near him . Ronon leaned out, took several shots, and the blasts abruptly stopped. John could see Kethel wasn’t unconscious, his ey es were open, but his hands were twitching helplessly. The

Eidolon couldn’t lift his arm to reach the transponder on his shoulder.

John swore and ducked out into the corridor, leaning over Kethel. He grabbed the scanner where it had fallen on the deck, tossing it back to Ronon. Then he pushed the transponder on Kethel’s shoulder. It pulsed blue, and John flinched back as

Kethel’s body dissolved in a sudden blue-white flash.

As he started to stand, a drone barreled around the corner, alm ost on top of him . It lunged for him and John fell backward, firing the P-90 alm ost point blank. Then a blast from Ronon’s energy gun took the drone in the face, and Ronon grabbed

John’s arm , y anking him back through the hatchway .

Tey la hit the door control, but j ust as the m em brane was folding down, another drone reached the hatchway, leaning down to fire his stunner under it. Ronon caught a burst in the leg and staggered, dropping his gun. He went to one knee, reeling.

John lunged for Ronon’s fallen gun, grabbed it and fired at the door control. The burst of energy fused the organic com ponents j ust as the m em brane sealed. The burned area steam ed, releasing a sickening sm ell like fried m eat.

Wincing at the odor, John said, “I hope that worked.” He turned to Ronon. “You okay ?” Ronon didn’t look okay. He was try ing to stand, but one arm hung lim ply and he struggled to m ove his leg; he looked like he was having a stroke. Tey la grabbed his arm , j ust m anaging to keep him upright. “How m any hits did he take?” John asked incredulously .

“At least two,” Tey la said with a sy m pathetic wince. Ronon tried to lurch to his feet and alm ost fell over. She set her j aw and held onto him . “Send him back?”

John nodded. “Do it.”

Ronon growled an incoherent protest, glaring at them , but Tey la let go of his arm and pressed his transponder. She stepped away as Ronon disappeared in the flash. John key ed his radio, “Rodney , y ou got Ronon?”

“What? Hold it, wait-Yes, y es, he’s here!” There was a slurred grum bling protest in the background. Rodney cam e back on, sounding sour, “He’s not happy about it, but he’s fine.”

“Get him to the j um per.” John signed off as he looked around. The dim ly lit cham ber was packed with pulsing m em branes and bizarre organic shapes that looked like the internal organs of som ething huge, all shrouded with web. He could hear
thum ping and a high-power hum from j ust outside the closed m em brane, a pointed rem inder that they didn’t have m uch tim e before the Wraith cut their way in here.

Tey la pivoted, flashing her P-90’s light into the dark corners, her face grim . “I do not see it. Will Kethel’s scanner work for us?”

“Good question.” John studied the little device, brow furrowed. The screen showed the sam e schem atic that Kethel had used to pick a spot for the dam n bom b, and according to it, these were the coordinates it had been beam ed to. John turned,
survey ing the cham ber again. “It’s working, and it looks like we’re in the right spot, but where the hell is-” Then his ey es fell on a set of sm all fam iliar-looking tentacles sticking out of the bulkhead. They were near one of the pulsing organ-things, a foot or

so above the deck. The energy drones. Oh, crap. The bom b was m elded to the organic m aterial of the ship’s wall. “That can’t be good.”

Tey la followed his gaze, shocked. “Kethel was right, it was beam ed into a wall.” She shook her head, her brow creased. “Can it still work like that?” She threw a look back at the door m em brane; a glowing spot was form ing in the center, letting off steam and sm oke as the Wraith outside burned their way through. “There is no tim e for any thing else.”

There was only one way to find out. “Get ready to hit y our transponder.” Just for luck, John closed his ey es, concentrating the way he did in the puddlej um per or the weapons chair, thinking about the energy drones, thinking about launching, targeting, im pact. He pressed the detonator touchpad again.

There was a m uted thum p. John opened his ey es to see the heavy bulkhead around the bom b bulged out, like it was a m isshapen helium balloon. He exchanged a desperate look with Tey la. “Okay , that’s-”

Across the room , the door m em brane exploded outward, sending them staggering back, showering the room with slim y debris. John ducked, raking the doorway with a burst of fire from the P-90, driving back the first two drones to step inside.

Tey la opened fire an instant later, shouting, “We m ust go! It is not going to-”

Suddenly the distended bulkhead started to glow white, a high power whine filling the cham ber. That did it, John thought. He y elled, “Go, go now!”

Two drones forced their way through the shattered door m em brane, j ust as Tey la hit her transponder. She vanished and John pressed the cry stal in his. The drones lifted their stunners, then the cham ber disappeared in a haze of white light.

CHAPTER TWELVE
ohn sat down hard, but the floor he landed on was the floor of the m aintenance bay in the installation. The abrupt change to brighter light and warm clean air was a shock. Next to him , Tey la was sprawled on the floor, j ust pushing herself
upright.

Kethel and Caras were ly ing on the floor nearby, a couple of older Eidolon checking them out with som e sort of m edical scanner. John didn’t see Edane, but nobody was acting worried. There weren’t m any Eidolo1n left in the room any m ore;

Edane m ight have been sent away to evacuate already . Across the room , the Queen and the others were still gathered around the console, watching the realtim e sensor im age of the scout ship.

Rodney hurried over from the j um per, crouching down beside John. He dem anded, “Did it work? We need to get out of here as soon as possible.”

Tey la pushed her hair back, starting to say , “It looked as if-”

At the console, one of the Eidolon said, “I’m reading an energy surge-

Then lines of red and black crept through and across the ship’s im age, growing out from the center. John heard a reverberating roar from outside, and the glowing hologram im age tipped sideway s, drifting downward, the angle changing as the
sensors followed it down. John slum ped in relief. “It worked.”

“That was… uncom fortably close,” Tey la said ruefully , and drew her fingers through her hair, com bing out a handful of door m em brane with a disgusted expression.

“That’s our specialty ,” John told her. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he had tim e to notice j ust how m uch he hurt. Knee, side, the occasional shooting pain down his back. And he had a big splat of door m em brane goo on his shirt.

“Seriously , we have to m ove,” Rodney persisted. “The Mirror’s accretion surface is building up to a m aj or discharge and from m y readings, it’ll be the last one before the singularity collapses.”

“Yeah, we’re leaving now.” John looked back at the j um per. Ronon was sprawled on the open ram p, Miko anxiously patting his hand. “How’s Ronon?”

Rodney snorted, m aking a throw-away gesture. “He’s fine, he’s j ust sulking because he can barely m ove.”

Then John saw the Queen com ing toward them , her dark skirts sweeping the floor. Before John could try flailing to his feet, Rodney and Tey la got a grip under his arm s and they all stood up together. The Queen stopped a few paces away , and said,

“The Wraith ship is com pletely disabled. We thank y ou.”

“You’re welcom e.” John watched her warily . They had fulfilled their part of the bargain, and if the Eidolon wanted to screw them over, now would be the tim e. But the Queen j ust said, “The singularity is close to detaching, so we m ust retreat to our ships now. The others have already evacuated.” She paused, as if weighing what to say , and it was odd to see her show even this m uch uncertainty . “If the Mirror does not function as expected-”

“It’ll work,” John said, because he didn’t want to think about the alternative. Not until he had to.

The Queen ey ed him , apparently deciding not to argue with the crazy hum an. She said, “Good luck.”

John backed away with Rodney and Tey la as the blue-white transport beam outlined the Eidolon’s bodies. In another instant the whole group vanished. He let his breath out in relief, shoving a hand through his hair. “Right. Rodney, what do we need
to do?”

Rodney bolted for the stairs that led up to the Mirror control platform . “I need to m ake a last adj ustm ent, then we go.” He waved a distracted hand overhead. “The ceiling hatch will open autom atically for the j um per, so that’s not a problem .”

John told Tey la, “I’ll stay with him .”

Tey la nodded and started for the j um per. “I will get Ronon inside and m ake sure the others are strapped in.”

John followed Rodney up the stairs to the platform , keeping him self going m ostly by force of will. He reached the platform to see Rodney at the big console, carefully m anipulating a set of touchpad controls. Then he saw the m iniature Mirror in
the center.

He forgot his exhaustion, and lim ped forward for a closer look, circling around the console. From what this was showing him , the Mirror was an angry swirling cloud, throwing off j agged sparks of light. And he was going to take the j um per into it
and hope it got them back hom e. Rodney glanced up and saw his expression. His m outh twisted in grim agreem ent, he said, “We’ve only got one shot at this.”

“Yeah, well.” John hadn’t been expecting any thing better.

John heard footsteps and looked at the stairs, expecting to see Tey la. But the figure standing at the top of the steps was Edane. The Eidolon halted, one hand on the railing, staring blankly at them . “I thought y ou guy s were gone,” John said, puzzled, though m ay be the Queen had sent him back for som e reason.

Edane said, “I stay ed behind to help.”

Occupied with the Mirror, Rodney barely glanced up. “I don’t need help. After this last sequence engages, we’ll be set to go.”

Edane was looking at John, his alien ey es unreadable. That was when John knew why he was here.

John j erked the P-90 up but Edane threw him self across the sm all platform , slapping the weapon aside and slam m ing John backward into the floor. John caught Edane’s arm before his hand could hit his chest, held it off inches away from him , the

P-90 trapped between their bodies.

The bizarre thing was that Edane still didn’t look that m uch like a Wraith. His features were still sm ooth and hum an, and his y ellow ey es intent, lost in concentration; he was focused on his task and com pletely oblivious to the fact that John was pinned under him and fighting for his life.

Past Edane’s shoulder John caught a glim pse of Rodney scram bling up, dragging out his sidearm and taking aim . Take the shot, Rodney, he thought, teeth gritted, all his strength concentrated on holding Edane back. He knew to his bones that he
would rather take a stray bullet than be fed on.

Then Edane twisted, abruptly pulling away from John to slam the pistol out of Rodney ‘s hand. It went off, fly ing across the platform . Rodney stum bled sideway s, knocked off balance, and John tried to wrestle the P-90 up again. Edane grabbed it,
tore it off the strap, and backhanded John. John’s head bounced off the floor. Stunned for an instant, he saw Edane leaning over him .

Then som ebody fired a 9m m , em pty ing the clip.

Dazed, John watched Edane stagger sideway s and fall.

Trishen was standing beside the Mirror console. She set Rodney ‘s pistol down on the edge with a shaking hand. She said, “We realized he was m issing. Mother sent m e back to find him .”

Rodney dropped to his knees beside John, patting his shoulder anxiously . “You said y ou didn’t feed on sentient beings!” he shouted at Trishen, furious and afraid. “What the hell was that?”

She shook her head. “I lied to y ou. That was the only lie.”

John lifted a hand to his j aw. That really hurt. He m anaged to say , “Yeah, we figured that out.”

John heard som eone charging up the stairs, saw Tey la j erk to a sudden halt at the top, P-90 ready . John lifted a hand, signaling her not to fire. She nodded an acknowledgem ent, ey es wide as she took in the scene.

Trishen glanced back at Tey la and said, “It isn’t-We aren’t like the Wraith. We don’t need the life force of sentient beings, but we can take it, and som e are tem pted. Som e ofus go all our lives without ever feeling that tem ptation, others feel it and resist. But there are alway s a few who give in.” She looked at Edane’s body sprawled on the platform , and pressed a hand to her m outh. After a m om ent she continued, “They try to resist, but eventually they give way, and they take a life. A sibling, a friend, a child. It’s terrible, and we punish them as the crim inals they are.”

“You have to kill them ,” Rodney said, sounding shellshocked. And now John understood what Kethel had said, about stun-weapons being forbidden. Of course they ‘re forbidden. If y ou wanted to feed on som eone, y ou needed him im m obile but
conscious, not dead. Rodney ‘s throat worked and he shook his head. “Of course, y ou have to kill them .”

Trishen nodded. “Yes. Once one of us succum bs, there is no turning back. Edane would have been dangerous to every one he encountered.” She m ade a helpless gesture. “We have tried to discover why, to stop it, but there’s no answer. We can’t tell if it’s genetic, and there are no other signs of insanity or crim inal acts. When we find places left behind by the Creators, that is the answer we desperately search for.” She looked up, and this tim e John had no trouble reading the bleak m isery in her expression. “My m other believes that the Creators were dy ing from the plague when they gave us life, and that they didn’t survive long enough to finish what they had started. Som e of the others here wanted to ask y our assistance, thought that perhaps y ou could help us.”

Rodney nodded, ey eing her. “Then we told y ou that we didn’t know very m uch about the Wraith.”

“Yes. And we knew the Creators didn’t begin work on our race until long after they cam e here, so the chances of our solution even existing in y our reality seem ed sm all. My m other thought it safer for all of us if y ou left as soon as possible, then we realized the singularity was detaching and that there was no other choice. But we have the bodies of the Wraith killed inside the com plex for our doctors to exam ine, and perhaps that will help us.”

Watching her with a furrowed brow, looking torn between sy m pathy and disgust, Tey la said, “You were not afraid of us. You were afraid of what y ou m ight do to us.

Trishen turned toward her. “I was afraid of y ou because I knew y ou had every reason to kill m e. The longer I was around y ou, there was som ething… strangely com pelling. I was afraid that there would be those here who, though they weren’t
tem pted by m em bers of their own species, would be tem pted by y ou.”

John grabbed Rodney ‘s arm , dragged him self into a sitting position. He said harshly , “We’ve got to go.”

Trishen nodded, her face set in what m ight have been regret. “I’m sorry . I hope…that y ou will be safe.” She touched her transponder and an instant later the bluewhite light took her.

Tey la cam e forward hurriedly . “Are y ou all right?”

“Yeah, j ust help m e up.” John held back a y elp as they hauled him upright. Once there, he thought he was fine; it was j ust that transition from sprawled on the floor to standing that he was having trouble with.

“Well, that was fun,” Rodney said, grim ly determ ined, picking up his side arm from where Trishen had left it and holstering it again. “Now let’s go give the giant Quantum Mirror another shot at us, shall we?”

They got down to the j um per, and while John m anaged to fold him self into the pilot seat, Rodney secured the ram p. Rodney cam e forward to the shotgun seat to strap him self in, while Tey la stay ed in the back. Powering up the board, John heard
her quietly telling Miko and Ronon what had happened. Radek was only sem i-conscious, strapped in on the bench with a couple of pillows from the sleeping bags to help pad him .

As they lifted off the bay floor, the ceiling hatch started to open, the triangular partitions sliding out of the way, letting in wan day light and a strong breeze that carried dust all through the em pty cham ber. His voice tight with anxiety, Rodney said,

“There’s a chance of a strong concussion wave when we hit the accretion surface. Not hit. Pass through. I m eant pass through the accretion surface.”

John stared at him . “Right.” He lifted the j um per up through the hatch.

As soon as they cleared the roof, the j um per registered a strong pull forward. Down on the platform , past the far side of the Mirror’s fram e, the Wraith scout ship was in pieces, sm oke swirling up from it. But the lighter dart wreckage was stirring,
lifting up as if pulled by a tractor beam . “Gravity well?” John asked.

“Yes.” Rodney studied the platform , ey es wide. “It’s going to pull som e of this wreckage in. And us too.”

“Here we go,” John said, and directed the j um per straight for the Mirror.

The silver surface grew larger and larger in the port until there was nothing else. Then every thing went black.

Carson felt he was half-m ad from waiting. The Daedalus had been scanning the sy stem for hours now, with no result. He couldn’t fault their efforts; Herm iod and Dr. Novak had com e up to the bridge to assist, and the little Asgard was at one of the
consoles now, finetuning the sensors to better search for the j um per.

“It doesn’t look good, Doc,” Lorne said. He leaned on the bulkhead, watching the activity at the forward section of the bridge, his face set with concern. “If they had to land som ewhere on this m oon, they would have com e out by now.”

Carson knew Lorne was try ing to prepare him for the worst. But Carson knew j ust how m any tim es Rodney, Sheppard, and Tey la had survived the worst, and they had som e good people with them . “Then it’s either the Wraith or the Quantum

Mirror, Maj or.” Both possibilities were fairly terrible. He folded his arm s, shaking his head. “I’d rather it was the Mirror. At least then we’d have a chance of finding them .”

Lorne frowned. “They wouldn’t have gone into that thing voluntarily . McKay knows j ust how dangerous it is.” He threw an uncertain look at Carson. “Would they ?”

Carson had to adm it, “No, I don’t think so either, lad. Not voluntarily .”

An alarm went off som ewhere forward. Carson saw Caldwell stride over to look at Herm iod’s screen. He decided to hell with patience. He hurried forward, dem anding, “What is it?”

Caldwell glanced up from the screen to say , “The Mirror’s apparently activated. It’s spitting out Wraith darts, and pieces of a ship.”

“A ship?” Carson looked from Lorne to Caldwell, wishing the m an would j ust say what he m eant. “Is it-

Caldwell clarified, “A Wraith ship, Doctor. We can’t tell what class y et.”

“Colonel!” Novak called from her console. She flailed excitedly . “I’m picking up an energy signature from Ancient technology . I’m not sure if it’s a cloaked puddlej um per, it doesn’t quite m atch the pattern-”

Herm iod interrupted in his dry laconic voice, “It is a gate ship signature, possibly altered to avoid interfering with the Mirror’s destabilized quantum field.”

“It’s them ,” Carson said. It had to be them .

“Open a channel.” Caldwell sat down in the com m and chair.

“Oh, this isn’t good,” Novak m uttered. “Sir, the Quantum Mirror-”

“The singularity is detaching from the Mirror’s m atrix and collapsing,” Herm iod overrode her. “It will close, destroy ing the Mirror’s phy sical structure, and causing a m assive disruption to the area around it.”

Caldwell shifted im patiently , leaning forward. “Can y ou raise the j um per?”

At the forward control board, Maj or Mey ers glanced up, her brow furrowed in concentration. “No, sir, it’s not responding. And it’s j ust heading straight up from the surface. It could be on autom atic pilot.”

Caldwell grim aced. “Life signs?”

“There’s too m uch interference from the Mirror, sir,” Lieutenant Hawkins answered him .

“They m ust be unconscious, that’s why they aren’t answering the com m ,” Carson said. He wasn’t sure how m uch Caldwell knew about the puddlej um pers’ ATA interface. “The j um per wouldn’t still be fly ing if there wasn’t som eone with the Ancient gene alive inside it.”

“He’s right, Colonel,” Maj or Lorne added quickly . “The j um pers only have a lim ited unm anned autopilot function, and that’s only for dropping out of the Atlantis j um per bay and going through the gate. If it’s under power and m aintaining a heading, it’s got a gene carrier pilot, whether he’s conscious or not.”

Herm iod’s voice grated, “The singularity is detaching now. It will cause a gravitational well to form tem porarily over the area. The gate ship is not powerful enough to pull free. If y ou intend to retrieve it-”

Caldwell sat back in his chair. “Full power, take us down into tractor range.”

The starfield wheeled as the Daedalus dove down toward the m oon’s surface. Though the deck felt rock steady under his feet, Carson’s stom ach did a psy chosom atic dip any way .

“We’re nearly in range.” Captain Kleinm ann, on the other forward console, m ade som e careful adj ustm ents to his controls.

The ship started to shake. “The gravity well is form ing,” Herm iod inform ed them , probably unnecessarily .

Carson couldn’t see a dam n thing through the port. He stepped forward, looking at the screens, but it was all j ust blips.

Hawkins said urgently , “Sir, we have a hiveship on longrange sensors, j ust entering the sy stem .”

Carson’s stom ach clenched but Caldwell j ust m uttered dry ly , “Of course we do.”

“We’ve got it!” Novak called, “We’ve got the j um per, sir.

“Pull up, bring it into the bay , and get us out of here,” Caldwell said, watching the screen with narrowed ey es. “It looks like the Mirror isn’t going to be a problem any „ m ore.

The screen was display ing a sensor schem atic of the giant structure around the Mirror. The collapsing singu larity had taken a good portion of the ground around it when it had vanished. The rem aining structure was slowly crum bling into the crater
it had left behind. Carson didn’t stay to watch further; he and Lorne hurried to the elevator, m aking for the F-302 bay .

John cam e to feeling like som eone had punched him in the head. A lot. “Not again,” he m uttered. He m anaged to get his ey es open. The HUD was fuzzy and flashing error codes, but it was the view through the j um per’s port that m ade him grip the arm rests, the sudden j olt of adrenaline clearing his head. He wasn’t looking at a starfield, but a set of enorm ous ship bay doors that were j ust starting to slide open. “What the hell-?”

“Giant Quantum Mirror of death,” Rodney groaned from the co-pilot’s seat. He was leaning forward on the control board, his head pillowed on his arm s. “Does that ring any bells? The concussion wave m ust have knocked us out. If the j um per’s inertial dam peners hadn’t-” Rodney lifted his head, saw what was happening, and froze, gaping. “Oh, y ou m eant `what fresh hell is this?”’

But as the opening grew wider, John spotted the fam iliar racks of F-302s. They weren’t being tractored into an alien spaceship, this was a rescue. “It’s the Daedalus,” he said in relief He tried to twist around in his seat, gritted his teeth as pain stabbed through his m idsection. He fum bled at the straps, calling, “Tey la, Ronon, y ou guy s okay back there?”

Sounding shaky , Tey la’s voice answered, “I believe …ow.”

John m anaged to get him self out of the chair and stagger into the back cabin. Every one was stirring, except for Zelenka, who hung lim ply against the straps. John lim ped over to him and felt his pulse. It was there, and he seem ed to be breathing
norm ally . “Is he all right?” Tey la asked, pushing unsteadily to her feet. Ronon was gripping the b1ench seat for support, still m oving sluggishly from the stun blasts. Miko was fum bling to unbuckle her safety straps, watching Zelenka anxiously .

“He’s alive,” John told her. Rodney , standing in the cabin doorway , swore in weary relief. Alive, John repeated to him self. They were all alive. And apparently in the right reality . It was j ust starting to dawn on him that they had really m ade it.

By the tim e they got Zelenka unstrapped and laid out on the bench, the j um per had thum ped softly to the deck of the bay and som eone was banging on the hatch. Rodney hit the ram p release and it lowered, letting in the Daedalus’ filtered air. A
group of SFs were warily waiting, aim ing weapons. John understood the necessity , but at the m om ent it j ust exasperated the hell out of him . He said tightly , “Yeah, it’s us. Get a dam n m edical team in here, now.”

Then Maj or Lorne pushed forward, stepping onto the ram p as soon as it touched the deck. He was already on his radio, say ing, “Dr. Beckett, we need a m edical team for Dr. Zelenka im m ediately . Every body else looks pretty beat up, too.”

“And we were actually pretty beat up before the concussion wave,” Rodney added, slum ping down on the bench in relief.

Beckett cam e up the ram p, say ing, “Thank God.” He turned, waving to som eone across the bay . “Get those gurney s over here!”

John ended up debriefing Caldwell from a gurney in the sick bay, in one of the private treatm ent com partm ents with a lot of esoteric unrecognizable m edical equipm ent built into the bulkheads and people in Daedalus m edical uniform s walking in
and out.

John gave Caldwell the brief outline while a nurse scanned him and took blood. With a grim ace, Caldwell said, “This was a close one. If the Wraith had m anaged to return with an Eidolon ship, this war would be over.”

“I don’t think they were there long enough to figure out what the Eidolon could do.” On the way down to sick bay, before Beckett had chased him off, Lorne had m anaged to tell John about the hiveship that had arrived. The Daedalus had entered
hy perspace before it could scan them , and there hadn’t been any thing left of the Mirror installation for it to find. “And none of the Wraith in the other reality m ade it out alive.” John frowned, realizing he didn’t actually know that for certain. The scout ship had been in pieces, and he didn’t think any of the darts had m anaged to get in the air. “Did they ?”

Caldwell shook his head. “Our scans didn’t pick up any thing com ing out of the Mirror but debris and y our j um per.

That was a relief. John winced as the nurse j abbed the needle for the IV into his arm . “I need to send a report to Dr. Weir.” Lorne had said that Atlantis hadn’t gotten any of the transm issions sent to the base m oon after the Wraith had arrived, and John knew Elizabeth would be worried.

“As soon as we’re well clear of the hiveship, we’ll drop out of hy per and I’ll send her an initial report.” With a restrained flash of hum or, Caldwell said, “Your team got lucky , again, Sheppard.”

“Yeah, we usually do,” John told him .

Caldwell left, and John m eant to get up and check on the others. But this was the first tim e he had been able to rest in hours and the IV was taking the edge off the pain; he fell asleep before the nurse finished scanning him . He woke up with som eone
leaning over him , and he alm ost punched Beckett before he realized who it was. Beckett, used to this after m ore than a y ear in Pegasus, j ust dodged like a pro boxer and said, “Easy now.” An unfam iliar doctor in Daedalus coveralls retreated hastily.

Unperturbed, Beckett ran an Ancient handheld m edical scanner over John. “You’ve banged y ourself up this tim e, Colonel.”

“I think I knew that.” John rubbed his ey es. He had cold packs j am m ed into various places and his bad knee was propped up on a couple of pillows. Whatever was in the IV m ust be working, because the pain felt floaty and distant. Not unlike his head. “Where’s m y team ?”

“They ‘re all fine,” Beckett assured him . “Just get som e rest.”

Beckett left with the other doctor, but John still wanted to check on every body. He unhooked the IV bag from the stand and clim bed carefully to his feet, shedding cold packs. Then he had to hold onto the table to steady him self, head swim m ing.

Okay , m ay be getting up wasn’t such a great idea, but he was here now, and he still wanted to see how the others were doing.

The corridor was quiet now, em pty except for Ronon, who was sitting in a chair, holding an IV bag in his lap. He looked like he had been in a bar fight involving chairs and broken bottles. John was pretty certain he looked the sam e. “You okay ?” John asked.

Ronon nodded. John was a little too woozy to wonder why Ronon was out in the hall instead of in a treatm ent room , and j ust checked the next com partm ent.

He found Tey la and Miko there, both curled up asleep on the narrow beds that doubled as exam ination tables. Miko still had her glasses clutched in one hand. Tey la woke enough to squint blearily up at him , asking, “All is well?”

“Yeah. Go back to sleep,” John told her softly , try ing not to wake Miko.

John went out to the corridor again, noticing he now had Ronon trailing along after him . “Where’s Rodney and Zelenka?” John asked him .

“Down there.” Ronon nodded toward the end of the corridor.

John found the right cabin, stepping in to see a very pale Zelenka in the bed, hooked up to IVs and m onitors, with a nurse m aking notes on a tablet. He asked, “How is he?”

“He’s going to be fine,” she told him , giving him an odd look. “Are y ou supposed to be-”

Rodney appeared in the hatchway , a laptop tucked under his arm . He was pale, bruised, and looked like he had a hangover. He frowned. “What are y ou doing up? Carson said not to bother y ou.”

The nurse tried again, “You really need to-”

Zelenka stirred and tugged at the blankets, then he blinked, m anaging to focus on them . His voice hoarse, he asked, “Am I dy ing?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Rodney told him , before John or the nurse could reply .

Zelenka frowned, waking up a little m ore. “Where are we?”

“The Daedalus,” John said. “Every thing’s fine.”

“Oh.” Zelenka squinted up at them uncertainly . “You all look terrible.”

The nurse m ade herding m otions, say ing, “He really needs to rest now. So do all of y ou.”

She was probably right, so John left, prodding Rodney in front of him .

Outside, Lorne was j ust com ing up the corridor. “Colonel-”

“Did Caldwell send a m essage to Elizabeth?” John asked him .

Lorne nodded sharply . “Yes, sir. While we were out of hy per.”

“Great.” John rubbed his ey es, sway ing a little. That was one thing he didn’t have to worry about. May be going back to his treatm ent table and the ice packs wasn’t that bad an idea.

Then Lorne said, “I’m sorry I left y ou there, sir.”

John blinked at him . “Left m e where? Sony , there’s been drugs. What?”

Lorne hesitated, and started to back away . “May be I should do this later.”

“No, it’s fine.” John fought back a y awn. “What were y ou say ing?”

Lorne fixed his gaze on the wall past John. “The Wraith showed up at base cam p, sir, and I evacuated the team s. I should have-”

“That was y our j ob, Lom e.” John was too tired and drugged and in pain to put this any other way but bluntly . “If y ou’d done any thing else, I would’ve been really pissed off.”

Lorne looked relieved. “Thanks, sir, I-”

Then Beckett stepped out of a cabin down the corridor, spotted them , and waved his PDA in exasperation. “Bloody hell, will y ou lot get back in y our beds?”

Rodney turned toward him . “Oh, I’m sorry , I thought this was the sick bay , but obviously it’s the brig.”

While Rodney and Beckett were arguing, John decided ly ing down again wasn’t such a bad idea. He was halfway to his room when he realized why Ronon was following him around. He stopped, looking up at him . “Ronon. You don’t have to guard
us here.”

Ronon looked away , fixing his ey es on som e invisible point down the corridor. “I’ve heard the others say the com m ander of this ship doesn’t like y ou.”

“Uh.” John stared at him . The corridor was currently em pty, but this wasn’t a good place for this conversation, or to explain John and Caldwell’s personal issues. And John wasn’t thrilled to realize there were rum ors about it. “That’s kind of com plicated. But it’s not like-It doesn’t m ean y ou have to stand guard here. It doesn’t work like that, with us.”

Ronon shrugged a little. “I don’t m ind.” He looked down at John finally , and he looked tired and y oung. “Even if y ou don’t think there’s a need.”

“Look, j ust find som ewhere to get som e rest.” This was a little too com plicated for John to deal with right now, and he wasn’t going to stand here and argue with Ronon until som ebody overheard them . “We’ll talk about it later, okay ?”

Ronon shrugged again. Deciding to take that for an assent, John went down the corridor. He found his treatm ent room , and started the lengthy process of clim bing back onto the narrow bed.

Rodney cam e in, dropping into the only chair and opening his laptop. He said briskly , “Carson wants a full debrief on the Eidolon when y ou’re all m ore conscious.”

“We don’t have that m uch inform ation.” John eased down, propping his knee back up on the pillows. Yeah, this was a m uch better place to be. He had forgotten to hang the IV bag on the stand, and it was too m uch trouble to do it now, so he j ust left it on his chest.

Rodney huffed in annoy ance, got up, hung the IV bag back on the hook, then sat down again. “I think he thinks that there’s som e kind of clue there for a weapon against the Wraith.”

“Weapon?” John frowned at the m etal ceiling. “Like what?”

“Som ething chem ical, that stops them from being able to feed.” Rodney m ade a vague gesture, frowning at the laptop’s screen. “I have no idea. I don’t listen to his m edical babble.”

“Yeah, but the Eidolon had been looking for that for y ears,” John pointed out. “Centuries. And their technology was pretty good.”

“Whatever. It’s an area that needs further research any way ,” Rodney said, or som ething like that. John was already falling asleep again.

MARTHA WELLS

Martha Wells is the author of seven fantasy novels, including Wheel of the Infinite, City of Bones, The Elem ent of Fire, and the Nebula-nom inated The Death of the Necrom ancer. Her m ost recent novels are a fantasy trilogy : The Wizard Hunters,

The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods, all currently out in paperback from HarperCollins Eos.

She has had short stories in the m agazines Realm s of Fantasy, Black Gate, Lone Star Stories, and Stargate Magazine, and in the Tsunam i Relief charity anthology Elem ental from Tor Books. She also has essay s in the nonfiction anthologies Farscape

Forever and Mapping the World of Harry Potter from BenBella Books. Her books have been published in eight languages, including French, Spanish, Germ an, Russian, Polish, and Dutch, and her web site is www.m arthawells.com .

Original novels based on the hit TV shows, STARGATE SGI and STARGATE ATLANTIS

AVAILABLE NOW

For m ore inform ation, visit www.stargatenovels.com

STARGATE SG-1 © 1997-2009 MGM Television Entertainm ent Inc. and MGM Global Holdings, Inc. STARGATE SG-1 is a tradem ark of Metro-Goldwy nMay er Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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STARGATE: ATLANTIS is a tradem ark of Metro-Goldwy n-May er Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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SNEA1K PREVIEW

STARG ATE SG I : ROSWELL
by Sonny Whitelaw and Jennifer Fallon
his had to have been McKay ‘s bright idea, Sam decided. Only he would have been so conceited. “I’m going to beam us down well away from the crash site. We have to do every thing possible to m inim ize our im pact on this tim e.”

“Oh, we’re gonna im pact, all right,” Cam y elled back. “In about one hundred and fifty thousand feet!”

“C’m on Jack, snap out of it!” Daniel im plored.

Sam glanced aft. Teal’c was apply ing a pressure bandage to a ragged gash on Vala’s thigh. Her BDUs were stained dark with blood, but it wasn’t enough to have caused her to pass out like that. It m ust have been the cum ulative effort of her own
wounds and dealing with the General’s inj ury . Sam knew from personal experience how draining using a handheld healing device could be. If Teal’c could wake her, Vala m ay y et be able to bring O’Neill around. “How is she?”

“Unresponsive,” Teal’c replied, ty ing off the bandage.

“Com ing up on one hundred thousand feet.” Cam was scram bling to collect additional item s that had floated out of the First Aid kit. Every one of them , even Teal’c, needed m edical attention as soon as possible.

Assum ing they weren’t dead in the next few m inutes, or so.

Sam glanced outside, but the j um per’s spin was still erratic. Lightning bolts and watery sheets fanning out across the windshield told her that they were com ing down in the m iddle of a storm , while data from the HUD confirm ed they were now
over New Mexico, thankfully well clear of any m aj or towns. Abandoning the j um per would m aroon them in this tim e, but they were fast running out of options. She reluctantly turned to the Asgard transport controls and locked onto their signals.

And then a not-so m uted curse alerted her to the fact that the General was com ing around.

“Jack!” Daniel patted him on the cheek none-too gently , adding green gunk to the blood already there. “Listen to m e. You have to think about getting us out of here.”

Glazed ey es half opened. “Where…?”

“Not where, sir. When,” Sam am ended. “You cam e back in tim e to get us but som ething went wrong. I think y ou ran into an Asgard ship.”

“Carter?” O’Neill’s face screwed up. His voice was slurred. “Distinctly recall y ou being against tim e travel.”

“Jack!” Daniel shook the General’s shoulders in frustration. “We don’t have tim e for a discussion. Just get us out of here!”

“Fifty thousand,” Cam called, grabbing Sam ‘s discarded pack and the P-90s. Cam was getting ready bail. He obviously didn’t share Daniel’s optim ism that the General would recover in tim e to save them from crashing.

Cam was wrong, however. The j um per’s flight sy stem s suddenly powered up, the HUD flickered into full color and a rem arkably well-rendered set of im ages appeared. Sundry floating debris dropped to the floor as the inertial dam peners and
artificial gravity both kicked in.

“That’s it, Jack,” Daniel said encouragingly . “You’re doing it.”

“Woulda been a great gam e,” O’Neill m um bled.

“Ten thousand,” Cam announced. “Plus or m inus, but the m inuses are catchin’ up real fast.”

“Yes, y es I’m sure it would have been a wonderful gam e.” The words tum bled out of Daniel’s m outh. “Jack… listen to m e. Can y ou concentrate on getting us into orbit?”

“Eight thousand!” Cam grabbed the back of her seat. “Sam ? It’s tim e to get outta here!”

“Just a m inute. He’s doing it.” Sam scanned the controls, hoping she wasn’t im aging things. She really , really did not want to abandon the j um per.

“We don’t have a m inute!”

O’Neill blinked again and shook his head as if to clear it. “Carter said… gotta go back four hundred y ears, first.”

“Five thousand feet and that ground is com ing up dam ned fast Sam !”

“Or was it three hundred, then forward two hundred?”

From the cargo bay she heard the tim e m achine’s consol hum to life, and som ething rippled over them . Surprised that the General had actually read her report on the j um per’s log and tim e travel capabilities, Sam looked around in wonder at the
stars. “It’s working!”

She barely had tim e to register the relief of the faces of her com panions before another ripple passed over them -and the j um per slam m ed sideway s and began tum bling again, this tim e, end over end.

The inertial dam peners com pensated a m om ent too late, throwing Sam out of the copilot’s seat and into Cam . Bright blue, early m orning sky filled the windscreen before the ground spun into view long enough to tell her that they were now at least
fifty thousand feet above a densely forested landscape. The HUD flicked wildly through a dozen im ages, but O’Neill seem ed coherent enough to straighten out the j um per’s erratic flight path. As they leveled off, Sam glanced up to discover a Ha’tak
plum m eting towards the ground, a fiery tail in its wake.

Sam ‘s head reeled with the im plications. Two tim e j um ps and five seconds earlier it had been the wreckage from an Asgard ship, and the j um per had been less than five thousand feet from im pact. Now they were at fifty thousand feet, looking at a
dam aged Ha’tak?

“We m ust have hit the Ha’tak when we j um ped forward to our tim e!” Cam rem arked unnecessarily .

Ignoring the pain from the dozens of stinging slices down her legs and arm s, Sam disentangled herself from him , grabbed her chair and awkwardly pulled herself upright relative to the Asgard transport device. They were not out of danger, y et.

“Oh, that’s bad,” Daniel declared. “That’s going to upset the Jaffa.”

Although he still appeared to be half-out of it, the General was struggling to bring the j um per under control, but at least the inertial dam peners and gravity were working at m axim um efficiency , giving them a considerably m ore stable ride.

“Like they ‘re not already pissed enough.” Apparently satisfied they were no longer in im m inent peril of crashing, Cam pushed past the still unconscious Vala to check on Loki, who’d been all but squashed beneath Teal’c’s considerable bulk.

“That’s the least of our problem s. When the Ha’tak hits, it’s going to explode with the force of a m id-y ield nuke.” Sam glanced at O’Neill. He was blinking and shaking his head, try ing to focus. “Sir, are y ou okay ?”

“What the hell was a Ha’tak doin’ skulking around the place, any way ?”

“The m ere fact that it did not reveal itself,” Teal’c observed with a scowl, “indicates it should not have been there.”

“Got a point, there, T.” With Daniel’s help, Jack pulled him self upright and grabbed the controls. “Base, this is Jum per One, do y ou copy ?”

There was no response.

“Base, this is Jum per One. We’ve recovered SG1, but we’ve got a little problem , here.”

The j um per continued to fly erratically. Sam peered at the HUD. The detail was exceptional, and som ewhat reassuring. The region they were fly ing over was sparsely populated, which m eant casualties from the im pact of the Ha’tak would be
m inim al. A glance at the m ap coordinates confirm ed why : 60°55N 101°57E. They were over Siberia.

But that Ha’tak was going in fast and she hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d predicted the result of the explosion. Intending to beam the ships’ crew to safety, she turned to the Asgard transport controls, but the screen was dead. One look inside the
access panel beside her, told her why . She stared in dism ay at the shattered cry stals. “Sir, we-”

Without warning, the interior of the j um per was flooded with a searing light. Sam caught a glim pse of O’Neill lifting his hands to shield his face, but the photosensitive windscreen had already com pensated, protect ing them from a burst of light as
intense as the sun. Had it got through to their ey es, it would have seared their corneas and blinded them perm anently . The Ha’tak had either self-destructed or the engines had blown m om ents before im pact.

“General!” Cam called in a voice that indicated he clearly understood the danger. “We have to get-”

“Doing it!” O’Neill was already angling the j um per into a near vertical clim b. “Hang on.”

Even at m axim um power, Sam wasn’t confident the shields could deal with such a close proxim ity to the equivalent of a nuclear detonation. A high-pitched whine diverted her attention to the cargo bay . Sparks were arcing out of the tim e m achine.

The shockwave hit the j um per with the force of a giant fist slam m ing her back into the seat, m om entarily overriding the inertial dam peners. She’d lost count how m any tim es that m orning her vision had started gray ing out from erratic g-forces, but surprisingly , the dam peners rapidly com pensated.

Som ething else from inside the j um per wasn’t faring so well, though, because acrid sm oke was billowing into the cockpit. She heard a fire extinguisher, and, trusting her team m ates to do whatever was necessary, blinked away the white spots
be1fore her ey es and turned her attention back to the Asgard transport scanner.

They m ay y et need to abandon the j um per.

COMING MAY 2007

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Document Outline

- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE

Table of Contents

- CHAPTER ONE
- CHAPTER TWO
- CHAPTER THREE
- CHAPTER FOUR
- CHAPTER FIVE
- CHAPTER SIX
- CHAPTER SEVEN
- CHAPTER EIGHT
- CHAPTER NINE
- CHAPTER TEN
- CHAPTER TWELVE