When called, Sheppard revealed that he was in the infirmary. He didn’t sound all that happy about it, and when Carter and McKay arrived the man looked anything but glad to be there. He was sitting sideways on a gurney, his legs dangling, while Jennifer Keller dabbed at the side of his face with a gauze pad.
Ronon Dex was there too, watching Sheppard’s treatment and looking faintly amused. He often did, Carter had noticed.
“I should strap this up,” Keller was saying. Sheppard glared at her sideways, without turning his head.
“Strap it up? My face? How could you strap up my face?”
“You broke your cheekbone!”
“No, Ronon broke it. And you haven’t answered my question.”
Keller dabbed quite hard, making him wince. “I could put a giant pressure bandage around your entire head,” she snapped.
“Wouldn’t that stop me talking?”
“It would stop you doing a lot of things.”
“Plaster,” suggested Ronon, not at all helpfully. “We could leave little air holes —”
“Not funny, okay? Jeeze…” Sheppard gave Carter a plaintive look. “Colonel? A little help?”
“Looks like you’re getting all the help you can handle,” she replied. “John, are you going to be off active duty for this?”
“What? No!”
Keller sighed. “Broken cheekbone, chipped tooth, possible concussion,” she reported, putting the gauze down. “And a lousy attitude.”
“Well,” McKay muttered. “At least that’s intact.”
“Fractured,” Sheppard replied, shrugging his way out from Keller’s ministrations and standing up. “Just a hairline, okay? And no, I’m not concussed either.”
“Great. This is all I need.” Carter ran a hand back through her hair, wishing she’d spent more time hitting the punch bag. “Doctor Keller, in your honest medial opinion, does he need to be off duty?”
Keller made a face. “Honestly? No. Not for the injuries, anyway.”
“Thank you,” growled Sheppard.
“Oh, don’t start thanking anyone yet, Lieutenant Colonel,” Carter told him. “Believe me, you and I are going to have a very serious chat about how to play nice in future, understood? In the meantime, follow me. You too, Ronon.”
She spun on her heel and stalked out of the infirmary, McKay on her heels. By the time she got out into the corridor, Sheppard and Dex had joined her.
“Sorry,” Sheppard said quietly, as he drew close. “Wasn’t thinking.”
Carter shook her head disbelievingly. “How did he manage to break your face?”
He threw Dex a glance. “Lucky shot.”
She heard the Satedan chuckle in response, but put her hand up before the exchange could continue. “Okay, fine. Like I said in there, we’ll continue this later. In the meantime, we’ve got more important things to deal with.” She walked off, down the corridor towards stairs. “Angelus is going to need some extra protection.”
“What kind of protection?”
“The kind that’s more about protecting us from him.”
“Ah.”
“We’re going to get a lab set up for him, and once we do I’m going to need a full surveillance kit installed. Audiovisual, motion-sensing, data-taps, the works. Plus we’ll need to at least double the number of marines on duty, and to make sure they report back to us at the end of every shift. Can you do that?”
Sheppard nodded. “No problem. Where’s the lab going to be?”
“We don’t know yet. Rodney and I are going to have a chat with Angelus now, and try to work out a gameplan from what he tells us. Once we know more about the weapon, we’ll have a better idea of where we need to put him.”
“Understood.” They had reached the top of a stairway, one that led down to the accommodation units where Angelus was staying. Sheppard stopped there. “Does this mean we’re actually going to let him build this thing?”
“No, it means we’re going to play along with the IOA for now.”
He smiled. “That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day. Okay, you go talk to Angelus, I’ll get started. Come on, Ronon. We can cut back down here to the transporter.”
The two of them turned, and began to walk away. As they did, Carter called out after them. “Ronon?”
The Satedan paused, and looked back over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Next time, pull your punches.”
He snorted. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Angelus was back in his room. Carter could tell because there were two marines guarding the door. She recognized them as Clarke and Bowden — Kaplan and DeSalle must have been off-watch. They came at attention and saluted as she stopped at the door.
“At ease,” she told them. “How’s it going?”
“Just as always, Colonel,” Bowden said. “Quiet as a mouse.”
“Keep me posted,” she replied, and opened the door.
Angelus was on the bed, his long frame stretched out perfectly straight, perfectly still. In addition to his robes he was wearing the heavy gold mask Ellis had told her about. She guessed it must have been brought to Atlantis with the rest of his meager possessions, but she hadn’t seen it before.
The profile of the mask was unearthly, eerie. It was beautiful, that golden face, but its beauty was that of a corpse. That, coupled with the blackness of the empty eye-holes and the silent stillness of the room, sent a shiver down Carter’s back.
Not for the first time, the Ancient looked as if he had been laid out for burial.
He must have heard her and McKay come in. One moment he was as motionless as a statue, and the next he was sitting up on the bed, the golden mask transfixing her with its hollow gaze. “Colonel Carter,” he said.
“Angelus,” she replied. “I’m sorry to disturb you. Were you sleeping?”
“Not at all. Please, come in.” He stood, then reached up and removed the mask from his face. It seemed to come away with some small resistance, as though it fitted snugly. “And your companion?”
“This is Doctor Rodney McKay,” said Carter. “Rodney is one of our civilian specialists. I think he’s the person best suited to help with your project.”
McKay raised a hand, rather nervously. “Hello again.”
“Of course, you were in the starhopper.” A small smile of recognition crossed the Ancient’s face. “I let two people in, I remember now. You were one of them.”
“You let us in?”
“Yes.” He put the mask down, carefully. “I very much doubt you would have gotten inside if I hadn’t.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” McKay said sourly.
Carter stepped in before he could say any more. “Angelus, we’ve been asked by the IOA to provide you with laboratory facilities for you to research your weapon, but at the moment we don’t know what you might need. Can you help us?”
“Of course. If you like, I can provide you with a complete list of my requirements. Can you furnish me with a means of recording data?”
“Sure. I’ll have a tablet sent down for you.”
“That would be kind.”
McKay was wandering around the room. He seemed to find keeping still more difficult the more nervous he got, and something about Angelus was making him very edgy indeed. Carter started to wonder if even bringing him along had been a good idea. “Rodney? Anything you’d like to ask?”
“Hm? Oh yes, sure. Ah, Angelus?”
“Yes?” The word was enunciated carefully, hesitantly, as though the Ancient was unsure of where his question might lead.
“I was just wondering if you could give us a quick run-down of the weapon’s principles. You know, just a preview?” He put his hands in his pockets, a nervous gesture that made him look rather boyish. “It would, ah, be a really big help in ascertaining what kind of lab we need to set you up in.”
“Very well…” The Ancient’s smooth white brow furrowed very slightly. “I must warn you, the principles are rather obscure.”
“I think I can handle them.”
“I have no doubt. I’m just not sure my grasp of your language can.” He took a step backwards to the bed, and leaned on the edge of it, not taking his feet from the floor. “There are two fundamental principles; the first concerns the… Vindicio ratio… Method of sending, for the second.”