Humans clung to its surfaces like germs to a toilet bowl. One flush, and they’d be gone as if they’d never arrived.
He turned away, an act that felt more like defiance than avoidance. As he did so, something moved at the far corner of the cloister.
Zelenka froze, one hand on the cold rail, peering out across the open space to try and see who or what was there. The cloister was lit, although not brightly; panels along its walls cast a sea-green glow that was gentle on the eye, but not very revealing. There was certainly more shadow here than light, and if something had retreated into the darkness it looked very much like it was going to stay there.
A minute passed, and then another. Zelenka stayed where he was, waiting for the movement he had seen to repeat itself, but he waited in vain. Eventually he decided that he had seen nothing after all. One of the disadvantages to wearing spectacles was the occasional reflection cast across their surface, especially when looking up at an alien city full of lights.
He walked on, feeling rather foolish, wondering if perhaps he should invest in contact lenses. On the one hand, he might see less in the way of ghosts if he did so. Then again, wearing contacts would necessitate starting each day by touching his own eyeballs. The thought made him shudder, and by the time he reached the end of the cloister he had dismissed it entirely.
There was an opening at the end of the gallery, leading into a short corridor. Zelenka looked down it, saw the guard station that had been set up there and thought about turning back. After all, what was he here for anyway? He had already determined that Angelus’ lab could not be proved the source of the power drains. Was he really going to walk in and accuse the Ancient of sucking the city’s power like some kind of voltage vampire? It was ridiculous. Sometimes, Zelenka thought darkly, McKay was right to berate him. He could be a damned fool on occasion.
Then he noticed that the guard station was empty.
He walked up to it, puzzled. There should have been two marines posted there at all times. If either had to take a break for any reason the other would stay, and the post was supposed to be manned continuously, despite Fallon’s objections. If the two marines there had both left at the same time, and Sheppard found out about it, there would be hell to pay.
The guard station was a prefabricated, collapsible structure from the city’s stores. Unfolded and bolted into place it formed an armored box a couple of meters square, with plexiglass panels on each side. There should be no way that the post could appear empty when it was occupied, unless whoever was inside was on the floor.
He pushed the door slightly open, and peeked in. There was a small folding table there, set against the far wall of the box, and a couple of unoccupied seats, but that was all. No marines on the floor. There was a mug of coffee on the table, and next to that, an automatic pistol.
Zelenka grimaced. He didn’t like guns. He had been given some extremely basic training in how to use them when he had joined the expedition, but he had found the entire process distasteful, and promised himself that he’d not pick a weapon up again if he could possibly help it. He left the gun where it was, and closed the door of the guard station.
Although the corridor was quite cool, being so close to the open gallery, the coffee hadn’t been steaming. Zelenka wondered how long the post had been abandoned.
He walked on past it, towards the door to Angelus’ lab. The door, he could see as he approached, was open, and warm light shone from within. According to McKay, the Ancient worked almost constantly, taking no more than an hour’s rest a day, if that. Whether that was due to his evolved physiology or his obsession, no-one could say.
No sound, barring the hum of machinery, came from inside the lab. Zelenka slowed as he neared the door — maybe the Ancient was asleep after all. The technicians assisting him would have gone back to their own rooms by now, surely?
He slowed, stopping just before he got to the door, and then leaned around it.
Angelus was inside. Zelenka had not actually seen the Ancient before, but there could be no mistaking who he was looking at. He was clad in a kind of loose robe or toga made from shimmering golden fabric, and his skin was as pale as marble.
The Ancient was standing in the middle of the lab, very still. He had his left hand raised, and he was looking intently at his own palm.
Zelenka frowned, unable to determine exactly what was going on. Angelus had an expression on his face that was part interest, part puzzlement, and part… What? Something close, Zelenka decided, to wonder. It was as if the mechanics of his own limb were somehow fascinating him — he was turning the hand very slightly, flexing the fingers just a little, as though to study the way it moved.
In the strange, shifting light from the display holograms behind him, Angelus looked to Zelenka almost completely alien.
He backed away, slowly, until he was certain that his footfalls wouldn’t disturb Angelus in his reverie, and then turned and headed back towards the gallery. He could not interpret what was going on in the lab, but neither could he bring himself to interrupt it — partly through fear, but also from a sense that what he had witnessed was something desperately private.
But whatever was happening here, he decided, Carter would need to be told. Even if Angelus had not seemed so strange, the empty guard post could not go unreported. Besides, Zelenka wanted to be away, and soon.
The night had offered him enough strangeness already; it was a heady brew, and he could drink no more of it. It was making his head spin.
The thought of the city core, so alien and impersonal a few minutes ago, was now heartbreakingly comforting.
As he neared the guard post, he slowed. It was as empty as before, the door slightly ajar. When he looked in through the plexiglass he saw the gun and the mug just as he had left them. There was a thought in his head, a nagging itch of a thought that was so unlike him, so out of character that he couldn’t quite tell where it came from. But it wouldn’t go away.
He was tired, that must have been the cause. Fatigue was finally catching up with him, he realized with a grim smile, and a heavy, muzzy feeling was taking hold of him from the neck up. Still, the thought was insistent.
You’re a damned fool, he told himself. And as he did so he ducked into the guard station and grabbed the gun from the table.
As soon as he had done it, he regretted it, but his feet were already carrying him away. He found himself starting to run, the gun heavy and cold in his fist. It was a hateful thing to hold, but there was a seductive nature to it as well. Trotting down the silent corridor, almost overwhelmed by nervousness and fatigue, there was something about the weapon that gave him strength.
A stupid kind of strength, he knew. A foolish, false bravery that was more likely to get him into trouble than anything else. After all, hadn’t he just stolen a piece of military equipment?
That thought struck him as he reached the end of the corridor, and brought him up short. He stopped, lifted the gun to stare at it. Almost, he realized with a shivering sense of irony, as Angelus had been looking at his own hand.
He was still looking at it when he heard something next to him breathe.