When the bartender turned toward them his face transformed. He beamed as he spread his hands flat on the bar’s surface. “Welcome! Welcome, my friends. My name is Damien, Damien Walz, and I am at your service.”
“Damien…” Sheppard flung a glance at Teyla. It was impossible to tell if the barman was simply happy they’d chosen to speak with him first, or putting on an act for their benefit. In the end, he supposed, it didn’t matter — if they were going to mingle they had to start somewhere. “Good to meet you, Damien Walz.”
Still beaming, he said, “What would be your pleasure tonight? If I don’t have it in a bottle, describe it, and I’ll see what I can do to recreate it for you.”
“That sounds great,” Sheppard said. “I’ll take you up on that in a little bit, but for the moment I’m looking for Saul. Any idea where I might find him?”
“He’ll be here soon enough,” Walz said. “He’s not going to give up the chance to show you all off. So, while you’re waiting, you must have a drink! I insist!”
Sheppard started to frown, caught himself, and smiled. He set his elbows on the bar and leaned forward as casually as he could manage. “Okay, since you insist, what do you recommend?”
“You must try the house wine.” The voice was melodic, provocative, and it came from very close to his left ear. “The grapes are organic, pressed between the soft pale thighs of virgins and lovingly bottled in crystal decanters.”
Sheppard’s eyebrow rose. He turned slowly to find himself face to face with a tall, slender woman in a very sheer evening gown. Her hair was dark with highlights that caught in the flickering glow of the room and trailed lazily back over her shoulders. Her eyes were wide and deep, glinting somewhere between blue and gray. She sipped from a graceful goblet and smiled at him over the rim.
“Are you one of the virgins?” Sheppard said. “Because if you are, I’ll take two bottles.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Oh my, no. I treasure my entertainment far too much to have missed out on that. Damien, let’s have a decanter of your wine for our guests. On me.”
Damien, the bartender, moved to gather the decanter and glasses. He set them out before the team and filled each glass.
“Watch her,” he said, winking at Sheppard. “When she says the wine is going to be on her, you never know just what she might mean…”
Sheppard lifted his glass to the bartender, and then to the woman. “Thank you for the wine. My name is John Sheppard.”
She placed a hand on his wrist and smiled. “Well, then, hello John Sheppard. It is a good thing that it was I, and not Damien, who first suggested the wine.”
“Why is that?”
“Because,” she said, “we have a custom here in Adamah. No traveler should taste our wine for the first time but from a woman’s lips. Failure to comply can… sour the experience.” She leaned in closer.
“But I don’t even know your name,” Sheppard said.
“Mara.”
Her voice had grown husky and deep. She lifted the glass and took a long sip, her chin tilting upward as she offered her lips to Sheppard. Her eyes never left his.
“When in Rome,” Sheppard whispered. Leaning in he brushed his lips across hers, very lightly, and drank. Their lips touched for mere seconds but it was enough to stop his breath. When they parted, Sheppard was grinning from ear to ear.
“Me next!” Ronon offered, pressing forward.
Teyla struck him in the chest hard enough that the sound of the blow echoed through the room. “Sit down!”
Everyone at the bar roared with laughter at this. Ronon frowned, but he was smiling. He did as he was told and dropped onto the nearest seat, lingering over the glass of wine he was served and staring out at the room as if he was searching for a woman to help him with the first sip.
“This place makes me nervous,” he said to Teyla, his voice low but loud enough for Sheppard to catch. “They’re all staring at me.”
“Well, they’ve probably just never seen such a fine physical specimen.”
“You think? Because it’s only the old men who are staring.”
“You know, I believe you may be right.”
Sheppard was about to comment when Mara gripped his arm possessively, her fingers caressing him through the fabric of his uniform with disturbing persistence. Her eyes sparkled and she sipped her wine slowly as he studied her face and tried to work out what the hell was going on. Suddenly, she put down her glass and stood.
“You know, John Sheppard, we really are wasting too much time here. You are visitors, and you’ve seen so little. You and your people are the talk of the city…why not let me introduce you?”
He glanced over at Teyla, and she gave him a subtle nod. “All right,” he said then, “as long as I don’t have to drink from all their lips before they tell me their names.”
Mara laughed. “I like you, John Sheppard,” she said. “I like you very much.”
She linked her arm with his and pulled him away with a smile. “Come with me. You will find that you already have many friends here. They’ve been watching you and talking about you since Saul brought you through the door.”
Teyla watched from her table as Sheppard was led — almost literally by the nose — into the crowd. Soon, he was lost from sight.
“I am not comfortable here,” she murmured to Ronon. “These people are…unnatural.”
“Jealous?”
“No, of course not. But I do not trust her. For all her good will, she was quick to separate us from Colonel Sheppard. He is the ranking officer — if I was planning something, this is exactly how I would proceed. I am going to follow them and watch for trouble.”
“You do that,” Ronon said. “I’ll stay here and keep my eyes open. I’m hoping to meet one of those dragons.”
He saluted her with his glass and turned his warrior’s gaze upon the pulsing room. She knew him too well to be deceived; he was as uneasy as herself.
As always, Sheppard demanded the impossible.
Just get us a link to Atlantis, McKay. Just find a hole in their shield in the next ten minutes. Just figure out how this ten thousand year old computer system works — I’m sure it’s compatible with Vista!
Well, this time it was a no go. There was nothing in their Disney Princess quarters to help, no handy docking station and animated paperclip. His scanner only told him so much, and today the headline news was that the alleged storm was a lie and there was only one thing to do — get out of the city and hike back to the gate, dial up Atlantis and go home.
End of story.
Stuffing the scanner into his jacket, Rodney left their quarters and headed back toward the hive of scum and inequity that was Admah’s meat market. He needed to find Saul and he needed to find out exactly what was going on with Moon Base Alpha.
He could hear the thump of music and smell the alien aromas of food and people before he stepped through the doors, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the dark. He saw Saul right away, standing beside the dancer on the small stage. The woman continued to sway and move as Saul spoke to her, and the musician never hesitated. But Saul’s gaze wasn’t fixed on the dancer — strange — and as he spoke, Rodney realized he was watching Sheppard cross the floor arm in arm with a beautiful woman.
Typical.
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he made his way across the room.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Saul smiled, stepping down from the platform as Rodney drew closer, careful not to disturb either dancer or musician. “He rarely repeats a song, or a sequence of notes. I’ve been listening to him for a very long time and I can’t remember the last time I noted a repetition.”