Before he left, he turned and stared at Teyla. She met his gaze with a fierce glare and after a moment he shook his head and left the room.
Mara touched Sheppard’s arm. “We should go,” she said. “There will be several more battles, but none like this one. They will be drunk and they will celebrate late into the night.”
“Yeah,” Sheppard said, glancing down at the sweaty, victorious warrior and the huge dead body of the Woard. “I think I’ve seen more than enough of what passes for entertainment in these parts. Let’s get the hell outa here.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mara led Sheppard and the others through the loud, excited mob and out of the area surrounding the arena. Once they reached the passage leading to the team’s quarters, it grew much quieter.
“What was that thing?” Cumby blurted out. “I mean, you’ve fought them, Colonel — that wasn’t a Wraith.”
“No, that was no Wraith,” Sheppard said. “I don’t know what the hell it was, but it wasn’t a Wraith.”
“There was Wraith in it,” Ronon said, his voice betraying the disgust Sheppard felt. “It’s head was too big, though. Weird.”
“It was like a bad science fiction movie monster,” Cumby agreed. “The Pegasus answer to Frankenstein’s monster.”
“Yes,” Teyla said, “while it’s head appeared Wraith-like I could not sense its mind — I felt no Wraith consciousness.”
“Genetics,” Rodney said. “That thing was a hybrid — there was some human in it, some Wraith, and something else that, frankly, I find too repellent even to contemplate.”
“You got that right,” Sheppard growled.
“Who does that?” Teyla cut in. “Who plays with living beings in this way?”
Ronon raised an eyebrow. “That Woard isn’t that different from how you all made Michael.”
Sheppard looked at him, but as the sting of truth faded he held his silence; they hadn’t done it for sport, but they had done it. And for their own self interest too.
Mara had remained quiet since they left the arena behind. Now, tentatively, she spoke. “The creatures are bred in labs beneath the city. That isn’t the first of the Woard, but it is the largest that has ever been bred. Each time one has been defeated, they work harder to make the next invincible. This last one was by far the largest and it lasted longer in battle. They have been working to improve the design for a very long time.”
“What?” Cumby looked horrified. “Do they have cages full of Wraith and other creatures down there?”
“Oh no. They take genetic samples — tissue and other data — from fallen entertainers. None of the creatures was ever anything other than what is seen in the arena.”
“Oh, well, then,” Rodney said, “that makes it all better. Instead of a genetic prison, we have crazy Ancient scientists cooking up monsters in the catacombs. I mean, how could that go wrong? How could there possibly be a problem with changing the genetic makeup of natural creatures to create something new? Has anyone considered what happens if these ‘adversaries’ get loose?”
“That has never happened.”
“Yeah, that’s what everyone says before the stink hits the fan,” Rodney replied. “You want examples? I can give you ten.”
They reached Sheppard’s room and gathered inside. Mara started to follow, but he stopped her. “I’m going to need some alone time with my people,” he said. “You understand?”
Mara was clearly disappointed, but she nodded. “I will see you later?”
“Anything’s possible.” Sheppard smiled at her and without a word she disappeared back into the hallway. He watched her go, torn between sympathy and contempt, then he turned and closed the door.
The moment they were alone, Cumby crossed over to where Rodney was circling the room, studying the walls. “I’ve noticed something.”
“Oh really?” Rodney replied. He didn’t look up. “Did you perhaps notice that I was busy? Did you notice that I was concentrating on something and think to yourself, ‘Hey, if I went over and started talking to Dr. McKay, he’d be distracted, and maybe I could keep him from finding a way to get us out of this mess?’ Something like that?”
“About the walls,” Cumby said, unperturbed. “Have you studied the pattern on the tapestries?”
“Pattern?” Rodney said. “What pattern? I haven’t seen two tapestries the same since we got here.”
“There are no matches.”
Rodney started to question him and then stopped. “Okay, right, photographic memory. So none of them is alike — they bore easily, and diversify their interior design. So what if none of the images repeats itself? In fact, that would seem to indicate that there is no pattern, so what are you talking about?”
Cumby stepped closer to the wall. He ran his finger down a zigzag stitched seam. “Look here.”
Rodney looked.
Then Cumby stepped about four feet to the right, and ran his finger down a different seam. This time, rather than the zigzag pattern, the two tapestries were joined by interlocking strips. The image to the right of that seam included a temple, and on the wall of that temple, a four-armed block cross pattern was formed. Closer inspection showed that the same interlocking pattern ran around the cross.
“I’ve seen this same anomaly in the pattern around various shapes throughout the city,” Cumby said. “At first I didn’t pay any attention to it — I’m always noticing things like this, and to be honest it usually means nothing at all. This time, though, I started to realize that the shapes I was seeing fell at regular intervals.”
“As if they were hiding something,” Sheppard said.
“But…”
Before Rodney could speak there was a knock on the door. When it opened, Saul stood in the doorway. He held yet another oddly colored drink, and it was obvious that he’d had several in between. His eyes were dark, and the smile that curled his lips was anything but friendly. Before he spoke, he took a sip.
“I suppose by now,” he said, “you’ve managed to put all the pieces together in your minds. The gate you came through is never going to carry you back to Atlantis, or to anywhere else. No one who visits Admah is treated any differently. You could puff out your chests, threaten me with how your people will come for you — all standard arguments, I assure you — but you’d be wasting your time.”
“Is that right?” Sheppard stepped forward, hand on his weapon.
“None of you is ever going to leave this city,” Saul said, his gaze resting on the gun, unperturbed. “It’s a simple fact that you can either accept or not — either way, you have no ability to change it. I am here to offer you the same options that we offer all our visitors. You’ve sampled our hospitality. You’ve witnessed our entertainments. I’ve explained the choice.”
“As choices go,” Sheppard said, “it leaves a lot to be desired.”
“I’d have expected more cooperation from you, of all people, Colonel,” Saul smiled. “Mara has certainly taken an interest in you and there are far worse fates that could befall a man than to catch her attention.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Sheppard said. “There is no choice, Saul. You’re holding us prisoner here. Citizen or entertainer, it makes no difference.”
“Not to mention,” Rodney said from where he stood by the wall, “the fact that we’re flying straight into the sun — and you won’t tell us what you’re going to do about it!”
“In most corners of the universe, that’s hardly considered civilized,” Sheppard agreed.
“And yet,” Saul sipped his drink again and his smile broadened, “this is the only corner of the universe that will ever matter to any of you ever again. Or to me, for that matter. Those are the rules we exist by, so here we are. You have a choice to make and I will bear witness; join us as citizens, or enter the arena.”