Radek blew out a breath. “That is bad news,” he said. “That the jumper is gone. I had hoped you might have it, or have supplies. We lost all of ours two nights ago, radios, food, everything.”
“You have not had food since?” Teyla sounded concerned.
Radek shrugged. “We had some bread. And a hardboiled egg.”
“John? Hold up for a moment,” Teyla called out.
He stopped immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“Radek and Ronon have had almost nothing to eat in two days,” Teyla said. “Give me a moment to get out what I have left of the emergency supplies.”
There wasn’t much left. They’d eaten the fruit leather and some of the crackers for breakfast, washing it down with the two juice packets. There was a granola bar and a bag of salted corn kernels, and two rather mashed packets of peanut butter crackers.
Radek looked at the small spread hungrily. “Might I have the granola bar?” he asked hesitantly, as though he did not wish to be greedy.
Teyla handed it over. “Of course.”
“I’m good with the corn kernels,” Ronon said, popping the bag open. “Save the rest for later.”
Radek glanced at him in surprise. “Don’t you want more?”
“Shouldn’t eat too much right before I fight,” Ronon said. “Just a little bit to give me energy. I’m set.”
Teyla offered the crackers to Jitrine. “Are you hungry?”
Jitrine looked at Suua, Nevin and Ailan. “We had breakfast,” she said firmly. “The contestants all were offered reasonable food at daybreak in the palace. We will not take anything from your meager stores.”
Suua looked like he wanted some crackers, but he shrugged. “We’re fine.”
John thought it wasn’t such a great sacrifice, as at least he’d had breakfast. That couldn’t have been more than five or six hours ago. Of course, they could have had breakfast too, if John’s escape attempt hadn’t landed them in solitary.
“Time to go, people,” he said.
They turned a corner and ascended another flight of stairs. There were voices ahead, a woman’s voice raised in anger. In the room above four other contestants stood about arguing, three women and a man who had lagged behind or been left by others intent on victory. Seeing the strong and well armed party, they didn’t wait. With a scream, one fled down the entrance corridor, followed by the others.
“Wait!” John yelled.
“We mean you no harm!” Teyla called after.
They were talking to their backs.
Jitrine shook her head. “They think we are one of the parties that has been killing people in the maze. I cannot blame them for running.”
“Yeah.” John looked around in frustration. “We’d help them get out of here too, if they’d give us a chance.”
“They are too frightened to do that,” Jitrine said sadly.
“I know.”
It wasn’t long until they came to the hazard that had given them so much trouble the first time, the swift flowing stream with the broken bridge. Five people were sitting against the wall on the other side, knees drawn up. The water was off, and had long since drained down from this part of the labyrinth. There were overhead lights on, and the stream bed was dry.
It was still dangerous, though. The bridge was missing, and to get over they’d have to climb down the loose stones of one side and back up the other. This was much easier without the cold, fast running current, but John knew it was still going to be tough for Jitrine, and for Teyla with her bad shoulder and Nevin with his broken wrist.
“I’ve still got this,” Suua said, holding out the rope ladder he’d made from the bridge ropes. It looked…pretty good.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” John asked, testing the knots, though he’d already put his weight on it, getting up from the ledge at the waterfall pool.
“I’m a fisherman,” Suua said patiently. “I make nets. Out of rope.”
“Well, great.”
One of the women on the other side stood up and called across, “Who are you and what do you want?”
Before John could think of an answer better than ‘I’m a guy from outer space here to kill the gods,’ or ‘I’m an immortal hero here to slay the minotaur’ Jitrine forestalled him.
“I am a Pelagian physician,” she said. “We are returning to the entrance. We do not wish to harm anyone.”
“Why are you going to the entrance?”
Jitrine glanced at John. “We think we may be able to get out that way. Will you let us cross without hindering us?’
They consulted together. John saw some gestures at the kids, at Jitrine, at Teyla with her injured arm and Nevin with his taped wrist. “I guess we don’t look too scary,” John said quietly to Teyla.
Her mouth quirked in a smile. “You look very scary. You look like an unkempt madman.”
“I do not.”
“You do too.” Her smile broadened. “You look like a thug. Try looking friendly.”
John smiled weakly, and she burst out laughing.
“The Smile of Wrongness!” Teyla said. “I did not know you could do it on purpose!”
“The Smile of Wrongness?” he asked, laughing. “What’s that?”
Teyla shook her head. “It is an expression you get when you feel that you must smile, but you do not in the least want to. When someone is threatening you, or when you have to deal with Colonel Caldwell. You did it when you first came to Athos. ‘Yes, let us talk about ferris wheels and drink tea while stranded in a galaxy far from home with the city about to flood while I am on my very first alien world and Colonel Sumner is gunning for my ass!’ That smile!”
John ducked his head ruefully. “Was it that obvious?”
“Not then.” Teyla’s eyes danced with mischief. “Then, I just thought that you were disturbed.”
“Disturbed?”
“Insane,” Teyla clarified. “Perhaps in a good way, but more than a little unbalanced.”
“Maybe I am,” John said. “Maybe I’ve just gotten better at covering it up.”
Her smile faded, but not the warmth in her eyes. “Maybe you are,” she said quietly. “But we all have our scars. What defines us in life is not what happens to us, but how we bear it.”
There was something in her face, in the tilt of her chin, that made him want to ask, want to know what she carried beneath her usually serene and unruffled surface. “Teyla…”
“You may come across!” the woman on the other side of the dry stream bed shouted. “If you leave us alone, we will not harm you or hinder you!”
John snapped around. “Ok, we’re in business! Suua, can you hold the ladder on this side and let me down? Then I’ll go up the other side, you get everybody down this side, throw me the ladder, I’ll get everybody up that side, and then you climb down this side and then up the ladder.”
Suua blinked. “You lost me.”
“Let me down this side,” John said patiently. “And then I’ll climb up the other side. Let’s start with that.”
“And hope that no one turns the water back on,” Teyla said darkly, looking at the dry stream bed where he had been swept away before.
“That is not possible,” Radek said patiently. “I told you. I have turned off the pump.”
“Might they not reach a manual override in the pump room?” Teyla asked.
John looked around at her, hoping he didn’t look alarmed. “We didn’t see one when we were down there, did we? If we had, we would have turned the water off.”
“I am sure that there is one somewhere,” Radek said sensibly. “But they will have to get to it, which will take them some amount of time.”