Zelenka muttered, "I don't want to learn to grow crops.
That's a hell of a long way through this building, John thought, but he wasn't keen on the crops option either. He said, "Let's go."
The inner doorway led to a corridor, lined with square pillars that were set with milky crystal lights. Many of the lights weren't on, as if this section was only partially powered. John had Rodney pull the crystals from the door behind them; the Eidolon inside could still call for help, but John didn't want them ducking out to see which way the alien intruders had gone.
Once they were moving down the corridor, Teyla said, "What about the Wraith? We cannot leave them here, with access to this Mirror."
His tone clipped, Rodney said, "If-When-If we get back to our own reality, we have to destroy the pulse array immediately. That scout ship could raid this installation for technology, bring Eidolon prisoners back to our reality to teach them how to build it, render the Ancient cloaks useless, including the one we used to hide Atlantis, and be free to feed on everyone we know." He looked up, lips thin with anxiety. "Everyone, basically."
"We got that, Rodney," John said. Nothing had changed. They had the same problem as before, just less chance of surviving the possible solutions.
Moving quickly, they found a stairwell that only went up one level, then they cut through a dusty unused section with no power. Past it, they found a big room with partial power, and one of the triangular doorways that in their reality had marked the lift platforms.
But it wouldn't open at John's touch and Rodney swore, tearing the console off the wall. "What the hell?" he said, startled. "The crystals are gone."
Teyla looked up sharply, alarmed. John thought, Crap. Their time had just run out. "Back the other way, now."
They were almost to the door when Miko waved the tablet urgently. "Colonel, energy signature!" She turned back across the room, pointing to an empty section of the blue stone wall. "It's a transporter! Life signs!"
John turned with Teyla, covering the wall. A seam was already forming down it, splitting into doors. Then he heard a startled yelp behind him. He risked a look back, just in time to see a curtain of energy ripple across the open doorway. Rodney stepped back, his face horrified. "Force shield. We're trapped." Ronon tried to push a hand through anyway, flinching back when the field zapped him.
"Get behind us," John said, because this was it. He aimed the P-90 at the transporter, setting his jaw. "Ronon, don't fire, wait for my order." Rodney grabbed Zelenka, pushing him back with Miko, and Ronon stepped up beside John, snarling under his breath.
The transporter doors slid open and a male Eidolon stepped out, then another, until eight of them moved out of the bay. The two in front were unarmed, but the others in the back were holding long rifle-sized objects, with a shape suggestively like the Wraith stunners. We can't get captured, John thought. Even if Trishen wasn't lying, these were aliens. They had no idea what the Eidolon might want, how interested they would be in Atlantis' existence even in another reality, what they might want from humans. Obviously thinking along the same lines, Rodney whispered harshly, "They've never seen humans before, they could want anything from us. It's like the XFiles in reverse."
John grimaced. He hadn't even thought about medical experiments. "Thanks, Rodney, you had to bring that up.
Then the first Eidolon lifted his hands and said, "We mean you no harm."
Beside John, Teyla shifted uneasily, throwing him a worried look. It would be nice to be able to believe that. John swallowed the dryness out of his throat, and made his voice hard. "We don't want to hurt anybody either. We're just trying to get out of here."
There was a flicker of light from the transporter behind them, and then another Eidolon pushed out through the group, a smaller female. The male tried to stop her, saying something too low to hear.
Teyla whispered, "Is that Trishen?"
"I don't know," John murmured back. He still had no idea how this was going to go; it felt like they were breathing on borrowed time. "I could never tell Wraith apart.
"It's her," Ronon told them quietly.
"Of course it is," Rodney snapped. "Oh, this is just fantastic."
Trishen shook her head, pushing past the male and stepping out to face them. She said, "It's me, Trishen. Please put down your weapons."
John heard Ronon snort. That pretty much summed up his feelings. He said, "If you want to talk, we can do that just as well while we're holding our weapons."
Rodney said acidly, "Trishen. Your ship was pulled into the Mirror, too. How lucky for you, since I was locked out of the system before I could make the last adjustments to the pulse array."
"What? She did this?" John asked, startled, then thought, oh come on, of course she did.
His voice rising with anger, Rodney told Trishen, "The early activation caused a gravity well to form above the accretion surface, drawing in everything in range, including your new Wraith friends who in the interest of interspecies camaraderie are going to try to blast their way in here so they can feed on everything that moves!"
There was a murmur from the other Eidolon, a gentle stir. They were all staring, and the weight of those watching eyes made John's skin creep. In a weird way, it was worse than being stared at by Wraith. Wraith looked at you with that frightening combination of hunger and lust, the lust without any seeming awareness that the thing they wanted was a living sentient being. But at least you knew what a Wraith wanted from you. John had no idea what the Eidolon really wanted, except that considering the way things were going, it was probably worse.
Trishen stared, then said in helpless exasperation, "No, I didn't do it! I was as surprised as you. I-"
She stopped at another flicker from the transporter, as someone else beamed in. The males parted this time with no argument, and another female stepped forward. Every hair on the back of John's neck stood up in individual alarm. Her features were more distorted than Trishen's; further from human, closer to Wraith. She was taller than Trishen, and her long hair was a dark red. She was wearing something black and flowing that looked liquid against her dead white skin.
"Careful," Ronon said in a low-voiced growl. "That's a hive queen. She can get inside your head, if you let her."
"Yeah, we know," John said quietly, thinking of the Wraith caretaker, when he had found Colonel Sumner being questioned by her, as she slowly drained out his life.
The Queen looked at them with flat opaque eyes, and said, "This was not my daughter's doing."
Daughter? John exchanged a look with Teyla. Teyla rolled her eyes, exasperated. She whispered, "We were not negotiating with a scientist as we thought, but with a Hive Queen."
The Queen said, "We had been attempting to activate the Mirror, to retrieve her. When you made the adjustments to the pulse generator, it must have allowed the connection. With unanticipated results. It was not our intention to bring you, or the others, here."
"Well, whatever your intention, you brought them here. Any idea what you're going to do about it?" John asked. He was pretty sure he wouldn't like the answer.
But she said, "The few ships we have left here are scientific research vessels, unarmed. We've called for help, but it won't arrive for several days, and from what we have seen, that ship has weapons far superior to anything we can bring to bear." The Queen's eyes flicked from Rodney to John to Teyla, coldly thoughtful. "Does your ship have weapons?"