John tried to look like it didn't worry him, either. "We're nearly done with the bomb. It shouldn't be much longer." At least, that's what he thought she wanted to know. He wondered if the Eidolon were so used to doing the mind-to-mind thing that they didn't communicate very well without it.
"Then I will answer their next call, and suggest that there may be an arrangement soon." She turned to another display, one that was all abstract shapes and blips and dots. John thought it must be a life signs detector screen, though the distance measurements were all different from the Ancient version. "They do not seem to be venturing out past the installation."
"They want control of the Mirror, they're not going to leave the platform." He shrugged. "That's going to make this easier." Marginally easier.
"It wouldn't matter if a few escaped. It is only the ship that confounds us." She turned off the display. "I will wait for your word that the device is ready."
John thought that was a pretty clear dismissal, except he realized he had a question. "Why are you helping us?" It was probably a bad idea to bring this up, but he just had to know. He was starting to wonder if Trishen hadn't given them the whole story, about why the Ancients' attempt to seed humans in this reality had failed. If some of them had survived the plague, but the early Eidolon had fed on them to extinction, before figuring out another way to survive. If by helping them now, the Queen was working off some kind of weird species guilt.
Instead, she looked directly at him, her flat dark eyes expressionless. "Why did you help my daughter?"
John hesitated, then gave her the truth. "I didn't know what else to do with her."
He might have been imagining it, but he thought he saw a faint trace of amusement in her expression. She said, "I am aware that if I had waited only a few more minutes to enact my plan for her return, none of this would have happened."
She turned away again, and John had the feeling that that was the best answer he was going to get.
Chapter eleven
John returned to the jumper; he hadn't really expected to find anything wrong, but it was good to see Ronon standing on the ramp, warily keeping watch.
At Rodney's urgent wave, John halted, keeping what Rodney evidently considered to be a minimum safe distance from the bomb. Rodney jumped up, heading for the jumper's hatch, saying in passing, "I'm putting together the remote detonation control now."
Miko stood up, taking off her glasses to rub her eyes. She looked dead tired. "You okay?" John asked her.
She nodded, fumbling her glasses back on as she walked over to him. "Yes, it's just…we were attaching the detonators for the C-4. It was very..tense."
John nodded, eyeing the bomb. "McKay and touchy explosives are always a fun combination." There were seven drones wired together with the C-4 blocks, the drones' tentacles hanging out every which way. He just hoped it worked like Rodney thought it should.
Then a rumble shook the stone floor underfoot. "Oh, hell no," John said under his breath. Miko stumbled as the rumble escalated suddenly and the whole building seemed to sway. John caught her arm to steady her. On the ramp, Ronon swayed, but stayed upright. The few Eidolon left working on the other side of the bay looked around, startled. Dust trickled down from the seam of the giant hatch overhead. Just as John was about to grab Miko and run for the jumper, the rumble died away. Thinking, don 't let that be what it sounded like, he asked, "Earthquake? Or moonquake?"
"Oh no," Miko said, looking anxiously at the bomb. "Mirrorquake."
Then Trishen leaned over the railing of the upper control area, calling urgently, "Dr. McKay, we think the Mirror is destabilizing again!"
Rodney ducked out of the jumper, harried and angry. "Yes, the quake that shook the entire surface of this moon would possibly indicate that there just might be a problem! Did you make the adjustments to the array? Because the wrong sequence-"
Trishen shook her head, making a helpless gesture. "It's not working anymore."
"What do you mean `not working?' The array or the adjustments-" Rodney bolted for the stairs.
John told Miko, "Stay with Ronon," and ran after him.
John reached the top of the steps right behind Rodney, bumping into him when he stopped abruptly. Rodney said, "Oh, now, fine, look at this." He flung both arms in the air, annoyed. "This, this is what we couldn't find in our reality."
In the middle of the dais was a big round console, with an ornate silver rim inset with blue crystal panels. The air above it was alive with glowing diagrams, scrolling data, curves and graphs and figures in Ancient. In the center was a glowing silver pool, some sort of holographic miniature of the Mirror itself Looking at it, John felt prickles of unease climb his spine. The surface was disturbed, rippling continuously, like a puddle in the rain. If the Mirror was actually doing that… That just can 't be good. The holographic readouts seemed to agree; most of them were blinking in alarm.
A few Eidolon were watching the displays, and Kethel was carefully manipulating a set of touchpads on the console's rim. With a harsh tension in his voice, he said, "It's still not responding. This is the same sequence that worked earlier."
Trishen moved to the console, pointing toward one of the graphs. She told Rodney, "The accretion disk field has changed radically from-"
Rodney moved forward, half around the console, as John trailed after him. His expression grim, Rodney said, "Yes, this is about the cap to my day." He rounded on Trishen, making an abrupt gesture. "The connection to the Mirror in our reality is effecting this Mirror, and accelerating the destabilization. The singularity is detaching."
Kethel turned to him, face twisted into the expression Wraith made when they hissed in anger. Instead, he said, "It can't be."
"Oh, but it is!" Rodney snarled. "Check your figures!" He turned urgently to John. "I've seen this before, on the equipment we were using to monitor the Area 51 Mirror as it was being melted down. When the outer rim was destroyed, the singularity detached, closed in on itself, and vanished. Fortunately, we were expecting it, and all it took with it was a small concrete bunker and a naquadah generator." Rodney grimaced at the Mirror display. "This one's going to take this entire installation with it."
Trishen hit more touchpads on the console's edge, bringing up different data displays, enlarging others. The Queen came up the stairs, stopping at the top, her cold eyes narrowed slightly.
"Rodney." John kept his voice tightly controlled. "What does that mean for us, exactly?"
Rodney's jaw was set as he glared at the blinking displays. "It means we need to hurry. We need to do this now.
So there's still a chance to do it at all, John thought, relief undoing a few of the knots in his spine.
The Queen glanced at Kethel, who nodded sharply, saying, "Even if he's wrong-"
"I'm right!" Rodney shouted.
"— nothing can be served by delay." Kethel waved a hand toward the holographic image of the Mirror, which rippled like it was experiencing a rip tide. "This will surely only get worse."
The Queen's dark gaze turned to John. "The explosive?"
John flicked a glance at Rodney, and in response got a nod and hand-wave combination that he hoped meant "yes." John told her, "We're ready."
First, the Queen had to contact the Wraith and get them to lower their shield. John wasn't looking forward to that part. Hell, he was worried about all the parts, but at the moment, mostly that one.