Gaarin’s temper, which until now had been silently boiling away, came rushing to the surface. He turned to Soonir, his eyes flashing. “Why are we wasting time with these voyagers? We do not even know who they are. They could be agents of the Aegis, like those cursed Giants, or worshippers of the Wraith!”
“We’re none of those things,” McKay added swiftly. “We’re just explorers. Most of the time.”
Soonir glared at Gaarin until he stepped back. After a moment, the rebel leader returned to his seat. “You will excuse my friend. His mother was among the Taken and Returned many, many times. She fell to the sickness.”
“Her passing was not an easy one.” Gaarin spoke quietly, almost to himself.
“I’m sorry,” Keller said gently. “We saw some of the…the victims of the sickness in the settlement. I wanted to learn more about it, but Aaren made us leave…”
Soonir sneered. “Of course he did. He is no better than Takkol, hiding the problem inside the sick lodge and waiting for it to go away. For the afflicted to die silently and be forgotten.”
“The Aegis is the source of the sickness,” noted McKay. “If that’s true, then why don’t your people do something about the abductions?”
“Stop them, you mean?” Soonir shook his head. “And how would we do that, Doctor McKay?” He nodded at Rodney’s gun. “Even if we had weapons like yours, we could do nothing. Two of your own people were taken by the Aegis, were they not? Both of them warrior-kin, yet still unable to resist the Giants?”
Keller nodded and McKay echoed her motion. “Do you know where the Aegis takes people? Is it somewhere nearby, on the planet?”
“The Aegis allows no memories to be retained,” said Gaarin. “That is how it protects itself.” The younger man’s hands knitted, his angry energy seeking release and not finding it. “At least the Wraith are honest about what they are. They take and kill outright, but they do not skulk in shadows. At least they are an enemy you can grip in your hands, fight with your fists!”
“The refusal of Takkol and the other elders to admit the evidence in front of their eyes is destroying us,” said Soonir, a bleak cast to his features. “They banished me for daring to oppose them, named me traitor and militant. But without a dissenting voice, they are leading the Heruuni along a path to ruin.” He met Rodney’s gaze, and McKay saw a cold intensity glittering there. “The elders are allowing my world to become the plaything of something alien. The malaise grows worse in the wake of every new Returning, more fall to it with each repeated Taking.”
Gaarin nodded. “They eventually lose themselves in the halls of their own minds.”
“The Aegis will destroy our people unless we stop it.” Soonir leaned forward. “Help us, voyagers. Help us shake off the yoke upon our necks, and in return we will help you rescue your warrior friends.”
Chapter Five
Ronon kept close to Teyla, following her intently as she moved down the steely corridor. She held out one hand, now and then brushing her fingertips over the walls. There was no sound in the chamber other than their footsteps and the faint hum of hidden systems, but the Athosian woman walked with her head cocked, as if she were listening to something that only she could hear.
Ronon’s hands flexed, and he fought the urge to let them contract into fists. It was hard for him to resist the churning anger inside him at the thought of the Wraith; the directionless, all-consuming hate he had for the alien predator race surged up from deep inside him, a ready and all-too-familiar heat that sang in his blood. The hate he had for the creatures that had destroyed his precious Sateda was as potent and pure now as it had been on the day they had made him a Runner.
“Not far,” Teyla said quietly. “Yes, several of them. Quite close.” She slowed to a halt outside a metallic door. “Here.”
He pushed her out of the way and took the glass egg from her hand. “Let’s take a look.” Ronon waved it at the wall and the door obediently retracted.
The smell of them hit his nostrils; the coppery scent of alien sweat and the stench of rotting meat. Four of them sat clustered around a fifth on the floor at the back of the cell; aside from an extra sleeping pallet, the holding chamber was the duplicate of the one Ronon and Teyla had escaped from. Each of the Wraiths turned as one toward the intruders, eyes dull with hunger and hate.
One of them, a warrior by the look of his clan sigils, sprang up and came at them. Ronon stepped forward with the ellipse in his hand, brandishing it like a weapon. “Back off!” he snapped, but part of him was daring the alien to keep coming, willing it to give him an excuse to fight.
The Wraith warrior halted, snarling at the device; clearly he knew the power of the paralysis field it could emit, unaware that Ronon couldn’t use it. One of the other Wraith spat something in their hissing language, drawing the warrior’s attention for a moment.
“They’ve been here for some time,” Teyla said thickly, her brow furrowing. “Several months. They’re starving.”
The Wraith that lay on the deck, that the others crowded around, was if anything even more sallow and skeletal than the rest of them. It’s greenish-white flesh hung off its bones, and it blinked slowly, breathing hard. With a grimace, Ronon realized that the aliens had been feeding off one of their own, perhaps off of each other in small amounts to keep themselves alive. “My heart bleeds,” he growled.
“That…” replied the warrior, “could be arranged.” It flexed its hand, showing the feeding maw in its palm.
“Go ahead,” Dex snapped back. “Try it.” His fingers tightened around the glassy egg and for a moment all he could think about was using it to beat the alien’s skull in.
The Wraith turned it’s baleful gaze toward Teyla. “You.” He cocked his head, mimicking her manner out in the corridor. “You are touched by us. Yes.” It made a gurgling sound that might have been a chuckle. “A rare thing in this part of space.” His eyes flicked to Ronon. “But not here to free us, no?”
“We’re not those fools who worship you, if that’s what you’re hoping for,” Ronon told him. “We’re a long, long way from that.”
“A pity.”
Teyla shuddered visibly. The taint of Wraith DNA in her body, the strange x-factor that gave her insight into the psychic bonds of the alien hives, was a two-way street. Ronon realized that the warrior was pushing at her mind, trying to coerce her. She gasped and shot the creature a lethal glare. “Get out of my thoughts.”
“As you wish.” The alien opened its hands and stepped back. “I only wished to know you.”
“I saw a moment of his memories.” She glanced at Ronon. “Those humanoids took them captive,” she explained. “They were recovered from a sealed section of wreckage, from one of the scoutships destroyed by the Aegis.”
“We are prisoners, just as you are,” said the Wraith.
“We’re not prisoners,” Ronon retorted.
“We have attempted escape just as you do now, and we failed as you will fail…” The alien chuckled again, and the sound was echoed by his comrades. “You are from the city of the Ancients, yes? Atlantis? Our clan knows of you. And if you are here, then the Aegis has taken you as it took us. Any freedom you think you have is an illusion!”
“Where are we?” Teyla demanded, glaring at the Wraith. “Where is this place?”
“I will tell you if you let us free.”
Ronon snorted. “Just open the door for a pack of hungry Wraiths? I don’t think so.”
The warrior gave an exaggerated nod. “Just me, then. I will help you escape if you free me.”
“Didn’t you say your escape attempt failed?” noted Teyla.
“I’m sure with humans as resourceful as you, that would not happen again.” The Wraith’s words were oily and condescending.
Teyla’s head snapped up and she shot a look out the open hatch, into the corridor beyond. “I hear something…”
Ronon heard it too; the metallic whisper of another door opening.