“If I could explain that, Major, we would have already solved more problems than this one.”
“I figured as much. Let’s check the situation outside.”
The jostling and shoving in the square abruptly stopped when the newcomers stepped from the inn. John scanned the sky with a trained gaze. Still no sign of the Wraith. He wanted to be reassured by that, but he knew better. The longer it took those bastards to show up, the better the chances that this would end up less like a fast-food run courtesy of a handful of Darts and more like a major harvest involving hive ships.
A fleet of at least sixty ships was out there somewhere, each filled to the brim with scores of repulsive creatures who wanted nothing more than to make a meal out of them. Every time John thought about it, a sick feeling reached in with icy fingers and twisted his gut. He’d been a military man for a long time and understood that people offered many reasons for killing: for duty, for faith, for mercy, even for sport. The idea of a race that killed for its very existence, though, was still barely fathomable to him. It left him with some serious doubts about the overall state of justice in this galaxy.
Having some kind of sensor equipment available would have made him feel a lot more secure right now. The EM shields were definitely worthwhile, but they left him functionally blind. Possibly in more ways than one, since he couldn’t be sure that the shields weren’t preventing Teyla from sensing the Wraith’s approach.
Something was pressed into his hand, and he glanced down to find a stooped older woman averting her repentant gaze. “I… I did not pay as much as I should have the last time I used the transport,” she confessed. “I beg forgiveness.”
John glanced inside the badly cured leather bag she’d given him. A handful of rough gold coins glinted in the morning light. Huh. This was a side effect of being Chosen that hadn’t occurred to him. He was tempted to make some lighthearted comment to Teyla about flipping her for the loot, but the entire situation was taking on a desperate edge that precluded that kind of levity.
Others began clambering around them, trying to press upon them everything from baskets of shellfish to furs. He started to say something, but Teyla already had it covered. “We have come to trade with you, not take from you,” she called into the encroaching throng.
“But you are of the Chosen. We must give payment so that you will transport us into the Citadel and protect us!”
A child tugged at Teyla’s hand. Wide-eyed, but more out of curiosity than fear, he asked, “Where is your Shield of Dalera?”
Teyla hesitated, looking to John. Still trying to convince the old woman to take her money back, he could only toss a helpless shrug in his teammate’s direction. If Teyla of all people couldn’t come up with a smooth answer, did she really expect him to be able to pull it off? Before she could attempt a response, the crowd surged forward and into the inn.
Moments later, Rodney’s voice cut through the low, anxious conversations. “Excuse me, excuse me, coming through.”
A flare of anger erupted in John, overshadowing his relief that the transport had returned. There was a lot that he didn’t love about the Air Force, but at least there, people listened. Usually. “McKay, what part of ‘wait with Ford’ wasn’t clear to you?”
“He seemed perfectly all right with the others. The chief, what’s his name? Balzar? And Yann. Would you cross those two? They’re gargantuan.”
“Dammit, Rodney!” John pushed his way through the villagers toward the unapologetic scientist. “Did you even poke your head out of the transport and look at what they were walking into?”
“I didn’t see any point, given that both our options and our time were limited, and I couldn’t be sure that the transport would immediately return here without someone to command it. Would you rather I left you out here a while longer to soak up the ambiance?” He pivoted away, already moving on.
There was truth under that layer of perpetual impatience, John realized. For all his overdeveloped tendencies toward self-preservation, Rodney had been concerned enough about the rest of his team to override both his instincts and his instructions. Tough to argue with that.
The sea of people parted to let them pass, recognizing that deliverance was near. Once inside the inn, John shouldered his way through the crowd by the transport entrance and activated the panel. As before, the walls folded back, and as before, the villagers rushed inside.
The room filled to capacity in minutes, and for the first time, all the panicked shoving ceased. “Is that everybody?” John quickly moved through the now-empty inn and ducked out into the square to check. Sure enough, there was no evidence of life remaining in the village or along the beach — which, he noted for future reference, had a nice wave break near the point. He hustled back into the packed transport and scrutinized the control panel. The expected map was absent, and only one light glowed on the plasma screen.
“A single point of egress, apparently,” Rodney declared unnecessarily, smacking his hand down on the light.
Just like the transports on Atlantis, all right. The doors opened almost immediately, spilling filtered light into the chamber. Before any other sensations could make themselves known, they were assaulted by a pungent odor. John crinkled his nose in disgust and leaned closer to Rodney, sniffing experimentally.
His teammate jumped away, looking at him like he’d lost his mind. “What is wrong with you?”
“Just checking. You did shower after your little encounter with the waste storage tanks, right?”
Glowering, the scientist chose not to dignify the question with an answer. “Thank you oh so much for that reminder. I certainly couldn’t have done without ever thinking of that incident again.”
“The smell is…pervasive,” Teyla observed, her features carefully schooled against any reaction.
“Maybe they’ve got a busted pipe somewhere.” John stepped out of the transport and took a look around. They’d been deposited in some kind of huge, enclosed marketplace. The villagers, moving with far less haste now, began to disperse into an already large gathering.
“Merchants,” groused one of the new arrivals to another. “There are more of them each time.”
“Of all the places in the Citadel to do their peddling, must they take over the one set aside for our shelter?”
“They know this is our place of refuge, but that doesn’t put coinage in their hands. It seems to matter not to them that without us, they would have no goods to sell.”
So capitalism was alive and well, maybe at the expense of other things. John continued to mentally catalogue the area, filing details away. He wasn’t convinced that all was okay just yet.
The market stalls were mobile and arranged in no particular pattern, complicating the flow of foot traffic around them. Most likely it was an every-man-for-himself setup, with each merchant claiming whatever space he or she could find in the vast building. The upper walls of the structure were lined with a venerable display of medieval-style stained glass windows, which explained the dingy, filtered light. Above it all were ornately carved, cross-vaulted cathedral ceilings. Except for the fact that it was just one wide expanse of semi-organized commerce broken up by stone support columns, the whole place had a distinctly church-like feel to it. Completing the effect were massive, crouched gargoyles that were, oddly, positoned over the inside entrances at each corner of the building. John did a double take when he realized the larger than life statues weren’t gargoyles, but Wraith.
In general, the sellers seemed to be a better-dressed bunch than the villagers, which probably shouldn’t have surprised him. Nearby, in a stall featuring what looked like herbs and medicinal items, Balzar stood watching Ford and a middle-aged woman tend to Lisera’s leg. Some of the merchants eyed the kid periodically, casting glances of appraisal that tweaked John’s nerves. Where he came from, looking at a teenage girl like that typically earned a guy an introduction to her father’s shotgun.