*Dice you for your thoughts,* Nighthaze said, and Rodney bared teeth at him.
*I am thinking that we have taken a wrong turn. As I told you two days ago.* One of the watching clevermen snarled at that, but Rodney ignored him. *I need to think. I’m going back to my quarters.*
*I will go with you,* Heedless said.
*No, no,* Rodney answered. *Continue your work.*
Heedless and Nighthaze exchanged a quick glance, and then Heedless dipped his head. *Your pardon,* he said, *but the Old One has given orders…*
For a moment, Rodney was tempted to protest, to see how far he could push things, but better sense prevailed, and he contented himself with another snarl. *Must he interfere in everything? Very well. But if time is lost, it is not my fault, or yours.*
They walked back to his quarters in silence, Heedless a respectful pace to the rear. If he were going to try to escape on his own, Rodney thought, this would be the moment. Heedless was strong, but not particularly young or quick, and Rodney thought he could at least knock him down, and maybe out. But the larger problem remained, and he sighed, letting the door of his quarters slide closed behind him.
It was strange how he remembered the hives as dark and dank. The lights were pleasantly bright, and the mist that curled out of the corners was cool and soothing, balm to the senses. Probably some of the difference was fear, of course, and equally of course they’d never had any reason to go into the parts of the hive where the Wraith actually lived. He snarled at his own stupidity. Carson had answered that question long ago: the Wraith saw a slightly different spectrum of light than humans did. And now that he was Wraith, he saw the hive as they did, light and pleasant and comfortable — home.
Heedless had left a game of habitats set up, a problem laid out on the overlapping circles, and as he reached for it, Rodney couldn’t help noticing that the fingers of his off hand looked somehow different, the skin more shiny than the skin of his wrist.
*Is that story true?* he asked, and Heedless blinked.
*Story, lord?*
Rodney waved his hand in the general direction of Heedless’s own. *The one your men were telling. About fingers.*
*Oh.* There was a distinct sense of embarrassment in Heedless’s mind. *That.*
*Yes, that.*
*Partly true,* Heedless said. The embarrassment was stronger now. *I was working to develop an explosive that we could grow quickly. My queen then was Starfire, and among our hunting grounds was one where the humans hid themselves in caves — natural and artificial, great runs of tunnels beneath a mountain. They would barricade themselves, and it cost time and effort to dig them out, so I thought, perhaps if we had a directional explosive, it would help us, and not kill so many of them to be impractical.* He shrugged. *I am fond of explosives.*
*So I gather,* Rodney said.
Heedless looked away. If he had been human, Rodney thought, he’d be beet red by now. *So I developed a formula, which was quite effective. But it wasn’t as stable as I’d expected, and there were… accidents. I did have to regenerate my off hand twice as a result. But it should have worked, truly.*
*Really,* Rodney said. He held up his hand to forestall any further comment. *Just tell me you’re not working on this any more?*
*No, lord,* Heedless said. *Nighthaze forbade it.*
*Which, frankly, seems like a good thing,* Rodney said. The mere idea of testing explosives on a spaceship made him cringe.
Heedless ducked his head again, and Rodney turned to his own chamber. There was no door, just the curve of the hive wall itself to shadow the sleeping nest, and he put his back to Heedless as he stripped off his outer clothes. Heedless reminded him of someone, though he couldn’t quite think who — but, yes, he could. Zelenka. Heedless reminded him of Zelenka, and with that realization came the memory of the last time he’d seen Zelenka, sprawled ungainly on the floor of the ZPM room with Ember bending over him, feeding hand outstretched.
He caught himself against the chamber wall, handmouth flattening painfully against the hive’s inner skin. He flinched back from that, from the sensation that burned like ice in his palm, and felt Heedless’s attention sharpen.
*Quicksilver? Are you well?*
*Fine,* Rodney snapped. *Just fine.* He wrenched his mind into order, made himself straighten, continue removing coat and undercoat as though nothing were wrong. He’d nearly killed Zelenka — well, Zelenka had nearly killed him, too, but it had been a closer thing the other way around… He had killed others, and even if he didn’t know them, not like he knew Zelenka, it still mattered. And some of them he might know.
He hauled his mind away from those thoughts, from the memory of attacking Atlantis, of the puddle jumpers colliding as he dropped into the gateroom and headed for the event horizon. Right now, he couldn’t think about it, couldn’t afford to think about things like that. He had to concentrate on staying alive and finding a way to get himself off the hive. He set his coat in its place, the hive closing gently around it, and eased into his nest, drawing the quilts around his shoulders. He had never felt so alone.
Jennifer seemed refreshed when they returned to the laboratory, more alert as she bent again over their work. Guide returned to his own workstation, coaxing a dozen different simulations at once from the machine, scanning streaming data that read insufficient, unacceptable, unlikely, one probable abysmal failure after another.
With a soft snarl, he leaned closer and entered the information for another dozen compounds, watching green numbers chase one another down the screen. Across the room, peering at her own datascreen, Keller seemed to be faring little better, murmuring to herself beneath her breath as her fingers danced over the keypad.
Hours passed before Guide isolated a promising compound, and his breath hissed between his teeth with pleasure as he quickly keyed in the sequence to upload the relevant information to his portable datapad. He reviewed it as he strode to the workbench, checking for any possible errors, anything he might have missed, but this time he could find none.
“Oh, hey, do you have something?” Keller asked. Without waiting for an answer, she came to join him, tilting the datapad in his hand without so much as a by-your-leave. Of course the words were beyond her, but the formulas were universal, and he didn’t miss her sharp intake of breath as she studied the screen. “Wait, I was just thinking — ”
She caught up her own computing device, cradling it in one arm as she pointed excitedly at the screen. “Here, look at this — ” He saw what she meant in an instant, and an unbidden smile bared his teeth.
“Very like indeed,” he murmured, pleased. He set his datapad aside in order to tap a finger to her screen. “Though, this —?”
Keller nodded as she moved past him to place her datapad on the bench beside his own, shoulder brushing him in passing. “Yeah, I know. But it makes sense for the ratio to be a tiny bit different if you think about it, you know? I was thinking more human, you were thinking more Wraith. But let’s run both. The other numbers match, and …”
Guide watched her hands as she talked, soft and unscarred, pale as some soft fruit. He was coming, grudgingly, to respect their skill and even their strange alien grace, as unfinished as they seemed. His gaze traveled upwards, taking in her long neck and smooth cheeks, still rounded with youth.
There was no fear in her, not now, at work. She reached for a slide, and her wrist brushed the knuckles of his feeding hand, and while he shivered instinctively, she did not even seem to notice. He marveled at that, as one waits with a thrill when prey picks its way close, stumbling into the trap of its own choosing.