“This planet does have life forms,” Dahlia said. “We encountered a few in the process of working on the wreck. Small mammals, about as long as my forearm. They eat the tuberous roots of those gray plants.”
“Perhaps that is what you saw,” Teyla said.
“Maybe.” It could have been. He’d just seen motion. “It might have been one of those prairie dog things.” John lowered his gun. “Ok. Just keep an eye out, people.” It was probably nothing at all.
Shadows deepened. They followed the canyon, the stream a tiny trickle surfacing sometimes, then disappearing for a while beneath the stones. It was rough going, and John doubted they’d made three miles.
He dropped back a moment to talk to Dahlia Radim. “Do you know where this canyon goes?”
She nodded, sweat rolling down her face in the sultry heat. “It twists around to the north and then widens out into the plateau just north of the wreck.”
“How much distance does that add?” John asked. It would be too much to hope for that the canyon would come out in the right place.
“I do not know in your miles, but four hours’ walk perhaps? We did not come down by the canyon as I said, but cut straight across the plateau above.” Dahlia looked as tired as John felt. He sincerely hoped he didn’t look that tired. There was a twenty hour night coming, and he felt like he could sleep all of it. Still, a four hour walk was probably better than trying to get up eighty feet of cliffs. Going down was one thing, but he didn’t think he’d care to go up himself, with nobody at the top. Rock climbing was really not his thing.
“Ok,” John said. “That works.”
“Are we stopping soon?”
“Yeah.” John glanced at his watch. “In just a few…”
There was the movement again. He swung the gun up, pivoting right and dropping to his knee.
Carson let out a muffled sound, and he heard Teyla move behind them.
Ahead, the rocks were still and quiet. Nothing moved in the crevices of the stones. There was no noise at all, except the harshness of their own breathing.
“One of those mammals?” Teyla asked after a long moment.
“I did not see it,” Dahlia said.
“Probably.” John got up, dusting off his knee. “Let’s go on a little further and then we’ll take a breather. Maybe down there where the canyon widens out a bit and the stream looks like it comes up.”
“Excellent,” Carson said.
John nodded, taking the point again, conscious of Teyla’s eyes on the back of his head. There was no point in saying anything. For a moment, in the shifting shadows, he had thought he saw a man.
They rested in the shade. The temperature had dropped down into the nineties, which felt good. Water was what he needed. He’d probably sweated out half a gallon. The stream was fairly clear, but he added some water purification tablets and refilled his canteen. You never knew what might be in the water on an uninhabited planet. Strange bacteria would be just the beginning.
Teyla sat down beside him, offering him one of the MREs from her pack, but he waved it away. He was too hot to eat anything that heavy. An energy bar was enough to give him a boost without turning his stomach.
Teyla apparently thought the same thing, for she was nibbling on one as well rather than the heavier rations. Above, the sky was turning purple, dotted with a million stars. Quite literally. They must be looking toward the center of the galaxy, because it was bright as a moon as night fell. She tilted her chin up, as though looking for an errant breeze that wasn’t here. “It is quite beautiful,” she said.
John nodded. “I’ve seen the Milky Way like that on Earth. You can’t see it that way in San Francisco or DC, anywhere you’ve been. There are too many people and too many lights. But it does get that bright.”
“Where?” she asked.
John shifted, ostensibly because the stones beneath him were hard, a chill running up his spine, though his voice was casual. “In clear desert air. I’ve seen it that way in Afghanistan.”
“Ah,” she said, not turning her face to him, her eyes on the sky.
She had been with him on that planet where a Wraith mind control device had gone haywire, the only one of them immune to it because of the Gift, been with him a whole day as he slipped further and further into a hallucination. Afghanistan. He didn’t know entirely what he’d said and what he’d only imagined he’d said. He was afraid to ask. But he’d probably said enough. More than enough.
There wasn’t any more to say, so they sat in silence until it was time to move on, through this world’s slow twilight.
Carson offered his water bottle to Dahlia Radim, but she shook her head. “I have my own,” she said. “I won’t need yours, Doctor.”
“Carson,” he said. “I think we know one another well enough for that.”
“Carson,” she said, her eyes skimming his face. “Then you should call me Dahlia.”
“I’d be pleased to,” he replied.
Her eyes went past him to where Teyla and Sheppard sat in an identical pose crosslegged on the ground, both of them looking up at the sky without saying a word. “Would he have shot me?” she mused.
“No,” Carson said quickly. “Of course not. Not unless you’d been carrying a hidden bomb or the like.”
“I’m not sure of that,” Dahlia said. “Emmagan said that he was cruel and she was worse.”
Carson blinked. “I wouldn’t say that. Not at all.”
“Probably not.” Dahlia shrugged. “But you’re on their side.”
Carson was still digesting that when Teyla got to her feet with a smooth movement and came toward them.
“Are you ready to walk a little further?” she asked.
Dahlia got to her feet. “Yes.”
“We will go on a little while,” Teyla said. “And then we will rest for a few hours. Carson?”
“I’m game,” Carson said, getting to his feet. Beyond Dahlia, Sheppard had shouldered the heaviest pack and was taking up his weapon. He would go first, of course, and Teyla last. Carson hung back walking beside Teyla, letting Dahlia get ahead. When there was enough room not to be overheard, he leaned toward her. “Teyla, why did you tell Dahlia that Colonel Sheppard was cruel? What in the name of heaven is that about, making out he’s some sadistic bastard?”
Teyla looked at him levelly. “He is the military commander of Atlantis, Carson. It is important that the Genii fear him. Do you think they would do so if I told Dahlia Radim that he is a fluffy bunny?”
Carson huffed. “Well, not a fluffy bunny! But he’s not precisely Vlad the Impaler either!”
Teyla stopped, and he stopped with her. “Michael,” she said.
Carson blanched.
“Yes,” she said with a strange half-smile that did not touch her eyes. “And you and I bear as much taint as anyone for that. We are not harmless, even if we choose to be kind. A lion is a lion, even if you keep it as a pet or call it your friend.”
He swallowed, and she touched his arm gently. “Come now. Let us not fall too far behind. It would be dangerous for us to get lost in the dark.”
“Right.” Carson hurried along the broken ground ahead of her, the starlight bright enough to cast vague shadows on their path.
They had almost caught up to Dahlia Radim. Almost.
There was a blur of movement to Carson’s left, a momentary brief impression of a flying body, but before he could so much as shout something hit him hard, claws scoring across his shoulder as it threw him to the ground, borne beneath hard muscle and scaly weight, its scream echoing in the night air.