Type: genfic/drama/action-adventure/HC
Rating: PG-15 (if I was going to use that type of rating).
Spoilers: set second season.
Betas: Klostes sat through the first drafts (winces), Lisa did the more of the comma/spot the misused words thing and LKY, this time, got to look at the final draft. I like to cycle through my betas – it’s only fair.
Word count: circa 55, 000

Part of the Frame of Reference series but you should be able to read it without being familiar with Assignment and Cusp

Frame of Reference series

Somnus
By Sealie

PART ONE

“Ronon,” Sheppard called over his shoulder, “stop poking the Doc.”

McKay leaned far out of the co-pilot’s seat and peered into the rear compartment of the puddlejumper. Beckett slept the sleep of the just, curled loosely on his side across the bank of seats along the port side of the vessel. Ronon poked Beckett roughly on the back of his shoulder. The doctor simply rocked, forehead pushing against the back rest of the seat, and continued sleeping. Ronon tried again.

“Leave him alone,” Sheppard called again. “That’s an order.”

The Runner stalked to the partition between the two compartments and propped himself up against the doorjamb.

“He’s been asleep for over six hours,” he rumbled.

“Well, not everyone can be Super-Dex,” McKay snarked. “Humans -- sorry Atlanteans, nope Earthlings, okay Tau’ri works, sleep longer than Setadan military specialists.”

“I know that,” Ronon said. “But you move, you talk in your sleep, you get up to take your pisses.”

“A piss,” Sheppard corrected.

Ronon jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He hasn’t moved.”

McKay leaned back on his chair and swung his feet up on to the console. “He’s got downtime. There’s no patients here. It’s going to take us twelve long hours to reach PX5 662. I’m not surprised he’s crashed. This unrelenting boredom is probably the closest thing to heaven for him. Unrelenting boredom. Not even airplane food and a sweet hostess to alleviate the boredom.”

“You could get your laptop out and do some work,” Sheppard pointed out.

“That I could, but I’m conserving my energy.” McKay pulled a Power Bar from his jacket pocket.

Sheppard smacked his feet.

“That hurt!”

“It didn’t,” Sheppard refuted. “Keep your feet away from the controls, we don’t want to accidentally trigger the self-destruct.”

“We have self-destruct?” McKay swung his feet down and bent over to peer at the dash.

“Yes, but not there.” Sheppard tapped his temple.

“How long can you sleep for?” Ronon asked.

“My record’s twenty eight hours,” McKay recounted wistfully, gazing into the space field before him. “That was after my first Ph.D. submission. I don’t actually remember falling asleep. When I got back to my apartment, I just lay down in front of the fire. Out for the count. Woke up because I couldn’t find my arms.”

“What?” Sheppard asked.

McKay stretched backwards, arms above his head, demonstrating. “My arms went to sleep. I couldn’t feel them. It was pretty weird – took me ages to find them.”

“Twenty eight hours?” Ronon checked.

“Yeah. And I got up, grabbed some chips and a beer and went back to sleep and slept for another ten or so hours.”

“You sleep at night for only two… four hours,” Ronon said slowly.

“That’s on missions,” Sheppard explained. “When we do an overnighter, we’re on watch. Two hour watches on and off. And back on Atlantis you’ve got caffeinated scientists with toys. They’re not typical human – Terrans. Supposedly, we need seven to nine hours sleep a night.”

“That’s…”

“A lot of wasted time,” Rodney interrupted Ronon. “We can get by on less. But after a while then the body demands a recoup. Carson’s a doctor; he’s learnt to take sleep when he can.”

“My people generally sleep for four hours a night. It is surprising that you need so much sleep.” Teyla uncurled from her seat behind Sheppard, setting her book aside. “The doctor has been busy recently; perhaps that we need this time to travel to Thou-et is a good thing.”

“I’m still not too happy that the Stargate on PX5 662 won’t activate.” Sheppard craned his head trying to peer at the second puddlejumper paralleling their course. The angle was completely wrong for a visual assessment of the team within.

“Yes, but if Teyla’s right there could be unparalleled opportunities to scavenge,” McKay said, rubbing his hands together avariciously.

Sheppard rolled his eyes. He was the one that had argued with Weir to allow the mission. The Athosians had requested that they be allowed to fulfil their seasonal visit to their trading partners on the planet Thou-et. The Stargate had not engaged. Teyla’s grandfather and father had traded with the women of Thou-et, mainly for delicate metal goods and, occasionally, medicinal advice when the Athosian shaman was unable to act. Teyla had presented previously acquired Thou-et surgical instruments as a gift for Beckett. Impressed by the workmanship, he had shown them to Rodney, who had identified that the degree of manufacture was beyond that of most of the inhabitants of the planets that they had visited. Intrigued, both Beckett and McKay had asked about Thou-et. Teyla spoke of a secretive, gentle people who avoided conflict and lived within an old city of stones and metal.

If the world had been culled of all the people of Thou-et, important technology might have been abandoned. If the Stargate had merely been damaged by the Wraith, repairing the device might bring them valuable allies. Luckily, while the Thou-et Stargate was offline, the Stargate orbiting PX5 664 at the edge of the red dwarf solar system had not been damaged. Using the Stargate at PX5 664 they had emerged in the solar system and begun the long haul flight to Thou-et.

The atmosphere in the puddlejumper was pleasant, anticipatory of the mission ahead. They lounged and lazed, enjoying the downtime. Sheppard had played Spider Solitaire for a few hours and then read old SGC mission reports. Teyla had brought a romance novel which Elizabeth had loaned her. Amazingly, Rodney had not teased her about her choice of reading, nor that she needed a primer to help. And when she asked for definitions of words and explanations of terminology he had supplied pithy, but not patronising, explanations. Ronon stalked this way and that, ever present, looming over the sleeping Beckett and then returning to the cockpit.

“Why is the Doc so tired?” Sheppard asked.

“Lieutenant Hillier broke his wrist,” McKay said.

Sheppard sat up. “What? Hillier? Redhead? Likes comic books? How come I didn’t know about one of my men?”

“I don’t know.” McKay shrugged -- it was obvious that he didn’t particularly care either.

“Hang on, Hillier only just got out of the infirmary after breaking his hip. What happened?”

Ostentatiously, McKay opened his laptop. “I have absolutely no idea. But, Carson was up all night running a genetic analysis on Hillier. I can guess what he was checking for, though.”

“And?” Sheppard said levelling a glare at the scientist.

McKay took his time, starting a couple of programmes before speaking, “Hutchinson’s disease has been shown to cause breakages. Lipidoses. Cancer. Osteogenesis imperfecta. I doubt that one, though.” McKay flicked a finger to each announcement.

Sheppard stood up.

“Are you going to wake the Doc?” Ronon asked, stepping into his way.

“Hell, yes. I want to know about my man.”

“Don’t you think that Dr. Beckett would have told you if there was a problem?” Ronon said.

They both turned to the comatose Beckett. Hunched in a ball, shoulders tucked high up against his neck, he didn’t look very comfortable. Sheppard slipped past Ronon and crouched at the doctor’s side. Gently, he pulled him over, onto his back, making sure that he didn’t roll off the narrow seat. Beckett shifted awkwardly and squirmed onto his left side, facing out into the compartment bay. His broad forehead furrowed, thick eyes brows coming together.

“Doc? Carson?”

Beckett cracked open an eye. “Murr?”

“You awake, Doc?”

Beckett pushed up on an elbow. “What? Is someone hurt?”

“No, Doc. I wanted to ask you about Lieutenant Hillier? Rodney says you were up all night, checking his DNA?”

“Eh?”

“Hiller broke his wrist. What’s the matter with him?” Sheppard asked tightly.

Abruptly waking up fully, Beckett fixed him with an intense stare. “I was concerned that a second break close after the broken hip indicated that there was an underlying problem. But no, he’s just a clumsy wee git, who like most of the marines, plays too hard.”

Sheppard settled back on his heels. “Sorry, Doc.”

Beckett flopped back on the seats. “I did tell the duty officer. He musta forgotten to--” he yawned expansively.

Sheppard patted him on the shoulder. “Go to sleep, Doc.”

Beckett obeyed, already breathing deeply and evenly, a slight breathy snore in the back of his throat.

A tad concerned, Sheppard reached out and laid the back of his hand on Beckett’s forehead. He was a little cool rather than warm.

“Is he ill?” Ronon tried to be quiet.

“Nah, but I wouldn’t have thought that one all nighter would have him sleeping like the dead.” Shrugging, Sheppard stood quickly. McKay had been alone in the cockpit for thirty seconds; they were probably wildly off course. He needed to get back.

They were indeed veering widely all over the place. It was lucky that they had inertial dampeners -- otherwise Beckett would have been sleeping in a heap on the floor.

“It’s not complicated so why are you so bad at flying?” Sheppard studied the screen outputs in amazement. “Straight-line. I repeat: it’s not complicated. Just think it in your head.”

McKay glowered. “I multi-task as a matter of course. We can’t all be one-track minded. I think of other things.”

“I fly, that’s the definition of multi-tasking, McKay.” Sheppard levered McKay out of his seat.

“Hurting!” he remonstrated and Sheppard released him. McKay dropped neatly back into the pilot’s seat.

“McKay…”

“Look, we’ve got the perfect opportunity to try and teach me to fly straight.” McKay tapped his wrist watch. “We’ve got another five hours before we reach the planet. Let’s try and figure out how you fly the puddlejumper so… effortlessly.”

Sheppard moved up behind his seat and set his hands on either side of the head rest. “You do drive, McKay, don’t you?”

“Yes,” McKay said a little bit too tightly.

“It’s like that is it?” Sheppard said smugly.

“I’ll have you know that none of it was ever my fault. Not even the incident with the central meridian and the cow.”

Sheppard winced; it took little imagination to imagine any litany of mishaps all because McKay probably got a little bit distracted.

“Look, you’re capable of incredible focus. Building nuclear bombs requires concentration.”

“And then some.”

“Let’s try it that way. Concentrate on a straight line.”


~*~

“Okay, that’s not working.”

~*~

“McKay, get out of my seat.”

McKay rolled his eyes at the exasperated tone. It really didn’t make sense; the sweep, swing and yaw were unrelenting. He had tried every combination of thought processes possible.

“McKay,” Sheppard said again, with that nasal twang that sometimes was like nails down a blackboard.
Making a great production, McKay swung the chair around and bounced to his feet into Sheppard’s personal space. Sheppard met him head on and they waltzed without touching, circling around until Sheppard could reclaim his seat. “You want to get the Doc’s scanner and check him out?”

McKay jerked around. “What? I’m an astrophysicist not a doctor.”

Sheppard cocked an eyebrow.

“A medical doctor,” McKay snapped.

“Just run the scanner,” Sheppard directed.

McKay dragged his heels back into the rear compartment. It seemed a profound waste of his time, assuming that he would even be able to interpret the results. Beckett was now cocooned in one of the mission’s unzipped sleeping bags. McKay pointed at Ronon and then at Beckett.

“He looked cold,” the Runner said simply. Ronon was probably also responsible for pushing one of the supply crates up next to Beckett’s torso, so if the physician rolled over he wouldn’t fall off the bench. Beckett’s medical bag was tucked beside him in easy reach.

McKay quietly opened the rigid backpack. The equipment was carefully packed in compartments, each and everything had its place. He plucked Carson’s favourite piece of equipment from the pack. The Ancient medical scanner provided a quick and dirty spec of a person’s state. He pondered that it would be easier to simply wake the man up and stick a thermometer in his mouth, but tapped the side of the scanner with his fingertips booting it up. Detaching the sensor strip and angling it towards Carson, automatically initiated a sensor run. Lots of numbers popped up on the tablet and years of diagnosing his own ailments came in useful. Temp, okay. Blood pressure, sort of okay. Pulse, resting.

McKay turned the sensor on himself. Borderline hypertensive. Carson kept ragging him about his coffee intake: ‘Rodney, forty cups of coffee a day is bad for your health.’

“What’s the diagnosis, Dr. McKay?” Sheppard called.

“He’s asleep.” McKay spotted the cylindrical portable brain activity scanner. With a smirk, he filched it from the pack. He popped out the diagnostic wand and the device initialised extending the holographic display interface in the air before him. But as per usual the stored data was password locked. That was easily bypassed. McKay grabbed Carson’s hand from under the blankets – amazingly the man stayed asleep – and rested it on the cylinder. By the simple expedience of placing his hand on top of Beckett’s and inwardly commanding “open” he unlocked the protected material.

McKay stood and met Ronon’s implacable stare with a smirk.

He waved the wand over Carson’s head calling up an fMRI-like 3D-scan of his brain. Mentally, he made the image twist around and then spliced it like baloney until the tell tale red spots which Carson had manifested after an altercation with the Atlantean Chair were revealed. They were fractionally bigger. McKay downsized the image and then sauntered into the cockpit, making a point of again smirking at the watching Runner. He bypassed Teyla who was nose deep in her book.

Sheppard was communing with the puddlejumper. Surreptitiously, McKay waved the wand over the back of the colonel’s head.

“McKay?” the Colonel questioned, without turning his head.

“Just checking conscious baselines.”

“Why?” Sheppard drawled.

“Carson’s been complaining. Well, he hasn’t been complaining, but he’s had a few headaches. I was wondering if that was why he was sleeping.”

“Should you be doing that?”

McKay tried to smile innocently. “You were the one that asked me to check him out. His temp’s fine, so he hasn’t got an infection.”

“I…”

”Hey, what’s that?” McKay pointed at the upper left hand quadrant of the windshield.

“Where?”

“There.” McKay initiated another scan as Sheppard called up a sensor display and used the magnification function to zoom in on the area that McKay had indicated.

“There’s nothing there.” Sheppard finally craned his head over his shoulder.

“I thought that I saw a flash.” McKay bent his head back to the device.

Sheppard shot him a plainly suspicious glance but returned to the controls.

“Are we almost there?” McKay asked, deliberately singsong.

“Half an hour,” Sheppard responded satisfactorily tightly. “I’m going to cloak.”

McKay took another reading. Settling in his chair, he couldn’t help but wonder why no one had carried out these types of scans before. Then again…. He called up the holographic interface and consulted the root directory. Carson certainly had been a busy bee. Most of the files were number coded – but it did not take a genius to figure out who the letters CB (in compatible Ancient script) stood for. He scrolled up the files and selected a MjJS file which corresponded to the time of Sheppard’s visit in the infirmary after the Chair incident.

Sheppard shot him a horrified look as the hologram of a knobbly, folded brain manifested in mid air. “Is that necessary?”

“It’s an interesting device. You have the wand.” He waved it. “That obviously emits a coherent form of radiation but also reads the information back from the analysed object. I can’t see a detector array, though. The holographic display interface is unique in all of the Ancient devices I’ve analysed. I’d take it apart if we weren’t on a mission and Carson might need it.”

“Why didn’t you take it apart on Atlantis?”

“Carson wouldn’t let me. He hides it. In fact I think that he sleeps with it. Better than a blankie, I suppose.”

“So he’s going to go apeshit if he sees you with it.”

“He’s asleep.” McKay closed down the hologram and popped off the side panel revealing the memory crystals. He placed Carson’s toy on the dash, and set up his Ancient data tablet beside the scanner. Humming happily, he pulled out the requisite cables, fiddled a connection and downloaded the stored data. He didn’t have the same display capacity on his data tablet, but he could view the information after a fashion. At least now, Carson’s valuable data was backed up.

“Dr. Beckett is very careful with his equipment,” Teyla spoke up, her tone even but amazingly chastising.

Sheppard called up the puddlejumper display on the windshield and McKay took another suite of readings, as their target planet was scanned. What he really needed now was a series of readings where Sheppard wasn’t manipulating Ancient technology.

“Aren’t you giving us radiation poisoning or something?” Sheppard asked.

McKay froze, studying the brain activity scanner as if it were an iratus bug. One handed, he pulled out his life signs detector from his vest lying beside his chair and flicked it on, selecting the radiation option. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t checked the device earlier. Such a lapse could be deadly.

“No,” he said slowly as he studied the results. “Fascinating. The detector is registering nominal amounts of Ξ radiation – classified as not dangerous. I’ve got to get this thing in the laboratory.”

“Ah. Ah. Ah!” Sheppard waggled a finger as McKay popped off another panel. “Don’t play with the Doc’s things when we might need them.”

Reluctantly hearing the wisdom of his own words, McKay sealed the panels. He generated Carson’s sleeping scan beside a Sheppard-awake-and-using-technology scan, sliced them and compared the different graphic outputs. It was not a fair comparison, however, as they were two entirely different people. Sheppard watched him leerily, eyebrow raised.

“The Doc’s waking,” Ronon said lowly.

“What!” Frantically, McKay disconnected the scanner from his data tablet. He dashed back into the compartment.

Carson hadn’t moved an inch, in fact he was snoring.

Rodney scowled at the chuckling Runner.

“Put it back, McKay,” Sheppard ordered. “We’re almost there, any rate. Wake the Doc up and get ready for an atmospheric entry in ten minutes.”

~*~

Carson sat up, knuckling his eyes. “Rodney?”

“Sleeping beauty awakes.” Rodney grinned. “Nah. More like the Kraken.”

“What?” Carson grumbled.

“Carson. Here.” Rodney thrust a mug of coffee in his face.

He jerked back away from the mug. It was a bit much to expect him to be able to cope with M. Rodney Ingram McKay mere seconds after waking.

“You need it. You’ve been sleeping for hours.”

“Are we there yet?”

Up front, Sheppard snorted.

“Just about to enter the atmosphere,” Rodney said. “The inertial dampeners will theoretically prevent any turbulence, but it’s best to be awake and aware.”

“What?”

“Enough with the ‘what’. Here. Coffee!” Rodney waggled the mug.

Automatically saying, “Thank you.” Carson accepted the mug. He took a blissful gulp. A born and bred Scotsman, he had been weaned on tea, but a decent cup of coffee sometimes was just what a body needed.

“Are you awake now?” Rodney asked intensely.

“Yes,” Carson was instantly suspicious.

“I want to talk to you about your ATA activation research.”

“What?” Carson asked slowly. That made no sense. He knew that he had just woken up but somehow that seemed to come from way out of left field.

Rodney tapped his foot against Carson’s medic-backpack.

“You’ve been running scans of people activating Ancient Tech using your toy – which you never let me play with by the way.”

Carson slowly processed his so-called-best-friend’s words.

“You been looking at my research notes?” he finally asked, his tone deliberately even.

“Your notes? Your favourite little black book?” Rodney mused. “No. I was playing with your scanner. Are you aware that it’s unique? I have to insist that after this little jaunt you let me take it down to the lab. The fact that it uses a hereto unknown type of radiation… It’s so fascinating, that makes the other aspects of its function and design system almost incidental.”

Carson leaned forward. “You’ve been looking at my files,” he asked, deadly calm.

“Just a few scans. Enough to figure out what you’re doing.”

“You cheeky wee bastard! How would you feel if someone looked at your private files, your notes, your research. That’s a blatant invasion of privacy!” Carson’s voice rose.

“It’s important research, it’s relevant to the whole mission! What about the team of bio-medics that are researching the activation aspect of the Ancient gene and technology? Your underlings, by the way, who are working in the dark. You shouldn’t be sitting on it.”

“How the Hell can you say that I’m sitting on it! I do my research in my time to my specifications and I’ll share the results when I’m bloody well ready to.”

“Guys?” Sheppard interjected loudly.

Carson ignored the Colonel. “How dare you come and look at my private files and you bloody well know that they were private – everything in that scanner is code-locked. And then have the audacity to question my research ethics!”

“You haven’t talked to Elizabeth. It hasn’t come up in any of the discussion groups or scientific working meetings. There’s terabytes of information on that system.” Rodney jabbed his finger at the backpack. “Just for you and no one else.”

“Oh, diddums, you feeling a little left out of the loop?” Carson mocked. “Last time I checked you were an astrophysicist, not a geneticist.”

“I’ve got my finger in many pies. Genius, don’t you know. Skilled at many fields.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to invade my private work!” Carson slapped his hand down hard on the bench seat. The slap echoed sharply through the puddlejumper.

Rodney froze as the crack reverberated. He paled as he finally realised that Carson was pissed. His eyes darted left then right.

“I can’t believe that you did that, Rodney,” Carson said into the silence that filled the cabin.

Rodney should never play poker. His face revealed spectacularly that he realised that he had stepped over the line. Carson knew his friend well, knew that for all his vaunted intelligence often he didn’t think.

But no apology was forthcoming.

Rodney scrambled to his feet and scurried to the cock-pit. Carson watched him go, now heavy-hearted. He didn’t like yelling at people, even when they deserved it.

Angrily, he zipped up his backpack, obscuring the offending scanner from view. Carson slumped back on the bench. He couldn’t even begin to predict in a million years what Rodney’s next reaction would be.

“We’ve scanned the planet,” Sheppard reported. “We’re entering the atmosphere. Please stow all luggage in the appropriate compartments. Refrain from smoking unless we catch fire.”

The humour was macabre. Absently, Carson rolled up the sleeping bag and then stuffed it and his backpack in the netting above his head. He pondered on the large crate which Rodney had insisted on bringing to carefully horde any loot. He moved to jam it back between the end of the bench seats and the drop down hatch. When it didn’t shift, he squatted down and put his shoulder to it. Ronon was suddenly at his side, lending his quiet strength to effortlessly push it into its former position.

“Atmosphere, guys.”

Inertial dampeners would likely render the descent smooth, Carson remembered, but it was best to sit. He leaned forward so he could see into the cockpit.

“I’ve identified the Stargate from the Naquada based electromagnetic signal,” Rodney reported flatly.

The HUD screen before Sheppard glowed into life, showing a schematic of the smallest continent. The northern most inlet magnified. Resolution increased incrementally until a map of 1:500 000 square meters resolved with icons denoting the Stargate and blocks which indicated urban developments.

“Are there any signs of life?” Teyla asked, concerned.

“Nope,” Sheppard responded. “Not getting any readings from the ‘gate either.”

“Which of these blocks is the Healer’s City?” Rodney asked.

“The City of the Healers is an hour’s brisk walk from the Stargate,” Teyla offered, pointing at the largest beige-coloured rectangle.

“It’s getting late,” Sheppard noted as the curve of the horizon masked the sun as they angled towards the Naquada signal. “We’ll set down by the Stargate and give Rodney time to figure out what the problem is, camp, and then head to the city first thing in the morning.”

~*~

“So are you going to forgive Rodney?” Sheppard asked as he loaned an absent hand to straighten Beckett’s sleeping bag across the deck of the puddlejumper cabin.

Beckett rocked back on his heels. “Forgive? When he apologises, or more likely sometime tomorrow,” he admitted reluctantly.

Sheppard smiled inwardly. He’d pretty much suspected that the doctor was incapable of holding a grudge.

“Oh, believe you me, son.” Beckett cocked a heavy eyebrow in his direction. “I can hold a grudge until the end of time. But this is just classic Rodney.”

Sheppard glanced out the open puddlejumper door and across the pasture to the DHD. The gently rolling landscape provided little in the way of cover, but provided an incomparable view of anything approaching. In the descending dusk the world was tinged with purple. McKay had his head in the guts of the inactive device and was talking loudly at it. Ronon stood over him and McKay’s assistant, Miller, keeping an easy glance on the land around them.

“He’s…”

“Don’t make any excuses for him, Colonel,” Beckett broke through his words. “What he did was bang out of order. He wouldn’t have done it with Radek’s research.”

“Radek would have strung him up by his balls,” Sheppard interjected.

“Aye.” Beckett sighed noisily. “You know what it says? It says that he doesn’t consider what I do as real research. Yeah, we’ve all heard his voodoo comments, but we say ‘that’s just Rodney’. You simply don’t look at a fellow scientist’s research without permission, that’s dead wrong – end of story.”

“What are you working on? You’ve got my scans on your toy?” Sheppard pointed at Beckett’s backpack which was set next to his bedding within easy reach. “I don’t remember you taking scans of me using Ancient tech.”

“I don’t have those type a’ scans. I’ve got our scans that I took after our incident with the Wraith infected Chair.”

“Well, McKay took some readings of me when I was flying the ‘jumper.”

Beckett’s eyes gleamed avariciously, but then dampened. “Well, I’d be interested in looking at them -- with your express permission.”

“Yeah, sure.” Sheppard waved his hand. He leaned across the bedding. “So what are you working on?”

Beckett reached into his pack, without looking, and withdrew the scanner. Practiced fingers flew over the controls. The holographic display interface popped up before them. Using his fingertip, Carson drew one set of data files across the screen and highlighted the last five.

“What were you doing, Colonel?”

“Just flying the ‘jumper. Calling up the windshield HUD screen.”

“So you were using Ancient tech in all these scans?”

“Yeah.”

“Pity.” Carson tapped the bottom file. The 3D image of Sheppard’s brain appeared. A second brain appeared next to it.

“They me?”

“Yes.” Carson pointed to the first one and then the second. “This is now and this is after the Chair incident.”

“Are those lurid red spots still in my brain?”

“They simply indicate that synaptic activity has increased. The colour could be brown, it’s just the programming.” Beckett manipulated the display interface and the two separate brain holograms transformed, breaking down into slices. The slices that showed no blurry red areas diminished, leaving only the affected transverse sections for study.

“They don’t look any different?” Sheppard hazarded. It was grim viewing. The red colour was particularly disturbing.

Beckett consulted the display panel, squinting at the numbers. “They’re not -- significantly.”

“And you were expecting them to be?”

“I was investigating the possibility that they are different.”

“So take one of me sitting here doing nothing.”

The diagnostic wand extruded on mental command from the scanner housing. Sheppard sat still as Beckett waved the wand over his forehead. The gentle wind rolling over the plain ruffled his hair.

“I’ve got scans of me sitting out on the west pier,” Beckett volunteered. “But the red spots still appear.”

The holographic brain appeared next to the other two. But Beckett’s attention was on the display panel. Sheppard could see that the array of numbers were different, but only slightly.

“We’re sitting in an Ancient puddlejumper. Maybe I’m picking up stuff?”

“Hence the reason why I volunteered to come on this mission.” Beckett grinned until his nose wrinkled. “Admittedly, the City of the Healers was a bit of a draw. I thought that it would be valuable to get a reading on a non-Ancient infected planet. Assuming that there are no Ancient installations here.”

“You’re looking for a baseline.”

“Yes. But that wouldn’t be a baseline.” Beckett waved his hand over the screen and the three holograms winked out. “What would be valuable is an Ancient fMRI scan of your brain before General O’Neill brought you to the outpost in Antarctica.”

“What about yours?”

Beckett coughed. “Until I came to Atlantis I’d never even had a concussion, no reason to have a CAT or even a basic MRI scan.”

“The red stuff didn’t appear until after the infected Chair.”

A faint reddish tint touched Beckett’s cheeks.

“Didn’t it?” Sheppard persisted.

“You should have had a’ fMRI after the incident with the Wraith stunner, but I didn’t insist and let you out of the infirmary because Teyla and Lieutenant Ford were lost on that planet.”

Sheppard remembered; he had railroaded the doctor and left ‘against medical advice’. Sharp words had been exchanged.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, though,” Carson continued. “A true baseline would be one before we were ever exposed to Ancient Tech. As soon as we stepped into the Antarctic outpost we were compromised.”

“All the ATA gene carriers show these spots?”

Beckett nodded. “Ours. Yours and mine show the highest degree of increased biochemical neurological transmissions – in the red zone, so to speak. Miko has ‘em and Passat and the others, but lower -- borderline.”

“What about your gene therapy victims?”

Beckett’s lips pursed at the ‘victim’ epithet. “Not a sausage. I’ve got some people’s scans from their medical records, and visits to our infirmary. I’ve got numerous scans from Rodney and despite the fact that he manips Ancient Tech, and there’s no evidence of increased synaptic activity in those regions.”

“Doc, this is a bit uhm… disturbing.”

“Aye,” Beckett acknowledged. “I’ve asked Stargate Command when they identify another natural gene carrier to carry out fMRI and CAT scans of them before they encounter any Ancient Technology. It’s entirely possible that it’s part and parcel of having the ATA gene. But the fMRI at the SGC isn’t as sensitive as ours so it might not detect the areas. Plus as soon as a new ATA is brought into the vicinity of our Ancient fMRI, they’re compromised. It’s a bit of a conundrum.”

“Why am I not reassured?”

Beckett’s face folded. “‘Cos I haven’t figured it out yet.” He gazed, abstracted out of the hatch. Teyla and Sarah Sakson pushed through the knee-high grass to the second parked puddlejumper.

“Doc.” Sheppard raised his hand to cup Beckett’s shoulder.

Beckett shuffled backwards. “It’s very disturbing, but I don’t have enough information yet to make a determination, let alone a diagnosis.”

“What did they say at Stargate Command?” Sheppard dropped his hand.

“I sent a communiqué in the last data burst, asking for information about the Ancients’ biophysiology, but I haven’t had a response yet. There was an Ancient Woman found actually encased in ice at the Antarctic base a few years back,” Carson suddenly volunteered.

“What?” Sheppard exclaimed; that didn’t make sense.

“She was dead. And then revived and then she died of an infection,” Beckett explained.

“And you worked with her?”

“I, uhm, worked with her DNA,” Beckett said delicately. “I saw her MRIs and…”

“We’re turning into Ancients?” Sheppard demanded.

“No. No. I can’t say that.”

“But it’s possible,” he probed.

Beckett shook his head, gingerly. “Noooo. It’s like comparing an MRI of a chimpanzee… No, a gorilla and a human. That doesn’t work….”

“Doc?” Sheppard felt his stomach clench.

“The Ancient lady was Ancient.” Beckett coughed, embarrassed. “I think she may have been pre-Ascension, but she was lit up like Christmas Tree lights compared to you and me. We’re little blips – baby steps.”

“So it’s nothing to worry about? We won’t trip into Ascension?” Sheppard clarified.

“I don’t think that it works that way, son. I just need to know what our ‘little blips’ signify in the grand scheme of things.”

“Perhaps you should ask Rodney for help?”

Beckett stared at him charily. “I will, Colonel Sheppard, when I have finished my analyses. When Rodney was playing with my scanner, he encountered exactly the same limitations that I had – lack of baseline and that our inactive and active manipulation of Ancient technology while on Atlantis results in no significant changes in neuro-chemical transmissions in our brains.”

“Sorry, Carson.” Sheppard held his hands up.

Beckett hummed introspectively.

Sheppard strove to placate, and he was also interested. “So what can I do to help?”

“I’d be interested to get a sleeping reading.”

“Sure, Doc. Next time – Hey, tonight, grab as many scans as you need. I’ll make a point of bedding down outside the puddlejumper, so at least I’ll be ten foot away from any Ancient Tech.”

Beckett smiled softly. “Thank you, John.”

~*~


“What are you cooking?” Ronon sniffed appreciatively.

Bent uncomfortably over the deeply dug fire pit, bum parked on a stone block, Beckett pulled back. “It’s called bacon, son.”

Ronon kicked the final few stray, sheared stalks of grass away from the large circle of cleaned earth around the well used pit that they had found. A spark made an escape from the fire as a twisted branch split. Ronon stamped it out of existence even though it was well within the cleared area. Eb Coleman, from the second puddlejumper, sat on the stone beside Beckett diligently feeding the fire the pile of small, scavenged branches from the copse of bushes around them. Warped and gnarly, the bushes likely protected the DHD and the fire pit from the winds that blasted over the plain in harsher seasons.

“Bacon?”

Beckett hummed under his breath. “I thought it a wee bit unfair that we’d be missing out on the bounty the Daedalus delivered yesterday.”

Sniffing again, Ronon squatted at the doctor’s side. “I’ve tried your eggs,” he said flatly.

“Ah, you’ve tried,” the r rolled off his tongue, “the reconstituted crap that the commissary calls eggs. These are proper eggs. I had a small chilling unit, and we had a puddlejumper with internal power, so I thought ‘why not, we deserve a treat’.”

“Did you put beer in your chiller?”

Beckett cocked a smile at him. “No, son, I didn’t bring any beer; we’re on a mission. I did, however, get a care package from me mum which probably has some bottles of real ale in. They’re in my room, I’ll introduce you to them when we get back to Atlantis.”

“Smells good.” A spark drifted up in the spiral of smoke from the fire, straight up in the air in the windless evening. Ronon reached out and caught it.

“Divine, more like.” Carson inhaled and smiled beatifically. “It would be better if we had black pudding and why is it so difficult to get tinned tomatoes? I mean tinned tomatoes are designed for travel.”

“Black pudding -- dessert?”

“No, son, savoury. It’s a sausage made of pig’s blood, suet, bread, barley and oatmeal.”

“Sounds nice,” Ronon said.

Beckett cast a glance over his shoulder at the gagging Marine sat beside them. “No bacon for you, son, if you’re going to take the mick out of my favourite breakfast.”

Eb Coleman held up his hands. “I wouldn’t dream of dissing your cooking, Doc. It smells great.”

“Aye well, remember no dissing the cook or I’ll send you to the puddlejumper for tasty MREs.” He pointed at the two puddlejumpers parked kitty corner to the firepit, adding another barrier to protect their campsite.

“Honest, Doc, I’m sitting here salivating,” Coleman said, licking his lips.

Carson huffed and smiled. “Well, we’ve only got one frying pan and there’s eight of us, so do you two want first dibs?”

Both men nodded enthusiatically.

“Hi, Doc.” Sheppard moseyed on up. “Smells good.”

“That it does. But Ronon and Eb here have first dibs.”

“How much did you bring?” Sheppard licked his lips.

“Three rashers and two eggs each.”

“Rasher?” Sheppard asked.

Carson pointed to a slab of bacon gently curling in the pan.

“You gave this some thought, Doc.”

Sheppard stood at a comfortable parade rest, hands on the butt of his P-90 as it hung from his vest. Dusk was upon them. The red sun was a sliver on the horizon. A light breeze made the dry grass around them rustle. Carson doled out the first rashers of bacon and eggs to Ronon and Coleman. The fat spat as he threw in the next batch of rashers. The smell was divine. Ronon hummed contentedly as he munched, and Sheppard guessed that there was another convert to the cult of bacon. Drawn by the aroma, Sarah Sakson exited the back of the second puddlejumper plastic plate in hand. She grinned, displaying a mouthful of crooked teeth.

“Hullo, love.” Carson promptly forked some rashers and an egg onto her held out plate.

“Smells good, Dr. B..”

Ronon stood and smacked his lips, food bolted and devoured. “That was good.”

“Funnily enough, bacon always tastes nicer when you’re outside.” Sheppard settled on the rock seat that Ronon had vacated.

“A bag of chips with salt and vinegar after a session in the pub,” Carson reminisced blissfully.

“Doc?” Sheppard asked for clarification.

“After you’ve been down the pub for a couple of beers it’s good to stop at the chippy and buy a bag of chips to eat on the way home.” Carson flipped the bacon over. “Cold November nights when the air’s crisp are the best.”

“I like my bacon nice and crispy,” Sheppard informed, pointing at the bacon simmering on the hottest side of the frying pan.

“Do you want some of the rind?” Carson offered a side plate of hot, crunchy fat that had been snipped off from the bacon.

“Er, no.”

“Suit yourself.” Carson flicked a strand into his mouth.

Ronon squatted down. “Can I?”

At Carson’s nod, he delicately took a single strip of fat. His resultant groan was positively orgasmic. Carson laughed richly.

“That doesn’t look very healthy,” Sheppard complained.

“Once in a blue moon isn’t going to do you any harm.” Carson transferred rashers onto the plates laid out beside him. “Do you want to call for Rodney, Miller and Cody to join us?”

Sheppard cocked his head at Ronon.

Ronon bellowed, “Naafi UP!”

Shocked, Carson looked at the Runner and then began to laugh.

“Was that not right?” Ronon queried.

“No, it was fine,” Beckett said. “It’s just that, I’d guess that I’m the only one who’ll understand you.”

Seeing his bacon – nice and crispy – Sheppard swooped. He wasn’t going to ask what the demented doctor meant.

Across the meadow, Miller and Lieutenant Cody Hall gazed meekly at them, obviously smelling the bacon, but McKay was still head and shoulders deep inside the guts of the DHD.

“Pack it up, McKay,” Sheppard ordered.

McKay wriggled out, long enough to say, “Almost finished,” before diving back in.

Ronon grabbed the two filled plates and strolled over to the famished scientist and baby-faced marine. Carson started the next batch. Ronon took up guard duty, absently twirling his blaster as Cody dug into the bacon. Munching happily, Miller settled down, half hidden in the dry grass around the DHD.

“Keep an eye on the bacon, Colonel,” Carson directed and picked up the sixth plate.

Sheppard kept one eye on the bacon as instructed and the other on the rest of his team. Teyla emerged from the bushes, brushing down her trousers. She craned her head regally and settled by the fire on the stone block on the far side.

“Do you like your eggs over easy or sunny side up?” Sheppard asked.

“I do not know. Which ever is easiest to cook.”

Sheppard left the eggs frying gently – he guessed that Carson was a chef who felt that too many cooks spoilt the broth.

“I’m in the middle of delicate work!” Rodney screeched.

Sheppard looked up from the frying pan to see Carson stalking back to the campfire, his expression a poker mask. The plate of fried food was left balancing on the DHD.

Beckett settled back in his place. He professionally flipped over the bacon. “If I didn’t know better I’d think he was PMSing.”

“PMSing?” Teyla asked.

“There are some poor people, women, who are tightly woven into their menstrual cycle,” Carson said soberly. “Their hormones make them overly irritable at certain times of the month.”

“Dr. McKay is not a woman.”

“Hence the reason for his bad mood cannot be PMS.” Carson doled out the final rashers of bacon to Teyla and himself. “I do know that eating something will put him in a better mood. But you can lead a horse -- a farm animal -- to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

“A sensible proverb, Dr. Beckett.”

“Carson, Teyla.” The doctor smiled engagingly.

“Of course. A minor slip.”

Reaching, Sheppard snagged one of the fried pieces of rind and popped it in his mouth. A pleased smile graced his lips and he grabbed another.

“So good, so bad for you. Rodney’s missing a treat.” He glanced to the astrophysicist, and caught Rodney sheepishly taking the plate from the DHD and munching on the bacon. The hole that Rodney was digging was getting deeper and deeper.


~*~

The sun had set and the moonless sky was an ebony swath with diamond stars when McKay finally wrestled the DHD into submission. Wearily, he stumbled back to the parked puddlejumpers, his way illuminated by a flashlight carrying Ronon.

“Hey,” Sheppard said easily, and McKay slumped beside the banked fire, lying full out. “Solve the problem?”

McKay breathed deeply and noisily, halfway to sleep like the rest of the team camped out in the puddlejumpers, before volunteering, “Yes and no.”

“So what is it?”

“I know what the problem is, but I haven’t repaired it.” McKay rolled onto one elbow and stared directly at Sheppard. “It’s been sabotaged.”

“Sabotage? How?”

“Someone or several someones have rerouted every single secondary and tertiary system back on themselves. Once you reset one, it like a domino knocks over another random set relay--” McKay flipped one hand against the other illustrating a bank of domino tiles falling-- “so any repairs you make are ultimately pointless. It’s also constantly signalling a 404 error code to the gate, preventing a lock.”

“Can you fix it?” Sheppard asked. It would be useful to have the Stargate up and running even if they could fly to the ‘gate orbiting PX5 664.

“Yes – after I’ve had some sleep.” McKay knuckled his brow.

“Can we just use our puddlejumper DHD to dial home?”

McKay’s lips thinned. “Theoretically, yes. Not at the moment, though.”

“But…” Sheppard began.

McKay held up a finger. “It’s entirely possible that the ‘gate’s looped in the anti-lock code. Overriding, disconnecting or damaging the DHD might prevent it permanently resetting. Whoever did this is clever. If I was going to sabotage a ‘gate, I’d set it up like that. I need to look at it tomorrow when I’m fresh. The inhabitants might be a bit pissed if we permanently damage their DHD and Stargate.”

“Get some sleep then, McKay.” Sheppard nodded towards their puddlejumper where he had laid out McKay’s sleeping bag.

McKay looked like he wanted to crawl to his sleeping bag, but he lumbered to his feet. “Actually, it’s easy now I know what the problem is. I just need to show Miller the correct sequence in which to do the repairs. Any trained monkey can do it. Repairing the DHD should reset the stargate.” Yawning, McKay stumbled to the puddlejumper, talking all the way. “Or – if it turns out that the DHD is irreparable and when I know it won’t damage the ‘gate to take it out – we can let the marines blow the DHD up with C4 and we can use the puddlejumpers’ DHDs.”

“Sabotage,” Sheppard said quietly as McKay disappeared inside.

“Sophisticated sabotage,” Ronon clarified. “And it happened on this side of the Stargate.”

“It wasn’t set on a timer after the saboteur went through the ‘gate?”

“McKay doesn’t think so.”

Sheppard cast a fleeting glance at the life signs detector set by his feet. “No one within range.”

“I can’t hear anyone out there.”

Sheppard shrugged; until they had more information, they could only keep watch. Speculation was a waste of time. “We’ll head to the City of the Healers in the morning at first light.”

“Okay,” Ronon said easily, thoroughly versed in the US vernacular. “You want to crash?”

“I’m good. Coleman is spelling me in an hour. You should get your head down.”

“Is that an order?”

“Yes,” Sheppard drawled. “It’s an order.”

Ronon rose smoothly to his feet and followed McKay into the puddlejumper. Sheppard was not surprised when he returned with his bedroll and set it beside the glowing fire.

“McKay asleep?”

“Like a baby gron-delf.”

Sheppard raised an eyebrow.

“A beast of the smallholdings – large and fecund, produces lots of babies which snore louder than their size.” He smacked his lips. “Good eating – like your bacon.”

~*~

McKay jogged back through the long grass to the puddlejumper, working through their now well-worn trail. Sneezing echoed as the early morning sunlight warmed the grasses and illuminated the dust motes rising in the air.

“Hurry up, McKay,” Sheppard called as the astrophysicist ran up the back ramp.

“I’m here. I’m here.” He sniffed massively clearing his sinuses and swallowed.

“Miller know what he’s doing?” Sheppard said conversationally, knowing full well that McKay wouldn’t have left his fellow scientist until he was fully sure that the man knew how to repair the DHD.

“He does now.” McKay surged past Ronon and Sarah to claim his seat beside the pilot.

Sheppard closed the back hatch and mentally commanded the puddlejumper to rise. He swung it round, hovering over Miller and Eb Coleman by the non-operational DHD. The young captain raised his hand in absent salute.

Sheppard engaged the cloak and sped towards the City. An hour’s march would take a mere five minutes. McKay perched on the edge of his chair as they flew over the gently rolling landscape.

“That’s a pretty amazing view.”

Only a wisp of cloud marred the pale, pink sky. Visibility was excellent. They could see hundreds of miles of unrelenting grassland. Sheppard banked towards the hills rising like the plates in a stegosaurus’ back.

Teyla leaned between the seats and pointed. “There is the City of the Healers.”

A high, semi circular stone wall hemmed the city. Built into and against the hills were rising levels of single-storey square structures – vaguely ziggurat-like with a slightly wider base than the top. Each tier was arranged in a semicircle bisected by a vast promenade leading straight from the city gates to an immense, windowless ziggurat. Each blocky building was constructed of smooth stonework, hewn from the pinkish cliffs overhead. There appeared to be no windows or doors. Stairs were built up on walls and cut into the roof were hatches. Behind the sharply delineated levels of city, as the hills jutted into cliffs, there were reliefs of Giants carved into the rock face.

“It’s not like Atlantis,” McKay said, shooting a frustrated glare at the Athosian.

“Do you not think that I would have told you many seasons ago if it had resembled the City of the Ancestors?” Teyla said easily.

“Who are the faces?” McKay asked.

“Like Mount Rushmore,” Sheppard marvelled.

“More like the Mata Nui carvings or the Buddhas of Bamiyan,” McKay said waspishly.

Carson joined them. “Is the whole city devoted to healing? Or is there a Healers’ Hall?”

“There,” Teyla pointed to the largest building directly ahead.

Sheppard was aiming for it any rate – set at the end of a long promenade at the foot of a sixty foot statue, it looked kind of important.

“The carvings are of the Ancestors,” Teyla added. “Many travel to Thou-et to pay homage to the Ancestors and to speak with the healers.”

“Pah,” McKay mocked, lowly.

Sheppard ignored him. “They anyone in particular?” He waved his hand at the woman straight ahead. The carvers had even detailed the embroidery in her bodice.

“It must have taken them generations,” Carson marvelled. “Look at her hair. Each curl is rendered.”

“What about the smaller figures? Are they the Ancients?” McKay asked intently.

“I believe that they are us,” Teyla said softly, “under the protection of the Ancestors.”

“Life signs, Colonel?” McKay asked.

Shepard consulted the pop up HUD screen on the windshield. “Nothing. Unless there’re hibernating Wraith.” He gently set the camouflaged puddlejumper down on the first giant flagstone of the promenade. The back hatch lifted up and the puddlejumper de-cloaked.

“What’s the plan, Sheppard?” Ronon asked.

“Three teams. One team cover the med centre. One team the city boundary--” Sheppard pointed at the lowest most tier of blocky buildings, “--and the last team to investigate the building interiors. Teyla and I will take the interiors -- Teyla, you know which ones might be interesting. Cody, Sarah, take the boundary, stay in radio contact. Beckett, McKay and Ronon take the med centre. This place is built out of solid rock and the med centre looks like it goes back into the cliff face; radio communication might be iffy. Half an hour then rendezvous back at the ‘jumper.”

“Half an hour?” McKay protested.

“Half an hour,” Sheppard said flatly. “We all sense that there’s something out of whack here. The city is deserted and the DHD sabotaged. Quick and dirty -- we look, assess the scavenging opportunities and then decide. Everyone keep their comms on.”


~*~

The statue of the embroidered woman stood protectively over the Healers’ Hall. The building seemed to be sheltered within the folds of her layered skirts. Standing on the first step of a steep stone staircase, Rodney had his nose stuck in his energy detector and was muttering to himself. The man hadn’t looked Carson straight in the eye since their altercation. But that could be for many reasons.

Ronon prowled ahead of the two scientists, hand on his blaster’s grip, as he watched the world around them. The building shared the blocky structure of the smaller living dwellings, but unlike them there was a towering, pillar-edged doorway at the top of the stairs. The Runner took the steps up to the wide, open entrance two at a time.

Carson paused halfway up the steep staircase. “Rodney?”

The astrophysicist froze and then slowly looked up. “Yes, Carson?”

“The architecture of the Healer Hall is completely different to the rest of the city.”

“And?”

“It’s curious. Now we’re closer we can see that the houses are younger, smaller stones, wattle and dab. But look--” Carson pointed at the three meter right hand cornerstone on the towering temple above them, “--how the Hell did anyone move that there?”

“Ancient construction.” McKay flashed a tiny smile at him and then bounded up the stairs, zigzagging to ease the trip.

Carson picked his way upwards, now and then bracing a hand on the steps above him as he climbed. Ronon waited at the top.

“Do you want me to take your med kit, Doc?” He jerked his chin at the backpack.

“No, son, you just keep your gun ready.”

“I can carry both, Doc.”

“I know you can, but I’d feel sort of undressed without it.”

Ronon nodded once, turned and stalked through the open doorway into the cavernous hall. He sniffed the air as he made his way forward.

Involuntarily, Carson sniffed too, drawing in dry, dry air with the faintest hint like cloves. He stepped over the threshold and felt the visceral thrum of Ancient technology stir in his guts. Strips of lights in the walls on either side, thrummed on. Each cell initialised in sequence, climbing up the high walls like light caterpillars. As they reached the ceiling, a domed light in the centre of the foyer glowed pearlescently.

Ronon dropped down on one knee, spinning to better scan the area and present a smaller target.

“Uhm, sorry.” Carson raised his hand. “It’s reacting to me. Ancient gene thing, you know.” He shrugged bashfully.

“Yeah, your gene medicine.”

Rodney entered, life signs detector in hand, tongue clicking as he interpreted the readings. “No, Carson’s a natural gene carrier.”

Ronon stroked his goatee and stared at the doctor.

Carson smiled tentatively. “Penny for your thoughts, son?”

“I don’t understand,” Ronon said. “I thought that you had created the Ancestor’s gene in a lab?”

“No.” Carson took another tentative step as the hall perked up around him. He could sense immense hollowness stretching far back into the cliffs beyond the confines of the first area. “Well, not quite. The gene is naturally in our population but only a very small percentage has it.”

“You’re an Ancestor?”

Slightly distracted, Carson held up his hand, trying somehow to grab the feelings in the air around him.

Rodney answered for him, “Carson has the gene or maybe even genes of the Ancients naturally like Sheppard.”

“How?”

“Either it’s evolved a second time, which has always struck me as statistically unlikely,” Rodney continued, “or an Ancient had nookie with one of his ancestors way back in the distant past.”

Carson flashed a black look at his friend, but he couldn’t deny the possibility.

“Nookie?” Ronon asked.

“Sexual relations,” Carson offered.

“Oh, I misunderstood. I thought you’d made the gene.”

“No.” Carson drifted forward. He shivered as welcoming stroked up his spine. It was not Atlantis -- it was less complex, more linear, direct. Attention mostly caught by a nebulous drifting, unidentifiable sense, he slowly said, “I used my natural gene as the basis of our gene therapy. Rodney here was my first test subject.”

“Carson.” Rodney waved a hand in front of his face. “Where are you?”

Carson jerked back from the hand. “It’s definitely Ancient. But we knew that, flashing lights and all.”

“Are you sensing a Chair?”

“No,” Carson could say that with surety. “We should call Colonel Sheppard.”

“Any particular reason?” Rodney asked directly.

“No, just he’s got the stronger gene.”

Rodney tapped his watch. “We’ve only got twenty three minutes before we have to meet at the puddlejumper, let’s keep looking.”

“Are you detecting a ZPM??” Carson asked.

“Could be. We’ve definitely got a power source. It’s either nearly depleted or off line.” Grinning happily, he turned and scanned. “This way.”

He jogged ahead, moving straight down the centre of the foyer, focussed on the circular portal embedded in the far wall. It bore the distinctive stamp of Ancient design, but the drizzled metal patterning was tinged more into gold than silver.

Carson edged his foot onto the reddish golden path that neatly bisected the foyer and led directly to the portal. The skin behind his ears was tickling. Ronon glared, obviously unhappy that his charges were at opposite ends of a long corridor. Dutifully, Carson ignored the antechambers set at regular intervals along the walls since they couldn’t afford to split up. The enticing rooms would have to wait. He picked up the pace to join Rodney.

The doors ahead were barred. Rodney came to a dead stop, his forehead almost touching the scroll work. The portal was three times the diameter of a man. A wavy band of patterning marked the circumference. The ebb and swirl of the metal work was subtly gentler and more rounded than the metal work on Atlantis. Curls and spirals broke away from the band, twisting and knotting towards the centre.

Rodney rapped his knuckles against the middle. “Open,” he demanded.

Nothing happened.

Carson stuck his hands in his pockets. “Maybe it’s not a door. It could just be a tapestry.”

Rodney turned his detector and presented it directly in Carson’s face. “Power source, behind the big, round door. Carson, you try.”

Carson resituated his backpack uneasily. “It’s probably shut for a reason.”

“Like what?” Rodney griped. He waved at the wall. “Looks like plain, I don’t know, masonry, with a big red-gold portal. It’s a door. Doors are meant to be opened. Do you see any warning signs?”

“I don’t know.” But reluctantly Carson closed his eyes. He could feel the fine skin around his eyes tightening. Deliberately, he tried to relax. Sheppard always emphasised that the key was to simply expect it and make it happen.

“Perhaps if you touched it,” Rodney interrupted his train of thought.

Carson opened his eyes and glared sufficiently harshly that Rodney stepped back. He caught his tongue between his teeth, and felt it – there, a tiny stroke, a scratch deep inside his head. The hollowness opened, encapsulating all things Ancient. The machinery grated, trying to comply. But the mechanism did not open.

“It’s broke. It’s old, older than dust. It’s frozen solid.”

“Ronon.” McKay stepped aside.

“What?” Carson could only manage to bleat once before Ronon unfurled his gun and blasted a hole in the portal. Cringing, Carson ducked reflexively away from the rush of heat. Inside his head, the mechanism grated, and released with a satisfied sigh. The barrier retracted, spiralling into the border a fraction and a hole appeared in the centre.

“Stop,” Rodney directed.

The Runner holstered his weapon. “You okay, Doc?” he asked the wincing medic.

“Carson, did you do that?”

A lump of molten Ancient metal fell to the floor. Without thinking, Carson scooped up the lump. Heat dissipated quicker than it could burn. ‘Magic,’ he thought instinctively.

“Carson?”

He turned over the metallic fragment – it felt warm and vibrant in his hand. It felt like Sheppard’s magic metal – his so-called Atlantean primed material that responded like quicksilver to thought.

“Carson, open the door!”

“What?”

“Oh?” Carson scowled at the golf ball sized hole. He breathed out once and pictured an opening camera shutter. The portal grated, blades retracting a foot and then almost two before groaning to a halt. “It’s stuck again.”

“It will do.” Rodney shimmied out of his vest and pushed it and his backpack through the hole.

“I should go first.” Ronon stepped forward.

“Oh, feel free.” Rodney stepped aside.

A slight smile quirked the Runner’s lips. Carefully, he poked head and shoulders through the hole, scanning the interior. He pulled back, divested himself of his wide shouldered coat and his double edge blade and passed both through the opening. Grunting, he squirmed through.

Rodney gestured grandly at the opening. “After you, Carson.”

He eyed it doubtfully, but if Ronon got through he probably could. Carson pulled off his backpack and vest and passed them to the other side. The hole was sufficiently high enough from the floor that they were looking at an uncomfortable drop on the other side. Gingerly, he poked his head, arms and then wriggled his shoulders through. Ronon was there, grabbing his jacket collar and pulling him. Carson sucked in his gut and popped out. The Runner was impressively strong, setting him on his feet without breaking a sweat.

“Okay, Doc?” He patted his shoulder.

“Yes, thank you, Ronon.”

“Is someone going to give me a hand?” Rodney whined, head and shoulders through the hole. Ronon grabbed his collar and yanked. “Ow!”

Set rudely on his feet, Rodney turned in a complete circle, scanning all the way. The corridor walls and floor were a cool white, almost appearing ceramic in nature with borders patterned with an intricate twist of lapis lazuli blue knotwork. More, but smaller, dome lights set along the walls, illuminated the environment, brutally.

“There’s a significant power source here.” Rodney tapped the life signs-energy detector and then pointed imperiously northward. “There’s something that way.”

Ronon, blaster in hand, stalked down the corridor leading them.

“ZPM, ZPM,” Rodney sang under his breath.

~*~


“Anyone around?” Sheppard called.

Silence greeted them. He didn’t expect any answer – even the air around them seemed to be still and dead. He contemplated the one-storey, blocky building in front of him. A steep staircase formed of single treads was embedded in the wall. Sheppard took them two at a time, heading rapidly for the high ground. The roof was gently domed, and in the centre sat a round, covered porthole. Teyla joined him.

Sheppard turned in a circle, viewing the city from their new vantage point. Lieutenant Cody Hall and the young scientist, Sarah, were heading down the main thoroughfare to the high city walls. Up at the top of the city, Ronon was just entering the medical building. He could see that the rising terraces of the city were arranged in semi-circular ripples and that the medical building was the focal point.

“You know, it’s like a temple,” Sheppard mused.

“As I said, many come to Thou-et to reflect on the Ancestors.”

“And get medical attention. What about the Wraith? There were--” Sheppard looked out across the city levels checking on his team. Carson paused at the threshold of the temple entrance. He craned his head, peering back over his shoulder at the city, before venturing into the building, “--a lot of people here.”

“The Wraith rarely culled Thou-et.”

“I guess it pays to leave the veterinarians undamaged.”

Teyla glanced at him sideways, but didn’t comment.

“Right.” Sheppard left his contemplation of the city, and pushed open the porthole with his foot. The flashlight on his P-90 illuminated a circle of light in the dark room beneath. “I’ll go down, you stay here.”

He slid smoothly down the ladder, feet on either side of the rungs. He dropped to a crouch, scanning the dark open plan room. The beam of his light picked up few fixtures, a row of shelves in the wall. The back wall had a small fireplace constructed of small reddish bricks. The hearth was empty and a single black pot sat on a metal trivet. A thick rush carpet covered the entire floor and large cushions were strewn about. It was all very commonplace and very musty.

The doorway to the adjacent room was unusual; it was a tiny oval, a mere two and a half foot in height, but about three foot wide.

“Teyla, are the Thou-etins midgets?” he called.

“They are people of normal height. Perhaps a little shorter.”

Crouching, Sheppard shuffled into the next room. It was a bedroom. A mound of blankets were laid on a mattress which filled up half the room.

“Communal sleeping, I guess,” Sheppard mused. Across from the bed on the same wall of the fireplace in the other room was another small, oval doorway. This one had a metal door barred with a stout golden rod. Sheppard lifted it away and the tiny door swung open without even a squeak. A tunnel led straight ahead to another metal door.

“Ah.” Sheppard glanced at the ceiling and realised belatedly that the house was embedded several feet into the ground. Likely a network of tunnels burrowed through the earth joining individual buildings. These people crawled a lot.

He returned to the living room and looked up through the porthole, squinting at the bright pinking light overhead.

“Colonel Sheppard, have you found anything?” Teyla blocked the light.

“Gets pretty hot here doesn’t it?”

“At noon, we will be happy to stay within the puddlejumper. But we are now at the end of the dry season, so it will be hot but not too hot.”

“The anthropologists would have a field day looking through all this stuff. The architecture and the like’s really interesting.” He climbed up the ladder, happy to exit the claustrophobic building.

“Shall we look at another home?” Teyla asked, gesturing at the house directly to their left.

Sheppard moved to the corner edge of the flat top of the building. A narrow gap, a couple of feet, purely to allow ventilation of the fires along the walls parallel to the cliffs above, separated the line of houses from the next, higher tier.

“No, let’s head up that way. I’d guess the higher up the cliff face you are the more important you are.” Sheppard backed up and then took a running jump, leaping to catch the roof of the next tier. Smoothly, he caught the edging tile work, and then used his momentum to clamber onto the roof. Teyla leaped up easily beside him.

“It would be very difficult for the Wraith to move through this city.”

Sheppard cocked a finger at her. “Yep, you’re right. That probably explains the little doorways. The big guys wouldn’t be able to get through them at all.”

“Shall we continue to the next level? Or investigate this house?”

“Nah, let’s go up a couple of levels.” Sheppard took another running jump to the next tier of roofs.

~*~


“I know this,” Carson breathed reverentially. In the centre of a circular room sat a squat dais. The tiled floor bore a concentric, swirling pattern. At the edge of the innermost circle a covered pedestal stood abandoned. Carson moved immediately to the control device, pulling away a protective silky covering.

“How? Can you sense it or something?” Rodney probed.

“No. No. No.” Carson shook his head. “I’ve read SGC mission reports. This is an Ancient DNA resequencer.” He laid his hands on the viscous control interface and the device surged into life. He huffed an ecstatic sigh. “I’ve always been surprised that we never found one on Atlantis.”

“Carson?”

Humming happily under his breath, Carson called up the manipulator’s specs. Screens and screens of data scrolled before his eyes across the dataface. All the information was in Ancient and, unsurprisingly, technical terminology; there were many happy hours of work ahead of him.

“Carson!” Rodney barked.

“What?” Carson jerked back from the controls.

“Orgasm later.” Rodney tapped his watch face. “We’ve only got fifteen minutes. Sheppard’s going to be rattling our cages in thirteen minutes.”

“But--”

“We can come back. It’s not going away.”

Carson knew he was pouting mulishly. “It’s--”

“Fascinating, incredibly interesting and amazingly useful for your research. But it’s not – and I repeat – not going anywhere, and in the next room there might be a limb regenerator or something. We can come back.”

“You just want to find the power source.”

Rodney jiggled on the spot. “Not denying that but looking for it might reveal other stuff you’re interested in.”

Reluctantly, Carson moved way from the control pedestal. With a disgruntled beep, the machine powered down. The possibilities that the manipulator presented were immense. The ability to view the DNA helix in real time, and splice it and change it, offered a research potential that at the core would allow him to plumb the genetics of diseases such as cancers. Here possibly also lay amelioration, the manipulation of DNA to cure.

“Carson!”

Carson scowled. But Rodney was right; time was limited. There was more to investigate and they would return, even if he had to come on his own. Ronon waited patiently for him to move and Rodney jiggled from foot to foot. Sighing excessively, making sure that Rodney knew that this was a great chore, he trailed after the astrophysicist.

Rodney glanced, once, twice at him, but didn’t smirk as they marched down another ceramic white and lapis corridor. Ronon took the rear, reluctantly chivvying Carson along as he paused to glance into cool, white rooms. Rodney had point and Carson noted that he had released the catch on his hand weapon holster. Dutifully, Carson flipped the Velcro strap on his own gun. Rodney paused at a crossroads and waved the energy detector around.

“I’ve lost the signal. The lights are still on, though.” He pointed down the left hand corridor. “Last signal was this way.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ronon said flatly, he tapped his wrist watch. “Twenty-two minutes. We have to return to Sheppard.”

“No,” Rodney snapped. “We haven’t made any progress.”

“Sheppard’s waiting,” Ronon said doggedly.

Rodney tapped his comm.. “Sheppard?” he tried. There was not even the slight click indicating contact with the recipient.

“The walls are pretty thick,” Carson said. He noted that albeit disagreeing, Rodney did not move in pursuit of his weakening power source.

Ronon jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “We’re returning and reporting back.”

Carson shifted his backpack and made a little step back towards the exit.

“Okay, Okay!” Rodney stowed his life signs detector in his vest pocket. He stalked past Carson and Ronon. “We’re all coming back here. We haven’t even begun to search this place.”

Ronon moved after him. Carson remained still, he could almost imagine a breath of wind ruffling his hair, but the air was dead and musty. He rubbed the goose bumps that rose on his arms.

Imagination was a powerful thing, and he had been always gifted with a rampant one. Many a nightmare had woke him as a child and a young adult, and now in the Pegasus Galaxy as an adult.

“Doc?” Ronon asked.

“Coming.” He chanced another look at the sterile wall tiles, inexplicably hunting for a camera tucked in a corner.

“Doc,” Ronon called again.

“Coming.” He jogged the short distance to catch up with the younger man.

“You okay, Doc?”

“Yes.” Carson looked back down the corridor. “Someone just walked over my grave.”

The Runner stared at him and then leaned closely. “You know where you’re to be buried and you can feel the weight of a footstep?”

Carson stared at him blankly for a heartbeat. “No, son, it’s a saying when you’re…uhm… disturbed.”

“Like instinct, when the Wraith hunt you?”

“Yes, it’s a feeling of threat.”

Ronon pulled free his blade. “Where is this threat?”

Carson jumped back. “I… I… I just feel it. It could just be me thinking too much, you know. It’s too quiet here. It’s full of ghosts.”

“Yes,” Ronon said simply. He stepped back to place himself between Carson and the end of the corridor and studied the area with the gravitas of the hunted.

“Let’s hurry up and rendezvous with John, shall we?” Carson trotted after Rodney knowing that Ronon would bring up the rear.

~*~

“I vote for the temple,” McKay stated.

“It’s not a democracy, McKay,” Sheppard said, as he leaned against the puddlejumper hatch between the cockpit and the rear compartment. The two teams were packed into the lead ‘jumper, arranged on the bench seats or that floor, apart from Ronon who had taken the rear hatch position.

Beckett coughed and held up a finger. “Did you discover anything interesting in the city, Colonel Sheppard?”

“Empty houses. Pretty uniform. Living area and a sleeping area. They’re linked underground by tunnels, which would be a pain for the Wraith to crawl through.”

“So nothing that interesting?” McKay announced, sitting up straight on the bench seat

“Sarah, love, did you find anything of interest?”

Sarah peered at up him from under a lock of dark brown hair that fell over one eye. She shifted on her bottom on the cold deck plates. “No Dr. B., the houses are surprisingly neat. People didn’t just run away, they took everything. There’s no food or even clothes left behind.”

“The city gate is barred from the inside,” Lieutenant Hall announced, sitting just a little straighter. “The mechanism can only be operated through a series of ratchets and wheels. Whoever shut it had to then go over the wall with a rope or something, unless there’s a secondary gate – which we didn’t have time to search for.”

Sheppard nodded, digesting the young officer’s succinct summary. He rested his head back against the puddlejumper bulkhead.

“We haven’t even begun to plumb the technology in that temple,” McKay stated. “Beckett found a DNA manipulator. It might all be medical stuff up there but there’s a power source and that’s a hell of a lot more interesting than crawling around tunnels and abandoned buildings. The temple is the logical choice. And, might I point out: this place is abandoned. Nobody’s going to protest, hang us up by our heels, chase us with spears or call curses down on us if we take something interesting.”

“We don’t know that the place is abandoned,” Sheppard pointed out. “Teyla?”

“I sense no Wraith. But if they are hibernating I would not sense them.”

“Dr. Beckett sensed that he was being watched,” Ronon announced.

All eyes turned to the doctor, who blushed brightly.

“Doc?” Sheppard questioned gently.

“Uhm.” Carson shifted on his seat. “I… uhm… felt like something crawled over my grave back in the temple. It wasn’t Ancient, it was just creepy.”

McKay tapped the keypad on his life signs detector. “It was five degrees below the ambient temperature in the Hall. It was chilly. That’s probably what you felt.”

“You have the soul of a poet, Rodney.” Carson said.

Rodney scowled, crossed his arms and slumped mulishly on his seat.

“Okay. We’re going to search the temple. Lieutenant, stay with the puddlejumper, monitor us and Miller, back at the DHD. Keep a scan on the area.”

Cody saluted sharply. “Yes, sir.”

“Teyla, Ronon, make another run of the city before it gets too hot and then join us in the temple. Everyone else will take the temple.”

McKay rubbed his hands, gleefully. Sheppard stood, swinging his pack onto his back. The others took at as a signal to move. Ronon offered a hand to Teyla pulling her to her feet. They moved off together, easily striding into the dusty air – both unaffected by the rising heat. McKay, juggling with his vest and at least three handfuls of equipment, scurried out of the puddlejumper. Sheppard hared after him jumping over Sarah’s legs, calling at him to wait. At the bottom of the ramp, McKay stopped and jogged from foot to foot.

“Look, it’s getting hotter, time to get inside.” McKay jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the temple. “Things to see.”

“Son,” Carson could be heard clearly in the ‘jumper talking to Cody. “You’re a redhead and fair skinned. If you’re going to walk around the perimeter of the puddlejumper, make sure that you’ve got some of the 100 SPF sun screen cream on. And don’t go out when the sun’s directly over head.”

“Yes, Doc,” Cody said mildly.

Beckett clambered out of the puddlejumper hauling his backpack and his case. He strode solidly towards the temple with Sarah skipping to keep up. McKay saw them moving and darted ahead so he would be first into the temple. Sheppard moved with them, paralleling their course.

Rodney would not be entering the temple alone.


End part one

PART TWO

Carson chuckled happily. He hadn’t made a dent in the mainframe, but the information he had found was fascinating. He consulted his own handheld computer, checking a translation, which proved only to have a 76% confidence on language verification. He tutted under his breath. This was going to take so long. He scurried across to the central dais, pulled out his leatherman tool and extracted the blade. A heartbeat later a sliver of skin in a drop of blood burgeoned on the platform. Carson moved back to the control dais, absently sucking on the side of his little finger. He planted his undamaged hand on the control interface. Two strands of light rose up into the air.

His ear piece chirruped. “Hey, Doc, how are you doing?” Sheppard drawled laconically.

“Fine,” Carson said absently around his fingertip.

“Doc,” Sheppard said chastisingly.

“Colonel Sheppard, I’m perfectly okay. Rodney set a life signs detector by the doorway to alert me to anyone in the proximity. It hasn’t beeped.”

Sheppard hummed.

“How are you doing?” Carson said brightly. “Rodney found his power source?”

“We found another one of those gold doors, like the one at the entrance.”

“Can you open it?”

“No, it’s seized solid. Sarah and McKay are pulling off the side panels to free up the mechanism.”

“Side panel?” Carson asked, distracted by the unfurling of his own DNA before him in giant holographic wonder.

“Yeah, further you get into the temple, the more Ancient it looks. We’re seeing the occasional hexagonal, glowy panel things over the walls.”

“Sheppard!” Rodney’s voice sounded over the mike. “Come over here and try again.”

“Gotta go, Doc. Keep an ear cocked for that detector.”

“Yes, yes.” That string of twisted double helix was positively marvellous. A data analysis readout blinked into being on the main screen on the far wall, providing a quick summary of the DNA strand. Carson stroked the screen before him. It perked up approvingly, scrolling down to disease-predispositions. There were no Ancient-equivalent red flags, although he did have a predisposition tensus and ar-meg-emthov re. The former meant tension according to his translation database, but there were no translations of the latter. He had to get both Rodney and Colonel Sheppard on to the dais. Rodney needed to be checked for damage from his repeated exposures to radiation and Sheppard both for radiation and the Wraith retro-virus affects on his DNA. But firstly, he had to learn how to understand and use the device.

“Greetings, Carrs Son of Beckett.”

Carson jumped at the soft voice. He came back to earth with a jarring thump. “God, who?” He squinted at the glaringly white wall.

“Carrs, scion of the Atlantians, Erus,” the voice uttered.

Between one blink and the next, a figure, tall and etiolated, coalesced before him. Bipedal, elongated head, large chest cavity and dual hinged upper appendages ending in two digits with opposable thumbs, Carson’s brain catalogued. Predator; eyes point forward. No genitalia. The lower appendages were also dual hinged and Carson guessed that the thing could drop to the ground and shift on all fours when it had to. The alien wore a pale, transparent shift formed mainly of pockets dripping with enough technology to make Rodney drool.

“Hello.” Carson wiggled his fingers in a feeble wave.

“Carrs.” It bowed slightly.

Carson reached for his ear piece.

“No.” It raised a finger.

Carson froze. “Why? My friends would love to meet you.”

“Only the Erus, not Ante, the Dd’el or the Ta’ar.” It spat the final name as an insult.

“Eh,” Carson said intelligently.

Loose-limbed it stalked forward a step. “Only Erus.”

“Colonel Sheppard is bound to be an Erus. He’s so erussy, you’ll be impressed.” He stepped hastily to the side as the alien moved up to the control pedestal. It brushed the liquid dataface and the tower of DNA twisted about its axis. Resolution increased and a sequence of base pairs increased in size until they almost filled the room.

Carson slapped his comm.. “Colonel,” he squeaked, “I need you in the DNA room, asap. Now. I’ve met a new friend.”

The alien turned, its predator eyes narrowed. Snake-fast its arm whipped out. Carson jerked back, but it caught his tac vest and yanked him into its grasp. Something cold and metal pressed hard against his neck, hard against his carotid artery, and the world disappeared in blindingly white sparks.

~*~

“Move!” Sheppard ordered.

McKay obeyed with startling alacrity, yanking free his laptop and cables from the portal, but abandoning his other tools. He caught Sarah’s elbow and propelled her ahead. Sheppard took point, running fast, but not flat out. His P-90 was primed to fire.

One corridor, two corridor, turn left and then second left. He had a good memory. He knew where they had left the doctor.

“Right, not left!” McKay snapped reading his body language.

Sheppard twisted and ran the correct way.

The DNA manipulator laboratory was at the end of a secluded corridor. He skidded around the corner, and picked up speed when he saw a prone form lying on the floor.

He hit the force field at full tilt and was thrown backwards into the air. All his breath huffed out at once as he smashed down on the floor. McKay slid to a halt at his side and crouched to rest a hand on his chest.

“You okay, Sheppard?” McKay asked. But even as he checked Sheppard, his attention was on the figure on the other side of the force field.

Sheppard could only wheeze. Sarah collapsed to her knees gasping for breath at his side.

“John?” McKay questioned.

Sheppard rolled onto his side and coughed harshly. “Yes,” he mouthed.

“I saw. Try not to move. You might have broken something.”

Sheppard scowled and sat up. His diaphragm was quivering and his back was bruised, but he had only had the wind knocked out of him. He pointed imperiously at the doorway, still unable to talk. McKay nodded and moved to the door. He already had his laptop open and began knocking at the ceramic tiles around the door.

Sheppard drew in a whooping great breath and managed to get enough air in to calm his lungs.

“Is he alive?” Sarah asked, splayed fingers pressed to her mouth. McKay ignored her, continuing to tap.

Sheppard got his feet under him and staggered upright. The deep, nerve-clenching smart clamouring across the back of hips promised a bruise that would be as black as the ace of spades. He lurched forward.

“Sheppard, try and think it off.” McKay didn’t stop his search.

‘Off!” Sheppard thought and imagined the blue coruscating lighting of an Ancient force field ebbing into the floor. It flared satisfactorily but remained intact.

On the other side of the force field, Carson lay in a loosely curled ball at the side of the control pedestal, one hand tucked under his chin and his other arm outstretched. Facing them, they could see that his eyes were closed, dark eyelashes still against his cheeks.

“Gimme your life signs detector.” Sheppard held out his hand.

Focussed on his tiles, McKay yanked it from his vest. He didn’t look at Sheppard, just continued tapping the tiles, holding it without pausing his tapping. Sheppard took it, automatically calling it to life. As he angled it towards the room, it registered absolutely nothing.

“McKay, can these things sense through force fields?”

“Depends on the force field specs.” McKay clicked his fingers. “Gimme that.” He snatched the detector back and angled it to the wall. Scowling, he studied the readouts.

“Carson!” Sheppard yelled.

The doctor didn’t twitch a muscle.

“It’s not generated across the doorway, there’s no circuitry,” McKay announced. “It encompasses the entire room.”

“How do we get in?” Sheppard moved as close as possible to the force field. “Did Beckett initiate a containment protocol?”

“Possibly.”

“Why’s he unconscious?” Sheppard asked.

“I’m not psychic,” McKay said.

“Is there air in the room?” Sheppard flicked a glance at his watch. It had been over three minutes since Beckett’s frantic call.

“His chest isn’t moving,” Sarah said. “He’s not breathing.”

“Shut up,” McKay snapped at the young woman.

“I just…” She stopped talking and clamped her lips together at McKay’s foul expression.

“I need the resonator from the puddlejumper. It’s yay tall.” McKay’s hands described a foot tall, cylindrical object and then drew two narrow prongs erupting from the crown. “I stored it in the third aft compartment on the right side, next to the defibrillator. You better bring that, as well.”

“Anything else?” Sheppard asked sharply.

“Secondary tool kit. GO. GO. GO!”

Sheppard thrust his backup Wraith stunner into Sarah’s unresisting hands. “It’s on stun. Fire at anyone you don’t know.”

He ran.

~*~

Sheppard burst out of the temple entrance into the harsh daylight of Thou-et at midday. The heat beat down on his head like a brick. He took the steep stairs like a ladder, skidding down them. He finished up at the bottom rolling as if dropping from a parachute jump. Momentum took him to his feet and he ran for the cloaked puddlejumper.

“Sheppard!” Ronon boomed, from his vantage point on the first building of the penultimate tier.

The colonel simply pointed to the puddlejumper and continued running, knowing that Ronon would join him there.

Cody Hall met him at the back hatch.

“Sir?”

Gasping and winded, Sheppard pointed at the correct compartment. “Open it,” he croaked.

Cody yanked it open and Sheppard swooped.

“Sheppard?” Ronon stamped up the hatch.

He simply turned and pushed defibrillator and resonator into Ronon’s hands. “Get these to the DNA room and McKay. Now!”

The trained military specialist didn’t argue, he simply obeyed.

Sheppard leaned over, bracing his hands against his knees. Cody proffered a canteen of water, and Sheppard took it gratefully. He took deep breaths in between careful sips. It was hellishly hot – too hot to run.

He looked up and saw Teyla watching him. Her cool gaze catalogued his condition and found it acceptable.

“I will join Ronon in the temple.”

“I’ll be on your heels,” Sheppard said.

She craned her head regally and then was away, following Ronon’s footsteps.

“Sir, what happened?” Cody asked.

“Beckett’s caught behind a force field. He’s unconscious. Call Miller and Coleman -- get an update on the DHD. We might need the Stargate to transport Beckett to Atlantis.” He grabbed the backup toolkit. “Comm. me when you have an update.”

~*~

“Sheppard,” he announced, identifying himself just before he turned into the DNA resequencer corridor. Ronon’s preternaturally sensitive hearing would have alerted him that a man was approaching and he did not want to be greeted by a stun from his blaster. Both Teyla and Ronon stepped back and lowered their weapons as he slid on the shiny floor tiles around the corner.

Equipment was strewn about the corridor in front of the force field. McKay was angling the antennae of the resonator muttering to himself as Sheppard slid on his knees to fetch up at his side. The colonel opened the tool kit, which concertinaed to reveal the multiple levels of equipment. Suddenly the resonator pulsed and the force field coruscated.

McKay swore. “It’s resonating on a sub-atomic level. This is going to take a moment.” He glanced through the scintillating force field at the figure curled by the pedestal.

Sheppard rubbed his ear as the resonator hiked up another notch. Ronon winced, baring his teeth.

McKay consulted the readouts on the laptop. “It’s Ancient design, but better spec than the Atlantean force fields. Probably has medical ramifications -- super fine to prevent viral particles escaping. I think Carson triggered a quarantine protocol. The man’s a danger around Ancient tech. Damn, it’s multiphase.” He stabbed angrily at the keyboard.

“McKay? How long?” Sheppard asked, knowing that if the air had been sucked from the room Beckett was dead and rotting.

Ronon stepped over them, fetching up against the door. Shielding his eyes from the flaring force field, he studied Beckett.

“Positive charge. Negative charge.” McKay held up a clenched fist and an open hand. He captured his fist with a loud slap. “They’re attracted. Force field basic physics revolves around how charges exert force on each other. Negative. Negative.” He held his hands flat and pretended to force them together. “Like charges repel. A force field artificially manipulates electrons. In this case it’s actually affecting the oxygen molecules forcing them into oxygen atoms whose electrons form the basis of the field as they re-orientate. But –- and this is the clever part – it’s actually a wave form. I’m trying to get the atoms to reform back to molecules and break up the charge. Hence the resonator which will cause the atoms to – why am I telling you this?” McKay shook his head and curled over his laptop.

“He’s not breathing,” Ronon announced.

McKay shot him a filthy glare. “It’s a medical facility; he might be in stasis.”

Sheppard blew out a tiny sigh – that was a good working theory.

“Electric permittivity of free space,” McKay muttered.

The force field sparked and dissipated with a flare. Ronon was at Beckett’s side in a heartbeat. He reached down to check the pulse at the man’s throat and his hand passed straight through the body.

“Elders’ tits!” Ronon swore and, reflexively, jerked back.

Carson lay there as still as death. Gingerly, Ronon extended a finger. Slowly, he moved to tap Beckett’s shoulder and started as his finger sank through his t-shirt as if it wasn’t there.

“Hologram,” McKay determined instantly. He looked to the ceiling, hunting for the emitting source. “That was clever. That kept us distracted while Carson was taken.”

Sheppard swore vituperatively as he hauled the Runner to his feet. “Ronon, one way in and one way out. See if you can pick up Carson’s trail.”

Ronon growled an affirmative and stalked off, dreadlocks swinging as he scanned the cold floor tiles. “It’s going to be difficult, this stuff’s hard.”

Teyla paced him, lending her own skills to a search of the floor.

“Rodney?” Sheppard asked a multitude of questions with a single word.

McKay dropped to one knee and scrutinised the doctor’s form.

“Carson was rendered unconscious,” he announced. “This is a recent, real time image. Someone or something knocked him out and then the holographic image was created as he lay in this spot.”

“How do you know?”

McKay wiped his finger on a tile and it came up tipped with blood. The littlest finger on Carson’s outstretched hand was stained with blood.

“Carson cut his finger just before he was knocked out. While he lay here, it bled on the floor.”

“Damn.” Sheppard joined McKay beside their friend. He couldn’t see any injuries, but the man’s thick hair would hide a thump to the head.

“Carson said he’d met someone.” McKay made a sweep with his life signs detector. “Turn the DNA manipulator off – it’s affecting my readings.”

Sheppard reached up and placed his hand on the viscous control panel and thought ‘off’ loudly. The giant DNA strand winked out.

Carson’s image of sleeping unconsciousness remained intact.

“Huh.” McKay peered up at the ceiling. He waved his hands over Carson but didn’t interrupt any hologram emitter.

“Where is it?”

McKay quirked a smile and plunged his hands into Carson’s body. Sheppard withheld a shudder; it looked like some kind of weird voodoo ritual. The image winked out and Rodney held a grenade sized egg topped by a sapphire lens, triumphantly.

“Portable hologram.” He tossed it in the air, caught it and stuffed it in one of his many tac vest pockets. “Obvious Ancient design.”

Ronon had reached the doorway. “There’s nothing, no fibres, scuff marks on these hard tiles. We have to track another way.”

“You know,” McKay began, “if this place has been abandoned, why isn’t it dusty? Then again, Atlantis wasn’t dusty, was it?”

Sheppard knew that it was a rhetorical question. “And?”

“That you haven’t found any evidence of Carson being dragged off down that corridor might actually mean that he wasn’t.”

“McKay?”

McKay stood and started a slow traverse of the room, life signs detector in energy mode in one hand. Stopping at a plain, white wall, between the banks of information screens, he moved to touch it.

“Don’t!” Sheppard said.

McKay froze, he cast a glance over his shoulder. “You got a stick?”

Sheppard tossed over his sheathed K-Bar knife.

“Huh.” McKay poked the wall and smiled as the knife sunk in like cutting a wedding cake. “One hologram.”

“Can we use infrared to see through them?”

McKay held up the Ancient equivalent of a Star trek tricoder. “Huh, it actually registers a hologram as wall. I suppose by definition it is a wall, it’s just a wall of light. This should be able to detect the focussed light emitter as an energy source. I just need to find the appropriate protocols and use them.” He forgoed using the knife and reached into the wall.

“McKay!”

The white wall blipped out, leaving an oval doorway with the golden, metallic scrollwork.

“Thought so, it was the only blank piece of wall. You’re on, Colonel, think it open.”

Sheppard scowled and the portal blades ratcheted into the walls. Ronon pushed past them, scanning the area fervently.

~*~

‘Warm?’ Carson cracked open his eyes and failed to even begin to understand what he was seeing. He closed his eyes and thought that he had slept for a millennia.

‘A plastic hood?’ he wondered when he finally opened his eyes. The mattress under his head was soft and yielding. There was a wall about a foot high surrounding him, with a dome of transparent plastic protecting his head. “I’m in a cradle… or a coffin.”

The lassitude of a body asleep consumed him. There was a vague metallic taste coating the roof of his mouth.

‘Drugged?’

A tall, blurry figure moved outside the crib, muttering.

‘Alien?’ Carson wondered but couldn’t find the energy to be concerned. A faint shush preceded the hood’s retraction.

“Erus.” A thin hand patted the base of his throat. “It has been too long. The Dd’el is intelligent.”

Carson squinted. “Dd’el?”

A pointy, grey face leaned in closely. Oh, my god, he remembered the alien in the DNA resequencer room. The shark alien with the needle-like fingers. Poison tipped?

“They are coming. I do not wish to talk to them. It is not the time and they are Dd’el and Ta’ar -- one is tainted with the Wraith.”

“Teyla?”

“Tell me of the other Erus. It has been too long. Where are you from?”

Carson clamped his teeth together and closed his eyes.

“No matter – I will ask the Dd’el, Erus. Your minion is valuable.”

“Rodney?”

“Rodney,” it mouthed, trying the name out. “He is an abomination.”

“No.” Carson tried to sit up, but the paralysing agent held him fast.

“You are cold.” The blurry figure moved and returned with a blanket. It was then that Carson realised that he was naked.

“What did you do?” Carson demanded. Adrenalin fuelled him; exhaling heavily through his nose, he managed to lift his head off the mattress. The explosion of stars at the movement made his eyes tear up. Carson fell back, clinging to the edge of consciousness.

A sharp edged talon collected a tear. The claw trailed down his cheek, brushing through his faint beard to rest once again over his carotid.

Whiteness engulfed him.

~*~

The team crept through the corridor with the non-member trailing at their heels. Sarah had asked one question before Ronon had spun on her commanding silence. She hadn’t said a word since. Teyla had smiled once at the woman, offering a tiny shred of reassurance, before returning to watching their surroundings and protecting her comrades.

McKay was in the centre of the group, one eye on the detector and the other on his team. He communicated through his finger, pointing out directions.

“One life sign,” he mouthed, pointing at a sealed door.

Sheppard nodded and slid silently forward. Ronon ghosted at his side. Sheppard cocked his head to the side, the portal ratcheted open and both men shot through. One covered left and the high ground and the other covered right checking for attackers crouched low. In concert, they swapped tactics ensuring the whole area was cleared. The room was decked out like a morgue with a row of coffins set at right angles to the east wall. A floor-to-ceiling rack of Ancient computers were on the west wall situated around a massive, blank display. There was another portal on the far wall. A central autopsy table, complete with side wells to contain blood, stood in the centre of the room. Sheppard cocked a finger at the threesome by the door indicating that it was safe to enter.

McKay cautiously extended a toe over the threshold of the portal. Still holding his life signs detector, he pointed at the silvery grey box at the far end of the row. A shelf beside the coffin held a neatly folded pile of SGC issued fatigues. Seeing them, he pushed past Ronon. Leaving the women by the door, skirting around a grey barrel, he arrowed towards the coffin. Sheppard joined him.

Inside, Beckett lay motionless, protected by a clear, transparent cover. A blue blanket was draped over him -- neck to toes.

“Carson?” McKay tapped loudly on the plexi-glass.

“McKay, shush.” Sheppard cast a furtive glance around the laboratory. Sarah stayed by the door as Teyla paced slowly into the laboratory. P-90 raised to her shoulder, Teyla scanned the floor, walls and ceiling while her team members helped Beckett. Ancient metalwork was drizzled across the ceiling directly above the central mortuary slab.

“Dr. McKay have you seen this before?” she whispered.

McKay’s attention was solely on the doctor. Sheppard glanced upward. A golden metal, twisting storm decorated the ceiling. The central eye was a blank solid disc.

“It’s some kind of monitoring cradle or inactive stasis unit.” McKay brushed his hands over the cool metal surrounding Beckett and an array of lights awoke under his fingers. He rapped the plexi-glass sharply with his knuckles again. “It won’t open.”

“Let me,” Sheppard said. The hood retracted into the pod with a gentle hiss.

“Show off,” McKay groused.

“Doc?” Sheppard reached in and pressed a gentle hand against the base of Beckett’s throat. It took a count of three but then a solid pulse beat against his fingertips. “I’ve got a pulse.”

The doctor’s skin was chilled and rough. Carefully, cognizant that Beckett had been unconscious, he brushed his fingers through the man’s thick hair hunting for a knot or blood.

“I guess it’s some kind of quarantine facility,” McKay hazarded still studying the readings. “Isolation cradles? I’m not reading any increase in body temperature which would indicate an infection. He’s a little cool, actually.”

Sheppard lifted the finely woven blanket and abruptly dropped it back. “Well, something happened.”

“What?” McKay peered into the cradle. “Is he naked?” A smile tinged his tone.

“Hey, Doc?” Sheppard shook his shoulder.

Beckett rocked but didn’t wake.

“We need to get him out of here.” McKay jumped back as the sides fell away merging into the supporting pallet. “I didn’t do that. Did you do that, Sheppard?”

“Yep.” Sheppard pulled down the blanket to Carson’s waist and planted his ear against his chest. He was reassured by a measured dual thump.

Straightening, he said, “Ronon, give me a hand here.”

The Runner looked down at the unconscious doctor. “I can manage him. Can’t have us both hauling him.”

Sheppard nodded, accepting the wisdom. They needed one of them able to fully react to an attack. Reluctantly, Sheppard had to admit that Beckett was a pretty solid guy. He could probably drag him – but carrying him would be an effort. Ronon freed Beckett’s hands from the blanket and quickly yanked the doctor into a seated position. Sheppard moved to prevent him lolling to the side.

“Swing his legs around,” Ronon directed.

Tucking the blanket best he could, Sheppard complied. There was a flash of bare flesh, as Ronon heaved the solidly built doctor over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Sheppard secured the blanket around Beckett’s legs and hips.

Ronon grunted and stood straight. Beckett hung loosely and Ronon grabbed his hanging arm, holding him secure.

Sheppard crouched by Carson’s head and tapped the man’s cheekbone. “Doc? You in there?”

There was absolutely no response.

“McKay, get Beckett’s things.” He checked on the rest of the group. Teyla was still carefully examining the room, hunting for any clues to what had occurred. Sarah stood by the doorway, arms tightly clasped over her breasts. She swallowed harshly at his regard.

“You okay?” Sheppard asked.

She nodded.

“Let’s get out of here,” McKay directed. “We’ll come back for the power source later.”

~*~

Sheppard had med-evacced soldiers in Afghanistan and had some basic medic training while in the field, so he was deemed the best person to check out Beckett. McKay and Ronon had made themselves scarce seconds after settling him on McKay’s inflatable mattress in the back of the puddlejumper.

“If you are uncomfortable, I can look after Dr. Beckett,” Teyla said evenly, kneeling beside him.

“The Doc’s a pretty shy guy. I…”

“He is a healer; I doubt that he has issue with nudity.” But Teyla bowed her head accepting his decision. Rising sedately to her feet, she turned and smoothly walked out of the vessel.

“Hey, Doc?” He patted Beckett’s cheek, hoping he’d wake up. He was warmer, but he remained solidly unconscious. Sheppard knew enough to know that they should have checked Beckett before moving him, but the urge to leave the temple had been irresistible.

Gingerly, Sheppard lifted an eyelid. What he could see of the pupil was dilated. Drugs? he wondered. Then he remembered the cut finger. Twitching the blanket aside, he started. There was a neat white bandage wrapped around Carson’s little finger. Who kidnapped a person and then wrapped a band-aid on a minor cut? Focussed now, he began to check Beckett from head to toe. Running fingers over his head, he determined that there still wasn’t any evidence of a head injury. But there was a sticky, shaved region about the size of a quarter above his ear. There were two mosquito-like inflamed spots with pin pricks on the side of his neck. They looked disturbingly like injection sites. There was nothing on his pale, sparsely haired chest, but there was a fresh white band-aid the size of a business card tucked under his ribs on the left side, dotted with a line of blood. Another fresh bandage covered the crook of his elbow. Fury growing, Sheppard lifted the blanket. There were no marks on his groin, but in the curve of Beckett’s hip beside the jutting pelvic bone sat another band-aid. Sheppard pulled the blanket aside. His right ankle was swathed in bandages and his toes were darkening with bruises. He tucked the blanket back around Beckett’s waist.

“Teyla, I need a hand.”

“Yes?” As he expected, she had been waiting just outside, likely protecting Beckett’s privacy. Three strides and she was up the ramp and crouching at his side.

“I want to check his back.”

With Teyla controlling Carson’s head, together they log rolled him over onto his left side. Revealed about two thirds the way down his spine was another fresh, white bandage. Sheppard growled.

“What are these?” Teyla asked.

Carefully, Sheppard teased the edge off the edge of the bandage. It protected a red welt with a tiny injection site. Carefully, every motion controlled, he re-stuck the bandage over the wound.

“It’s a medical facility. They did stuff to him.” Without the necessity of instructions they rolled Beckett onto his back in tandem. Sheppard snagged a backpack and tucked it under his feet so both were raised. Evidence of needles and cutting and a twisted ankle, little horrible things – a catalogue of wrongs.

“Is he badly injured?” Teyla asked.

Sheppard ran his fingers through his hair. “Bastards,” he snarled.

“John?”

“Stay with him, don’t let him wake up alone.” Sheppard marched into the cockpit. He slapped hard on the comm. and again when Miller and Coleman did not answer.

“Sir?” Eb Coleman’s voice sounded tinny.

“What’s the ETA on the DHD?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Coleman said reluctantly. “Miller tripped a cascade and we’re back where we started. Miller says he knows what he’s doing and estimates--” there was a pause, “--five hours.”

“Make it two. Stay in contact.” Sheppard rubbed his cheek. He stalked out of the ‘jumper ignoring Teyla’s concerned expression.

Ronon stood akimbo, watching the temple looming over them as if he were imagining the effects of a STINGER SAM missile launched directly at the chest of the carving protecting the entrance. Sarah was huddled up against the puddlejumper, arms still crossed defensively, keeping out of the way of Ronon. McKay was perched on the edge of a large storage box tapping away on his laptop. A cable linked the laptop to his life signs detector sitting on top of the box. Lieutenant Hall was calling out numbers from another laptop that was attached to the holographic globe.

Rodney jumped to his feet, abandoning his work as Sheppard stomped down the ramp. “How’s Carson?”

“Still unconscious. He’s got wounds on his side, gut and back. His ankle’s sprained or broken. We’ll know more when he wakes up.”

“What?” McKay said, appalled. “What kind of wounds?”

“Injection points on his neck, on his spine. Cuts on his side, groin.”

Ronon caressed his blaster. “We should go up there and…”

“No – we don’t know what we’re up against.” Sheppard stopped him dead with one look. “With the hologram technology we’d be walking into traps. We wait until Beckett can tell us what happened. Miller says the DHD will be up and running in five hours or less.”

“He should have repaired it all ready!” McKay interrupted.

“He hit a problem,” Sheppard said tersely. “Once the DHD is working, we’ll ship Beckett out and return with a combat team, get in there, find out what’s what and scavenge if possible. Hall, you have first watch. McKay, get out the MREs.”

~*~

Night came quickly in the equatorial latitude and with it came a mournful ‘Crap!”

The team members outside the puddlejumper froze. For one hysterical second, Sheppard likened it to a bad play with the performers waiting for a prompt.

“Doc?” Sheppard called, stepping back from McKay’s impromptu lab. table constructed of crates. McKay slowly pocketed his newly configured life signs detector in his vest and closed the lid down on his laptop. Together they strode to the ‘jumper.

“You have the watch,” Ronon told Hall, turning abruptly from his surveillance of the ziggurat.

As they barrelled into the back compartment, Beckett was struggling to a sitting position with Teyla’s help. He scrubbed his bristly face with one hand.

“Here, Dr. Beckett.” Teyla handed over a canteen of water.

“Thanks, Luv.” He took a mouthful and swished. Looking around, seeing nothing to spit in, he swallowed with a grimace. Flopping back, he shielded his eyes with a hand. He seemed to relax into the air mattress, becoming boneless.

McKay shrugged expressively at Sheppard, hands rising enquiringly. He mouthed something incomprehensible.

“Doc, you with us?” Sheppard queried, thinking Beckett had fallen asleep.

There was a moment’s pause before, “Aye, son.”

“You wanna tell us what happened?”

Beckett’s eyes snapped open. He sat up again and Teyla neatly slipped another backpack behind him. The man winced and reached behind to rub at the base of his spine. Sheppard crouched at Carson’s side as Ronon slipped by them, heading for the cockpit

“What the… What hit me?” His eyes widened, horrified. “There was an alien. I mean a real, true alien. Tall and skinny with shark eyes. It grabbed me. It had venomous talons. It knocked me out. I woke up in some kind of treatment suite.”

He stared at his friends, suddenly mute, and clutched at the blanket around his hips. Teyla laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and he flinched away violently.

“Sorry,” he said automatically.

Teyla folded her hands on her lap. “You have nothing to apologise for, Dr. Beckett.”

Moving very slowly, Sheppard squatted by his side. “What did it do to you, Doc?”

“I dunno.” Beckett twisted with a tiny wince and fingered the bandage under his ribs, lifted up the blanket and peered at his groin. They waited patiently as he conducted his own analysis. His brow furrowed as he revealed his swollen ankle. Finally, he licked his lips nervously, and flopped against the backpack

“Carson, can you tell us?” Teyla asked carefully.

He nodded once. “Biopsies,” he said shortly. “Lung or heart tissue.” Tapping his hip and then indicating his back, he itemised, “Samples: bone marrow, spinal fluid, I’d guess.”

“And your ankle?” McKay queried, leaning over to peer at the swollen flesh.

Carson jerked his foot back a fraction from McKay’s scrutiny and hissed. “Haven’t a clue. It was okay before… the attack.”

“Did you try and escape?” McKay probed. “Fell, twisted it?”

Beckett flinched. “Don’t remember.”

“Really?” McKay asked.

“Really,” Beckett snapped back, “I don’t remember!” He caught himself and scrubbed his face tiredly.

McKay rocketed to his feet. He jerked from foot to foot, poised to escape from the puddlejumper all together.

“Does anyone have my equipment?” Carson said very quietly.

“I’ve got it.” McKay grabbed it from the lump of equipment piled together to make room for the airbed. He dragged over the backpack, popped open the fasteners and passed over the diagnostic body scanner without being asked.

“Thank you,” Beckett said automatically. Silently, he detached the diagnostic wand from the scanner. His brow furrowed as he initiated the hand-held tablet, and the furrows deepened as he slowly waved the sensor over his head and upper torso. Twisting uncomfortably, he angled the wand back over his forehead, trying to keep one eye the tablet’s data screen.

“Doc, can I help?” Sheppard held his hand out. “It’s no trouble.”

Beckett looked at him mutely, his eyes wide with consternation.

“Honest, Doc; it’s not an imposition.”

With a hesitant smile, Beckett handed over the wand. “It’s in scanning… mode. Just wave it over me.”

“Yeah, Doc.” Sheppard cocked his head at Teyla and McKay who both got the message immediately. McKay bolted, sprinting down the ramp and executing a sharp right turn, moving out of sight.

“I will be just outside. If you require assistance.” Teyla nodded once and then slowly exited the ‘jumper.

“You want me to stay or go,” Ronon asked quietly, stepping out of the cockpit where he had watched both the action in the back compartment and the temple through the main screen.

Sheppard jerked his head after Rodney and Teyla and with an acknowledging grunt, Ronon followed.

“So, Dr. Beckett,” Sheppard said deliberately, shuffling a little closer to the doctor, “do I need to remove the blanket?”

“No, it’ll sense through fabric.”

Methodically, Sheppard wielded the sensor, ensuring every inch of Beckett was covered from his head to his toes. The doctor was silent, bearing the scrutiny stoically. He accepted the sensor strip back with a nod and called up the data screen on the parent device.

Sheppard waited as, brow furrowed, Beckett interpreted the stored results. He fired up the sensor again and played it over his lower abdomen.

“Doc?” he finally asked, unable to wait another second.

“Took lung tissue, bone marrow, spinal fluid, sperm and blood. There’s evidence of trauma in my sinus cavity so likely it harvested nasal epithelial cells. I’m surprised it just didn’t go ahead an’ biopsy my brain.” Carson thudded back against his mattress and stared blindly at the ceiling. “Actually, that’s interesting…”

“Doc?”

“They’re invasive, but designed not to truly compromise the patient. I can think of a number of other samples to take which… Damn. There’s evidence of a mild neurotoxin, but the scanner isn’t equipped for that level of chemical analysis to truly ID it.” Beckett rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I told you it was an alien, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said slowly. The doctor was positively grey and was beginning to ramble a little bit.

“It -- I’m anthropomorphising here -- but I got the impression that it was nutty as a fruit cake. It called me an Erus and said that Rodney was a Dd’el.”

“Dd’el?” Sheppard checked.

“Aye, lad? Dd’el and… uhm… Ante.”

“Dd’el means something like ‘false ancestor’. We ran into natives on PX8-463 and they had some Ancient kit which identified McKay as a Dd’el.” Sheppard smiled without humour. “We only escaped by the skin of our teeth. They were mortally offended by McKay and he hadn’t even said anything.”

Beckett snorted. “False ancestor, eh? I’m guessing then that it all relates to the gene. The alien identified you as an Erus. It really didn’t like that Rodney was a l