(no subject)
Title: Eurydice Turns Left
Author: Vehemently vee_fic
Fandom: SGA
Spoilers: vague early-mid season 2
What is it: An adventure story. An extremely deep drama. A deathmarch.
Rating: PG-13, for language, violence, and scariness
Tagline: "Aha!" crowed Rodney. "Better a wuss than the biggest klutz in two galaxies."
***
THREE -- Troglodytes
***
The hoodie-people had to be the stupidest captors in the galaxy. They had seven rucksacks just lying there in a heap, all of their gear -- down to Sheppard's Top Gun cool dude Mister Testosterone sunglasses, only slightly spidered with cracks -- left with them as if being dared to escape. Rodney McKay loved a dare, in the sense that he hated them, but this one he was going to beat and then he would think of something creatively nasty (a rig of a thousand sunlamps, or clothes made of flash-paper) to do to those stupid hoodie-people. He had a zillion useful things (and several decidedly useless ones) that they had to inventory on blankets or else things might fall into cracks in the uneven floor.
There were four Maglites that took AA batteries, the emergency floodlight that took D batteries, the digital camera a lithium battery, and his laptop could run on none of these. Really, it was ridiculous.
"The hand-held is totally broken," he announced, to nobody in particular.
Sheppard sat with Melo against the wall, helping him bed down as comfortably as could be had on a floor made of rubble. Sheppard murmured something, the echo making his words indistinct. Rodney didn't need to hear the exact verbiage to guess it was something like Quit freaking out, you're making the Marines look bad. Only civilians had the right to freak out, and Judy was really not holding up her end of that bargain. She was sitting on a blanket, sorting kipple by glowlight and picking up rocks to hold them close to her nose.
"It's chilly in here. Are you chilly?" he asked, noting the chemical heat packs in the medical kit.
"Of course it's chilly," said Judy, and pulled the heat packs out of his reach. She laid her hand among the gadgets useful and useless, and came up with a keyring thermometer. "We're underground. No sun, no warmth. It's probably, let's see, 61 Fahrenheit all year round."
"I knew that," said Rodney.
Teyla jiggled a half-empty canteen, frowning, and then poked Rodney. He opened the last rucksack -- this one was Ronon's, and still no idea where the man was himself -- and started pulling things out of it at random. He tossed a sheathed knife to Van Arden, who was inventorying the weapons.
"Hey, you didn't get seriously hurt, did you?" he asked her.
"No," she said, without looking at him. "Headless guy steps out from behind a rock and I crash right into him and bounce back on my fanny." She the laid knife at the end of the row. "Melo gave this gasp like the dead were come alive, and Judy pushes him out of the way and off she goes into the maze. Time I can see straight I got a headless girl sitting on my chest and two more with feet on my wrists. Did you notice they all were barefoot?"
McKay said, "No," and counted nine knives of varying lengths. The hoodies had confiscated all the guns -- despite obviously having no idea what to do with them -- but not the spare clips. (Stupid!) They still had knives and a set of brass knuckles that belonged to Judy Yu. She had also contributed the pickax, and a little hand-trowel not suitable for fighting with. "Did you fire your weapon?"
"No." Van Arden laid out the tenth and last knife, one of Teyla's. "That'll probably have me labeled a coward."
"I got off one shot, and missed," confessed Rodney. "Those zap-guns -- that was unexpected. We've seen projectile weapons, but not many cultures develop energy weapons."
"That's what they got Judy with, I guess." Van Arden took back her own knife, turned away to help Teyla with the Miscellaneous pile. Ronon's leather bag of lucky seashells went into the mix, along with toothbrushes, a spangled superball, and a romance novel.
Sheppard grunted and crawled over to them, leaving Melo behind asleep. "I forgot," he said. He got up on his knees fiddled with his pants.
"What are you doing??" asked Rodney, and his shrill voice echoed. Now Judy and Teyla were definitely watching.
"They didn't search me. Did they search you?" Sheppard stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Took the P-90 and my sidearm, but I hid the grenades on the off-chance they'd be sloppy." Sheppard proceeded to pull a pair of grenades from his pants and handed them over to his second-in-command. Van Arden gaped at him.
"You win," said Rodney faintly. "You are more man than me. You will never see me transporting explosives right next to my crotch, and if I do, I will not forget about them!"
Sheppard gave him a Look. Even sick as a dog, he could pull off a Look. "I was kind of busy," he said, and turned his pockets back right-side in. He turned away, and crawled back to Melo's side.
"So," said Van Arden, in a lame attempt at nonchalance. "Matches. Risk a small fire?"
Judy busted into a rant about the flammability of bat guano (bat guano??) while McKay was gearing up for his lecture on even suggesting that they burn up what might be the only oxygen trapped in this cavern of doom. A hissed debate about organic chemistry ensued, despite Van Arden's confused query of whether arguing didn't just burn up the same O2 just as fast. (Also, Rodney felt the need to point out, what bats?? If there were bats, he deserved to know about them in advance.) It might have gone on all -- well, day wasn't the right term in their enclosed gloom, but it would have filled the hours nicely, if Teyla hadn't silenced them all by saying, in wonder, "There is writing here."
She had another glowstick in hand, and was pointing at a relatively flat section of the cavern's walls. It was the same sandy rock as aboveground, a nice contrast for the black marks someone had left behind. McKay snatched the light source up close to his eyes as he leaned his forehead against the cool slab. He breathed on the lettering, saw bits flake off -- ash. Wood ash, or something like.
The weird angular script was not quite Ancient, something later and more jumbly, inelegant. The women stood by him, touching his back or his arms, low voices in awe or terror. Sheppard stayed by Melo, didn't even watch them as they mapped this new discovery. Definitely sicker than a dog.
"Obviously," said Judy, "somebody burned a fire, and lived long enough to write poetry afterwards."
McKay didn't even bother conceding the point. He eyeballed the not-Ancient pictograms, and stumbled along the wall, to another flat space. More letters. Then to a third, this area as large as a blackboard, floor up to some high ceiling they couldn't see with their paltry green light. The third wall had drawings.
Here was a circle of stones, tall heavy trees like weeping willows bending over them.
"I guess that explains the bird noises," said Van Arden.
Next was a tall circle, angular hints of the chevrons: it was the Stargate. In it and around it, smudged figures, all in dark silhouette. McKay put the glowstick right up against the wall, and saw fingerprints in the ash. Fingerprints old enough that the stone-circle forest had turned to low arid brush.
The image after that was not a scene but a set of statistics: dots in rows, seven to the row. One hand had drawn ten dots, and crossed out six of them. The ash changed color for the next twelve (one crossed out), then again for a row of five (none crossed out). There was a lot of space below those rows of dots; whoever had made those first marks had anticipated a lot of company.
The next drawing on the wall, the last as it turned out, was an arrow six feet long, pointing rightward and down, deeper into the cavern. It had tiny stick-figure people inside it, as if the arrow itself were not enough of an indicator. The first people, or some set after that, had tried to escape by going deeper.
That meant the hole in the ground that had let them into this space was not going to let them out, ever. Rodney let Teyla hold the glowstick, and turned away.
***
The flashlights being rationed, Teyla sat in front of an empty half-circle of stones staring at Van Arden's watch face. It was not bright enough to show the contours of their prison, just their faces in stark shadow and darkness behind.
It was actually John's watch, because Van Arden had discovered hers broken in the night. She sat beside Teyla, fiddling with its buttons, the light from its face glinting like mirrorlight. The watch was enormous, absurd to Teyla's eyes, even more absurd on a smaller wrist. John liked to show her what it could do, functions that seemed vastly unnecessary on a timepiece.
"The darkness will be our enemy," Teyla said. "It will eat at the mind."
Van Arden considered this carefully. "We got stuff we could burn, if we had to. Kind of a waste, though."
"We will need to set priorities, yes. When should we wake everyone?"
"Still early," Van Arden replied. She pointed her chin. "He usually up at this time?" Rodney was stumbling quietly along the cavern walls, exploring. He was holding his laptop open, its screen set to all white, and using it as a makeshift light source. It ghosted, far away, his shadow reaching backwards like a safety line.
"Probably he did not sleep. It is his way, in a crisis."
"So he just lay there in the dark thinking?" Van Arden was nonplussed at this idea.
"That is why he is escape-master. He thinks all the time."
They sat together for a short while, and listened to the sleepers stir. Melo was whimpering, and would soon awake. Teyla struggled for a thing to say. "Can you tell me, is vertigo a common illness on Earth? I have not heard of it before."
Van Arden shrugged. "It's real bad dizziness." She corralled her knees with her elbows, and used the watch like a clasp for both her hands. "You get confused about whether things are moving or not. That makes some people want to puke, I guess. I never had it, but sounds like the Colonel has."
"No, I haven't," said John, his words clear and careful. Both women twisted to see him, still lying on his side. His eyes reflected two dull green pinpoints. "I knew a guy grounded on account of Ménière's Disease, though. Some kind of inner ear problem. He literally couldn't see straight."
Teyla came to his side and checked his forehead. He was feverish. "You are feeling better?"
"Not really," he admitted. "But if it's flu, it'll last at least two or three days."
Van Arden asked, "If it's not, sir?" but John had no answer for that.
Teyla filled that gap with information. "Rodney has been working, while you slept. We have much to show you." She looked him over carefully, how he had not sat up to talk. "Will you walk?"
"Well, I won't enjoy it," he said, but after a moment he rolled over to his knees, and then levered himself upright. They stood with him, watching, while John blinked and cocked his head. "Okay, Teyla, you're with me," he said, and allowed her to thread her arm around his waist. The two of them worked their way across the open space, toward the dim glow of Rodney's laptop. John persistently tried to turn left, and Teyla had to wrench him rightwards to walk in a straight line. He apologized under his breath, but he could not correct the problem.
As they approached, Rodney gasped, over beyond the painted walls. He held his awkward white beacon in his hand, but was aiming its unnatural brightness at something at his feet, a pile of something farther in than they had ventured thus far. She did not ask John, only steered them together to Rodney's side.
They had to come very close indeed -- only an armspan away from where Rodney stood, rooted and breathing hard -- to see what he had noticed.
The pile on the ground in front of him was bones. At one point they had been arranged into some kind of order, but time and scavengers had reduced it to a mass of gray sticks, split and scattered like a badly constructed firepit. There were six humanoid skulls in the pile's center, jawless, dry.
"Oh," said John, sounding very tired.
Rodney was in a horror, but kept enough of himself to whisper instead of shout. "They went cannibal. Oh my God they killed and ate their own men waiting to be rescued."
"Come," said Teyla. "Let us think this through. How do you know they were eaten?"
"Knife marks, look at them, right on the joints." He pointed, but she did not follow his gaze. "They ate their own instead of going deeper, that's why they crossed out all but four of their census dots."
"Census dots?" asked John.
"You will see." Teyla gestured. "Rodney, there were seven dots crossed out. Where is the other body?" He lowered his arm, blinked, and could look at her again.
"I don't know. Somewhere else in the cavern? This first group, they waited too long and then realized their mistake. They're the ones who drew the arrow. They're saying, Don't bother waiting here. There's nothing here to wait for, and --"
"Stand still when you're talking to me!" John hissed suddenly. Rodney hadn't moved, and didn't move. He stopped in the middle of his sentence and did not continue. John was breathing hard, his forehead and cheeks shining with sweat.
"John," she said carefully. "He is standing still. Your illness is worsening." He turned his head to her then, looked at her close enough to kiss or to bite. The eyes in his head did not belong to a person she knew, but some other person: belligerent, cruel. Without breaking his gaze she reached out a hand and Rodney grasped it.
After a few moments, the other person wandered away and John lowered his head. He mumbled, "Sorry. Go on."
Rodney watched them both, worrying his lip, before he spoke again. "They arranged the pile of bones so that they would be found and understood. We have to go deeper."
"And give up rescue so soon?" Telya asked.
"Which do you think would take longer, attacking the hoodie-people -- who have weapons by the way -- on their own home ground and beating them, or finding us in a hole in the ground in the middle of some dark cave? Yes, I'm thinking we can give up on rescue."
John shook his head. "Hell. You're right."
Teyla squeezed Rodney's hand, drew him forward. "First, we eat. Come, help me support him." Rodney stepped into line with them, on John's other side, his hand snaking around John's waist and stroking Teyla's elbow. They turned, an awkward flanking maneuver, and shambled carefully back to the circle of their team.
***
He could not remember when he had lost his pack -- probably during the initial flight. Didn't matter. Despite shedding much of his habitual gear, he could still survive on the materials secreted about his body. That was what made him such a good runner: improvisational skills. There were the weapons of course, kept jealously, but so many other secret things. He stole from the enemy and they did not know.
They wandered their spaces, masks down about their shoulders or missing entirely, gesturing with their hands while they spoke like Atlantis scientists. They scolded children and herded small woolly animals down the passageways, away. They were at home, Ronon realized at last, and did not know to defend themselves. They thought they were safe in their electrified holes.
He climbed high, barefoot like them but with his boots tied to his back. Above their heads he watched, and listened to their nonsense-talk. They did not return to the round-stone alcove; it was taboo perhaps, and to be avoided. Their convulsion weapons had gone away, stored somewhere, and were not carried freely. Nobody ever looked up and saw him.
It was very strange, and bothersome that they should be so foolishly defenseless. Underground, they might be safe from the Wraith -- it must have made them soft as well as superstitious. He sat in an alcove, a natural crack enlarged below into a smooth-walled cavern, and ate stolen mushrooms. He watched women spin their sandy wool, idle, planning loosely.
It took him many intervals of thinking to realize that the thing on a cord around his neck, the funny electrical thing that had no meaning, was the code-object that would let him home through the gate. He kept his fingers on it a long time, sitting in the gloom, perplexed. Home through the gate?
The gate.
The people on the other side of the gate. The reinforcements. Right.
Time ticked by, not too much of it. He kept to his perch, high up in the gap. Below him, steel spindles under raw, sparking lights, and lumpen gray wool, and toddlers playing on the floor. He had to tap himself on the temple to see again the piles of bodies, dark-mask bodies, strewn between pillars of bloody stone. Unclever, that -- changed the landscape, cut off avenues of escape. Sheppard made a mistake, there.
It would be harder, trying to free the prisoners now it was known they had killing skills. The enemy would be on their guard.
The gate.
He stole away, shimmying up the rock face with his back and the soles of his feet. No pebbles dropped to signal his presence. It was not difficult to find his way back to the passage with the door up onto land -- unguarded, unlocked, just a hole into sky. Just a staircase, cut into the rock, ages old. It seemed to lead nowhere, and then he turned the corner and was outside.
And there was land, soft-edged in dawnlight. The perfect time to float through enemy lines, when all things are vague and waiting idly for day to arrive fully. The setting sun behind you someone had told him, as if he needed directions. He climbed the first stone he found, and leapt from top to top. He was not far from the gate, not far at all. Even if he had not been able to see, he would have found it by the smell.
The fire fed hungrily, smoking and hissing as with soaked wood. It was close up in front of the gate, just beyond the first row of stones, tall flames reflecting off the cliff face. He counted the enemy fire-tenders, just five people arrayed around the pyre in the gate's clearing, watching. They wore their masks still, even in the gray morning, and might have worn them all night. They stood, expectant, unknown objects in their hands, and in front of them the fire worked. All the clothing in the pile had gone up -- that was expected. But the corpses had been piled together tightly, ordered and racked like bullets in a chamber. More carefully than they'd been strewn between the pillars: all the heads faced the same way, hair gone, naked and turning black. The stink of flesh and a heavy grease in the air made him grumble in his throat.
Down off the stones he slid and made himself invisible in the maze. The enemy did not perceive him, by sight or sound. Ronon was close enough to reach out and touch one, if he chose; he did not. Observation only, careful assessment.
A moment came, when the five enemies raised their arms, shouting in their strange tongue. Each held a weapon, or two weapons: P-90s, handguns, one arm-long stick that Teyla used often. The weapons glowed, touched for an instant by the flash of the rising sun, and then they went onto the pyre, thrown with a thoughtlessness that proved the enemy did not understand gunpowder.
Ronon stepped aside, behind a standing stone. He listened to the stinking hiss of the plastic catching, and then it happened: the bullets exploded, one by one or in great handfuls, bits of steel and copper flying in all direction. The enemy shrieked and beat at the ground. Each bullet found its own flashpoint, and the powder went up, the shell casing pinging as it bounced down off the fire. The sun came higher in the sky, welcome warmth against Ronon's cheeks. He withdrew to a safer distance.
The enemy ranged about, agitated, and Ronon settled in to wait.
***
For all John was technically in charge, Judy Yu was their pitiless taskmaster.
"Touch that I kill you," she said, cheerful, and slapped Rodney's hand away from a handhold. "Probably loose, and you'll bring it down on the Colonel's head."
"Yes, Doctor Spelunker," Rodney grumped. He put his hand someplace else, higher, a crack in the rock face.
Of all the things John expected to see in his life, aside from the whole intergalactic travel and zombie vampires and all, the very last thing was Rodney McKay attempting to free-climb. He was second in their little caravan, after Judy who got to wield the pickax because she was the one who'd brought it. Anyway, she was little, so she went first; Rodney, being biggest, was second (and got to hold the flashlight). If he didn't get stuck, the rest of them would fit through fine. John was third on account of being the only person big enough to tug Rodney out of a tight spot. "And you've got long, skinny arms," Judy had said. "You can reach stuff."
It wasn't so bad, being valued solely for his resemblance to Plastic Man. Didn't require any cognitive input, and he got to sit still, feet in a freezing puddle, and listen to Rodney and Judy kick each other's asses all over academia. He rested his heavy head against the cool limestone block while they argued over the hole they'd found.
"What, you don't think your gigantically inflated ego would fit through??"
"No, you tiny-handed fool, we've got Melo scooting around on his butt. How the hell are we supposed to get him up ten feet in the air?"
"If you can climb it, he can!" There was an impact noise, and Rodney yipped. It sounded suspiciously like Judy had smacked him upside the head. A woman after John's own heart.
Rodney's response was downright petulant. "I saw the Poseidon Adventure, you know. One-legged climbing is going to be problematic."
"Well what are we gonna do," asked Judy, low. "Leave him behind?"
John felt he should interject at this, but he lifted his head, shivering, just in time to see the one-legged climber in question contorting himself out of the previous squeeze spot. Teyla, directly behind, braced her shoulders against the tight ceiling and shoved his good right foot, and Melo plopped out onto the floor of their little chamber like a puppy being born. The poor Marine had mud in his hair and in his ears and probably a lot of other orifices, and was now sitting in the puddle John had been trying to avoid.
Teyla crawled out of the squeeze, and called, "Come," over her shoulder. Van Arden's voice echoed back, and they were all together again, in a space about the size of Elizabeth's office. John reached out to straighten Melo's clothes, help him to a more comfortable position, and tripped over something. He landed hard on his knees and forearms, and left some skin behind.
There was nothing else to do, but settle in as comfortably as possible and wait for Judy and Rodney to work out their next step. They perched up high on the block, and it seemed like progress when the flashlight dimmed and disappeared -- Judy trying out the hole. As the light went, their little bubble in the ground became vast, endless, dripping and echoing.
John couldn't get used to the dark, a total absence of light that seemed unreal. His eyes played tricks on him, conjuring cracks of green afterimage like a lightbulb from under a closed door. His brain just wouldn't take it, that there should be no visual input at all. Even night-flying, way out in the nowheres between mountainside villages in central Asia, there had always been something. Starlight, moonlight, clouds that still managed to let in the slightest glow.
He could ask Van Arden to turn on the tiny backlight in her watch (his watch), but he figured that would sound desperate.
A warm, fleshy smell came over him and he realized Teyla was by his side. Her scent was distinctive, so different from the acrid sweat of the others. "How are you feeling?" she asked. "Are you warm enough?"
He let her trace his neck, his chilly ears, chafe the backs of his hands. He'd had no idea caves would be so cold. He reached out and checked that her jacket was zipped all the way up.
"Sir," asked Van Arden from somewhere over thataway, "You think we should leave another marker?"
John wasn't up to thinking. "Let Judy decide," he said. He let Teyla guide his hand outward, duck duck goose, to feel the heads of his soldiers. He tapped Van Arden's forehead, and then set himself to wiping the crud out of Melo's kinky hair. "Good job," he recited, dutiful. "We made a lot of progress already."
Really he had no idea how much progress they'd made, but it sounded good to say. He was pretty sure they'd been at it for four hours or so, leaving their prison chamber some time near what would be dawn on the outside.
Teyla had done the honors, torching a page of Judy's notepaper and smudging the ashy remains with her thumb under the last row of census dots. She had put down six thumbprints, careful, and then looked up uncertainly. "Do we count Ronon?"
"I guess so," John had said. After the seventh thumbprint, she had looked at her hands, smeared gray streaks on her palms. She had used the leftover ash to write their names on the wall in blocky childish letters. John couldn't remember who had taught her to read English -- he'd meant to, and never gotten around to it. She had sat there, looking out at them all as they gathered around, five people from Earth and one outlander holding them all together.
"Let us proceed," she'd said, and they had.
And now here they were, waiting their turns to climb a ten-foot sheer face and cram themselves into the next twelve-inch gap in the rocks. Van Arden was going to call lunch-break soon, and he was going to have to admit that he was in no shape to keep anything down. Cool air washed past his face, what Judy called the caves' breathing. It gnawed at him and he shivered again.
"What I wouldn't give for a fire," said Melo, and he sounded near tears.
"Hey Van Arden," said John. "What time is it?" She would have to turn on the watch's backlight to check. It was a pinprick, one hazy star in the immense night, but it was something.
***
The enemy left their posts in front of the gate halfway through the day, quivering with wary rage. They had added a body to the pyre, and only four sentries returned to the invisible stone door of their home. Ronon watched and listened and breathed foul fumes, and waited.
It seemed a worthwhile risk, once the sun was at peak and the fire cooling, embers and sparks without flame. He edged past the heat and called homeward, suddenly afraid he might have forgotten the sequence of symbols.
The gate said its blue hello. He had not forgotten. Came a voice, in a language he knew: "Colonel, please report!" It was the kind of request that was more of an order. It was directly in his ear, like someone standing behind him.
He put a hand to his headset -- he'd forgotten it. It had stopped working a day ago, after the attack. There had been nobody to talk back to him.
The button in his ear moved under his thumb. "Atlantis?" he asked. He tried again, steadier. "This is Ronon Dex. There has been a situation. I need reinforcements."
"Clear to come through." He watched the rippling blue, its unreal texture. It was never the same pattern twice. He did not go.
"Reinforcements," he said again, patient.
The gate gaped serenely at him. "Ronon." This was Elizabeth, who could say his name like exasperation or regard. "Come through to us now. I need to know what is happening, and you may need supplies, or care."
"Send them to me," he said.
"I will not, Ronon. Without seeing you, how can I know you are not speaking under duress? Come through, and we will plan together."
He could not see the hole in this logic, though he stood and examined it for several minutes. "Coming," he said.
They were waiting for him, many Marines and Elizabeth on the stairs with a furrow between her brows. They shut the gate behind him and the Marines approached, alert. "You all right?" one of them asked, his finger close to but not touching the trigger.
Ronon pushed past him and climbed the stairs. Elizabeth watched him come, her mouth like a line of steel, the sinews of her arms tight. He could not know what she thought. "They are prisoners. I could not move the stone. One of them was tortured."
Elizabeth drew in a fast breath. "Shitfire." She mastered herself. "I'll take you to Dr. Beckett, and plan the rescue on the way." She took his hand and pulled, and he followed. His legs were unsteady. They passed through corridors and he lost where he was, thinking of the caves and the sparking white light. Elizabeth tapped her headset. "Major Lorne, please meet me at Beckett's office. Bring your thinking cap."
And there was the infirmary, narrow beds and cabinets and busy people who smelled clean. Ronon could not remember why he had come to this place, when the rescue was not yet done. He snatched his hand back from Elizabeth's grasp and spun, looking for useful supplies.
"Come, Ronon," said Elizabeth. "You must let the doctor help you, so that you can help the team." Her hands were in front of her, palms open. He could hear the persuasion in her pitch and timbre. He ignored it.
"Give me explosives and people who know rock," he said, as straightforwardly as he knew how.
"We will give you food first, and bandages for the scrapes on your hands." Elizabeth came forward slowly and put her hands on his shoulders, light, unthreatening. "And then we plan the rescue together."
She did not glance at the soldier Lorne, who stood in the doorway flexing his hands. She was smarter than that. She slid out of the way for Beckett, the doctor, who patted down from shoulder all the way to forearm before capturing one of Ronon's hands in his own.
"Learned that one from horses," said Beckett. "Come now, you don't startle as easy as a beast, do you? Let me see it."
It was only a shard of stone, stuck in a line of his palm. There were other bruises and scrapes, but that one he knew would draw attention. The doctor worked quickly, never looking up, while Elizabeth asked questions and evaluated his answers. It was, in fact, faster than he had expected. Beckett turned back to him with a sharp object in hand --
Ronon was standing at the ready and halfway across the room.
"All right, if you don't want anaesthetic, you don't have to take it." Beckett put the needle behind his back before stepping to the side. He told Elizabeth: "He needs a meal and a solid day of sleep, and see if he'll take some gauze on his palms. I expect the first is all he'll take, situation being what it is."
Ronon watched him without turning his head. Lorne had his hands high, touching the door lintels, empty. He had taken lessons from Elizabeth.
"Let's go," he insisted, and Elizabeth nodded her consent.
She led the way to her office, brisk, but Lorne had beaten her there somehow. He had caffeine pills and hot food that Sheppard called mashed potatoes, although it was made from taf roots. "Eat," said the soldier. "Then talk."
Ronon did both at once. The rest of the story was done before the plate was empty, and he licked the spoon while debating how best to blow the prison door.
"Shape charges around the block," argued Lorne.
Ronon shook his head. "Then we fight our way out as the enemy come to defend their sacred territory." The spoon clattered down. "One prisoner cannot walk -- the dark man, the Marine. We would have to carry him."
"Melo," said Lorne, rubbing his face with both hands. "Okay, we could drill. If we had the equipment."
"Which we don't," added Elizabeth. "No hope of a diplomatic solution?"
"Their talk is alien. They have never passed through a Stargate, none of their people, ever in a thousand years. They attacked us without attempting to parley."
"We have no leverage to negotiate, not right now." She sighed. "Lorne, what do you think of the team?"
Lorne scanned the sheet of paper she had scribbled on. "Uh, actually, yeah. Gonayev's got the geology and he did time in the Russian army. Kraeter and Hastings are from hill country, West Virginia and upper Tennessee, both Marines. No on Shishek; he can't stand small spaces. I haven't met Yagelski, but if she spends her free time base-jumping then I doubt a cave would faze her. And me," he added.
"No, Major," said Elizabeth. "I need you here."
"I was stationed in the Rockies for two years. I'm no mountain goat, but, I'm the only officer here who's done any serious hiking."
Ronon watched them, assessed their stances. They both had reason, and might argue all day. "Decide who is coming with me," he said abruptly, and stood. "I will be in the armory."
Elizabeth leapt to her feet, but did not stop him from going. "I," she called to his back. As he left the room, he heard, "Fine, go with him. Just bring them all back and don't get killed."
This was, at least, forward motion. He listened to Lorne's jogging feet as they came to him down the corridor.
***
With his obvious genius and his lumpy, enormously disproportionate body, nobody ever expected Rodney to be graceful anyway. But even if the rest of the team couldn't tell, he knew that his feet weren't doing quite what they were told. He stumbled over piles of pebbles and pretended he was kicking them out of the way. He daubed the sweat off his forehead, and then remembered that too was one of Sheppard's symptoms.
Space flu was not exactly the valiant death he had been expecting, not after all those exciting opportunities to be torn limb from limb, shot, strangled, or sucked dry.
The going had been all right for a little while, crawlways easy to find and in no need of enlargement by pickax. Judy had remarked on the paths until Rodney reminded her that they would come across the corpses eventually. It was probably a fatal mistake to even try following in the footsteps of thousand-year-old prisoners, but Rodney hadn't been able to come up with a palatable alternative. So they climbed through existing holes and looked for the next pile of bones. They got pretty far their first day, a lot farther than he had expected.
He sat back now, sleeping bag over his shoulders, taking small bites of a power bar to keep his stomach from revolting. Of all the annoyances of being trapped to their doom in a gigantic ant farm, being unable to assuage the hypoglycemic wobbles was the worst.
"Change now, and sleep in the dry clothes," Judy said, and snugged her own sleeping bag more tightly around herself. "Conserving body heat is key right now."
Van Arden was already working on building a fire: gauze from the medical kit, and fingersplints that looked just like tongue depressors. Cardboard, from all the kit packaging. It wasn't very warm, but she blew on it and it was light.
"Double-up, you think? Sleeping bags?" asked Melo. He was working probably faster than normal, because when he was done bandaging Teyla's hands he got to take his morphine. He'd already done everyone else, and their white-taped knuckles gleamed at each other, ghost-fingers.
"Yeah," said Van Arden. She shuffled off her jacket, just sitting there in front of them all, and pulled her t-shirt over her head. It was pretty wet, and she would definitely be better off in something warmer, but -- she scooted around Sheppard, who was lying quietly, and rummaged in her rucksack. She came up with something too small to cover her bra. "Socks."
"Yes, that's what they are," Rodney replied, testy.
"Yes, ma'am," echoed Melo. "Good idea." Rodney boggled at him, till he explained. "Like gloves. Save us a couple of scrapes, anyway."
"Socks on our hands??" asked Rodney. "That's the stupidest, actually most brilliant, notion you've come up with yet --"
"I just realized," Judy interrupted. "Things aren't going to dry, not without a bigger fire. The humidity's too high."
Teyla was all damnable reason. "This is all the fire we have. Burning clothes should be a last resort."
Judy grimaced. "Might be some brush, or something, nearer an exit."
"Wherever an exit might be," said Rodney, feeling cruel. "People routinely get lost in cave systems and wander in circles and starve to death. People also, in this galaxy, build entire civilizations underground, with only a nominal surface presence. For all we know, this is an advanced form of Genii torture."
Teyla began, "Surely not --" but Rodney cut her off.
"No, of course not, but we don't have any idea what those hoodie people did want, or whether they'll resent our escaping their nice little mouse-maze."
This came across as badly in the group at large as it had in his own head. Rodney tried not to triumph in their uneasy murmurs.
Sheppard had been silent, curled on his side. When Van Arden had called for dinner he'd just sort of dropped that way, hadn't eaten, and hadn't had any clever remarks to add to their dire conversation. It was getting annoying, his stonewalling. "Teyla, you sick yet?" he asked.
"I am well," she said, and smiled that brilliant smile. "I have recovered from the blow I took." People loved to smile back at her, and everybody did (even Sheppard, eyes closed) except Rodney. She couldn't fail to notice.
"Yes, okay," he confessed. "I had a dizzy spell this afternoon, but it went away. I'm not nearly as bad as Colonel Horizontal over here." He nudged Sheppard, not unkindly he thought, but the response was a pained grunt and Van Arden grabbing his arm.
Thunderstruck, he grabbed hers back. "Oh my God that's it, that's it!" He hadn't meant to shout. Sheppard made another displeased noise. "Why are the two of us sick and nobody else? If it were a pathogen we'd all have it by now." Of course none of them had any medical expertise at all. Of course Carson was prancing around happy as a clam in his infirmary back in the city rather than suffering as he ought to out here. "It's something in the environment, that only affects us. Something keyed to the gene, that's it, that's why I've got a mild case and Sheppard is falling to pieces. It's the gene."
Van Arden sat back, thinking. Teyla opened her mouth to object, but he talked on over her.
"We're allergic to this space, maybe this kind of rock, maybe this whole planet. That's that stupid energy reading I couldn't figure out. Somebody designed a whole underground city, and the space above it, and more importantly the space directly around the Stargate, to repel Ancients!"
Sheppard's voice was ghostly slim, as if in the grip of a dream. "We need tinfoil hats."
"Something like that. And if that failed," Rodney added, and really there was no reason not to go over-the-top given their extremely under-the-bottom situation, "they stuffed them down an oubliette into the deepest dungeon they could find, waited for them to die, and pretended they'd never come."
The proper word for the noise Judy made was dismay, but not everybody was able to understand what was so obviously in front of them all.
"Why would they do that?" asked Van Arden. "I thought the Ancients were the good guys."
"Rebels? Resentment at their counfounded meddling?" Rodney let his imagination loose. "Some kind of attempt to dissociate themselves from Atlantis, as a Wraith-avoidance strategy? They've obviously got their own technology, with the crowbar-zappers, so maybe they thought they were better off on their own. Who the hell knows? It's why the hand-held conked out soon after we arrived. Nothing Ancient would work here."
"Hold on a sec." Melo objected. Really, the first few minutes of his morphine haze he was quite entertaining. "I don't got a gene. How come the ninjas didn't leave me alone? If all they hated was Ancients, they would just lock up the two of you and let us go home."
"Well, clearly," and Rodney put all the withering sarcasm he had into the word, "Clearly, the hoodie people are unbelieveably stupid anyway, considering they left us supplies and ammunition."
Teyla put a hand on his knee. "Many years have passed since an Ancient came here. Many times many." She shrugged toward the whole group. "The no-faces do not speak a language even the Stargate can understand. It may be that they have come to see all outsiders, any outsiders, as invaders to be repelled."
Judy shuddered, and crossed her arms as if for warmth. "The rescue party. They'll be in here too, tomorrow or the next day." Rodney realized then that she was his kindred spirit in worst-case scenarios.
"That's why we left markers," whispered Sheppard, and dropped off to sleep.
***
John woke up feeling like he'd been stomped on -- oh hey, wait, he had been stomped on -- and stretched his kinked back, only to realize nobody was in arm's reach. Voices were debating in a whisper on the other side of the space, their voices mingling into a sibilant echo that just made his head pound harder. "Morgnung?" he mumbled, and the conversation stopped.
Today was the first day they would have to find their own holes, he remembered. Today was going to suck, and their progress was going to slow way down.
"Colonel," said Van Arden, too loud and breathing on him. Suddenly he missed Teyla's toasty feet next to his, and figured out that he probably wasn't going to get to go back to sleep.
"Sir, we were debating our course of action for the day."
"Oh," said John. From the fog, slowly, the appropriate joke emerged. "Hope you didn't decide to kill me and eat me."
"No sir," said Van Arden, as if it had been seriously considered. "But we've got to get going again."
"Going." He felt around, realized the other sleeping bags were no longer laid out. "Right." He unzipped out of his warm coccoon and reached for his boots. If Melo could crawl, he could crawl.
He crawled. And climbed over waist-high piles of rock shards, and once even got to turn around and push Rodney in the ass with both feet when Rodney got his shoulder stuck, and gawked at weird white ripples of stone that Judy said were marble. The marble-room had been bright, the walls reflecting the flashlight into every corner. He hated that room.
He sat still while Judy moved the light, and shadows would flit around into crevices, and his nausea would flicker up, choking. The sharp, steely smell of the standing pools of water was a strange comfort, settling his stomach. John discovered it really was possible to keep your eyes closed for an hour at a time, waiting for Judy to disappear into the next tiny passage and take the blinding light with her. Then it was just voices and breath, hands cupping his elbow or running through his hair as they counted heads, and distant slow dripping and stones in motion, and John could handle that.
He inched into another passage, one that dipped down before turning right and angling upward again, and felt like he could handle that. The rocks were sharp and in the small space they all stank like unbathed bodies and Rodney was kicking pebbles into his face, but he had it under control. If only people would stop trying to draw him into conversation.
"Chocolate," said Melo behind him. "What do you like, sir?" They had paused on their bellies one after another, at Judy's say-so, without knowing why. John breathed through another wave of nausea, and there was something jutting into his hip.
"Like what," he mumbled.
"Flavors of jelly beans that aren't, but should be." Melo asked again, addressing John's feet generally: "Trying to think positive, sir."
"I don't know," he said, and put his head down on his forearm. In front of him, Rodney and Judy were arguing in short, muffled exchanges.
"The Lieutenant says you can't have jellybeans in anything but fruit flavors. I say that's crap, sir. Is all." Melo seemed to have gotten the drift of his superior officer not giving a shit. He shouted, "Hey guys, what's the holdup?"
"Ohhh, shut the fuck up," breathed John, his brains reverberating inside his skull.
Rodney's voice came back, lower and less -- Rodneylike -- than was to be expected. Probably he'd heard that plea. "My collar. It snagged on a stalagmite."
"Stalactite," added Judy.
"Whatever. It'll only be another minute," said Rodney.
Yeah, John thought that would be pretty hard to untangle, in the dark, in a passage eighteen inches high. And really, except for the part where he was under a zillion tons of rock that might come down at any instant, and in a hole the size of a duffel bag, five other people breathing the only air he would get, and maybe it was smaller than a duffel bag, or it was getting smaller, or -- suddenly he was thrashing, banging his shoulders left and right against the solid stone, and there was no way out. He heard himself, felt the waves of unreasoning panic ride up his spine and pop into his head, poison bubbles, and could only kick harder. The rock was an unforgiving embrace, and would never let him go.
And then McKay's feet were moving, moving away, making space. John gulped air and put all his scanty attention into the task of crawling. Hips, knees, elbows, just like all those stupid muddy obstacle courses he'd done for years -- he could handle that. He crabbed his way out into the next cavern like a champ, collapsing in a heap against the wall. Rodney was beside him, skin hot and twitching. John's arm was against his ribs, and those were big scared breaths Rodney was heaving.
"I think I just got claustrophobia," John panted.
Rodney demanded, "Only just now?" And it was the perfect thing to say for John to laugh one hard coughing laugh and pretend it hadn't happened. They leaned together and waited for the others to come through.
A sock touched his shoulder -- Judy's hand. It was moist, sticky with blood. "People freak out sometimes," said the woman. "It'll pass."
She made herself a seat on John's other side. He felt the shape of her, round, feminine, against his shoulder and ribs and hip and thigh, and envied her her insulating body fat. She pushed his elbow aside and burrowed closer, sharing warmth. They all sat and rested and didn't say anything.
***
Part 1 | Part 2 | (3/5) | Part 4 | Part 5
Author: Vehemently vee_fic
Fandom: SGA
Spoilers: vague early-mid season 2
What is it: An adventure story. An extremely deep drama. A deathmarch.
Rating: PG-13, for language, violence, and scariness
Tagline: "Aha!" crowed Rodney. "Better a wuss than the biggest klutz in two galaxies."
***
THREE -- Troglodytes
***
The hoodie-people had to be the stupidest captors in the galaxy. They had seven rucksacks just lying there in a heap, all of their gear -- down to Sheppard's Top Gun cool dude Mister Testosterone sunglasses, only slightly spidered with cracks -- left with them as if being dared to escape. Rodney McKay loved a dare, in the sense that he hated them, but this one he was going to beat and then he would think of something creatively nasty (a rig of a thousand sunlamps, or clothes made of flash-paper) to do to those stupid hoodie-people. He had a zillion useful things (and several decidedly useless ones) that they had to inventory on blankets or else things might fall into cracks in the uneven floor.
There were four Maglites that took AA batteries, the emergency floodlight that took D batteries, the digital camera a lithium battery, and his laptop could run on none of these. Really, it was ridiculous.
"The hand-held is totally broken," he announced, to nobody in particular.
Sheppard sat with Melo against the wall, helping him bed down as comfortably as could be had on a floor made of rubble. Sheppard murmured something, the echo making his words indistinct. Rodney didn't need to hear the exact verbiage to guess it was something like Quit freaking out, you're making the Marines look bad. Only civilians had the right to freak out, and Judy was really not holding up her end of that bargain. She was sitting on a blanket, sorting kipple by glowlight and picking up rocks to hold them close to her nose.
"It's chilly in here. Are you chilly?" he asked, noting the chemical heat packs in the medical kit.
"Of course it's chilly," said Judy, and pulled the heat packs out of his reach. She laid her hand among the gadgets useful and useless, and came up with a keyring thermometer. "We're underground. No sun, no warmth. It's probably, let's see, 61 Fahrenheit all year round."
"I knew that," said Rodney.
Teyla jiggled a half-empty canteen, frowning, and then poked Rodney. He opened the last rucksack -- this one was Ronon's, and still no idea where the man was himself -- and started pulling things out of it at random. He tossed a sheathed knife to Van Arden, who was inventorying the weapons.
"Hey, you didn't get seriously hurt, did you?" he asked her.
"No," she said, without looking at him. "Headless guy steps out from behind a rock and I crash right into him and bounce back on my fanny." She the laid knife at the end of the row. "Melo gave this gasp like the dead were come alive, and Judy pushes him out of the way and off she goes into the maze. Time I can see straight I got a headless girl sitting on my chest and two more with feet on my wrists. Did you notice they all were barefoot?"
McKay said, "No," and counted nine knives of varying lengths. The hoodies had confiscated all the guns -- despite obviously having no idea what to do with them -- but not the spare clips. (Stupid!) They still had knives and a set of brass knuckles that belonged to Judy Yu. She had also contributed the pickax, and a little hand-trowel not suitable for fighting with. "Did you fire your weapon?"
"No." Van Arden laid out the tenth and last knife, one of Teyla's. "That'll probably have me labeled a coward."
"I got off one shot, and missed," confessed Rodney. "Those zap-guns -- that was unexpected. We've seen projectile weapons, but not many cultures develop energy weapons."
"That's what they got Judy with, I guess." Van Arden took back her own knife, turned away to help Teyla with the Miscellaneous pile. Ronon's leather bag of lucky seashells went into the mix, along with toothbrushes, a spangled superball, and a romance novel.
Sheppard grunted and crawled over to them, leaving Melo behind asleep. "I forgot," he said. He got up on his knees fiddled with his pants.
"What are you doing??" asked Rodney, and his shrill voice echoed. Now Judy and Teyla were definitely watching.
"They didn't search me. Did they search you?" Sheppard stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Took the P-90 and my sidearm, but I hid the grenades on the off-chance they'd be sloppy." Sheppard proceeded to pull a pair of grenades from his pants and handed them over to his second-in-command. Van Arden gaped at him.
"You win," said Rodney faintly. "You are more man than me. You will never see me transporting explosives right next to my crotch, and if I do, I will not forget about them!"
Sheppard gave him a Look. Even sick as a dog, he could pull off a Look. "I was kind of busy," he said, and turned his pockets back right-side in. He turned away, and crawled back to Melo's side.
"So," said Van Arden, in a lame attempt at nonchalance. "Matches. Risk a small fire?"
Judy busted into a rant about the flammability of bat guano (bat guano??) while McKay was gearing up for his lecture on even suggesting that they burn up what might be the only oxygen trapped in this cavern of doom. A hissed debate about organic chemistry ensued, despite Van Arden's confused query of whether arguing didn't just burn up the same O2 just as fast. (Also, Rodney felt the need to point out, what bats?? If there were bats, he deserved to know about them in advance.) It might have gone on all -- well, day wasn't the right term in their enclosed gloom, but it would have filled the hours nicely, if Teyla hadn't silenced them all by saying, in wonder, "There is writing here."
She had another glowstick in hand, and was pointing at a relatively flat section of the cavern's walls. It was the same sandy rock as aboveground, a nice contrast for the black marks someone had left behind. McKay snatched the light source up close to his eyes as he leaned his forehead against the cool slab. He breathed on the lettering, saw bits flake off -- ash. Wood ash, or something like.
The weird angular script was not quite Ancient, something later and more jumbly, inelegant. The women stood by him, touching his back or his arms, low voices in awe or terror. Sheppard stayed by Melo, didn't even watch them as they mapped this new discovery. Definitely sicker than a dog.
"Obviously," said Judy, "somebody burned a fire, and lived long enough to write poetry afterwards."
McKay didn't even bother conceding the point. He eyeballed the not-Ancient pictograms, and stumbled along the wall, to another flat space. More letters. Then to a third, this area as large as a blackboard, floor up to some high ceiling they couldn't see with their paltry green light. The third wall had drawings.
Here was a circle of stones, tall heavy trees like weeping willows bending over them.
"I guess that explains the bird noises," said Van Arden.
Next was a tall circle, angular hints of the chevrons: it was the Stargate. In it and around it, smudged figures, all in dark silhouette. McKay put the glowstick right up against the wall, and saw fingerprints in the ash. Fingerprints old enough that the stone-circle forest had turned to low arid brush.
The image after that was not a scene but a set of statistics: dots in rows, seven to the row. One hand had drawn ten dots, and crossed out six of them. The ash changed color for the next twelve (one crossed out), then again for a row of five (none crossed out). There was a lot of space below those rows of dots; whoever had made those first marks had anticipated a lot of company.
The next drawing on the wall, the last as it turned out, was an arrow six feet long, pointing rightward and down, deeper into the cavern. It had tiny stick-figure people inside it, as if the arrow itself were not enough of an indicator. The first people, or some set after that, had tried to escape by going deeper.
That meant the hole in the ground that had let them into this space was not going to let them out, ever. Rodney let Teyla hold the glowstick, and turned away.
***
The flashlights being rationed, Teyla sat in front of an empty half-circle of stones staring at Van Arden's watch face. It was not bright enough to show the contours of their prison, just their faces in stark shadow and darkness behind.
It was actually John's watch, because Van Arden had discovered hers broken in the night. She sat beside Teyla, fiddling with its buttons, the light from its face glinting like mirrorlight. The watch was enormous, absurd to Teyla's eyes, even more absurd on a smaller wrist. John liked to show her what it could do, functions that seemed vastly unnecessary on a timepiece.
"The darkness will be our enemy," Teyla said. "It will eat at the mind."
Van Arden considered this carefully. "We got stuff we could burn, if we had to. Kind of a waste, though."
"We will need to set priorities, yes. When should we wake everyone?"
"Still early," Van Arden replied. She pointed her chin. "He usually up at this time?" Rodney was stumbling quietly along the cavern walls, exploring. He was holding his laptop open, its screen set to all white, and using it as a makeshift light source. It ghosted, far away, his shadow reaching backwards like a safety line.
"Probably he did not sleep. It is his way, in a crisis."
"So he just lay there in the dark thinking?" Van Arden was nonplussed at this idea.
"That is why he is escape-master. He thinks all the time."
They sat together for a short while, and listened to the sleepers stir. Melo was whimpering, and would soon awake. Teyla struggled for a thing to say. "Can you tell me, is vertigo a common illness on Earth? I have not heard of it before."
Van Arden shrugged. "It's real bad dizziness." She corralled her knees with her elbows, and used the watch like a clasp for both her hands. "You get confused about whether things are moving or not. That makes some people want to puke, I guess. I never had it, but sounds like the Colonel has."
"No, I haven't," said John, his words clear and careful. Both women twisted to see him, still lying on his side. His eyes reflected two dull green pinpoints. "I knew a guy grounded on account of Ménière's Disease, though. Some kind of inner ear problem. He literally couldn't see straight."
Teyla came to his side and checked his forehead. He was feverish. "You are feeling better?"
"Not really," he admitted. "But if it's flu, it'll last at least two or three days."
Van Arden asked, "If it's not, sir?" but John had no answer for that.
Teyla filled that gap with information. "Rodney has been working, while you slept. We have much to show you." She looked him over carefully, how he had not sat up to talk. "Will you walk?"
"Well, I won't enjoy it," he said, but after a moment he rolled over to his knees, and then levered himself upright. They stood with him, watching, while John blinked and cocked his head. "Okay, Teyla, you're with me," he said, and allowed her to thread her arm around his waist. The two of them worked their way across the open space, toward the dim glow of Rodney's laptop. John persistently tried to turn left, and Teyla had to wrench him rightwards to walk in a straight line. He apologized under his breath, but he could not correct the problem.
As they approached, Rodney gasped, over beyond the painted walls. He held his awkward white beacon in his hand, but was aiming its unnatural brightness at something at his feet, a pile of something farther in than they had ventured thus far. She did not ask John, only steered them together to Rodney's side.
They had to come very close indeed -- only an armspan away from where Rodney stood, rooted and breathing hard -- to see what he had noticed.
The pile on the ground in front of him was bones. At one point they had been arranged into some kind of order, but time and scavengers had reduced it to a mass of gray sticks, split and scattered like a badly constructed firepit. There were six humanoid skulls in the pile's center, jawless, dry.
"Oh," said John, sounding very tired.
Rodney was in a horror, but kept enough of himself to whisper instead of shout. "They went cannibal. Oh my God they killed and ate their own men waiting to be rescued."
"Come," said Teyla. "Let us think this through. How do you know they were eaten?"
"Knife marks, look at them, right on the joints." He pointed, but she did not follow his gaze. "They ate their own instead of going deeper, that's why they crossed out all but four of their census dots."
"Census dots?" asked John.
"You will see." Teyla gestured. "Rodney, there were seven dots crossed out. Where is the other body?" He lowered his arm, blinked, and could look at her again.
"I don't know. Somewhere else in the cavern? This first group, they waited too long and then realized their mistake. They're the ones who drew the arrow. They're saying, Don't bother waiting here. There's nothing here to wait for, and --"
"Stand still when you're talking to me!" John hissed suddenly. Rodney hadn't moved, and didn't move. He stopped in the middle of his sentence and did not continue. John was breathing hard, his forehead and cheeks shining with sweat.
"John," she said carefully. "He is standing still. Your illness is worsening." He turned his head to her then, looked at her close enough to kiss or to bite. The eyes in his head did not belong to a person she knew, but some other person: belligerent, cruel. Without breaking his gaze she reached out a hand and Rodney grasped it.
After a few moments, the other person wandered away and John lowered his head. He mumbled, "Sorry. Go on."
Rodney watched them both, worrying his lip, before he spoke again. "They arranged the pile of bones so that they would be found and understood. We have to go deeper."
"And give up rescue so soon?" Telya asked.
"Which do you think would take longer, attacking the hoodie-people -- who have weapons by the way -- on their own home ground and beating them, or finding us in a hole in the ground in the middle of some dark cave? Yes, I'm thinking we can give up on rescue."
John shook his head. "Hell. You're right."
Teyla squeezed Rodney's hand, drew him forward. "First, we eat. Come, help me support him." Rodney stepped into line with them, on John's other side, his hand snaking around John's waist and stroking Teyla's elbow. They turned, an awkward flanking maneuver, and shambled carefully back to the circle of their team.
***
He could not remember when he had lost his pack -- probably during the initial flight. Didn't matter. Despite shedding much of his habitual gear, he could still survive on the materials secreted about his body. That was what made him such a good runner: improvisational skills. There were the weapons of course, kept jealously, but so many other secret things. He stole from the enemy and they did not know.
They wandered their spaces, masks down about their shoulders or missing entirely, gesturing with their hands while they spoke like Atlantis scientists. They scolded children and herded small woolly animals down the passageways, away. They were at home, Ronon realized at last, and did not know to defend themselves. They thought they were safe in their electrified holes.
He climbed high, barefoot like them but with his boots tied to his back. Above their heads he watched, and listened to their nonsense-talk. They did not return to the round-stone alcove; it was taboo perhaps, and to be avoided. Their convulsion weapons had gone away, stored somewhere, and were not carried freely. Nobody ever looked up and saw him.
It was very strange, and bothersome that they should be so foolishly defenseless. Underground, they might be safe from the Wraith -- it must have made them soft as well as superstitious. He sat in an alcove, a natural crack enlarged below into a smooth-walled cavern, and ate stolen mushrooms. He watched women spin their sandy wool, idle, planning loosely.
It took him many intervals of thinking to realize that the thing on a cord around his neck, the funny electrical thing that had no meaning, was the code-object that would let him home through the gate. He kept his fingers on it a long time, sitting in the gloom, perplexed. Home through the gate?
The gate.
The people on the other side of the gate. The reinforcements. Right.
Time ticked by, not too much of it. He kept to his perch, high up in the gap. Below him, steel spindles under raw, sparking lights, and lumpen gray wool, and toddlers playing on the floor. He had to tap himself on the temple to see again the piles of bodies, dark-mask bodies, strewn between pillars of bloody stone. Unclever, that -- changed the landscape, cut off avenues of escape. Sheppard made a mistake, there.
It would be harder, trying to free the prisoners now it was known they had killing skills. The enemy would be on their guard.
The gate.
He stole away, shimmying up the rock face with his back and the soles of his feet. No pebbles dropped to signal his presence. It was not difficult to find his way back to the passage with the door up onto land -- unguarded, unlocked, just a hole into sky. Just a staircase, cut into the rock, ages old. It seemed to lead nowhere, and then he turned the corner and was outside.
And there was land, soft-edged in dawnlight. The perfect time to float through enemy lines, when all things are vague and waiting idly for day to arrive fully. The setting sun behind you someone had told him, as if he needed directions. He climbed the first stone he found, and leapt from top to top. He was not far from the gate, not far at all. Even if he had not been able to see, he would have found it by the smell.
The fire fed hungrily, smoking and hissing as with soaked wood. It was close up in front of the gate, just beyond the first row of stones, tall flames reflecting off the cliff face. He counted the enemy fire-tenders, just five people arrayed around the pyre in the gate's clearing, watching. They wore their masks still, even in the gray morning, and might have worn them all night. They stood, expectant, unknown objects in their hands, and in front of them the fire worked. All the clothing in the pile had gone up -- that was expected. But the corpses had been piled together tightly, ordered and racked like bullets in a chamber. More carefully than they'd been strewn between the pillars: all the heads faced the same way, hair gone, naked and turning black. The stink of flesh and a heavy grease in the air made him grumble in his throat.
Down off the stones he slid and made himself invisible in the maze. The enemy did not perceive him, by sight or sound. Ronon was close enough to reach out and touch one, if he chose; he did not. Observation only, careful assessment.
A moment came, when the five enemies raised their arms, shouting in their strange tongue. Each held a weapon, or two weapons: P-90s, handguns, one arm-long stick that Teyla used often. The weapons glowed, touched for an instant by the flash of the rising sun, and then they went onto the pyre, thrown with a thoughtlessness that proved the enemy did not understand gunpowder.
Ronon stepped aside, behind a standing stone. He listened to the stinking hiss of the plastic catching, and then it happened: the bullets exploded, one by one or in great handfuls, bits of steel and copper flying in all direction. The enemy shrieked and beat at the ground. Each bullet found its own flashpoint, and the powder went up, the shell casing pinging as it bounced down off the fire. The sun came higher in the sky, welcome warmth against Ronon's cheeks. He withdrew to a safer distance.
The enemy ranged about, agitated, and Ronon settled in to wait.
***
For all John was technically in charge, Judy Yu was their pitiless taskmaster.
"Touch that I kill you," she said, cheerful, and slapped Rodney's hand away from a handhold. "Probably loose, and you'll bring it down on the Colonel's head."
"Yes, Doctor Spelunker," Rodney grumped. He put his hand someplace else, higher, a crack in the rock face.
Of all the things John expected to see in his life, aside from the whole intergalactic travel and zombie vampires and all, the very last thing was Rodney McKay attempting to free-climb. He was second in their little caravan, after Judy who got to wield the pickax because she was the one who'd brought it. Anyway, she was little, so she went first; Rodney, being biggest, was second (and got to hold the flashlight). If he didn't get stuck, the rest of them would fit through fine. John was third on account of being the only person big enough to tug Rodney out of a tight spot. "And you've got long, skinny arms," Judy had said. "You can reach stuff."
It wasn't so bad, being valued solely for his resemblance to Plastic Man. Didn't require any cognitive input, and he got to sit still, feet in a freezing puddle, and listen to Rodney and Judy kick each other's asses all over academia. He rested his heavy head against the cool limestone block while they argued over the hole they'd found.
"What, you don't think your gigantically inflated ego would fit through??"
"No, you tiny-handed fool, we've got Melo scooting around on his butt. How the hell are we supposed to get him up ten feet in the air?"
"If you can climb it, he can!" There was an impact noise, and Rodney yipped. It sounded suspiciously like Judy had smacked him upside the head. A woman after John's own heart.
Rodney's response was downright petulant. "I saw the Poseidon Adventure, you know. One-legged climbing is going to be problematic."
"Well what are we gonna do," asked Judy, low. "Leave him behind?"
John felt he should interject at this, but he lifted his head, shivering, just in time to see the one-legged climber in question contorting himself out of the previous squeeze spot. Teyla, directly behind, braced her shoulders against the tight ceiling and shoved his good right foot, and Melo plopped out onto the floor of their little chamber like a puppy being born. The poor Marine had mud in his hair and in his ears and probably a lot of other orifices, and was now sitting in the puddle John had been trying to avoid.
Teyla crawled out of the squeeze, and called, "Come," over her shoulder. Van Arden's voice echoed back, and they were all together again, in a space about the size of Elizabeth's office. John reached out to straighten Melo's clothes, help him to a more comfortable position, and tripped over something. He landed hard on his knees and forearms, and left some skin behind.
There was nothing else to do, but settle in as comfortably as possible and wait for Judy and Rodney to work out their next step. They perched up high on the block, and it seemed like progress when the flashlight dimmed and disappeared -- Judy trying out the hole. As the light went, their little bubble in the ground became vast, endless, dripping and echoing.
John couldn't get used to the dark, a total absence of light that seemed unreal. His eyes played tricks on him, conjuring cracks of green afterimage like a lightbulb from under a closed door. His brain just wouldn't take it, that there should be no visual input at all. Even night-flying, way out in the nowheres between mountainside villages in central Asia, there had always been something. Starlight, moonlight, clouds that still managed to let in the slightest glow.
He could ask Van Arden to turn on the tiny backlight in her watch (his watch), but he figured that would sound desperate.
A warm, fleshy smell came over him and he realized Teyla was by his side. Her scent was distinctive, so different from the acrid sweat of the others. "How are you feeling?" she asked. "Are you warm enough?"
He let her trace his neck, his chilly ears, chafe the backs of his hands. He'd had no idea caves would be so cold. He reached out and checked that her jacket was zipped all the way up.
"Sir," asked Van Arden from somewhere over thataway, "You think we should leave another marker?"
John wasn't up to thinking. "Let Judy decide," he said. He let Teyla guide his hand outward, duck duck goose, to feel the heads of his soldiers. He tapped Van Arden's forehead, and then set himself to wiping the crud out of Melo's kinky hair. "Good job," he recited, dutiful. "We made a lot of progress already."
Really he had no idea how much progress they'd made, but it sounded good to say. He was pretty sure they'd been at it for four hours or so, leaving their prison chamber some time near what would be dawn on the outside.
Teyla had done the honors, torching a page of Judy's notepaper and smudging the ashy remains with her thumb under the last row of census dots. She had put down six thumbprints, careful, and then looked up uncertainly. "Do we count Ronon?"
"I guess so," John had said. After the seventh thumbprint, she had looked at her hands, smeared gray streaks on her palms. She had used the leftover ash to write their names on the wall in blocky childish letters. John couldn't remember who had taught her to read English -- he'd meant to, and never gotten around to it. She had sat there, looking out at them all as they gathered around, five people from Earth and one outlander holding them all together.
"Let us proceed," she'd said, and they had.
And now here they were, waiting their turns to climb a ten-foot sheer face and cram themselves into the next twelve-inch gap in the rocks. Van Arden was going to call lunch-break soon, and he was going to have to admit that he was in no shape to keep anything down. Cool air washed past his face, what Judy called the caves' breathing. It gnawed at him and he shivered again.
"What I wouldn't give for a fire," said Melo, and he sounded near tears.
"Hey Van Arden," said John. "What time is it?" She would have to turn on the watch's backlight to check. It was a pinprick, one hazy star in the immense night, but it was something.
***
The enemy left their posts in front of the gate halfway through the day, quivering with wary rage. They had added a body to the pyre, and only four sentries returned to the invisible stone door of their home. Ronon watched and listened and breathed foul fumes, and waited.
It seemed a worthwhile risk, once the sun was at peak and the fire cooling, embers and sparks without flame. He edged past the heat and called homeward, suddenly afraid he might have forgotten the sequence of symbols.
The gate said its blue hello. He had not forgotten. Came a voice, in a language he knew: "Colonel, please report!" It was the kind of request that was more of an order. It was directly in his ear, like someone standing behind him.
He put a hand to his headset -- he'd forgotten it. It had stopped working a day ago, after the attack. There had been nobody to talk back to him.
The button in his ear moved under his thumb. "Atlantis?" he asked. He tried again, steadier. "This is Ronon Dex. There has been a situation. I need reinforcements."
"Clear to come through." He watched the rippling blue, its unreal texture. It was never the same pattern twice. He did not go.
"Reinforcements," he said again, patient.
The gate gaped serenely at him. "Ronon." This was Elizabeth, who could say his name like exasperation or regard. "Come through to us now. I need to know what is happening, and you may need supplies, or care."
"Send them to me," he said.
"I will not, Ronon. Without seeing you, how can I know you are not speaking under duress? Come through, and we will plan together."
He could not see the hole in this logic, though he stood and examined it for several minutes. "Coming," he said.
They were waiting for him, many Marines and Elizabeth on the stairs with a furrow between her brows. They shut the gate behind him and the Marines approached, alert. "You all right?" one of them asked, his finger close to but not touching the trigger.
Ronon pushed past him and climbed the stairs. Elizabeth watched him come, her mouth like a line of steel, the sinews of her arms tight. He could not know what she thought. "They are prisoners. I could not move the stone. One of them was tortured."
Elizabeth drew in a fast breath. "Shitfire." She mastered herself. "I'll take you to Dr. Beckett, and plan the rescue on the way." She took his hand and pulled, and he followed. His legs were unsteady. They passed through corridors and he lost where he was, thinking of the caves and the sparking white light. Elizabeth tapped her headset. "Major Lorne, please meet me at Beckett's office. Bring your thinking cap."
And there was the infirmary, narrow beds and cabinets and busy people who smelled clean. Ronon could not remember why he had come to this place, when the rescue was not yet done. He snatched his hand back from Elizabeth's grasp and spun, looking for useful supplies.
"Come, Ronon," said Elizabeth. "You must let the doctor help you, so that you can help the team." Her hands were in front of her, palms open. He could hear the persuasion in her pitch and timbre. He ignored it.
"Give me explosives and people who know rock," he said, as straightforwardly as he knew how.
"We will give you food first, and bandages for the scrapes on your hands." Elizabeth came forward slowly and put her hands on his shoulders, light, unthreatening. "And then we plan the rescue together."
She did not glance at the soldier Lorne, who stood in the doorway flexing his hands. She was smarter than that. She slid out of the way for Beckett, the doctor, who patted down from shoulder all the way to forearm before capturing one of Ronon's hands in his own.
"Learned that one from horses," said Beckett. "Come now, you don't startle as easy as a beast, do you? Let me see it."
It was only a shard of stone, stuck in a line of his palm. There were other bruises and scrapes, but that one he knew would draw attention. The doctor worked quickly, never looking up, while Elizabeth asked questions and evaluated his answers. It was, in fact, faster than he had expected. Beckett turned back to him with a sharp object in hand --
Ronon was standing at the ready and halfway across the room.
"All right, if you don't want anaesthetic, you don't have to take it." Beckett put the needle behind his back before stepping to the side. He told Elizabeth: "He needs a meal and a solid day of sleep, and see if he'll take some gauze on his palms. I expect the first is all he'll take, situation being what it is."
Ronon watched him without turning his head. Lorne had his hands high, touching the door lintels, empty. He had taken lessons from Elizabeth.
"Let's go," he insisted, and Elizabeth nodded her consent.
She led the way to her office, brisk, but Lorne had beaten her there somehow. He had caffeine pills and hot food that Sheppard called mashed potatoes, although it was made from taf roots. "Eat," said the soldier. "Then talk."
Ronon did both at once. The rest of the story was done before the plate was empty, and he licked the spoon while debating how best to blow the prison door.
"Shape charges around the block," argued Lorne.
Ronon shook his head. "Then we fight our way out as the enemy come to defend their sacred territory." The spoon clattered down. "One prisoner cannot walk -- the dark man, the Marine. We would have to carry him."
"Melo," said Lorne, rubbing his face with both hands. "Okay, we could drill. If we had the equipment."
"Which we don't," added Elizabeth. "No hope of a diplomatic solution?"
"Their talk is alien. They have never passed through a Stargate, none of their people, ever in a thousand years. They attacked us without attempting to parley."
"We have no leverage to negotiate, not right now." She sighed. "Lorne, what do you think of the team?"
Lorne scanned the sheet of paper she had scribbled on. "Uh, actually, yeah. Gonayev's got the geology and he did time in the Russian army. Kraeter and Hastings are from hill country, West Virginia and upper Tennessee, both Marines. No on Shishek; he can't stand small spaces. I haven't met Yagelski, but if she spends her free time base-jumping then I doubt a cave would faze her. And me," he added.
"No, Major," said Elizabeth. "I need you here."
"I was stationed in the Rockies for two years. I'm no mountain goat, but, I'm the only officer here who's done any serious hiking."
Ronon watched them, assessed their stances. They both had reason, and might argue all day. "Decide who is coming with me," he said abruptly, and stood. "I will be in the armory."
Elizabeth leapt to her feet, but did not stop him from going. "I," she called to his back. As he left the room, he heard, "Fine, go with him. Just bring them all back and don't get killed."
This was, at least, forward motion. He listened to Lorne's jogging feet as they came to him down the corridor.
***
With his obvious genius and his lumpy, enormously disproportionate body, nobody ever expected Rodney to be graceful anyway. But even if the rest of the team couldn't tell, he knew that his feet weren't doing quite what they were told. He stumbled over piles of pebbles and pretended he was kicking them out of the way. He daubed the sweat off his forehead, and then remembered that too was one of Sheppard's symptoms.
Space flu was not exactly the valiant death he had been expecting, not after all those exciting opportunities to be torn limb from limb, shot, strangled, or sucked dry.
The going had been all right for a little while, crawlways easy to find and in no need of enlargement by pickax. Judy had remarked on the paths until Rodney reminded her that they would come across the corpses eventually. It was probably a fatal mistake to even try following in the footsteps of thousand-year-old prisoners, but Rodney hadn't been able to come up with a palatable alternative. So they climbed through existing holes and looked for the next pile of bones. They got pretty far their first day, a lot farther than he had expected.
He sat back now, sleeping bag over his shoulders, taking small bites of a power bar to keep his stomach from revolting. Of all the annoyances of being trapped to their doom in a gigantic ant farm, being unable to assuage the hypoglycemic wobbles was the worst.
"Change now, and sleep in the dry clothes," Judy said, and snugged her own sleeping bag more tightly around herself. "Conserving body heat is key right now."
Van Arden was already working on building a fire: gauze from the medical kit, and fingersplints that looked just like tongue depressors. Cardboard, from all the kit packaging. It wasn't very warm, but she blew on it and it was light.
"Double-up, you think? Sleeping bags?" asked Melo. He was working probably faster than normal, because when he was done bandaging Teyla's hands he got to take his morphine. He'd already done everyone else, and their white-taped knuckles gleamed at each other, ghost-fingers.
"Yeah," said Van Arden. She shuffled off her jacket, just sitting there in front of them all, and pulled her t-shirt over her head. It was pretty wet, and she would definitely be better off in something warmer, but -- she scooted around Sheppard, who was lying quietly, and rummaged in her rucksack. She came up with something too small to cover her bra. "Socks."
"Yes, that's what they are," Rodney replied, testy.
"Yes, ma'am," echoed Melo. "Good idea." Rodney boggled at him, till he explained. "Like gloves. Save us a couple of scrapes, anyway."
"Socks on our hands??" asked Rodney. "That's the stupidest, actually most brilliant, notion you've come up with yet --"
"I just realized," Judy interrupted. "Things aren't going to dry, not without a bigger fire. The humidity's too high."
Teyla was all damnable reason. "This is all the fire we have. Burning clothes should be a last resort."
Judy grimaced. "Might be some brush, or something, nearer an exit."
"Wherever an exit might be," said Rodney, feeling cruel. "People routinely get lost in cave systems and wander in circles and starve to death. People also, in this galaxy, build entire civilizations underground, with only a nominal surface presence. For all we know, this is an advanced form of Genii torture."
Teyla began, "Surely not --" but Rodney cut her off.
"No, of course not, but we don't have any idea what those hoodie people did want, or whether they'll resent our escaping their nice little mouse-maze."
This came across as badly in the group at large as it had in his own head. Rodney tried not to triumph in their uneasy murmurs.
Sheppard had been silent, curled on his side. When Van Arden had called for dinner he'd just sort of dropped that way, hadn't eaten, and hadn't had any clever remarks to add to their dire conversation. It was getting annoying, his stonewalling. "Teyla, you sick yet?" he asked.
"I am well," she said, and smiled that brilliant smile. "I have recovered from the blow I took." People loved to smile back at her, and everybody did (even Sheppard, eyes closed) except Rodney. She couldn't fail to notice.
"Yes, okay," he confessed. "I had a dizzy spell this afternoon, but it went away. I'm not nearly as bad as Colonel Horizontal over here." He nudged Sheppard, not unkindly he thought, but the response was a pained grunt and Van Arden grabbing his arm.
Thunderstruck, he grabbed hers back. "Oh my God that's it, that's it!" He hadn't meant to shout. Sheppard made another displeased noise. "Why are the two of us sick and nobody else? If it were a pathogen we'd all have it by now." Of course none of them had any medical expertise at all. Of course Carson was prancing around happy as a clam in his infirmary back in the city rather than suffering as he ought to out here. "It's something in the environment, that only affects us. Something keyed to the gene, that's it, that's why I've got a mild case and Sheppard is falling to pieces. It's the gene."
Van Arden sat back, thinking. Teyla opened her mouth to object, but he talked on over her.
"We're allergic to this space, maybe this kind of rock, maybe this whole planet. That's that stupid energy reading I couldn't figure out. Somebody designed a whole underground city, and the space above it, and more importantly the space directly around the Stargate, to repel Ancients!"
Sheppard's voice was ghostly slim, as if in the grip of a dream. "We need tinfoil hats."
"Something like that. And if that failed," Rodney added, and really there was no reason not to go over-the-top given their extremely under-the-bottom situation, "they stuffed them down an oubliette into the deepest dungeon they could find, waited for them to die, and pretended they'd never come."
The proper word for the noise Judy made was dismay, but not everybody was able to understand what was so obviously in front of them all.
"Why would they do that?" asked Van Arden. "I thought the Ancients were the good guys."
"Rebels? Resentment at their counfounded meddling?" Rodney let his imagination loose. "Some kind of attempt to dissociate themselves from Atlantis, as a Wraith-avoidance strategy? They've obviously got their own technology, with the crowbar-zappers, so maybe they thought they were better off on their own. Who the hell knows? It's why the hand-held conked out soon after we arrived. Nothing Ancient would work here."
"Hold on a sec." Melo objected. Really, the first few minutes of his morphine haze he was quite entertaining. "I don't got a gene. How come the ninjas didn't leave me alone? If all they hated was Ancients, they would just lock up the two of you and let us go home."
"Well, clearly," and Rodney put all the withering sarcasm he had into the word, "Clearly, the hoodie people are unbelieveably stupid anyway, considering they left us supplies and ammunition."
Teyla put a hand on his knee. "Many years have passed since an Ancient came here. Many times many." She shrugged toward the whole group. "The no-faces do not speak a language even the Stargate can understand. It may be that they have come to see all outsiders, any outsiders, as invaders to be repelled."
Judy shuddered, and crossed her arms as if for warmth. "The rescue party. They'll be in here too, tomorrow or the next day." Rodney realized then that she was his kindred spirit in worst-case scenarios.
"That's why we left markers," whispered Sheppard, and dropped off to sleep.
***
John woke up feeling like he'd been stomped on -- oh hey, wait, he had been stomped on -- and stretched his kinked back, only to realize nobody was in arm's reach. Voices were debating in a whisper on the other side of the space, their voices mingling into a sibilant echo that just made his head pound harder. "Morgnung?" he mumbled, and the conversation stopped.
Today was the first day they would have to find their own holes, he remembered. Today was going to suck, and their progress was going to slow way down.
"Colonel," said Van Arden, too loud and breathing on him. Suddenly he missed Teyla's toasty feet next to his, and figured out that he probably wasn't going to get to go back to sleep.
"Sir, we were debating our course of action for the day."
"Oh," said John. From the fog, slowly, the appropriate joke emerged. "Hope you didn't decide to kill me and eat me."
"No sir," said Van Arden, as if it had been seriously considered. "But we've got to get going again."
"Going." He felt around, realized the other sleeping bags were no longer laid out. "Right." He unzipped out of his warm coccoon and reached for his boots. If Melo could crawl, he could crawl.
He crawled. And climbed over waist-high piles of rock shards, and once even got to turn around and push Rodney in the ass with both feet when Rodney got his shoulder stuck, and gawked at weird white ripples of stone that Judy said were marble. The marble-room had been bright, the walls reflecting the flashlight into every corner. He hated that room.
He sat still while Judy moved the light, and shadows would flit around into crevices, and his nausea would flicker up, choking. The sharp, steely smell of the standing pools of water was a strange comfort, settling his stomach. John discovered it really was possible to keep your eyes closed for an hour at a time, waiting for Judy to disappear into the next tiny passage and take the blinding light with her. Then it was just voices and breath, hands cupping his elbow or running through his hair as they counted heads, and distant slow dripping and stones in motion, and John could handle that.
He inched into another passage, one that dipped down before turning right and angling upward again, and felt like he could handle that. The rocks were sharp and in the small space they all stank like unbathed bodies and Rodney was kicking pebbles into his face, but he had it under control. If only people would stop trying to draw him into conversation.
"Chocolate," said Melo behind him. "What do you like, sir?" They had paused on their bellies one after another, at Judy's say-so, without knowing why. John breathed through another wave of nausea, and there was something jutting into his hip.
"Like what," he mumbled.
"Flavors of jelly beans that aren't, but should be." Melo asked again, addressing John's feet generally: "Trying to think positive, sir."
"I don't know," he said, and put his head down on his forearm. In front of him, Rodney and Judy were arguing in short, muffled exchanges.
"The Lieutenant says you can't have jellybeans in anything but fruit flavors. I say that's crap, sir. Is all." Melo seemed to have gotten the drift of his superior officer not giving a shit. He shouted, "Hey guys, what's the holdup?"
"Ohhh, shut the fuck up," breathed John, his brains reverberating inside his skull.
Rodney's voice came back, lower and less -- Rodneylike -- than was to be expected. Probably he'd heard that plea. "My collar. It snagged on a stalagmite."
"Stalactite," added Judy.
"Whatever. It'll only be another minute," said Rodney.
Yeah, John thought that would be pretty hard to untangle, in the dark, in a passage eighteen inches high. And really, except for the part where he was under a zillion tons of rock that might come down at any instant, and in a hole the size of a duffel bag, five other people breathing the only air he would get, and maybe it was smaller than a duffel bag, or it was getting smaller, or -- suddenly he was thrashing, banging his shoulders left and right against the solid stone, and there was no way out. He heard himself, felt the waves of unreasoning panic ride up his spine and pop into his head, poison bubbles, and could only kick harder. The rock was an unforgiving embrace, and would never let him go.
And then McKay's feet were moving, moving away, making space. John gulped air and put all his scanty attention into the task of crawling. Hips, knees, elbows, just like all those stupid muddy obstacle courses he'd done for years -- he could handle that. He crabbed his way out into the next cavern like a champ, collapsing in a heap against the wall. Rodney was beside him, skin hot and twitching. John's arm was against his ribs, and those were big scared breaths Rodney was heaving.
"I think I just got claustrophobia," John panted.
Rodney demanded, "Only just now?" And it was the perfect thing to say for John to laugh one hard coughing laugh and pretend it hadn't happened. They leaned together and waited for the others to come through.
A sock touched his shoulder -- Judy's hand. It was moist, sticky with blood. "People freak out sometimes," said the woman. "It'll pass."
She made herself a seat on John's other side. He felt the shape of her, round, feminine, against his shoulder and ribs and hip and thigh, and envied her her insulating body fat. She pushed his elbow aside and burrowed closer, sharing warmth. They all sat and rested and didn't say anything.
***
Part 1 | Part 2 | (3/5) | Part 4 | Part 5