Ich Schenk' Dir Die Welt 6/13
Previous | Master Post
Part 2
Materials and Methods
Chapter 1
A Heterodyne Show
SIMULATION FAILED declared the computer yet again, and Agatha flopped back in her chair with a groan.
“Do not despair!” Todd said. “We are getting closer.”
“You don’t understand,” Agatha replied without sitting up, a month of daily practice among Americans and Canadians having worn down the formality of her English. “Before my locket was stolen, nothing I did worked. My clanks blew up, if they even ran in the first place. And I got terrible headaches when I tried to think intensely or do too much.”
“Ah, but I have watched Dr. McKay struggle with far simpler problems for far longer. And I believe it took him a full twenty-five years to find a way to retrieve Col. Sheppard from the future, although in fairness, that problem was far more complicated.”
She sighed. “I appreciate your saying so. It’s just that... I have to get this one exactly right, or... we lose everything.”
He smiled at her. “You are young, Agatha Heterodyne. But you are a queen. You can do this, and you will, but it may take more time than you had hoped. Yet you may take comfort in the knowledge that the situation cannot worsen in your absence.”
She straightened and looked at him narrowly. “What’s the longest you’ve ever had to spend on a problem?”
He made a non-committal noise. “There were... situations that were not resolved permanently before the Ancients left ten thousand years ago, but most of them did not remain our highest priority until the city was once again occupied.” When she raised an eyebrow, he sighed. “I was captured once by humans. The Genii. They locked me away and starved me except when they needed to torture someone else. Then they tortured me by refusing to allow me to feed for more than a few seconds at a time. I do not know how many of your years they held me, but I was unable to find a way to escape on my own. Only Sheppard could solve that problem for me.”
Before she could figure out how to respond, there was a knock on the frame of the open lab door. She turned to see Maj. Lorne walking in. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said.
Maj. Lorne shook his head. “Nah, I’m early. But today’s range session is canceled. Just got a message from the Alpha site-some of the Coalition leaders want to meet with you.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Violetta murmured in Romanian.
Agatha stood, frowning in confusion. “Is this about the coffee engine I gave the Genii?”
Maj. Lorne laughed. “No, I think they’re just curious about your ability to turn spare parts into trade goods, and lucrative ones at that. Usually we deal in higher-level technologies and medicines from Earth, not the clockwork stuff you build-but your stuff at least looks like the sort of machine anyone ought to be able to build and repair.”
“Well, I hardly want to sell something only a spark could repair, as I plan not to be here very long.”
“And that’s good, trust me. Thing is, there’s been talk about setting up some guild schools, maybe even a college, and I suspect they might want you to teach.”
Agatha’s jaw dropped. “Teach?! I haven’t even finished my degree!”
Maj. Lorne rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry, that’s probably our fault for introducing you as Dr. Agatha Clay. Folks here in Pegasus are just used to our people having some sort of title-in fact, I think Woolsey’s the only civilian from Earth who doesn’t have a PhD or an MD. Of course, in all fairness, you could probably walk into the engineering department of any university on Earth with that coffee engine of yours and walk out an hour later with a PhD.”
Violetta and Todd laughed, and Agatha managed a rueful chuckle.
“All right, you two suit up. We leave in fifteen.”
“I will review the simulation,” Todd promised. “Perhaps there is a variable we have overlooked.”
Agatha nodded. “Thank you.”
On the way back to the girls’ quarters, Agatha reviewed what she’d learned about the Coalition, a confederation of planets that had arisen in the wake of the Wraith’s continuing defeat. It had taken the better part of four years for the various peoples of Pegasus to decide what role the Coalition ought to play and to what extent its policies should be subject to the veto of Atlantis and its uneasy allies the Genii. So far the Coalition’s mission had been limited to promotion of trade and learning, standardization of law codes within reason, extradition of criminals, and assistance with defense against the Wraith. It wasn’t a central government, like the Wulfenbach Empire, and it didn’t support a central leader, like the Shining Coalition had supported the Storm King. It was... well, more like the regents and university councils at Oxford and Cambridge,* from what she’d gleaned through handling Dr. Beetle’s correspondence, though without even the titular figurehead of a chancellor. (TPU, like the rest of Beetleburg, had been governed solely by Dr. Beetle until his death.)
So in that regard, Maj. Lorne’s surmises seemed likely. Still....
Violetta shot Agatha a look as they stepped out of the transporter. “You’ve got a bad feeling about this, too, don’t you, my lady?”
Agatha nodded. “I can’t put my finger on why. Something just doesn’t add up.”
And Krosp, once he got over being rousted out of his sunbeam, agreed. “We’ve been here a month,” he noted, ears back and tail twitching. “Why are these people asking to meet with you now?”
“I know,” Agatha returned. “I can’t work it out. But if it is a trap, I don’t think it’s Maj. Lorne’s doing.”
Krosp shook his head. “No, Lorne we can trust. We’ve had some long talks; he’s a good man. And we’ve never even been to the Alpha site, so it’s not likely that any betrayal would come from there. But it’s a big galaxy.”
Violetta transferred a handful of knives into her Atlantis-issued tactical waistcoat. “Assuming it is a trap, then, what precautions should we take?”
As if in answer, their radio earpieces chirped. “Heterodyne, Mondarev, this is Lorne,” came Maj. Lorne’s voice. “Meet us in the main Jumper bay rather than the Gateroom. I could use a co-pilot.”
As Violetta and Krosp shared a knowing look, Agatha tapped her radio. “Understood, Maj. Lorne. We’ll see you there.”
The Puddle Jumpers, as the expedition members called them, were cylindrical flying machines about the size of one of Castle Wulfenbach’s small support airships, just the right size and shape to fly through the Stargate. Each one could hold up to twelve humans and was equipped with an invisibility “cloak,” an energy shield, and energy weapons called drones. Dr. Beckett had given both Agatha and Violetta flying lessons after Agatha had studied the Jumper’s schematics, taking them first over the mainland and then... into orbit. The look, the technology, and the true amphibiousness of the Jumper-it could “fly” underwater as well-all combined to make it completely different from the flying machine that Gil had built and that Agatha had helped him improve. That was probably why, although she’d wished he were with her, she was able to enjoy the experience of flying in the Jumper and not choke up for more than a few seconds the first time out.
She was going to solve this problem. She was going to stop the destruction. She would see him again.
Krosp went with Agatha and Violetta as far as the Gateroom before going on to Agatha’s lab to see whether he could help Todd. Lt. Edison met the girls at Stargate Ops, at the foot of the stairs to the Jumper bay, and briefed them on the planet they were about to visit as they climbed the staircase. It was a pleasant place, he said, neutral ground as far as the Genii were concerned, and only slightly behind Europa in technology.
“To be honest, I’m not really sure why we’re taking the Jumper,” he admitted as they walked into the Jumper bay. “It’s not like the Gate is in space or anything. But Col. Sheppard and Mr. Woolsey thought of it about the same time Maj. Lorne did, and I know better than to second-guess these things anymore.”
“Well, we can hope it’s a precaution we won’t need,” Agatha replied, despite her growing sense that they were going to need it.
Maj. Lorne, Sgt. Rivers, and Cpl. Ramirez were waiting for them in Jumper 3, and after a few preflight checks, they were off. Maj. Lorne cloaked the ship while it was still lowering into the Gateroom and, on their arrival at the other end, had Agatha monitor the scanners while he flew over the settled part of the mainland. No threats were evident, so he landed near the Gate and left Lt. Edison and Cpl. Ramirez with the Jumper while he and Sgt. Rivers accompanied Agatha and Violetta into town. Inquiries at a few shops revealed that the Coalition leaders hadn’t arrived yet, so the four of them went to a pub to wait. The people they spoke to and the people they passed all seemed quite friendly, aside from one dark-haired lady in a broad-brimmed straw hat who looked away rather pointedly as the team walked by her, almost like she didn’t want them to see her face. But Violetta kept her hands near her blow gun, and Maj. Lorne and Sgt. Rivers kept looking around in opposite directions. As they sat down at one of the pub’s outdoor tables, Agatha wished she’d brought something to keep her hands busy.
They’d been at the pub about ten minutes, by her reckoning, when the radio chirped. “Maj. Lorne!” Lt. Edison called. “We’ve got a Wraith cruiser just dropped out of hyperspace-and it’s sending a Dart toward the surface!”
“All right, the hell with this,” Maj. Lorne replied. “We’re gettin’ out of here. Hold your position and do not engage. With any luck, we can get back to Atlantis before they know we’re here.”
The group stood as one and started into an alley that would take them back to the road to the Gate more quickly than the route they’d taken on the way in. However, the first shop they’d passed, a greengrocer’s, had just come into view when Agatha heard a noise in the sky that was somewhere between a scream and a whine. The men hurried the girls under the shelter of a nearby awning seconds before the Dart (which was in fact dart-shaped, to Agatha’s surprise) swept past and shot a beam of light onto the main road, leaving behind a group of six Wraith. One was dressed like Todd; the other five were far more muscular and wore masks over their faces, short leather jackets that showed their trousers, and breastplates and a few bits of leg armor. The warriors, if that was what they were, also bore weapons that looked like a cross between a spear and a rifle. Frowning, Maj. Lorne motioned for silence and led the team closer to the road, still keeping out of sight.
The Wraith walked up to the grocer’s shop, and the leader asked, “You see everyone who comes into this village, do you not?”
“Un-unless I’m away from the window,” the grocer replied nervously.
“I am looking for a woman from Atlantis. A Dr. Agatha Clay. She wears this symbol.” The Wraith handed a piece of paper to the grocer, Agatha thought; she couldn’t quite see what was happening.
Curious but also concerned, Agatha started to edge forward. Maj. Lorne caught her by the loop on the top of the back of her waistcoat and pulled her back, shaking his head when she frowned at him.
“I am told she has come here quite recently,” the Wraith continued.
“Yes,” the grocer admitted. “She, uh... she, uh....”
“Where is she?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Do you not?”
“No, I don’t. Honest. I-”
The Wraith turned slightly, and one of the warriors walked out of sight and came back a moment later dragging another man by the arm.
“No!” cried the grocer.
“Please,” the second man pleaded. “I haven’t seen anyone from Atlantis! I don’t know anything!”
The Wraith looked back at the grocer. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know!” the grocer repeated.
The warrior stepped behind the second man and grabbed his other arm, holding him still. With a hiss, the lead Wraith ripped open the man’s shirt and slammed its right hand against his chest, claws digging into the skin slightly. The man screamed-and to Agatha’s horror, his face began to wrinkle with age, and his hair turned white.
Agatha started to run forward again, but Maj. Lorne clapped a hand over her mouth and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders to pull her back against his chest. “Easy, Sparky,” he hissed in her ear. “You won’t save him by giving yourself away.”
She would have retorted, but by then it was over. There was nothing left of the poor man but a withered husk, as desiccated as prisoner corpses left in the bell jars on the TPU quadrangle too long after their death. The lead Wraith pulled back its hand, and the warrior tossed the body aside like a melon rind.
She thought of Todd, of the odd way he would look at his right hand from time to time, of the lessons he insisted on giving her in how to be a queen as if she were going to be ruling people like... like that. She wanted to explode.
“I know,” Maj. Lorne whispered, rubbing her shoulder a little but not letting go. “I know.”
“Now,” said the Wraith as it turned back to the grocer.
The grocer moved; Agatha thought he was raising his hands. “I swear to you by the Ring of the Ancestors-yes, she came by here, and I haven’t seen her leave. But I don’t know where she went from here! I swear it!”
“Then I give you one hour to find her. Inform her that I require her assistance on a technical matter. If she is not here by the time I return, I will give the order to have this village destroyed. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes, I understand.”
The Wraith nodded once, then turned and led the warriors out of town toward the Gate.
Once the sound of their departing boots faded, Maj. Lorne sighed quietly and let go of Agatha. “You all right?” he asked as she turned around.
She wasn’t really, but she nodded stiffly anyway. “What is this technical matter it mentioned?”
“Well, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a test for a drug that was developed on a planet called Hoff. Michael forced Dr. Beckett to refine it and started distributing it among human populations at random.”
“What does it do?”
“Apart from killing a third of the people who ingest it? Not only does it make the victim immune to Wraith feeding, it poisons the Wraith that tries to feed on that person. They’ve been trying for five years to find a reliable way to detect it, but every time they get close, someone manages to sabotage it or else blow up the ship or the lab. Usually us, sometimes the Genii or a Coalition team. Guess this one figures since you’re new here, you might be easier to intimidate into doing it right.”
Agatha nodded slowly, took a deep breath, let it out again, and started back down the alley toward the pub at a brisk walk, trusting the others to follow. “How much C4 does it take to destroy a cruiser, assuming optimum placement?”
Maj. Lorne fell into step beside her. “About eight blocks in the power relay station.”
“Do we have that much?”
“Yeah, but I’m not lettin’ you go up there.”
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning to.” They passed the corner of the pub, and-yes, there was a watchmaker’s shop on the far side of the square. She quickened her pace to just short of a jog.
He kept pace with her. “So what are you planning to do?”
“Give it what it wants: technical help.” She strode into the shop and past the counter without pausing. “Please forgive me,” she said to the startled watchmaker as she made her way to the workbench and started pulling tools out of her waistcoat. “I will pay you later. This is an emergency.” Brass, yes-C4 would not explode without a detonator, but it could still burn, and brass would cause no sparks. And quartz, good, she had learned a good deal about putting information on crystals already. She pulled her tablet computer from the pack she always carried offworld and then started reaching for components. “Violetta, I will need a case.”
“On it, my lady,” Violetta replied and started rummaging.
The men were talking quietly with the watchmaker, but as the first clank swiftly took shape under Agatha’s hands, Maj. Lorne suddenly yelped, “Hey, whoa, Sparky, stop!”
“These are not made to build, Herr Major,” Agatha replied, slamming the back into place. “These are made to destroy.”
Violetta brought over a box that was just the right size and started fitting blocks of C4, detonators, and a switch into it while Agatha put each completed clank in, wound but with the stems still extended, as a second layer. Maj. Lorne watched over Agatha’s shoulder as Sgt. Rivers continued negotiating payment (she assumed) with the watchmaker. Since Maj. Lorne was a geologist in his own right, she didn’t try to explain what she was doing, trusting that he could keep up well enough on his own.
“What do the ones with propellers do?” he asked as she completed the last of the worker clanks.
“Lift,” Agatha replied and set it in the case. “And these”-she reached for one more quartz crystal and used the tablet to program it quickly-“I have set as tracking devices so that we can monitor the clanks. They will not survive the explosion, I promise.”
Violetta laid a layer of black felt over everything that had gone into the box so far. Agatha nodded her approval.
“Woolsey’s gonna want proof of that,” Maj. Lorne noted.
“We can gather that proof when this is over.” Agatha put the crystal in a slightly larger watchcase and slotted gears and springs into place around it with practiced ease. “A loop of strong wire, Violetta-like a piano string.”
“Right.” Violetta made her selection at once-trust a Smoke Knight to know exactly what Agatha wanted in this case-and had laid the wire in the box by the time Agatha finished her command clank.
As Maj. Lorne watched uneasily, Agatha wound the command clank and pushed in the stem. The clank opened its eye, extended its arms and legs, stood, and saluted her with a Bing!
“Do you understand your instructions?” she asked it.
Bing! It saluted again.
“Work as fast as you can. Cut through the walls if you must.”
Bip.
She lifted it into the box. “Here is the wire. Stay still until the Wraith comes close enough for you to use it.”
Ding. It lay down in the exact center, retracted its arms and legs, and closed its eye.
“All right. Good luck.” She closed the box and latched it, took a deep breath and blew it out again, and turned to Maj. Lorne. “How much time do we have?”
He checked his watch, but Sgt. Rivers answered, “About fifteen minutes, ma’am.”
She blinked. Was she slowing down?! Well, possibly not; she had had to build each of those clanks separately without assistance, and Maj. Lorne had been watching the whole time, and it had taken several minutes to set up the tablet to program the crystals, so... it didn’t matter. They had fifteen minutes to get back and set up. “Right. Sir,” she said, turning to the watchmaker, “if you’ll allow, I can come back later and build you a surveillance clank that-”
The watchmaker smiled and held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it, Dr. Clay. Your friends have already paid, and I’m pleased to be able to help in the fight against the Wraith.”
“Er, right, okay. Thank you for the use of your shop and materials, and I apologize again for the intrusion.”
Violetta zipped up a pocket on Agatha’s pack. “There. That’s everything.”
Agatha turned back to her. “You got-”
“All your tools and the tablet, yes, my lady.” Violetta picked up the box and handed it to her.
Maj. Lorne sighed. “All right, let’s go.”
As they left the watchmaker’s shop to return to the greengrocer’s, Sgt. Rivers asked, “Sir, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“This was a setup from the jump,” Maj. Lorne agreed. “Coalition leadership’s got a mole. Question is who and why, what anyone would gain by Agatha’s capture or whether it’s even about Agatha at all.”
“Ten o’clock,” Violetta murmured, using the radial coordinate code they’d learned from Col. Sheppard.
Without turning her head, Agatha glanced to the left and saw the same dark-haired woman with the straw hat. “Odd choice of hat if you don’t want to be seen,” she noted at the same volume.
“Genii used to dress like that, when we first got here,” Sgt. Rivers said. “Wanted people to think they were just farmers.”
“This isn’t about the coffee engine, even if the Genii are involved.” Maj. Lorne stated before Agatha could even sigh. “And I’m not convinced they are. It’s not Ladon’s style, for one thing. But one way or another, I’ve got a feeling we’ll find out once the plan blows up in their face.”
“Right. But with due respect, ma’am, how are you planning to sell this?”
Agatha smiled coldly. “I was an actress for a short time. It’s time this galaxy witnessed its first Heterodyne show.”
Then there was a shout, and the grocer came running out of a side street. “Dr. Clay!” he cried. “Thank the Ancestors-I’ve been looking everywhere! You and your friends, you’ve got to get out of here. The Wraith-”
“We know,” Maj. Lorne interrupted. “We heard. And we’re not letting anyone else get killed over this.”
“We have a plan,” Agatha added. “But it’s going to require that I behave very strangely for a few minutes. You may want to spread the word that I’ll be putting on an act.”
“And warn people to stay inside. If we have to start shooting, we don’t want any bystanders in the line of fire.”
The grocer blew the air out of his cheeks. “Right, understood.” He turned and hurried off, and so did several other people who’d been standing close enough to overhear.
By the time the team reached the greengrocer’s, the streets had mostly cleared. Maj. Lorne indicated a good place to wait out of sight, and when they had hidden themselves, the rest of the team prepared to give covering fire while Agatha prepared for her performance. She breathed a quick prayer of thanks that Todd had taken the time to teach her some of the Wraith language, which was a derivative of Ancient, itself a primitive form of Latin. Given her fluency in Romanian, Latin, and French, picking up both Ancient and Wraith had been a breeze. And Todd’s lessons were also a good way to get into character.
No retreat in the face of battle, she remembered him reciting. No sympathy for the fallen. No mercy for our enemies. And above all, you must never show weakness.
She was a queen. She was the Heterodyne. And more: for the moment, though she was not about to touch her locket, she was Lucrezia Mongfish, stage villainess extraordinaire. Much as she hated what her mother had done to her, she’d played the role often enough with the circus that she could slip into character quite easily.
She’d just finished mentally translating her lines when footsteps came crunching up the road. Showtime.
The grocer had, by this point, finally returned to his shop. As the Wraith approached, he came outside again, wringing his hands.
“Well?” asked the lead Wraith, walking up to him.
“She’s coming,” the grocer replied. “I-I-I don’t know where she is right this moment, but she promised-”
That was her cue. Agatha stepped out of the shadows and, with the full force of Spark command voice, thundered in Wraith, “Kneel, you MISERABLE MINIONS!”
Windows in a fifteen-meter radius rattled as she yelled, and the warriors knelt as automatically as if... well. As if they were revenants.
Before Agatha could have more than a brief flashback to the performance of The Heterodyne Boys and the Socket Wench of Prague that had started the disasters in Sturmhalten, the lead Wraith turned to her, swiftly hiding its astonishment. “Ah. Dr. Clay, I presume,” he said in the same language. “I had not expected to discover such a scholar among the Lanteans.”
“Fool! You underestimate me and Atlantis at your peril. But I will show you-I will show you all!” She marched up to it and thrust the box into its hands, briefly noting the slit on its right palm that Todd no longer had. That must be-no. Stay on script. “This kit should resolve all of your problems. Now go, before I decide to make an example of you!”
“Yes, my queen,” the startled Wraith replied, bowing slightly, and turned to go before it realized what it had said.
But she already had her P-90 ready to fire when the Wraith looked back at her with a frown, and that evidently convinced it not to argue. It glared at the warriors, which stood, and led them a short way down the road. Then she heard the Dart approaching and dashed back to the shelter of the grocer’s awning, getting under cover just before the Dart’s beam swept over the spot where she’d been standing before it picked up the Wraith on the ground.
As the scream of the Dart’s engine diminished with distance, Agatha sagged against the wall and tried to catch her breath, and Violetta came running around the corner. “Don’t scare me like that!” she chided in Romanian.
“Thank you, Zeetha,” Agatha panted. “Thank you, Zeetha.”
Maj. Lorne and Sgt. Rivers came around the corner next and sighed in relief when they saw Agatha. “You all right, Sparky?” Maj. Lorne asked.
Agatha nodded and straightened. “It wasn’t pleasant, playing my mother like that. But it worked.”
He smiled wryly. “Not quite what I meant, but I’ll take it.” Then he tapped his radio. “Edison, this is Lorne. We’re expecting a big boom. Any Darts leave between now and then, head ’em off. Understood?”
“Understood, sir,” Lt. Edison replied. “We’ll head into orbit, just to make sure.”
“Should be seeing nine subspace signals here in a minute. Keep an eye on ’em for us; make sure they don’t leave, either.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then Maj. Lorne smiled more warmly at Agatha. “C’mon. Let’s see if we can find someplace in this burg that sells tea.”
“Please, allow me,” said the grocer. “Dr. Clay saved my life; the least I can do is give you a meal.”
“That’s not necessary, really,” Agatha returned. “I’m only sorry to have been the reason it was in danger in the first place.”
But the grocer insisted, as did his wife, and soon the team was seated around their table drinking tea while their hosts bustled about the kitchen.
“’Scuse me, ma’am,” Sgt. Rivers said quietly, “but I’m not sure I quite got the plan. The wire, yeah, that was a garrote....”
“More than that,” Violetta admitted. “That gauge of wire should break the skin and sever the jugular veins, possibly even the trachea and carotid arteries... especially since I sharpened it.” At Sgt. Rivers’ disturbed look, she added, “I’m a Smoke Knight. I learned how to improvise tools for quick assassinations when I was ten.”
Agatha continued, “Once the lead Wraith is dead, the command clank will activate the others. It has a schematic of a standard cruiser in its memory. The clanks will carry the C4 into the power relay station and place the charges and detonators, and then the command clank will activate the detonator switch.”
“How long will that take?” Maj. Lorne asked.
“Depends on where the lab is, I think.”
“And what’s Plan B if they can’t get there?”
“Maj. Lorne,” Lt. Edison’s voice interrupted on the radio. “Not sure what kind of big boom you were lookin’ for, sir, but the cruiser just lost hyperdrive and main weapons, and we’ve lost the subspace signals.”
“That was Plan B,” Agatha explained.
“Ah,” Maj. Lorne said and tapped his radio. “Close enough, Edison. Take it out. Then scan for the subspace signals one last time before you meet us back at the Gate.”
“Yes, sir,” Lt. Edison replied.
The grocer turned back to the team as they stood. “Surely you’re not leaving already?”
“’Fraid we have to, sir,” Maj. Lorne answered. “Need to tie up a loose end and get back to Atlantis. But we appreciate your hospitality.”
A further round of protestations and excuses was cut short by Lt. Edison’s report that he had successfully destroyed the cruiser with the Jumper’s drones and that there was no sign of Agatha’s clanks having survived. The team finally managed to get away from the grocer and his wife and left the shop just as the explosion became visible from the ground.
Agatha was looking up at the explosion when she heard a shriek of “NO!” She turned to see the woman in the straw hat charging toward them, face livid with fury and knife in hand.
“No, no, NO!” the woman screamed. “You will not escape! ATLANTIS MUST PAY!”
Violetta whipped out her blow gun, but before she could blow a dart at the woman, Maj. Lorne opened fire with his rifle. The woman twisted as she fell backward and landed face down, her hat landing intact beside her.
“So it was the Genii,” said Sgt. Rivers.
“No, it wasn’t,” Maj. Lorne replied and walked over to the body. “She wanted us to think it was. But I had a hunch when she wouldn’t look at us-she knew I’d recognize her.” He used his foot to turn the body over so the face was visible.
“Who was she?” Agatha asked.
“Shiana of the Tribes of Santhal. The Replicators destroyed her planet. She’s hated Atlantis ever since.” Maj. Lorne reached into the pocket of Shiana’s apron and pulled out something that looked similar to the pictures Agatha had seen of Wraith technology. “Guess that’s how she tipped off the Wraith that we were here.” He set it on the ground and smashed it with the butt of his rifle.
Agatha’s blood was boiling, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. “Well. If you will permit an old Mechanicsburg tradition, Herr Major?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“Nothing disrespectful, I assure you.” Agatha picked up the fallen hat. “I only wish to give this to someone.”
Maj. Lorne raised an eyebrow but then shrugged. “All right.”
“Thank you.”
They said nothing more as they went back to the Gate, though Violetta stuck close by Agatha’s side the whole way, and no one tried to prompt Agatha to take the co-pilot’s seat when they entered the Jumper. And then it was only a matter of seconds before they were back in Atlantis and the Jumper’s autopilot was guiding it back to its slot in the bay above the Gateroom.
Krosp and Todd were waiting at the top of the bay stairs, looking pleased. “Agatha!” Krosp called. “We worked it out! Atlantis has some devices that-say, are you all right?”
Agatha nodded and tried to smile, but from the expressions on their faces, she didn’t do a very convincing job.
Herr Woolsey came up the stairs just then. “How’d it go?”
“What has happened?” Todd asked, more concerned.
“It was a setup,” said Maj. Lorne. “Shiana had something going with the Wraith. And when Agatha didn’t fall for it, Shiana tried to kill her the old-fashioned way.”
Todd clenched his fists. “Is this Shiana dead?”
“Oh, yeah. And so are the Wraith.”
“Your lessons saved my life,” Agatha said quietly, looking up at Todd and squaring her shoulders. “Allow me to repay you. I know you have had questions about yourself as you are now. After today, I can answer them. You are not Wraith. You are a Jäger.” She reached up and placed the straw hat on his head, then kissed his shiny cheek and let the others herd her away for debriefing and tea, leaving Todd blinking after her in astonishment.
Next
* Corgi’s commentary on the state of Great Britain based on the Foglios’ map of Europa doesn’t mention whether Cambridge would have survived whatever cataclysm mostly sank the island, but since it does mention the Isle of Oxfordshire probably extending northeast into Lincolnshire, I’m going to surmise that Cambridge-at least the town, if not the entire county-did narrowly escape destruction.
Part 2
Materials and Methods
Chapter 1
A Heterodyne Show
SIMULATION FAILED declared the computer yet again, and Agatha flopped back in her chair with a groan.
“Do not despair!” Todd said. “We are getting closer.”
“You don’t understand,” Agatha replied without sitting up, a month of daily practice among Americans and Canadians having worn down the formality of her English. “Before my locket was stolen, nothing I did worked. My clanks blew up, if they even ran in the first place. And I got terrible headaches when I tried to think intensely or do too much.”
“Ah, but I have watched Dr. McKay struggle with far simpler problems for far longer. And I believe it took him a full twenty-five years to find a way to retrieve Col. Sheppard from the future, although in fairness, that problem was far more complicated.”
She sighed. “I appreciate your saying so. It’s just that... I have to get this one exactly right, or... we lose everything.”
He smiled at her. “You are young, Agatha Heterodyne. But you are a queen. You can do this, and you will, but it may take more time than you had hoped. Yet you may take comfort in the knowledge that the situation cannot worsen in your absence.”
She straightened and looked at him narrowly. “What’s the longest you’ve ever had to spend on a problem?”
He made a non-committal noise. “There were... situations that were not resolved permanently before the Ancients left ten thousand years ago, but most of them did not remain our highest priority until the city was once again occupied.” When she raised an eyebrow, he sighed. “I was captured once by humans. The Genii. They locked me away and starved me except when they needed to torture someone else. Then they tortured me by refusing to allow me to feed for more than a few seconds at a time. I do not know how many of your years they held me, but I was unable to find a way to escape on my own. Only Sheppard could solve that problem for me.”
Before she could figure out how to respond, there was a knock on the frame of the open lab door. She turned to see Maj. Lorne walking in. “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said.
Maj. Lorne shook his head. “Nah, I’m early. But today’s range session is canceled. Just got a message from the Alpha site-some of the Coalition leaders want to meet with you.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Violetta murmured in Romanian.
Agatha stood, frowning in confusion. “Is this about the coffee engine I gave the Genii?”
Maj. Lorne laughed. “No, I think they’re just curious about your ability to turn spare parts into trade goods, and lucrative ones at that. Usually we deal in higher-level technologies and medicines from Earth, not the clockwork stuff you build-but your stuff at least looks like the sort of machine anyone ought to be able to build and repair.”
“Well, I hardly want to sell something only a spark could repair, as I plan not to be here very long.”
“And that’s good, trust me. Thing is, there’s been talk about setting up some guild schools, maybe even a college, and I suspect they might want you to teach.”
Agatha’s jaw dropped. “Teach?! I haven’t even finished my degree!”
Maj. Lorne rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry, that’s probably our fault for introducing you as Dr. Agatha Clay. Folks here in Pegasus are just used to our people having some sort of title-in fact, I think Woolsey’s the only civilian from Earth who doesn’t have a PhD or an MD. Of course, in all fairness, you could probably walk into the engineering department of any university on Earth with that coffee engine of yours and walk out an hour later with a PhD.”
Violetta and Todd laughed, and Agatha managed a rueful chuckle.
“All right, you two suit up. We leave in fifteen.”
“I will review the simulation,” Todd promised. “Perhaps there is a variable we have overlooked.”
Agatha nodded. “Thank you.”
On the way back to the girls’ quarters, Agatha reviewed what she’d learned about the Coalition, a confederation of planets that had arisen in the wake of the Wraith’s continuing defeat. It had taken the better part of four years for the various peoples of Pegasus to decide what role the Coalition ought to play and to what extent its policies should be subject to the veto of Atlantis and its uneasy allies the Genii. So far the Coalition’s mission had been limited to promotion of trade and learning, standardization of law codes within reason, extradition of criminals, and assistance with defense against the Wraith. It wasn’t a central government, like the Wulfenbach Empire, and it didn’t support a central leader, like the Shining Coalition had supported the Storm King. It was... well, more like the regents and university councils at Oxford and Cambridge,* from what she’d gleaned through handling Dr. Beetle’s correspondence, though without even the titular figurehead of a chancellor. (TPU, like the rest of Beetleburg, had been governed solely by Dr. Beetle until his death.)
So in that regard, Maj. Lorne’s surmises seemed likely. Still....
Violetta shot Agatha a look as they stepped out of the transporter. “You’ve got a bad feeling about this, too, don’t you, my lady?”
Agatha nodded. “I can’t put my finger on why. Something just doesn’t add up.”
And Krosp, once he got over being rousted out of his sunbeam, agreed. “We’ve been here a month,” he noted, ears back and tail twitching. “Why are these people asking to meet with you now?”
“I know,” Agatha returned. “I can’t work it out. But if it is a trap, I don’t think it’s Maj. Lorne’s doing.”
Krosp shook his head. “No, Lorne we can trust. We’ve had some long talks; he’s a good man. And we’ve never even been to the Alpha site, so it’s not likely that any betrayal would come from there. But it’s a big galaxy.”
Violetta transferred a handful of knives into her Atlantis-issued tactical waistcoat. “Assuming it is a trap, then, what precautions should we take?”
As if in answer, their radio earpieces chirped. “Heterodyne, Mondarev, this is Lorne,” came Maj. Lorne’s voice. “Meet us in the main Jumper bay rather than the Gateroom. I could use a co-pilot.”
As Violetta and Krosp shared a knowing look, Agatha tapped her radio. “Understood, Maj. Lorne. We’ll see you there.”
The Puddle Jumpers, as the expedition members called them, were cylindrical flying machines about the size of one of Castle Wulfenbach’s small support airships, just the right size and shape to fly through the Stargate. Each one could hold up to twelve humans and was equipped with an invisibility “cloak,” an energy shield, and energy weapons called drones. Dr. Beckett had given both Agatha and Violetta flying lessons after Agatha had studied the Jumper’s schematics, taking them first over the mainland and then... into orbit. The look, the technology, and the true amphibiousness of the Jumper-it could “fly” underwater as well-all combined to make it completely different from the flying machine that Gil had built and that Agatha had helped him improve. That was probably why, although she’d wished he were with her, she was able to enjoy the experience of flying in the Jumper and not choke up for more than a few seconds the first time out.
She was going to solve this problem. She was going to stop the destruction. She would see him again.
Krosp went with Agatha and Violetta as far as the Gateroom before going on to Agatha’s lab to see whether he could help Todd. Lt. Edison met the girls at Stargate Ops, at the foot of the stairs to the Jumper bay, and briefed them on the planet they were about to visit as they climbed the staircase. It was a pleasant place, he said, neutral ground as far as the Genii were concerned, and only slightly behind Europa in technology.
“To be honest, I’m not really sure why we’re taking the Jumper,” he admitted as they walked into the Jumper bay. “It’s not like the Gate is in space or anything. But Col. Sheppard and Mr. Woolsey thought of it about the same time Maj. Lorne did, and I know better than to second-guess these things anymore.”
“Well, we can hope it’s a precaution we won’t need,” Agatha replied, despite her growing sense that they were going to need it.
Maj. Lorne, Sgt. Rivers, and Cpl. Ramirez were waiting for them in Jumper 3, and after a few preflight checks, they were off. Maj. Lorne cloaked the ship while it was still lowering into the Gateroom and, on their arrival at the other end, had Agatha monitor the scanners while he flew over the settled part of the mainland. No threats were evident, so he landed near the Gate and left Lt. Edison and Cpl. Ramirez with the Jumper while he and Sgt. Rivers accompanied Agatha and Violetta into town. Inquiries at a few shops revealed that the Coalition leaders hadn’t arrived yet, so the four of them went to a pub to wait. The people they spoke to and the people they passed all seemed quite friendly, aside from one dark-haired lady in a broad-brimmed straw hat who looked away rather pointedly as the team walked by her, almost like she didn’t want them to see her face. But Violetta kept her hands near her blow gun, and Maj. Lorne and Sgt. Rivers kept looking around in opposite directions. As they sat down at one of the pub’s outdoor tables, Agatha wished she’d brought something to keep her hands busy.
They’d been at the pub about ten minutes, by her reckoning, when the radio chirped. “Maj. Lorne!” Lt. Edison called. “We’ve got a Wraith cruiser just dropped out of hyperspace-and it’s sending a Dart toward the surface!”
“All right, the hell with this,” Maj. Lorne replied. “We’re gettin’ out of here. Hold your position and do not engage. With any luck, we can get back to Atlantis before they know we’re here.”
The group stood as one and started into an alley that would take them back to the road to the Gate more quickly than the route they’d taken on the way in. However, the first shop they’d passed, a greengrocer’s, had just come into view when Agatha heard a noise in the sky that was somewhere between a scream and a whine. The men hurried the girls under the shelter of a nearby awning seconds before the Dart (which was in fact dart-shaped, to Agatha’s surprise) swept past and shot a beam of light onto the main road, leaving behind a group of six Wraith. One was dressed like Todd; the other five were far more muscular and wore masks over their faces, short leather jackets that showed their trousers, and breastplates and a few bits of leg armor. The warriors, if that was what they were, also bore weapons that looked like a cross between a spear and a rifle. Frowning, Maj. Lorne motioned for silence and led the team closer to the road, still keeping out of sight.
The Wraith walked up to the grocer’s shop, and the leader asked, “You see everyone who comes into this village, do you not?”
“Un-unless I’m away from the window,” the grocer replied nervously.
“I am looking for a woman from Atlantis. A Dr. Agatha Clay. She wears this symbol.” The Wraith handed a piece of paper to the grocer, Agatha thought; she couldn’t quite see what was happening.
Curious but also concerned, Agatha started to edge forward. Maj. Lorne caught her by the loop on the top of the back of her waistcoat and pulled her back, shaking his head when she frowned at him.
“I am told she has come here quite recently,” the Wraith continued.
“Yes,” the grocer admitted. “She, uh... she, uh....”
“Where is she?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Do you not?”
“No, I don’t. Honest. I-”
The Wraith turned slightly, and one of the warriors walked out of sight and came back a moment later dragging another man by the arm.
“No!” cried the grocer.
“Please,” the second man pleaded. “I haven’t seen anyone from Atlantis! I don’t know anything!”
The Wraith looked back at the grocer. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know!” the grocer repeated.
The warrior stepped behind the second man and grabbed his other arm, holding him still. With a hiss, the lead Wraith ripped open the man’s shirt and slammed its right hand against his chest, claws digging into the skin slightly. The man screamed-and to Agatha’s horror, his face began to wrinkle with age, and his hair turned white.
Agatha started to run forward again, but Maj. Lorne clapped a hand over her mouth and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders to pull her back against his chest. “Easy, Sparky,” he hissed in her ear. “You won’t save him by giving yourself away.”
She would have retorted, but by then it was over. There was nothing left of the poor man but a withered husk, as desiccated as prisoner corpses left in the bell jars on the TPU quadrangle too long after their death. The lead Wraith pulled back its hand, and the warrior tossed the body aside like a melon rind.
She thought of Todd, of the odd way he would look at his right hand from time to time, of the lessons he insisted on giving her in how to be a queen as if she were going to be ruling people like... like that. She wanted to explode.
“I know,” Maj. Lorne whispered, rubbing her shoulder a little but not letting go. “I know.”
“Now,” said the Wraith as it turned back to the grocer.
The grocer moved; Agatha thought he was raising his hands. “I swear to you by the Ring of the Ancestors-yes, she came by here, and I haven’t seen her leave. But I don’t know where she went from here! I swear it!”
“Then I give you one hour to find her. Inform her that I require her assistance on a technical matter. If she is not here by the time I return, I will give the order to have this village destroyed. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes, I understand.”
The Wraith nodded once, then turned and led the warriors out of town toward the Gate.
Once the sound of their departing boots faded, Maj. Lorne sighed quietly and let go of Agatha. “You all right?” he asked as she turned around.
She wasn’t really, but she nodded stiffly anyway. “What is this technical matter it mentioned?”
“Well, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a test for a drug that was developed on a planet called Hoff. Michael forced Dr. Beckett to refine it and started distributing it among human populations at random.”
“What does it do?”
“Apart from killing a third of the people who ingest it? Not only does it make the victim immune to Wraith feeding, it poisons the Wraith that tries to feed on that person. They’ve been trying for five years to find a reliable way to detect it, but every time they get close, someone manages to sabotage it or else blow up the ship or the lab. Usually us, sometimes the Genii or a Coalition team. Guess this one figures since you’re new here, you might be easier to intimidate into doing it right.”
Agatha nodded slowly, took a deep breath, let it out again, and started back down the alley toward the pub at a brisk walk, trusting the others to follow. “How much C4 does it take to destroy a cruiser, assuming optimum placement?”
Maj. Lorne fell into step beside her. “About eight blocks in the power relay station.”
“Do we have that much?”
“Yeah, but I’m not lettin’ you go up there.”
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning to.” They passed the corner of the pub, and-yes, there was a watchmaker’s shop on the far side of the square. She quickened her pace to just short of a jog.
He kept pace with her. “So what are you planning to do?”
“Give it what it wants: technical help.” She strode into the shop and past the counter without pausing. “Please forgive me,” she said to the startled watchmaker as she made her way to the workbench and started pulling tools out of her waistcoat. “I will pay you later. This is an emergency.” Brass, yes-C4 would not explode without a detonator, but it could still burn, and brass would cause no sparks. And quartz, good, she had learned a good deal about putting information on crystals already. She pulled her tablet computer from the pack she always carried offworld and then started reaching for components. “Violetta, I will need a case.”
“On it, my lady,” Violetta replied and started rummaging.
The men were talking quietly with the watchmaker, but as the first clank swiftly took shape under Agatha’s hands, Maj. Lorne suddenly yelped, “Hey, whoa, Sparky, stop!”
“These are not made to build, Herr Major,” Agatha replied, slamming the back into place. “These are made to destroy.”
Violetta brought over a box that was just the right size and started fitting blocks of C4, detonators, and a switch into it while Agatha put each completed clank in, wound but with the stems still extended, as a second layer. Maj. Lorne watched over Agatha’s shoulder as Sgt. Rivers continued negotiating payment (she assumed) with the watchmaker. Since Maj. Lorne was a geologist in his own right, she didn’t try to explain what she was doing, trusting that he could keep up well enough on his own.
“What do the ones with propellers do?” he asked as she completed the last of the worker clanks.
“Lift,” Agatha replied and set it in the case. “And these”-she reached for one more quartz crystal and used the tablet to program it quickly-“I have set as tracking devices so that we can monitor the clanks. They will not survive the explosion, I promise.”
Violetta laid a layer of black felt over everything that had gone into the box so far. Agatha nodded her approval.
“Woolsey’s gonna want proof of that,” Maj. Lorne noted.
“We can gather that proof when this is over.” Agatha put the crystal in a slightly larger watchcase and slotted gears and springs into place around it with practiced ease. “A loop of strong wire, Violetta-like a piano string.”
“Right.” Violetta made her selection at once-trust a Smoke Knight to know exactly what Agatha wanted in this case-and had laid the wire in the box by the time Agatha finished her command clank.
As Maj. Lorne watched uneasily, Agatha wound the command clank and pushed in the stem. The clank opened its eye, extended its arms and legs, stood, and saluted her with a Bing!
“Do you understand your instructions?” she asked it.
Bing! It saluted again.
“Work as fast as you can. Cut through the walls if you must.”
Bip.
She lifted it into the box. “Here is the wire. Stay still until the Wraith comes close enough for you to use it.”
Ding. It lay down in the exact center, retracted its arms and legs, and closed its eye.
“All right. Good luck.” She closed the box and latched it, took a deep breath and blew it out again, and turned to Maj. Lorne. “How much time do we have?”
He checked his watch, but Sgt. Rivers answered, “About fifteen minutes, ma’am.”
She blinked. Was she slowing down?! Well, possibly not; she had had to build each of those clanks separately without assistance, and Maj. Lorne had been watching the whole time, and it had taken several minutes to set up the tablet to program the crystals, so... it didn’t matter. They had fifteen minutes to get back and set up. “Right. Sir,” she said, turning to the watchmaker, “if you’ll allow, I can come back later and build you a surveillance clank that-”
The watchmaker smiled and held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it, Dr. Clay. Your friends have already paid, and I’m pleased to be able to help in the fight against the Wraith.”
“Er, right, okay. Thank you for the use of your shop and materials, and I apologize again for the intrusion.”
Violetta zipped up a pocket on Agatha’s pack. “There. That’s everything.”
Agatha turned back to her. “You got-”
“All your tools and the tablet, yes, my lady.” Violetta picked up the box and handed it to her.
Maj. Lorne sighed. “All right, let’s go.”
As they left the watchmaker’s shop to return to the greengrocer’s, Sgt. Rivers asked, “Sir, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“This was a setup from the jump,” Maj. Lorne agreed. “Coalition leadership’s got a mole. Question is who and why, what anyone would gain by Agatha’s capture or whether it’s even about Agatha at all.”
“Ten o’clock,” Violetta murmured, using the radial coordinate code they’d learned from Col. Sheppard.
Without turning her head, Agatha glanced to the left and saw the same dark-haired woman with the straw hat. “Odd choice of hat if you don’t want to be seen,” she noted at the same volume.
“Genii used to dress like that, when we first got here,” Sgt. Rivers said. “Wanted people to think they were just farmers.”
“This isn’t about the coffee engine, even if the Genii are involved.” Maj. Lorne stated before Agatha could even sigh. “And I’m not convinced they are. It’s not Ladon’s style, for one thing. But one way or another, I’ve got a feeling we’ll find out once the plan blows up in their face.”
“Right. But with due respect, ma’am, how are you planning to sell this?”
Agatha smiled coldly. “I was an actress for a short time. It’s time this galaxy witnessed its first Heterodyne show.”
Then there was a shout, and the grocer came running out of a side street. “Dr. Clay!” he cried. “Thank the Ancestors-I’ve been looking everywhere! You and your friends, you’ve got to get out of here. The Wraith-”
“We know,” Maj. Lorne interrupted. “We heard. And we’re not letting anyone else get killed over this.”
“We have a plan,” Agatha added. “But it’s going to require that I behave very strangely for a few minutes. You may want to spread the word that I’ll be putting on an act.”
“And warn people to stay inside. If we have to start shooting, we don’t want any bystanders in the line of fire.”
The grocer blew the air out of his cheeks. “Right, understood.” He turned and hurried off, and so did several other people who’d been standing close enough to overhear.
By the time the team reached the greengrocer’s, the streets had mostly cleared. Maj. Lorne indicated a good place to wait out of sight, and when they had hidden themselves, the rest of the team prepared to give covering fire while Agatha prepared for her performance. She breathed a quick prayer of thanks that Todd had taken the time to teach her some of the Wraith language, which was a derivative of Ancient, itself a primitive form of Latin. Given her fluency in Romanian, Latin, and French, picking up both Ancient and Wraith had been a breeze. And Todd’s lessons were also a good way to get into character.
No retreat in the face of battle, she remembered him reciting. No sympathy for the fallen. No mercy for our enemies. And above all, you must never show weakness.
She was a queen. She was the Heterodyne. And more: for the moment, though she was not about to touch her locket, she was Lucrezia Mongfish, stage villainess extraordinaire. Much as she hated what her mother had done to her, she’d played the role often enough with the circus that she could slip into character quite easily.
She’d just finished mentally translating her lines when footsteps came crunching up the road. Showtime.
The grocer had, by this point, finally returned to his shop. As the Wraith approached, he came outside again, wringing his hands.
“Well?” asked the lead Wraith, walking up to him.
“She’s coming,” the grocer replied. “I-I-I don’t know where she is right this moment, but she promised-”
That was her cue. Agatha stepped out of the shadows and, with the full force of Spark command voice, thundered in Wraith, “Kneel, you MISERABLE MINIONS!”
Windows in a fifteen-meter radius rattled as she yelled, and the warriors knelt as automatically as if... well. As if they were revenants.
Before Agatha could have more than a brief flashback to the performance of The Heterodyne Boys and the Socket Wench of Prague that had started the disasters in Sturmhalten, the lead Wraith turned to her, swiftly hiding its astonishment. “Ah. Dr. Clay, I presume,” he said in the same language. “I had not expected to discover such a scholar among the Lanteans.”
“Fool! You underestimate me and Atlantis at your peril. But I will show you-I will show you all!” She marched up to it and thrust the box into its hands, briefly noting the slit on its right palm that Todd no longer had. That must be-no. Stay on script. “This kit should resolve all of your problems. Now go, before I decide to make an example of you!”
“Yes, my queen,” the startled Wraith replied, bowing slightly, and turned to go before it realized what it had said.
But she already had her P-90 ready to fire when the Wraith looked back at her with a frown, and that evidently convinced it not to argue. It glared at the warriors, which stood, and led them a short way down the road. Then she heard the Dart approaching and dashed back to the shelter of the grocer’s awning, getting under cover just before the Dart’s beam swept over the spot where she’d been standing before it picked up the Wraith on the ground.
As the scream of the Dart’s engine diminished with distance, Agatha sagged against the wall and tried to catch her breath, and Violetta came running around the corner. “Don’t scare me like that!” she chided in Romanian.
“Thank you, Zeetha,” Agatha panted. “Thank you, Zeetha.”
Maj. Lorne and Sgt. Rivers came around the corner next and sighed in relief when they saw Agatha. “You all right, Sparky?” Maj. Lorne asked.
Agatha nodded and straightened. “It wasn’t pleasant, playing my mother like that. But it worked.”
He smiled wryly. “Not quite what I meant, but I’ll take it.” Then he tapped his radio. “Edison, this is Lorne. We’re expecting a big boom. Any Darts leave between now and then, head ’em off. Understood?”
“Understood, sir,” Lt. Edison replied. “We’ll head into orbit, just to make sure.”
“Should be seeing nine subspace signals here in a minute. Keep an eye on ’em for us; make sure they don’t leave, either.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then Maj. Lorne smiled more warmly at Agatha. “C’mon. Let’s see if we can find someplace in this burg that sells tea.”
“Please, allow me,” said the grocer. “Dr. Clay saved my life; the least I can do is give you a meal.”
“That’s not necessary, really,” Agatha returned. “I’m only sorry to have been the reason it was in danger in the first place.”
But the grocer insisted, as did his wife, and soon the team was seated around their table drinking tea while their hosts bustled about the kitchen.
“’Scuse me, ma’am,” Sgt. Rivers said quietly, “but I’m not sure I quite got the plan. The wire, yeah, that was a garrote....”
“More than that,” Violetta admitted. “That gauge of wire should break the skin and sever the jugular veins, possibly even the trachea and carotid arteries... especially since I sharpened it.” At Sgt. Rivers’ disturbed look, she added, “I’m a Smoke Knight. I learned how to improvise tools for quick assassinations when I was ten.”
Agatha continued, “Once the lead Wraith is dead, the command clank will activate the others. It has a schematic of a standard cruiser in its memory. The clanks will carry the C4 into the power relay station and place the charges and detonators, and then the command clank will activate the detonator switch.”
“How long will that take?” Maj. Lorne asked.
“Depends on where the lab is, I think.”
“And what’s Plan B if they can’t get there?”
“Maj. Lorne,” Lt. Edison’s voice interrupted on the radio. “Not sure what kind of big boom you were lookin’ for, sir, but the cruiser just lost hyperdrive and main weapons, and we’ve lost the subspace signals.”
“That was Plan B,” Agatha explained.
“Ah,” Maj. Lorne said and tapped his radio. “Close enough, Edison. Take it out. Then scan for the subspace signals one last time before you meet us back at the Gate.”
“Yes, sir,” Lt. Edison replied.
The grocer turned back to the team as they stood. “Surely you’re not leaving already?”
“’Fraid we have to, sir,” Maj. Lorne answered. “Need to tie up a loose end and get back to Atlantis. But we appreciate your hospitality.”
A further round of protestations and excuses was cut short by Lt. Edison’s report that he had successfully destroyed the cruiser with the Jumper’s drones and that there was no sign of Agatha’s clanks having survived. The team finally managed to get away from the grocer and his wife and left the shop just as the explosion became visible from the ground.
Agatha was looking up at the explosion when she heard a shriek of “NO!” She turned to see the woman in the straw hat charging toward them, face livid with fury and knife in hand.
“No, no, NO!” the woman screamed. “You will not escape! ATLANTIS MUST PAY!”
Violetta whipped out her blow gun, but before she could blow a dart at the woman, Maj. Lorne opened fire with his rifle. The woman twisted as she fell backward and landed face down, her hat landing intact beside her.
“So it was the Genii,” said Sgt. Rivers.
“No, it wasn’t,” Maj. Lorne replied and walked over to the body. “She wanted us to think it was. But I had a hunch when she wouldn’t look at us-she knew I’d recognize her.” He used his foot to turn the body over so the face was visible.
“Who was she?” Agatha asked.
“Shiana of the Tribes of Santhal. The Replicators destroyed her planet. She’s hated Atlantis ever since.” Maj. Lorne reached into the pocket of Shiana’s apron and pulled out something that looked similar to the pictures Agatha had seen of Wraith technology. “Guess that’s how she tipped off the Wraith that we were here.” He set it on the ground and smashed it with the butt of his rifle.
Agatha’s blood was boiling, but she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. “Well. If you will permit an old Mechanicsburg tradition, Herr Major?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“Nothing disrespectful, I assure you.” Agatha picked up the fallen hat. “I only wish to give this to someone.”
Maj. Lorne raised an eyebrow but then shrugged. “All right.”
“Thank you.”
They said nothing more as they went back to the Gate, though Violetta stuck close by Agatha’s side the whole way, and no one tried to prompt Agatha to take the co-pilot’s seat when they entered the Jumper. And then it was only a matter of seconds before they were back in Atlantis and the Jumper’s autopilot was guiding it back to its slot in the bay above the Gateroom.
Krosp and Todd were waiting at the top of the bay stairs, looking pleased. “Agatha!” Krosp called. “We worked it out! Atlantis has some devices that-say, are you all right?”
Agatha nodded and tried to smile, but from the expressions on their faces, she didn’t do a very convincing job.
Herr Woolsey came up the stairs just then. “How’d it go?”
“What has happened?” Todd asked, more concerned.
“It was a setup,” said Maj. Lorne. “Shiana had something going with the Wraith. And when Agatha didn’t fall for it, Shiana tried to kill her the old-fashioned way.”
Todd clenched his fists. “Is this Shiana dead?”
“Oh, yeah. And so are the Wraith.”
“Your lessons saved my life,” Agatha said quietly, looking up at Todd and squaring her shoulders. “Allow me to repay you. I know you have had questions about yourself as you are now. After today, I can answer them. You are not Wraith. You are a Jäger.” She reached up and placed the straw hat on his head, then kissed his shiny cheek and let the others herd her away for debriefing and tea, leaving Todd blinking after her in astonishment.
Next
* Corgi’s commentary on the state of Great Britain based on the Foglios’ map of Europa doesn’t mention whether Cambridge would have survived whatever cataclysm mostly sank the island, but since it does mention the Isle of Oxfordshire probably extending northeast into Lincolnshire, I’m going to surmise that Cambridge-at least the town, if not the entire county-did narrowly escape destruction.