Allegiance

Chapter Eleven Down Time

Radek looked down at his empty plate, all too aware that this was the first time since the attack that he had had anything approaching a normal day. A day that began with a shower and a shave, and ended with dinner — admittedly one that included tava beans, but that counted as ordinary now — and in which no one had actually shot at anyone. He was still dead tired, and, more to the point, despite spending the day directing teams to search the city, they were no closer to finding enough titanium to make a workable mechanical iris, but at least no one had died.

And it would not help to worry about that tonight. Keeping the gate open was working, would prevent a Wraith attack until they could get an iris built. It would be enough. He sighed, unable to convince himself that it would be that simple, and took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. Without them, the mess hall was a blur, oddly comforting, and he closed his eyes, imagining that his fears were a small bundle, one he could hold in both hands, compress and mold until they were a little ball that he could lock away, seal up tight in a special box with a special key —

It wasn’t really working. He sighed, and slipped his glasses back on. He had felt this way often enough the first year, but then there had been Peter Grodin to keep him company, to talk him out of these moods, or stay awake with him when they were both too tired to sleep.

“Dr. Zelenka?”

He didn’t recognize the voice, looked up to see an Air Force sergeant, a stocky dark-skinned woman with a cardboard box tucked under her arm. For a second, he hoped she had found something useful, but common sense reasserted itself. That news would have been broadcast all over the city, not brought to him personally. “Yes?”

“I’m Clea Dockery. I was a friend of Taggert’s.”

Radek winced in spite of himself, but she pretended not to notice.

“Tag and I had a little — we’ve been doing some off-duty experimentation down under the south pier? Strictly under the radar, doc, I know you understand, but — ” Dockery reached into the box, and produced what looked like a specimen jar half-filled with a colorless liquid. “I wanted to share out the first run with her friends.”

“A still,” Radek said.

Dockery looked hastily over her shoulder. “Yeah. But, you know, we have to keep it quiet — ”

“Yes. I understand.” Radek looked from the jar to Dockery and away again. “I did not know her so well,” he said, quietly. “Perhaps you should save it for those who were closer. I did not even know her first name.”

Dockery grinned. “That’s ‘cause she didn’t tell anybody. It’s — it was Debbi, two Bs and an I, and her mama would’ve put a little heart over the I if they’d let her do it on the birth certificate.”

Radek smiled back — no, that did not suit Taggert at all — and Dockery set the jar on the table.

“She liked Atlantis, liked working for you, liked being on your shift. She’d want you to have it.”

“Thank you, then,” Radek said. He unscrewed the lid, took a cautious sip, blinking as the stuff burned its way down his throat. It tasted like nothing he’d ever had — well, perhaps home-brewed grappa he’d had once, and this had to be even stronger, though it was not the alcohol that brought the tears to his eyes. “She was good,” he said. “I’ll miss her.”

Teyla sat next to John on the couch in her quarters with her feet tucked sideways under her and her cheek resting on the back of the couch, as if she were going to fall asleep sitting up. Sleep was probably a good idea, John thought. He just wasn’t sure how that was going to happen at the moment.

“How is Major Lorne?” Teyla asked.

“He’s okay. Keller gave him some stuff to help him sleep. She says it was a pretty clean fracture. Which is a good thing, I guess, because it’s not like we can dial Earth and send anybody home right now.”

“We should all try to rest,” Teyla said.

“I know,” John said. He leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s just knowing that the Wraith could send a nuclear bomb or another strike team through the gate at any moment isn’t really relaxing.”

He could feel his heart still pounding, his breathing too fast. He couldn’t stay wound up like this forever, and he couldn’t afford to crash hard later when something bad really was happening. Thinking about that just wound him tighter, though. He shifted restlessly, unable to get even momentarily comfortable.

Teyla nodded. “I know how you feel. I think we are not the only ones. Ronon said he did not plan to sleep in his quarters tonight.”

“Where is he planning to sleep, then?”

“In his hidden lair.”

“His…”

Teyla shrugged. “I think it is up in the superstructure somewhere. He keeps weapons and supplies there in case of an emergency. Have you nothing similar?”

“I don’t have a lair,” John said. “I might maybe have a stash of weapons up there, but it’s not someplace I’d want to camp out.”

“Might?”

“Okay, do. I don’t think I’m the only one, though. I think Lorne has some stuff put by in case of emergencies.”

“Radek, too,” Teyla said. “Once when we were looking for water damage in the sublevels of the city, I found a spare laptop and a supply of food in one of the crawl spaces, along with quite a variety of other things.”

“Just in case,” John said. He shook his head. “We’re all a little screwed up, you know? Dr. Robinson would probably have a field day.”

“It is only practical,” Teyla said. “There are many reasons why it might be necessary to hide within the city.”

“If we sit here and list them, I’m never going to get to sleep.”

Teyla’s hand was on his shoulder, as much measuring the tension in his muscles as making an attempt to ease it. “I have a lair,” she said after a moment.

He looked over at her. “A lair.”

“Yes,” she said, the corner of her mouth turning up. “Do you want to see it?”

It wasn’t like they were sleeping anyway. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go see your lair.”

They took the transport chamber to a hallway that Teyla said was floors below her hiding place, in what looked like it had been an old residential area of the city. There were still plenty of buildings they’d never really explored, especially the ones that looked at first glance to be apartments rather than laboratories. He wasn’t sure if they’d ever been in this one at all, or if one of Rodney’s teams had tramped through and deemed it a useless waste of time.

“Basement, or catwalk?” he asked when they reached a flight of stairs, their risers chased with bronze plates in a repeating design that looked like a cross between a sine wave and a bird’s wing.

“Neither, but up from here,” Teyla said. He followed her up seven flights of stairs until she took the door out of the stairwell.

“Why seven flights?”

She shrugged. “It seemed an unlikely number for anyone to guess.” She led him down the corridor, around to the right, and then left again. “Here,” she said, swiping her hand to open a door that looked identical to all the other doors.

“You didn’t get Rodney to key this door for you, did you?” John said.

“I did not,” Teyla said. “I have the security clearance to key doors for myself, and have known how for some time. John, I have worked in the control room. I am not so unused to computers.”

“I forget,” he said. “Hey, wow.”

The room was easily the size of the sitting room in Teyla’s quarters, with a broad window that looked out over the ocean. From near the doorway, he couldn’t see the pier below, and there weren’t any other buildings to block the view from this angle, only sea and sky.

There was a bed, piled high with blankets, a second nest of cushions and blankets that he thought looked Torren-sized, and a set of shelves against one wall well-stocked with MREs, bottled water, a medical kit, and what looked like a stack of coloring books and a basket of soft toys. On the top shelf sat a Wraith stunner and a pistol case.

“No P90?” he said. He’d brought his with him; he’d half-expected her to comment on that, but she hadn’t seemed to mind.

“It is above one of the ceiling panels,” she said. “Not so convenient to hand, but I did not have a case with a lock for it, and I was thinking of what would happen if I had to bring Torren here.” She watched him check the place out some more. “What?”

“Just looking for the kitchen sink,” he said.

“There is one,” she said. “This whole side of the building is connected, nine rooms with a kitchen and two bathrooms. The only problem is that if someone were really looking for us, they would be able to see that we are using the city’s water.”

“This is a vacation condo, not a lair,” John said.

“No one is using the space,” Teyla said a little defensively. “It seemed worth the time to make it comfortable.”

“I’m not complaining,” he said. “I was just expecting something more like camping.”

“I could put up a tent, if you would like.”

“You’ve got a tent in here?”

“Not yet,” she said, with the barest hint of a smile.

Only Teyla, he thought. It was unreasonable to feel the tension in his chest ease just because no one knew where they were, but he couldn’t deny that he felt better. “Okay, this is cool.”

“We could sleep here tonight if you want,” she said. “We have our radios if anyone needs to reach us.”

He smiled and tried to keep his voice light. “You’d share your lair with me?”

“I would,” she said. “I am happy for you to share my tent.”

“Not exactly a tent.”

“It does not literally have to be a tent,” she said, sounding just a little exasperated.

“I know,” he said, stepping in, putting his arms around her waist, still feeling awkward about it. It was easier when he bent his head to hers in a now-familiar gesture of affection, when she put her arm around his waist tightly, as if for him to throw his arm around her shoulders and let her take some of his weight. “I know what you mean.”

The antechamber was well occupied, as it always was, the lords of the zenana eager to put themselves foremost in the queen’s memory. Guide made his appearances there, too, not wanting to stint his respect, though in the safety of his own hive, his own chamber at the heart of the ship, the risks he ran sometimes made him tremble. Those moments, that release, made him stronger now, and he lounged against the chamber wall, pretending to watch a group of younger blades playing at towers. It was a game he had not seen played since his own youth, and it seemed the rules had changed: his agemates would have not have allowed him to place that gray blade in opposition to the vizier —

He felt someone’s gaze on him, looked up to see the Old One watching from his seat beside the inner door. He seemed to be one of Death’s particular favorites, though Guide doubted he shared her bed, and he dipped his head in polite acknowledgement.

*Come and sit by me,* the Old One said, and Guide moved reluctantly to join him. He would have preferred to keep his distance — he had not gotten the measure of the Old One’s strength of mind — but he did not wish to make an enemy of him. Instead, he gathered the skirts of his coat and sat, a careful hand’s-breadth away.

*You’re no young blade,* the Old One said, after a while.

*I am not,* Guide agreed, and the Old One made a sound of creaking laughter.

*And you are thinking I am older still, and you would be right. But I have a reason for asking.*

Guide waited, and the Old One sighed, resting his head against the chamber wall. He was very old indeed, Guide thought, vigorous enough, but so old that he had not been bred to any of the familiar types. Even young, his face had not been as strongly modeled as most blades; it had an archaic look, like the foremost mothers of Snow’s hive.

*You fought against the Ancients,” the Old One said.

*I did.*

*And before that?*

Guide shook his head. *I was born at the beginning of that war, for that war. I came of age not long before our victory.*

*Our war with the Ancients is far older than that,* the Old One said sharply. *From our first beginnings, we were at war. But no matter. You saw Atlantis fall.*

*Yes.* Guide paused. *And I have seen it risen again.*

*To our grave discredit,* the Old One said. *It must be destroyed completely this time, so that it can never threaten us again.*

Guide hesitated, choosing his words with care. *Granting that it can be done — because I do not see it as an easy or inevitable thing — what then? We will still be hungry.*

The Old One nodded. *We need new feeding grounds. Even if we sleep, turn and turn about, and no one breaks our queen’s law, still it will be too long before the kine rebound. If they can.* He paused, his eyes on the game, watching as the counters collapsed under an injudicious move. *That is why I have supported this plan of Dust’s, for all that the abomination makes my very bones ache. We must have a way to leave this galaxy.*

*And if we find it,* Guide said, *if all goes as we hope, and the humans there are more easily cowed than they have been here, on strange ground — what then? You will remember as well as I what happened once the Ancients were defeated. There were too many of us, drones and even blades bred in anticipation of loss, and no queen then living would be first to sacrifice even her drones. That will happen again, and if there is another galaxy beyond this one, still it will happen each time. We cannot go on like this.*

*No.* The Old One did not look at him, the touch of his mind soft and fading. *That is why we need one queen over us all, one queen to hold us safe under her rule, so that no one starves. Death will do that for us, Guide. And the bones of the Ancients will be ground to dust beneath our feet.*

*The Ancients are dust already,* Guide said. *They were dust ten thousand years ago.*

*Their city remains.*

*But not its builders.*

*Their children live,* the Old One answered, and there was a bitterness in his tone that struck Guide silent.