Nightfall

Chapter Four

He didn’t awaken slowly; instead Ronon Dex jerked from his induced slumber as if he had been seared by fire, hissing through his teeth. He rolled from where he lay and his feet hit the metallic floor with a dull ring.

The first thing he saw was Teyla, sitting opposite him on a pallet made of spongy white material. She frowned. “Are you all right?”

Ignoring the question, he got up, taking stock of where he found himself. A small room with a low ceiling and curving walls, all arches and smooth lines. Two sleeping pallets seamlessly extruded from the floor, no windows. Diffuse, directionless light seeping in from panels in the ceiling; and an oval doorway sealed shut by a striated metal panel. A prison cell.

“How long have we been here?” he said, moving to the rear of the chamber. The Satedan’s hands ran down his tunic, his trousers, searching his pockets.

“It is difficult to be certain,” said Teyla. “I came to shortly before you did.”

He shot her a look. “You should have woken me.”

The Athosian woman gave him a wan look. “I saw little point in doing so.”

Ronon chewed his lip, his fury burning cold and slow. All his weapons and tools were gone. The gun belt hung empty at his hip, as did the numerous blade scabbards in his leggings and boots. The secret pockets in his tunic were vacant; even the needle darts in his wrist guards and the chain concealed behind his belt had been taken. At another time, he might have been impressed by the thoroughness of his captors in so completely disarming him, but instead his face set in a grimace as he weighed the thought in his mind, asking himself what it revealed. His hands contracted into fists; if they were all he had to fight with, it would have to be enough.

“They are clearly very careful,” offered Teyla, seeing the train of his thoughts.

“Not careful enough,” he rumbled. “They let us wake up.” He dropped into a crouch and ran his hand along the place where the wall met the floor. There were no signs of a weld or any manufacturing marks. The construction appeared flawless, almost as if it had been carved. Ronon began a careful circuit of the cell, probing at every part of the walls, looking for a blemish, a flaw, anything.

“I have already checked,” said the woman.

He nodded, but didn’t stop. Dex needed to look for himself, just to be certain. Presently, he came to the inset door and rapped on it with his fist. A dull report sounded. He pressed his ear to the cold metal and heard nothing. “Where did they take us?”

“We have no way of knowing how long we were unconscious,” Teyla noted.

“Had to be a few hours, at least. I’m hungry.”

“You are always hungry,” she said, forcing a thin smile.

“True,” he admitted. “And I can measure it like a clock. Less than a day.” Without warning, Ronon suddenly hauled back and slammed a punch into the door. Teyla blinked at the sound of the impact and the Satedan bared his teeth. “Not made of steel,” he hissed. “Something else.”

“One thing is certain.” Teyla gestured at the walls around them. “This place, whatever it may be, was clearly created by a science far too advanced for the locals on Heruun.”

“Those creatures,” he began, “the humanoids. I’ve never seen anything like them.” Ronon turned away, flexing his hand. “They’re not our usual breed of enemy.”

“And this cell was not built by Wraith technology.”

He eyed her. “You say that like we should be happy about it. Those things… They may not be Wraith, but they’re still a threat. ”

Teyla nodded slowly. “They must be this ‘Aegis’ that Aaren spoke of. The protectors of the planet.”

“How does kidnapping people protect them —?” Ronon’s terse retort was cut off as the door abruptly opened. The metal panel retracted into the wall, revealing one of the towering humanoids. Without pause, it stepped into the cell, stooping slightly, the door whispering shut behind it. The Satedan caught a glimpse of a long corridor beyond before it closed. The creature’s head turned, dark eyes studying Ronon. It aimed one of the glassy paralysis devices at him. The meaning was clear.

Dex raised his hands slowly and backed off a step; he had no desire to experience the horrible effects of the alien weapon again.

The humanoid had a different device in its other hand, spidery fingers curled around it, operating a display with tapping motions. The second object was an orb the size of a child’s ball, shimmering with a pearly glow. It pointed the device at Ronon, and a series of chimes issued out. The Satedan caught Teyla’s eye and she mouthed the word scanner? at him.

It turned the orb toward Teyla and did the same; for a moment, there was a glimmer of something close to a human expression on its sparse features, a thinning of slit-like nostrils and a motion of the head. It took a step closer to the woman, holding the sensor globe higher. Teyla’s gaze met Ronon’s for a brief instant, and a silent communication passed between them.

Ronon willed himself not to move, not to give away even the smallest flicker of muscle-motion. He watched the alien and waited for his moment; and as he did a faint scent touched his nostrils. It was odd, almost sour-sweet like rotting flesh or an infected wound. It was coming from the alien, a meat-odor oozing from its pores.

As the creature turned, Ronon spotted an ugly purple-black bruise on the creature’s torso, where the stomach would have been on a man. An injury; and suddenly it was clear to him. This was the same one he had fought with outside the farmhouse, the one he had punched. Ronon remembered the dry texture of the flesh where he struck it, how the epidermis had powdered on his knuckles. Almost as if… As if it were decaying.

He had little time to process the thought. The alien’s head turned toward Teyla and the moment was upon him.

He reacted without hesitation, launching himself off his heels. He drove his fist straight into the bruise and the humanoid staggered, a thin gurgle escaping its lipless mouth. It spun back toward him, the sensor globe falling from its hand, raising the paralysis device. Ronon advanced, blocking and pushing the creature’s arm away. It was difficult; against the Satedan, the difference in the height and mass of the giant alien made the fight unbalanced. It hissed and grabbed him by the collar with its free hand. For a moment, they struggled against one other, strong versus stronger.

Then from nowhere Teyla slammed the sensor globe into the humanoid’s shoulders, drawing out a strained grunt of pain from the alien. The device fractured and cracked in her hands, knocking the creature off-balance. Ronon struck out again, punching the livid injury once more; the alien crumpled to the deck, its breathing shallow, a drool of watery purple fluid leaking from its mouth. The dark eyes fluttered closed and it became still.

“Did we… Kill it?” Teyla asked.

Ronon nudged the creature with his boot. “Maybe. I don’t think we should stick around to find out.” He scooped up the glass egg and turned it over in his hands. “Any idea how to use this?”

Teyla took it from him and examined it as she walked toward the door. “There are glyphs carved into the surface of —” The ellipse gave off a pulse of color and the door slid open. She moved it away and it closed again.

“It’s not just a weapon, then.”

“Apparently so.” She opened the door once more and took a cautious glance outside. “I hear no alarms.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t any,” Ronon replied, stepping out boldly. He looked up and down the corridor. “This way,” he said, pointing to the right.

Teyla frowned again. “What makes you think that is the way out?”

He flashed her a feral grin and started walking.

Sheppard ran a hand through his hair and came away with his palm covered in sweat. The heat of the day was heavy, a deadening layer over the landscape that drew out the moisture in his throat, the constant rays of the two suns beating down on the colonel and his men. Haze shimmered on the horizon, off toward the direction of the Stargate. Pausing to take a swig from his canteen, he followed movement in the long grasses, where some nimble deer-like animals were pawing at the dry earth. Sheppard thought about McKay’s earlier ‘Wild Kingdom’ comment and wondered if the scientist had something there. The data they had on M9K-153 (or Heruun, Sheppard amended mentally) described a world of burning deserts about the equator, but with rich tropical grasslands in the habitable zone — a lot similar to the African veldt back home on Earth. On any other day, he might have taken a moment to savor that; but not today. Right now, he had people missing, and until Ronon and Teyla were back and safe, all other concerns were secondary. Sheppard swirled the lukewarm water around his mouth and swallowed it, grim-faced. He was liking this mission less and less with each passing hour.

All they had to show for a day of searching was an inert Satedan beam pistol and lines of blackened, dead grass. Something about this whole situation was setting off every alarm bell in his trained soldier’s mind. John Sheppard wasn’t someone with much tolerance for being played, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that was exactly what was going on here. It made him feel powerless, and that frustrated the hell out of him. Every moment they wandered around in the scrub turning up nothing but dirt was a moment more some enemy force had two of his team — two of his friends! — as their prisoners. He glared up at the suns, squinting behind his sunglasses, looking for somewhere to focus his annoyance.

“Colonel?” He turned as Lorne called out. The major approached him, his t-shirt dark with patches of sweat. “We got a visitor. Says he’s ‘a friend of the voyagers’…” The other man gestured at a young boy trailing at his heels.

“Laaro,” said Sheppard, his eyes narrowing. “Look, I’m sorry buddy, but I’m real busy right now.”

The kid nodded, ignoring the brush-off. “Searching for your friends, yes.” He was panting, as if he’d been running. “But there is news. I had to bring it to you as soon as possible.”

Lorne raised an eyebrow. “This is your local contact, sir?”

“Something like that,” Sheppard replied, keeping his eyes on the boy. “What news?”

“You won’t like it.” Laaro said sagely.

Sheppard’s face twisted in a grimace. “McKay.” He said the other man’s name with a growl of annoyance. “What did he do?”

Laaro shook his head. “Rodney was quite brave, actually. But he had little choice. They had already threatened my parents.”

“Are they all right?” demanded Lorne.

“I’m sorry,” the boy went on, “but Rodney and Jennifer have gone.”

Lorne immediately toggled his radio. “Doctor McKay, Doctor Keller? Respond please.” He got nothing but static hiss in return.

“Gone where?” Sheppard crouched and took off the sunglasses, so he could look Laaro in the eye. “Gone as in taken gone?”

He got a head-shake in reply. “The Aegis only come after second sunset. These were the men who work for Soonir. He used to be an elder, until Takkol took away his status.” Laaro nodded solemnly. “My uncle says Soonir is a bad person.”

Sheppard straightened up and made a face. “I told McKay to sit tight.”

“So now we’re four people down?” Lorne shook his head. “Is kidnapping a national sport on this planet?”

“I’m starting to wonder.” He grimaced. Was this all part of some greater plan, whittling down their numbers, picking off the stragglers? “New standing orders. From now on, no teams of less than four people. I’m damned if we’re going to lose anyone else around here!”

A crackle from their radios hissed out into the air. “Colonel Sheppard? This is Rush, sir. We may have a situation here.”

Sheppard irritably snatched the walkie-talkie from his vest. “Go ahead, Sergeant. I could use some more good news.” He turned to the west; Rush and his team of marines were sweeping the edge of the search zone closest to the farm where Teyla and Ronon were last seen. He could just about make out a knot of figures over there, men in indigenous dress among the dark-clothed soldiers from Atlantis.

Over the radio, he heard raised voices in the background. “We intercepted a group of armed men and, uh, lions, I think.” Rush’s voice was wary. “There’s a local guy throwing his weight around, calls himself Aaren.”

“Is that so?” Sheppard put the glasses back on. “Keep him there. I’ll be right over.” He nodded to Lorne. “I think its time we moved to a more proactive form of intelligence gathering, don’t you?”

Lorne gave a cold smile in return. “Oh, yes sir.”

“These corridors seem to go on for miles,” said Teyla quietly, “and I have yet to see a single window.”

Ronon nodded, hesitating at an intersection. “We could be in some kind of bunker complex, maybe deep underground.” He glanced at her. “You saw the landscape when we arrived. All that scrubland, the hills in the distance. Plenty of space to hide all this and more. For all we know, we could be right underneath that tree-settlement.”

She considered that for a moment. “You believe these people are like the Genii?”

“A high-tech culture hiding underneath a low-tech one? It’s good camouflage. But I haven’t seen any locals around here yet.”

Teyla had to agree. “Those humanoids bare little resemblance to the natives. I find it hard to believe they are a related species.” The aliens were nightmarish things, with bodies like corpse flesh and expressionless faces with the eyes of some deep-ocean predator. There was something unnatural, something unnerving about them that the Athosian couldn’t quite define.

Ronon paused at an open panel in the wall. “Look. Another one,” he noted. “How many does that make?”

As they moved through the corridors, here and there the two of them had come across places where the featureless metal had been peeled back or cut away, revealing incredibly complex layers of mesh, a weave of strange glowing filaments that formed a dense lattice pulsing with energy. In some places, the lattice appeared to be damaged, parts of it removed or in the process of being patched. Repair work, she guessed, but left unfinished. Down some of the corridors that radiated off this one, they saw areas where the overhead lighting was inactive, and some that were sealed off behind the faint blue glimmer of a force-field.

“Perhaps the complex is still under construction,” Teyla wondered aloud.

Ronon’s more martial instincts led him to a different conclusion. “No. This place has seen combat.” He ran a finger along a torn edge. “This is battle damage.”

But from a battle with what? she wondered.

“Company!” hissed the Satedan. He beckoned her sharply, into the shadow of an archway.

Teyla and Ronon pressed into the pool of darkness beyond the reach of the corridor’s illumination and waited. A pair of aliens passed by them, intent on some mission that they could only guess at. It was the fourth time they had hidden from the creatures; so far their luck was holding.

She watched them go, disappearing around a corner. “Strange…” Teyla mused. “You see that they do not communicate with each other. There is no…” She struggled to find the right word. “No informality between them.” There was no evidence of connectivity between the creatures at all; even a species that had evolved beyond the need for vocal speech, telepaths perhaps, even they would exhibit some form of outward awareness.

Ronon nodded. “They’re like machines. Even the most tightly-drilled combat soldiers will speak among themselves. The Wraith are more talkative than these things.”

The mention of the word Wraith made something in Teyla’s thoughts twist; she grimaced and pushed the sensation away.

The Satedan was rolling the glass egg in his hand. “And this thing. I’m not even sure what it does.” He held it up between his thumb and forefinger. “No buttons, no dials, nothing to manipulate. What good’s a weapon you can’t fire?”

He tossed it and Teyla caught it with a flick of her wrist. “This object seems to share more in common with the devices created by the Ancients than it does with human or Wraith technology.”

“Those creatures can’t be Ancients, not unless the stories McKay told me about them are way off.”

“No,” she shook her head. “They are something else…” Her voice trailed away. There was a tingling sensation along the nerves of her arm, reaching up toward her shoulders, the back of her neck. It was getting worse by the moment.

“Teyla?” Ronon stepped closer, seeing the look on her face. “Talk to me.”

An unpleasant and horribly familiar awareness gathered in her thoughts, a sickening feeling like spiders crawling inside her skull. She was moving before she realized it, drawn toward one of the dozens of featureless metal doors that appeared at regular intervals along the corridors. “Over here…”

“A way out?” he asked.

Teyla wasn’t listening to him; she was caught, part of her wanting to stretch out and hear, another part desperately wanting nothing but silence. “Those creatures,” she said, giving voice to her thoughts, “they are not Wraith…”

“Yeah, got that already.”

She moved closer, gesturing with the device. The door whispered open, revealing another corridor beyond, this one rising upwards in a gentle slope. A chilling certainty settled on her, and she suppressed a shiver.

Teyla hesitated on the threshold, and sucked in a breath. “But I can sense them now. Yes. Close by.”

Ronon’s manner hardened. “There are Wraith down here with us?” He grabbed her arm, his jaw set “You’re certain?”

Teyla’s mouth was suddenly dry. She nodded once. “This way.”

“I’ll take it from here, Sergeant,” said Sheppard, not waiting for Rush to give him an explanation. The marines from Atlantis stood in a wary line, their P90s and G36 assault rifles off the straps and ready, pointing at the ground but ready to snap up to firing position at a moment’s notice. For their part, the Heruuni men milled around, kneading the grips of their spindly weapons. The guns they carried didn’t look too impressive — tubular things like a collection of plumbing supplies connected to floppy bandoliers of ammunition — but Sheppard wasn’t going to take any chances. The last thing he wanted was someone with an itchy trigger finger on either side.

Elder Aaren stood among them, squinting out from under a sun parasol held by one of his flunkies. He had a resentful glower on his face, maybe from having to come all the way out here in the heat of the day. Sheppard’s lip curled. The colonel was feeling very short on sympathy right now.

Aaren didn’t waste time with any lengthy preamble. “Elder Takkol sent me to express his most grave concerns, Colonel Sheppard.” He gestured at Lorne and Rush and the other men. “We understand your concern for your friends, but you have brought an army on to our soil and —”

Sheppard cut him off with a shake of the head. “This isn’t an army, Aaren. Believe me, if we’d brought an army, you’d know about it. What we have here is a rather pissed-off search party.” Maybe it was the heat, but his tolerance was already wearing thin. He found himself wondering how the Heruuni would have reacted to a Puddle Jumper buzzing their tree-top village. Maybe that’s what we need to get some co-operation, show a little ‘shock and awe’. Sheppard frowned and dismissed the thought.

“With respect, colonel, Takkol asks that you send your soldiers back through the Gateway.”

“Not gonna happen. Two more of my people have been taken, Keller and McKay. I’m going to do what I have to do to get them back.”

A look of genuine shock flashed across Aaren’s face. “That cannot be… The Aegis does not come in the daylight.”

“The voyagers were taken away by Soonir’s men,” Laaro offered, hovering by Lorne’s side. “They came to my mother’s lodge and forced them to go with them.”

Aaren’s expression went from surprise to annoyance and back again. Sheppard saw the moment and took it. “So who is this Soonir guy, then? And what is he doing with my team?” The colonel aimed a finger at the elder. “You say Teyla and Ronon were taken by this Aegis thing, and you had nothing to do with it. Maybe that’s so, but McKay and Keller were captured by one of your people, and that makes it Takkol’s responsibility.”

“Soonir…” Aaren hesitated, clearly unwilling to speak in front of the Atlanteans. “He is a criminal, a man who has broken many taboos, ignored our laws. But he is our concern.” The elder nodded to himself. “Takkol has decreed it so. We shall deal with him.”

“And how long is that going to take?” demanded Lorne. “What reason does this man have to take our team-mates in the first place?”

Aaren’s aide, the one with the parasol in his hand, leaned closer to his master. “Elder, Takkol would not wish you to speak of this.”

“Takkol is not here,” Aaren retorted. “He sent me in his stead, Dayyid!”

“I’m going to ask you this one more time,” Sheppard began, his tone firm. “Who is Soonir and what does he want with Keller and McKay?”

Aaren’s glower deepened. “There… Is a militant group among our people, Colonel. Men and women who oppose the old ways that have kept our world free of the Wraith and living in harmony. They keep themselves secret from us, but they take every opportunity they can to oppose the veneration of the Aegis. Soonir leads them.” The local called Dayyid shook his head, looking away.

“The kid said he used to be one of your top guys,” said Lorne.

The elder nodded. “He was one of our leaders, until his views brought him into conflict with Takkol. Soonir was banished from our settlement, but he still has many sympathizers there. He remains a constant impediment to our society.” Aaren paused, thinking. “He may have seen your fellow voyagers as an opportunity… To take them would embarrass Takkol and ensure your enmity.”

“Will he hurt them?” said Sheppard.

“I do not know. It is more likely that he will ransom them in return for some demand.”

“A demand he knows Takkol will never meet!” Dayyid added.

“My people aren’t part of your disagreements,” said the colonel, “and I’m sure as hell not letting McKay and Keller become someone’s bargaining chips. Where does this Soonir hang out?”

“You cannot approach Soonir without sanction from Takkol!” snapped Dayyid. “The great elder will never allow it!”

Lorne shot Dayyid a look. “You know where he is, don’t you?”

“We…suspect,” Aaren admitted. “Soonir has several bolt-holes, but there is a disused river-farm in the lake shallows he favors. But he has many men at his command.” The elder sighed. “Takkol has, to date, been unwilling to draw our guards from their duties in the settlement so that we may mount a sortie against the militants and arrest Soonir. Takkol fears it will leave the lodges unprotected.”

“Not to mention him,” Rush said quietly.

“How many?” said Sheppard. “How many men has this guy got?”

“At least twenty militants,” said the elder. “But they are all armed, and we could not take them without significant bloodshed.”

The colonel glanced at the major. “Lorne, how many stunners does your squad have?”

“Six, maybe eight at the most.” He nodded, seeing Sheppard’s plan as it formed in the other man’s eyes. “Also some noisemakers and stun grenades.”

Sheppard turned back to Aaren. “Here’s the thing. I want to rescue my people and frankly, given your attitude to security around here, I don’t trust Takkol or you to get it done. So you’re going to show me where this farm is and I’m going to get Keller and McKay back myself.”

“That will not —” Dayyid was silenced by a sharp gesture from Aaren.

The elder gave a slow nod. Sheppard could guess what the guy was thinking; even from the first moment he’d seen him, John had pegged Aaren as an opportunist, as someone unhappy in his role as second-string lackey. He had no doubt that Aaren wanted Takkol’s job, and certainly arresting a major criminal — if that’s what Soonir really was — would help that agenda along. Finally Aaren looked up at him. “This shall be done. A temporary partnership with the voyagers, to ensure that their missing friends are safely returned to them.”

“Takkol should be informed of this,” Dayyid grated.

“Then go and inform him,” Aaren replied, newly emboldened by his decision. “Inform him that Colonel Sheppard and I are about to do what he has been afraid to.”

Dayyid grudgingly thrust the parasol into the hands of one of the other Heruuni and set off back toward the settlement.

Sheppard found Lorne watching him and crossed to where the major stood, lowering his voice so that it didn’t carry. “I know that look. If you’ve got something to say, let’s hear it.”

The other officer was silent for a moment. “I’m not sure about this, sir. A reconnaissance-in-force, that’s one thing, but putting together a joint military operation on the fly?”

“Technically, it’s a police action,” Sheppard noted.

“Whatever you want to call it, Colonel, it’s a direct intervention in a local disagreement.”

“You’re gonna start quoting the IOA rulebook at me? You, of all people?”

Lorne frowned. “Nope. But it’s got to be said. This is an escalation.”

“That’s why I’m ordering non-lethal weapons only.”

The major nodded. “Roger that. But with respect, I still don’t like it.”

Sheppard’s eyes narrowed. “What, and you think I do? You think I want to get in the middle of some religious or tribal argument? I wish I had the option, Major, but this Soonir has cut down all our choices to one. We leave this to the locals and we got no guarantee of seeing Keller or McKay alive again. Like it or not, we’re involved.”

“Colonel Sheppard!” Aaren’s voice cut through the air. “Are you ready to proceed?”

He looked toward the elder and his men. “Lead the way.”

“Takkol is a threat to the lives of every man, woman and child on Heruun,” said Soonir, leaning forward on the wide cushion. “The matter is no less grave than that.”

“Why do I get the feeling that he’d probably say exactly the same thing about you?” Keller sat to the right of McKay, on another low cushion. The room was sparsely furnished, and it smelled faintly of damp and boiled vegetables. Rodney shifted and tried to make it look casual; in fact he was doing the best he could to figure out where they had been taken to. Hooded, after a hour of bumpy riding on the back of some kind of covered wagon, they’d been marched into this building and sat down. When the hoods came off, Soonir was there along with the muscle guys from Laaro’s house. It was about that time he’d belatedly noticed that their radios were gone. The bald man had kept his word about the weapons and the rest of the kit, though, but that didn’t make McKay feel any better. He got the sense that any one of these bruisers would be on him the moment he made a move toward his P90 or his pistol.

Soonir was nodding. “I imagine Takkol tells terrible stories about me, Doctor Keller.” He spread his hands. “I’ve learned to live with it. My reputation matters little in the scheme of things.”

“Yeah, the thing is…” McKay drew himself up and eyed the rebel leader. “Takkol was just a bit snobbish towards us. He didn’t kidnap us and drag us out to who-knows-where for a chit-chat.”

“You have not been kidnapped,” growled one of Soonir’s men. “That is what the Aegis does.”

“Gaarin is correct. Think of it as accepting a forceful invitation,” Soonir added, throwing the man a sideways look.

“What was with the hoods, then?” Keller replied. “If you wanted to speak to us, there are nicer ways.”

“The hoods were necessary. For your safety as well as mine.” Soonir got up and gestured around the room. “You have no idea where you are, and so when I release you, you cannot tell Takkol where you were taken to.”

“You’re going to release us?” McKay immediately regretted the half-surprised, near-pleading words as soon as they left his mouth.

The other man, Gaarin, eyed him without warmth. Rodney noticed that, like Soonir, he too had thin lines of inky tattoos about his temples. “Of course. If you had come here without the hoods, we would have had to kill you.”

“Lucky us,” Keller added, in a weak voice.

Gaarin’s temper, which until now had been silently boiling away, came rushing to the surface. He turned to Soonir, his eyes flashing. “Why are we wasting time with these voyagers? We do not even know who they are. They could be agents of the Aegis, like those cursed Giants, or worshippers of the Wraith!”

“We’re none of those things,” McKay added swiftly. “We’re just explorers. Most of the time.”

Soonir glared at Gaarin until he stepped back. After a moment, the rebel leader returned to his seat. “You will excuse my friend. His mother was among the Taken and Returned many, many times. She fell to the sickness.”

“Her passing was not an easy one.” Gaarin spoke quietly, almost to himself.

“I’m sorry,” Keller said gently. “We saw some of the…the victims of the sickness in the settlement. I wanted to learn more about it, but Aaren made us leave…”

Soonir sneered. “Of course he did. He is no better than Takkol, hiding the problem inside the sick lodge and waiting for it to go away. For the afflicted to die silently and be forgotten.”

“The Aegis is the source of the sickness,” noted McKay. “If that’s true, then why don’t your people do something about the abductions?”

“Stop them, you mean?” Soonir shook his head. “And how would we do that, Doctor McKay?” He nodded at Rodney’s gun. “Even if we had weapons like yours, we could do nothing. Two of your own people were taken by the Aegis, were they not? Both of them warrior-kin, yet still unable to resist the Giants?”

Keller nodded and McKay echoed her motion. “Do you know where the Aegis takes people? Is it somewhere nearby, on the planet?”

“The Aegis allows no memories to be retained,” said Gaarin. “That is how it protects itself.” The younger man’s hands knitted, his angry energy seeking release and not finding it. “At least the Wraith are honest about what they are. They take and kill outright, but they do not skulk in shadows. At least they are an enemy you can grip in your hands, fight with your fists!”

“The refusal of Takkol and the other elders to admit the evidence in front of their eyes is destroying us,” said Soonir, a bleak cast to his features. “They banished me for daring to oppose them, named me traitor and militant. But without a dissenting voice, they are leading the Heruuni along a path to ruin.” He met Rodney’s gaze, and McKay saw a cold intensity glittering there. “The elders are allowing my world to become the plaything of something alien. The malaise grows worse in the wake of every new Returning, more fall to it with each repeated Taking.”

Gaarin nodded. “They eventually lose themselves in the halls of their own minds.”

“The Aegis will destroy our people unless we stop it.” Soonir leaned forward. “Help us, voyagers. Help us shake off the yoke upon our necks, and in return we will help you rescue your warrior friends.”