The Furies

Chapter Seven A Game of Queens

“There is another ship.”

In the darkness, John Sheppard woke from a light doze, but he knew better than to move. One of the Wraith had paused outside his cell, the young one, speaking to another. Better to be still and have them assume he was still sleeping.

“What other ship?” The second Wraith was older, and John could hear the sound of irritation in his voice.

“It says it is the cruiser Eternal, bearing a queen aboard, and that she will speak to our queen immediately about the Consort of Atlantis.” The younger Wraith glanced toward John, and it took an act of will to be still. “You must come.”

“Of course,” the other said, and hurried off.

When they were gone John sat up cautiously. Not good. So very not good. He scrubbed his hands across his chin and looked around for the water pitcher. From his growth of beard he thought he’d been a prisoner of the Wraith for four or five days — certainly not more than that. They’d fed him. Well, raw fruit and nothing else, but he had the impression that they didn’t have much idea what humans ate, the way that a kid who’s just found an injured rabbit gives it three or four carrots. Not nutritious, exactly, but he wasn’t going to starve quickly that way.

Another queen. He could make his bets there. Queen Death had Rodney, and if she hadn’t been successful in getting everything she needed out of him, John would be the next best thing. He’d had a few days reprieve, but this was still going south as fast as it could.

In the last few days he’d had plenty of time to examine the cell and the door. Without tools or even a knife there were no opportunities there. But they’d have to transfer him. If Queen Death wanted to claim him, she’d have to have him moved to her ship. That would involve getting out of the cell and presumably being escorted to the dart bay or to a docking port.

John got up, stretching carefully. That was the moment. If he could stumble and seem sick, maybe he could get a weapon. One of the big stunners the masked Wraith had would be perfect. Let the guy get in close and shove him, then whip around. It might work.

He rinsed his mouth with water, took several small sips. Get ready. Be prepared.

It seemed like forever before he heard footsteps again. Too many. Not just the couple of guards he expected for a prisoner transfer, but six or eight. Maybe ten. Way too many.

Two masked ones. The young Wraith with his tattoos of vines, the one he’d called Frank. An old one with a sharp, bitter face. Another soldier in leathers, looking impatient. A girl, young as Ellia had been, small and slender, her steps quick and light between another two masked guards. Beside her another queen.

John felt his heart hesitate in his chest, and it was all he could do not to move.

The sharp one spoke. “Is that it? Is that the Consort of Atlantis?”

She raised her head as the door slid back, mottled patterns of light crossing her face, smooth and impassive, her long coat sursurrating with the whisper of leather on silk as she took a step forward, and his hands tightened at his sides. “It may be,” she said, her eyes sliding over him calculatingly. “I will take it from his mind if he is.”

Queens had touched his mind before, seized it, pushing and tearing and prodding, sending him burning in pain before them. And yet there was no touch. Nothing. She might as well not exist.

The young queen looked at her, her eyes filled with what John thought might be admiration. “Can you truly take it from him so easily?”

“Of course,” she replied coolly but not unkindly. “It is just a matter of exerting your will.”

Her eyes flicked to his for a fraction of a second, slitted pupils wide, and then she raised her hand, feeding mouth open, lips purple in the dim light. Her voice was like a lash. “Kneel before me, puny human!”

John swayed, shook as though struggling with every fiber of his being, teeth grinding.

“Kneel!” she commanded, and his chin snapped up as though she had slapped him.

His legs crumpled and he fell to the floor before her, his forehead against the toe of her boot.

“He is the Consort of Atlantis.” Steelflower’s voice cut coldly through the silence, broken only by the harsh breathing of the human who knelt at her feet. “I will take him.”

Thorn, who stood in the place of Consort to Waterlight, shook his head and stepped forward, though it was not his place to speak when Steelflower spoke queen to queen. “We cannot allow that. If Queen Death hears that we have given such a prize to you instead…”

Steelflower turned, the leather skirts of her coat brushing over the groveling human, her eyebrows rising ominously. “And why should she hear of this?”

Thorn’s eyes dropped. “We have already sent word to her twice, though she has not responded. If she does, and we say that we have already given him to you…” He let his voice trail off.

Steelflower turned about again, her eyes this time seeking Waterlight, and her tone was not imperious. “Are you afraid of her?”

Waterlight met her gaze, golden eyes to golden, and then she nodded a fraction. “Yes,” she said simply.

Steelflower shook her head, reaching out her hand to rest upon Waterlight’s arm. “Little sister,” she said, “why should we fear her? Are we not queens together?”

“Perhaps because she has forty ships and we one,” Thorn said dryly. “Or perhaps because thousands of blades answer her call, not a dozen.”

Steelflower shot him a look, quick and angry. “Does he speak for you?” she demanded of Waterlight.

The girl swallowed, her pale throat working in the shiplight. “He stands as consort until there is another,” she said softly.

Steelflower’s fingers touched her chin, lifting her face not unkindly. “We are queens together,” she said. “And it is true that Death has ships. She has many men at her call. But perhaps she has more than her fair share. That is not the way of things, that all queens should bow to one! To each her hive, to each her blades and clevermen, to each her drones and her children in the chrysalis. It is not right that we should all bow to one, that many should serve an absent mistress. It is not right that we should slay one another instead of respect one another as sisters should.”

“You call me sister but you are of Night and I of Osprey,” Waterlight said. “We are not kin in bone and blood. How should I know that you do not betray me?”

“If I intended you harm, should I come before you like this? Without even a single blade to defend me?” Steelflower asked, and her eyes lingered over Waterlight’s face. “Besides,” she said carefully, “My mother’s Consort was a blade of Osprey, and so I may count you kin if I choose.”

“By the old ways of counting, perhaps,” Thorn said.

“I hold to the old ways,” Steelflower said, but her eyes did not leave Waterlight. “In some things. And in others we must find new ways.” Her hand reached down and seized the human’s hair, twisting his neck up to her. “I have many uses for this one. If you give him to me, I will give you my word that Death will not revenge herself upon you for it.”

“You will stand with us against Death?” Thorn said, and his voice was tinged with skepticism.

“If it is necessary,” Steelflower said sharply. “But you have said yourself that she has not responded to your messages. Perhaps she does not believe you. If she does, we will stand as allies.”

“Allies.” It was the young blade, the one they called Bronze. “Our sensors show your ship is unmanned. What allies do you bring?”

“And need I blades to fly my own ship?” Steelflower’s voice was cool. “Will boys like you show me how to do it?” A note of amusement crept into her voice, and her eyes raked him from toes to hair, as though he were very pretty indeed. “You are beautiful, but not yet wise.”

Bronze gulped, his skin darkening with his reaction, while at her feet the human made a strangled sound.

Steelflower turned to Waterlight, her voice light. “He is very pretty, this one of yours. Will you make him pallax someday?”

Waterlight tossed her hair in a fair approximation of Steelflower. “Perhaps,” she said. “If he continues to please me.”

“Very pretty,” Steelflower said as he flushed beneath her gaze. “You have good taste, sister.”

“Thank you,” Waterlight said. She looked down at the human on the floor. His form was bestial as Bronze was graceful, and yet he too seemed affected, a fine layer of moisture standing on his skin. “I am minded to give him to you, if you stand as ally with me.”

Thorn hissed, but she turned to him. “We must have allies,” she said quietly. “And this is better than all else that is before us. I should rather an elder sister than an overlady.”

“You are like to have neither,” Thorn began, but he did not finish. He would not speak so before Steelflower. It would be more than unseemly. Open disrespect of his queen would make him despised.

“Then this one will accompany me to my ship,” Steelflower said.

Bronze blinked, putting himself forward. “But is that not dangerous, my queen? He is an animal, and not a tame one. What if he should harm you?”

“This one?” Steelflower said contemptuously. “He has not it in him. His mind is open to me, and he can no more raise his hand to me than you to Queen Waterlight.” She turned the human’s face up to the light, her dark green nails biting into the skin of his face, turning it this way and that. Her eyes were on his, and she smiled a thin, cruel smile. “You are mine, are you not, human?”

“Yes,” he whispered as though it were dragged from the core of his being, his body swaying forward as though the touch of her skirts were balm.

“Then make your abject obeisance,” she said, and released him.

He bent, graceful as a blade, his head to the floor, his lips to the toe of her boot. “I yield,” he said.

Steelflower smiled. “You see?” she said to Waterlight. “He is quite tame. I have no fear that he will harm me. I hold him entirely with my mind.”

“I have never seen a human who was not hand-reared behave thus,” Waterlight said, and her eyes were shining. “You are very strong.”

“Yes,” Steelflower said simply. “We will go to my ship.”

“Will you not stay and talk with me a little?” Waterlight asked. “Surely if you name me sister…”

Her head whipped around at the same moment as Steelflower’s, both their ships registering surprise at the same moment, Thorn’s a millisecond later.

“There is another hive ship coming out of hyperspace,” Thorn said. He turned to look at Steelflower, his voice as dry as ever. “Perhaps it is Queen Death, and you may show me your alliance.”

Waterlight gulped.

The third blade reported very correctly. “There is a transmission coming in. Shall I put it on the screen here?”

“Yes,” Waterlight said, her back straight as Steelflower’s beside her, the human crouching at her knees, almost touching her leg. “Sister,” she said.

“I do not fear her,” Steelflower whispered. “And neither must you.”

The image on the screen resolved. Not Queen Death as she had feared, but an older blade, his face seamed with age, a star tattoo about one eye. For a moment, a moment only, he hesitated, seeing the queens together. “My beloved queen,” he said, dropping his head in deep respect. “I have come to rendezvous with you as you directed. It is my honor to serve you, and my pleasure to see that you are well.”

Steelflower did not blink. “My dear Guide,” she said evenly. “You are as always the model consort.”

“Four hundred men,” Thorn said tightly. “We are reading four hundred men aboard your hive, and shields are raised. Is this how you bring alliance?”

“Guide is tender of my safety,” Steelflower said. “And sometimes overzealous. Guide, drop your shields immediately so that Queen Waterlight may see that I intend no betrayal.” So intent was she upon her consort that perhaps she did not even notice that the human’s hand had tightened on her ankle.

For a moment Guide hesitated as though he would not obey, but then he bent his head in deep respect again. “As Queen Steelflower requires,” he said.

“Shields are dropping,” Bronze said at the sensors.

Steelflower looked at Waterlight. “I thought it best if I came to talk to you alone, rather than with Guide and a full hive. I thought that would seem as though I wished to intimidate you, rather than speak as queen to queen. And so I asked my consort to follow after. But I fear he values me rather too much, and did not wait as long as I said.”

Waterlight’s eyes were shining. “What other would do as you do?” she asked, “To come alone and speak with me as kin, when you might have had me beneath your guns and simply demanded my compliance?”

“That would be the act of an enemy, not a sister,” Steelflower said.

“Then gladly I name you sister and ally,” Waterlight said.

“As I name you,” Steelflower replied.

“My Queen?” Guide said. “Will you not come aboard your ship?”

“I would prefer to travel aboard the Eternal,” Steelflower said coolly. “Come to me there and make your report.”

“As my queen wishes,” he said, and the transmission ended.

“I must return to my ship,” Steelflower said to Waterlight. “I would hope that we may yet speak further, but it seems my consort is eager to speak with me. No doubt some matter has arisen he feels needs my attention.”

“Of course,” Waterlight said.

Guide met them in the corridor outside the docking port, and there were many expressions of respect all around, Thorn to Guide, Waterlight to Steelflower, before the portal closed and they stood within the skin of the cruiser Eternal, Steelflower, Guide, and the human John Sheppard.

Guide watched as the portal iris closed, and the cruiser disconnected from the Promised Return, floating free between the two hive ships.

“What in the hell is going on here?” Sheppard demanded.

“I was about to say the same thing,” Guide echoed.

“I am surprised you ask,” Teyla said, turning to Guide, her long coat like a blade’s swirling around her. “Since you are the one who told me where Colonel Sheppard was.”

“This was not what I had thought Carter would do,” Guide began. “It is…”

“Wait.” Sheppard held a hand up. “Todd, you told Teyla where I was?”

“I told Colonel Carter where you were,” he corrected. “Though I had no doubt that she would share that information with the Young Queen. And that she would take steps to insure your release.” He swung back to Teyla. “What are you playing at with Waterlight and Thorn? Do you have any idea the stinger’s nest you are getting into?”

“Wait,” Sheppard said again.

Guide stopped, his eyes on his face. “Yes?”

“Thanks.” Sheppard was disheveled and dirty, but his back was straight and his eyes level. “I appreciate it.”

Guide huffed, almost a laugh. “It was nothing, I believe the expression is.” He shook his head, turning back toward Teyla, looming a foot over her, and yet she looked as though it didn’t even occur to her to step back, unarmed and inches from his feeding hand. “But this masquerade is unexpected, and throws all into disarray.” He shook his head again. She was Steelflower to the core, and though he knew it was false he could not fail to respond to her as though she were the Queen she pretended. She might wear a human body, but there was no mistaking the strength of mind that dwelled within. Were she Wraith indeed, she might have been a great queen. “I do not know what you hope to gain.”

“Besides Colonel Sheppard’s release?” She lifted her head, her beautiful hair rippling at the movement in the soft shiplight. “We have tried and failed to gain access to Dr. McKay. Perhaps Steelflower can prevail where Teyla Emmagan failed.”

“Not now that you have now branded yourself enemy to Queen Death!” Guide snapped, not disguising the fear in his mind, not from her. “And myself as well! Do you not see that this is the cruiser Eternal, and now Thorn knows so as well, he and all his crew? This is one of Death’s ships.”

“Not any longer,” Teyla said, her chin rising proudly. “It met with an accident.”

“And I shall have to explain to Queen Death why my queen is raiding her scoutships!” Guide exploded. “She will hear of it, and then she will want your head!”

“She can come and get it,” Teyla said.

“And she will not have to look far for mine, or that of my men!” Guide snapped. “But that is nothing to you. We are Wraith. If you were Steelflower, you would have a care for the men of your own that you thus condemn to death.” He stalked away, finding some respite in motion that took him away from her. “You will disappear again, and I shall dwell with your folly. I gave you all you needed to do this cleanly, as I did with McKay!”

“You didn’t tell us McKay was Wraith,” Sheppard said.

“I did not know that,” Guide snapped. “Do you think that I am Death’s Consort, to be privy to all her secrets? I have gone too far as it is.”

“And not far enough,” Teyla said, taking a step after him, her hand rising as though she meant to take his wrist. She glanced back at Sheppard, her golden eyes inscrutable. “We cannot be half allies, Guide, as we have tried to be.”

He swung around wondering what madness she and Sheppard had concocted between them, but Sheppard looked as baffled as he.

Her hand closed on his wrist, her mind touch firm and strong as a queen’s, intimate as a lover’s, not compelling but simply persuading him of her honesty. “We must be allies or enemies, Guide.” Her eyes held his. “Queen Death will destroy us all if we do not stand together against her.”

“Allies?”

“All of our counters unmasked on the board,” she said.

He looked at Sheppard behind her. “And you think I will believe that you will put all your counters on the board?”

“As much as you will,” Sheppard said.

“John,” she snapped, though she did not look around. “Can you not see that we cannot do this without him?”

“Get McKay back or defeat Queen Death?” he said.

“Both.” Teyla spared him a glance over her shoulder, her hand still on Guide’s wrist. “She will crush us both if we do not act together, and then she will destroy all civilizations in this galaxy that have any technology.”

“She would take us back to the days after the First Armada,” Guide said, and the taste of the words was bitter in his mouth. “What lovely promises we had in those days! Once the Ancients were defeated, we should have plenty. Once cities lay in rubble, we should feast. But you know what came, John Sheppard. When the predators outnumber the prey, they turn upon one another. When the prey are hunted to extinction, what then shall we feed upon? You did not believe me before when I spoke of husbandry, but this one did. Teyla Emmagan has lived as a predator in the woods and fields, and she knows.”

She nodded. “We do not overhunt, because if we do in time to come we will starve.”

“Queen Death overhunts, and in destroying she will render us starving in no short time unless we find your Earth. But it will not be easy pickings if we find it, and if we do not, then we will starve.” He gave Sheppard a mirthless smile. “I believe it is intended to be motivational.”

“Burning your ships on the beach so you can’t retreat,” Sheppard said. “Nice.”

“In the years after the war your numbers dropped until you were almost extinct,” he said. “Groups of wanderers making brief shelters in broken buildings, in caves, flirting with genetic viability. And we starved too, knowing that if we took too many we might eat today, but there would be none tomorrow. And how should there be? Your kind take many years to reproduce and to grow to adulthood. If we cull more often than once a generation, soon the numbers will begin to drop and then there will be none.” Guide paced away from her, from her hand on him. “And so the long hibernations were born, to sleep through the years between one culling and the next, waking for a year or three in twenty, and then sleeping again. In each interval our prey might reproduce, and in time replenish the ecosystems.”

“And that is the core of it,” Teyla said quietly. “You need us. And we need you. The peoples of the Milky Way will keep you from Earth. That is assured. But I am not of Earth, and there is a limit to what they will do here, a limit we have very nearly reached. The people of Earth will not send enough ships to defeat Queen Death, and we will die.”

“Teyla,” Sheppard began.

“Truth for truth, John,” she said, her eyes on Guide’s. “They have neither the power nor the will to conquer this galaxy. They will leave us to you, and you have already seen where that will end.”

Guide took a long breath, perhaps the longest of his life, very long and very strange indeed, his eyes upon this one with the seeming of a young queen but who was not. She was kine. Or half kine, the product of a twisted experiment which had given an animal the semblance of a person, the mental voice of a woman. His answers should be clear, and yet they were not.

His true queen would speak thus, once and away.

His eyes slipped past her to Sheppard. “And when we are done, Sheppard? When we have defeated Queen Death together?”

Sheppard put his head to the side as he had done once, escaping Kolya’s prison together. “All bets are off.”

“All bets are off,” Guide said gravely.