Entanglement

Chapter four

Everybody looked at John. He took a deep breath. Well, here goes, he thought. "What's your name?"

The answer came immediately, "I am Trishen, of the line of Frenya."

"Trishen, give us a couple of minutes to talk it over." John cut the channel.

Everybody started talking at once, which John had expected. Rodney out shouted them all with, "This is an incredible opportunity! We've taken far, far more stupid chances than this-" The environmental control display interrupted, informing them that the compartment had repressurized. John switched his breathing set off, pulling his mask down as the others followed suit. Rodney, by force of will and more practice, got his mask off faster and continued, "-and we can't pass this up because of your military paranoia-"

"Rodney!" John lifted his brows. "I didn't say I was against it."

"— and pointless suspicion in cases where-Oh." Rodney flung his hands in the air, deflating.

"Besides," Miko quickly added in the gap while Rodney was trying to switch gears, "If she shares her data with us, it will be much easier to discover how to shut down the Mirror." She looked around at their expressions, startled. She added hastily, "Oh, no, I meant after we help her to get back to her reality."

"Yes, we must find some way to help her, whatever we do," Radek said, shaking his head. "It would be a terrible thing, trapped here and cut off from her companions. There are many days when I'm not happy to be here myself, I can't think what it would be like-" He made a vague gesture. "Alone."

"I agree," Teyla said, leaning forward in her chair, her face intent. "I can only think how we would feel if it was one of us trapped in their reality, and we had no means of retrieving her."

That one had crossed John's mind, too.

Rodney made an abrupt gesture. "This is what it comes down to. From what we found, it takes the Ancient gene to get into the upper control areas of the installation, and she's apparently been researching Ancient technology in her reality. She could even be more closely related to the Ancients than we are, and an exchange of data with her could give us the missing pieces to puzzles we've just barely begun to discover."

John leaned sideways to see Ronon, who was propped in the cabin hatch. "Ronon. What do you think?"

Ronon looked away, his mouth twisted, though he seemed more uneasy than cynical. "It sounds like a woman. It could be a trap, but…" He shrugged uncomfortably.

Teyla added, "But if she meant us harm, it would have made more sense to act when we were caught in the open.

Ronon nodded. John interpreted that as meaning that Ronon would like to be suspicious but just couldn't see his way clear to it. That pretty much summed up how John felt.

Rodney folded his arms. "Humanitarian consider ations aside, if the Mirror is now too dangerously unstable to operate and she can't go back, that leaves us the opportunity to invite her back to Atlantis." He lifted his chin. "Her and her spaceship."

"I admit, that occurred to me also." Radek scratched his head ruefully. "It would be terrible thing for her, but not necessarily for us. And she has already been here for more than a day as measured by this moon's orbit. If there was a possibility she would experience entropic cascade failure, it would already have happened."

Ronon stirred, frowning. "What's that?"

Radek turned to him, explaining, "If more than one copy of the same person exists simultaneously in one reality, the newcomer experiences a quantum instability that causes massive cellular disruption throughout the entire body." He winced. "You become fuzzy, it's painful and terrible."

Ronon eyed him skeptically. "That doesn't make sense.

"Nothing involving Quantum Mirrors makes sense," Rodney said in annoyance. He looked at John and demanded, "Are we going to do this?"

"Yeah." John let out his breath. It was still a risk, but the fact remained that they didn't have a single reason to believe this woman wasn't exactly who and what she said she was. And Teyla had pegged it; he couldn't help thinking how he would feel if they lost someone through the Mirror, knowing he or she was right on the other side and unable to do a damn thing about it. And if they couldn't get Trishen back home, talking her into returning to Atlantis with them was a hell of a lot better option than leaving her sitting out here with no idea where the nearest inhabited world was. "We're going to do this." He glanced at his watch, and the HUD helpfully popped up a diagram of the planetary system, with the current positions of the gas giant and the base moon. "The planet's blocking a direct transmission back to base camp. We're going to have to bounce a signal off one of those other moons.

Rodney nodded sharply, his face caught between relief, triumph, and trepidation. "I'll make a data packet to update them on our situation. We should get an answer in a few minutes."

"Right." John turned his chair back to the console, and keyed on the comm channel. He said, "Trishen? We're going to help you."

There was a little negotiation first.

According to Trishen, her ship and the little shuttle's shielding had been specifically adjusted to deal with the Mirror's discharges. Both had been specially designed research vessels, developed after the other Eidolon ships had suffered near misses similar to the one that had almost taken out the jumper. She asked if they wanted to move the jumper into the installation's inner ring, next to her base ship. "That would be a big no," John told her. Rodney was making emphatic boom gestures and mouthing the words "quantum instability." John added, "The instability interferes too much with our ship's systems. We need it to stay on this side of the installation." The reason he didn't give her was that while he didn't think she was lying to them, he didn't see any reason to be stupid about this, either. "Do you know if there's a direct passage from the outside through to the Mirror?"

"Yes, it's on the far side of the structure. I found it when I was looking for anything I could scavenge for my repairs. It's a large doorway, perhaps meant to accommodate ground vehicles. There's a fairly direct passage through it to the Mirror platform, though that section of the installation seems more damaged, and isn't holding pressure." She hesitated, then offered, "If you would like to follow me in your ship, I can go back in that direction and show it to you."

"That would be fine," John told her.

He cut the comm channel, and Teyla frowned worriedly, saying, "I think she has realized we are somewhat distrustful."

Rodney leaned forward, watching as the conch shellshaped shuttle lifted off in a cloud of swirling dust. "Yes, well, she should have picked up on that when our first reaction to seeing an alien spacecraft was to fling ourselves down a twenty-foot drop."

"You notice she didn't offer to give us a ride over there." John took the jumper out of standby, lifting it up to a low hover. "Not that we would have accepted, but we're both being careful here. That's not a bad thing." The HUD didn't read any signs of weapons powering up, but since it couldn't read life signs inside the other ship either, he had no idea how accurate it was. Trishen's shuttle moved slowly away, following the curve of the installation, and John guided the jumper after it.

"You think if she had.. designs on us she would try harder to appear more trusting?" Radek asked, craning his neck to watch. The purple-shaded stem of the shuttle was centered in the viewport, the indigo wall of the installation looming over them both. "Haven't we said we would go to her ship anyway?"

"We're not all going," John told him. "Teyla, Rodney, and I will check it out first." The others were all looking at him, and he shrugged one shoulder. "I'd just rather not put all our eggs in one basket."

"Yes, that's a very comforting analogy, Colonel," Rodney said, preoccupied. "There's the door. She's right, it's probably a cargo entrance."

The shuttle slowed to a hover in front of a big square hatch, set deeper into the side of the building and at least three or four times the size of the other entrance. The sand drifts were higher on this side, washing up to the door's threshold, so it was impossible to tell if there was a road or ramp leading up to it. John clicked on the comm channel again to say, "We've got it. We'll see you on the other side."

There was a brief acknowledgement from Trishen, then the shuttle lifted up, vanishing over the top of the building.

While Rodney was busy downloading diagnostic programs and data he thought he might need from the jumper's systems, and Zelenka and Teyla were recharging the air tanks, John took Miko aside. Or as aside as he could get in a rear cabin only slightly larger than a Winnebago. He said, "Look, I don't want to scare you, but…" It was hard to say this when she was looking up at him with big worried eyes, magnified even more by her glasses. "If worse comes to worst, not that I think it will, but-"

Miko blinked. "You want to know if I can fly the jumper back to the base moon if I had to."

"Uh, yeah."

She pushed her glasses up, considering the question with a grave expression. "I think so. The navigation is relatively simple, and the guidance system assists with re-entry. With Dr. Zelenka's extensive knowledge of all the systems, I don't think I would have any trouble." She winced. "As long as nothing is shooting at me."

"Right." John folded his arms, chewing his lower lip. Her training had included the basics of how to avoid an incoming hiveship. Which wouldn't do her much good against an alien ship of unknown capabilities that had demonstrated an ability to see through the cloak. "Just fly really fast."

Miko went to help with the air tanks, and Ronon took her place, looking down at John with a stony expression. He said, "Why aren't you taking me?"

"Because Teyla is good at first contact. Your idea of first contact is stunning people unconscious and tying them up," John told him. He was long over any pique caused by their initial encounter with Ronon, but he wanted to make his point. "And I need you here to protect Radek and Miko. And no matter what happens, you stay with them, and you do what they say." He added with emphasis, "That's an order."

Ronon flicked a look toward the front of the jumper. Rodney was in the cockpit, disconnecting his laptop from the jumper's systems, practically bouncing with nervous excitement. Miko and Teyla crouched on the floor, getting the tanks reattached to the field packs, and Zelenka was earnestly explaining something to Teyla about the interfaces. Ronon turned back to John, and actually looked sheepish for an instant, as if he had forgotten there were other considerations besides whether John trusted him to go fight aliens or not. "I won't leave them."

John held his gaze, and believed him. "Good."

As they were ready to leave, the jumper received a reply from base camp, which had relayed their transmission through the `gate to Atlantis. It was just an acknowledgement that the report had been received and a brief formal message from Elizabeth which translated to "Be careful and don't get killed."

The others went into the cockpit and sealed the cabin door, and John, Rodney, and Teyla got their breathing sets attached and switched on. John opened the ramp to a view of the empty plain stretching out to the mountains, the gas giant hanging heavily above them. The light was a little dimmer since the moon had entered its night phase, though like the night on the base moon, it would never get much darker than this. This moon's eclipse was still a couple of hours off. John's ears popped as the rear cabin's air flowed out, and he said, "There's got to be an easier way to do this."

"Ask Zelenka," Rodney grumbled, adjusting his pack and squinting against the dust as they started down the ramp. "I've been telling him to work on converting the cloak to a shield, to make a temporary barrier to hold in the air while the rear cabin hatch is open, but he's baffled by the elementary principles of-"

"I can hear you, Rodney," Zelenka said in their headsets.

"I know you can hear me, otherwise why bother?" Rodney demanded.

John interrupted with, "We're clear. Lock it up tight and don't open the door to strangers. And I want radio silence until I tell you otherwise."

"Yes, Colonel," Zelenka replied. "Take care."

John waited until the ramp sealed and the jumper vanished under its cloak, then led the way to the installation.

The heavy metal door was set into a deep recess, the sill covered with drifts of the red sand, the whole more than big enough to fly something the size of the jumper through. With his pocket flashlight, Rodney found the wall console buried in the side of the recess. He said, "Ready? Here we go," hit the console, and backed hurriedly out of the way.

John and Teyla covered the door as it groaned and the metal split diagonally into two triangles, one section sliding down and the other up. It revealed a cavernous passage, poorly lit, leading deep into the structure. It looked damaged, with broken lights and shattered stone and metal debris scattered on the dusty floor. If there had been any kind of airlock arrangement, it was long gone. "Okay." John lowered the P-90 a little and stepped inside. "I say we leave this door open."

"I'm reading one life sign," Rodney reported, "On the other side of the structure. She must be waiting for us at the far end of this corridor."

They started down the passage. It ran straight for a little distance, then took an angle to the left, then back, but Trishen was right, it was obviously heading through to the inner side of the building and the Mirror platform. There were blocky pillars along the walls, but only a few of the white lights set into them were lit, and there was a constant whistle of escaping air. "Looks like the Wraith came through here," John said, shining his light up into some twisted metal girders. Smaller passages led off into other parts of the building, some open and dark, others closed off by blast doors.

"Or the Mirror itself," Rodney said, eyeing the damage thoughtfully. "A severe discharge could have caused those impacts that look like energy weapon scars."

Teyla frowned. "I just realized. Trishen did not mention the Wraith." She threw a pensive look at John. "Perhaps there are none in her reality."

John shrugged a little dubiously. "Maybe. You'd think she would have asked about it otherwise." If John was trapped in another reality, he thought that would have been pretty high on his list of questions.

"We may be looking at the best possible scenario, that the Ancients were able to discover a reality with an uninhabited Pegasus," Rodney reminded them, sounding testy. "I did say that was a possibility."

"Yeah, but then why aren't they still there?" John felt compelled to point out. "She said we were descended from a common ancestor that had left freaky advanced technology scattered everywhere. That sounds just like here."

"Not being psychic, I won't know until I ask her," Rodney retorted. "The Ancients could have been wiped out by the same plague that hit the Milky Way. Or only a small group may have managed to go through the Mirror in the first place." He waved the life signs detector. "Obviously, they planned this installation to accommodate a massive evacuation, but if they were cut off by the Wraith advance, only the people working here and anyone left on the base moon may have managed to make it through."

"To succeed, only to die anyway," Teyla said quietly. "It is a bleak fate."

Rodney tapped the detector against his hand, his eyes on the intriguing gaps in the wall where machinery had been attached. "True, but they did manage to seed the human race in the new reality. That was obviously very important to them, considering how often they spread their genetic wealth around." He checked the life signs detector again, and his voice betrayed a little nervousness. "We're nearly there."

"Yes, there is light ahead," Teyla added, her eyes on the end of the corridor.

Ahead, as the passage angled again, John saw dim natural light, and a moment later he could see the large square doorway opening out into the Mirror platform. Trishen, still in her EVA suit, stood just inside it. Behind her John could see the stone platform stretching out to the big silvery wall of the Mirror's frame. "She's holding something," he said, low-voiced. She had a round dark object in her arms.

"We're holding things," Rodney said, tense and impatient.

"Yes, and a lot of the things we're holding are guns," John told him, exasperated.

"It does not look like a weapon," Teyla pointed out softly. Then she admitted, "Unless it is an explosive of some kind. But that seems unlikely."

John thought it was unlikely too, unless Trishen was a suicide bomber, but it still made him uneasy. He signaled the others to halt about ten long paces from her. Even at this distance, her helmet didn't reveal much. The faceplate wasn't as reflective here in the dimmer light, and he could almost see the outline of her forehead and eyes, though the lower part was still opaque. The thing she was holding looked like a black metal soccer ball, except the bottom seemed to be flattened slightly. He lifted a hand in greeting, and said, amiably, "Hi. What you got there?"

Trishen juggled the thing a little, caught between returning the greeting and answering the question. "It's a data display device. I thought I could show you some of the readings from the anomalies that occurred when I tried to send the probe through." She sat down awkwardly, placing the thing on the dusty metal floor. She made a vague gesture. "We can go out onto the platform for a closer look at the Mirror if you like, but if we're out here for any length of time we should stay inside the structure, for the shielding." She touched the device and something slid open in the top. Suddenly a glittering haze of color burst out of it.

John and Teyla both flinched backward, jerking up their weapons. Then John saw it was actually a holographic display, showing the three-dimensional figures that were the Ancient equivalents of charts and graphs. Teyla threw him an abashed look; John didn't exactly feel like an expert intergalactic explorer at the moment either. Trishen was staring up at them, startled at their recoil. She said hurriedly, "It is only a three-dimensional display-"

Rodney stepped forward, giving John and Teyla an exasperated look. "Yes, they have actually seen a hologram before, they're just-Never mind. I'm Dr. Rodney McKay, she's Teyla Emmagan, he's Colonel Sheppard." He eased forward, staring intently at the glittering column and digging a camera out of his vest. "You use the Ancient system for numbers and symbols?"

"Yes." Trishen looked uncertainly from John and Teyla to Rodney, then evidently decided to talk to the rational person. "For this type of data, it's the best method. You use them as well?"

"To a certain extent." Rodney moved closer, crouching to get a better look. "This is just a recording device." He showed her the camera, then nodded toward the figures suspended in the display. "This one is the progression of energy signatures? That was directly after you deployed the probe? Can you bring up the sequence that you took when your ship was drawn through the Mirror? You did record that, right?"

"Oh, oh, yes, this is my initial reading." Sounding relieved, Trishen leaned forward, placing her gloved hands on the surface of the device. John motioned for Teyla to stay in position where she could cover them and moved up beside Rodney. Trishen was manipulating the device in some way John couldn't quite see, and more figures blossomed in the display. She said, "And as you can see the variation with the singularity's later signatures is pronounced."

"Yes, the instability is starting to grow and extend across the lower right quadrant," Rodney muttered, shifting a little closer. He set the camera aside to get his tablet out, and rapidly brought up a series of files. "What were your figures for the accretion surface?"

After that it got a little over John's head. Rodney and Trishen talked numbers and quantum singularities in perfect accord long enough that John signaled Teyla to relax. She lowered the P-90 and came to stand next to him.

Then Rodney said, "Hold it, hold it, I need to check something." He sat back, keying his radio. "Zelenka. Zelenka. Radek, answer the damn-" He looked up at John in sudden anxiety. "Why aren't they answering?"

John lifted a brow. "What does radio silence mean, Rodney?"

Rodney glared. "Oh, for the-Tell him he can talk, then!"

John said, "Go ahead, Dr. Zelenka." He had had his radio open the entire time so the others could listen in.

"I am here, Rodney," Zelenka said in their headsets, sounding perfectly composed. "You need to reference the data the jumper managed to gather before the disruption?"

Rodney pushed to his feet with a grimace and walked away a few paces, presumably to berate Zelenka in relative privacy.

Trishen looked from John to Teyla, as if not quite sure which one of them to talk to, and asked uncertainly, "Do you live in this system, or did you come here to research the Mirror, as we did in my reality? I didn't think there was anyone else on this moon. I listened for communications traffic and flew around the circumference in my shuttle, but I saw nothing except these ruins."

Teyla answered, "No, we live far away. We only discovered this place a short time ago." She hesitated, flicking a look at John as she gauged how much to say. "We have explored many ruins of the Ancestors, but we have never before found a device such as this Mirror."

John thought this was a good time to ask, "You didn't send any distress calls or anything like that, did you? Because there's some things out here whose attention you really don't want to attract."

Trishen made a little gesture, turning her palms up. "No. My ship has an automatic beacon, but I turned it off. I admit, I was afraid." She did something on the device that caused the hologram display to freeze, and twisted around to face them. "We had long speculated that the Creators came to our galaxy fleeing a terrible force."

John looked away, out toward the platform and the looming frame of the Mirror. He hated giving the bad news. "It's true. The Ancients were wiped out in this galaxy.

Teyla added, "The enemy you speak of is called the Wraith. They use humans for food, and have destroyed many worlds." She tilted her head, watching Trishen carefully. "There are no Wraith in your reality?"

"Food," Trishen repeated nervously. She laughed a little weakly. "I was hoping that part wasn't true." She looked up. "No, my people have never been attacked by anything." She hesitated again, then added tentatively, "I have never seen people like you before."

John exchanged a baffled look with Teyla. The hell? He said, "Uh, okay."

Teyla began, "I am not certain I understand what-"

"That's it," Rodney interrupted, cutting off his radio with a sharp gesture. "Our data confirms it. The problem is definitely with the accretion disk itself, it's size is causing the singularity to react to any energy fluctuation with these instabilities. The Ancients must have had some sort of tuning process to get it to work in the first place." He turned to Trishen. "I need to see the whole range of data before the Mirror activated and pulled your ship in, everything your research group collected. Do you have that with you?"

Trishen nodded anxiously. "Yes, but this device doesn't have enough storage space to contain it. Can you come to my ship to view it on the system there?"

"Of course, I-" Rodney stopped, flustered, obviously recalling their situation. He looked at John, brows lifted. "Ali, can we do that?"

John had been thinking about their next step, and had been ready to say yes. It was what they had agreed to do, and he wanted a look at the inside of that ship as bad as Rodney did. But that last comment of Trishen's had thrown him a little and he couldn't exactly pinpoint why. "People like you" coming from somebody from another planet, let alone another reality, could mean anything, from his and Teyla's relative heights to their skin or hair color to their obvious hair-trigger wariness. Or the way she had heard them bitching at each other over the comm system. Whatever it was, though, she seemed okay with it. He said, "Yeah, we can do that."

Trishen gathered her equipment hurriedly, and she and Rodney stopped in the big doorway out onto the platform, both taking readings. "If the Mirror discharges while we're out on the platform, the concussion wave would slam us into the walls with possibly lethal force," Rodney explained, studying the detector intently.

"Great." John was looking at the ship, sitting on the platform about a hundred yards away. The oddly organic shading of blue and purple on the hull didn't fade into the darker stone of the installation as much from this angle, so it was easy to see the round shape of the hatch and a small ramp leading up to it at the base. The conch-shell shuttle seemed to fit neatly into the top of the tulip, not easy to recognize as a separate craft unless you knew to look for it.

Rodney admitted that the readings suggested that for the moment the Mirror was not inclined to kill them, and they started across the platform toward the ship. They were moving quickly, Rodney and Trishen a few steps ahead. Trishen said, "I'm beginning to wonder if my ship's energy signature itself is causing the increase in the Mirror's instabilities. If it's affecting the accretion disk, even from a distance-"

Rodney launched into a theory of his own, and Teyla took the opportunity to say, low-voiced, to John, "She said `people like us.' What could she mean?"

"I don't know. Unless she's got fur or scales or something under that suit." Teyla looked up sharply, her brow furrowed in worry, and John said, "That was supposed to be a joke."

"She said we shared the Creators as a common ancestor. She must be very close to human." Teyla shook her head helplessly. "She sounds entirely human. And I think she is harmless to us."

"Yeah, probably," John found himself reluctant to admit it. They had just gotten burned too many times in the past. "But we don't know what the rest of her people are like."

"I should ask more questions," Trishen was saying. "When I return, our historians will be very angry with me if I have no answers for them." She made a vague gesture back toward John and Teyla. "I don't even understand how your hierarchy is organized."

Rodney began, "Yes, of course. I'm head of the expedition's science team, and our-" John cleared his throat pointedly. It was mission policy not to go into detail about their organizational structure on short acquaintance, and he wasn't ready to relax the restriction on that yet. Rodney threw John a glare, not happy to be reminded, and finished, "But if you could tell me more about the collection method you used for your energy readings-"

As they reached the ship, Zelenka's voice in John's headset said, "Colonel, I'm hoping it is still okay to talk, but your transmissions are breaking up very badly. If you remain close to the Mirror, we will not be able to hear you.

John said, "Copy that," and clicked an acknowledgement.

Trishen touched a control on the black data device, and the round hatch started to rotate, spiraling open instead of sliding up in one piece. John caught Rodney's eye, telling him with a slight jerk of his head to hang back. Rodney huffed impatiently but fell back a little, obviously torn between eagerness to see the inside of the ship and the paranoid caution they had all had beaten into them by life in the Pegasus Galaxy.

The open hatch revealed what a seemed to be a standard airlock, except the walls were dark-colored, almost matte black. Following Trishen's lead, John stepped in, seeing it was big enough for all of them without crowding, which was a relief. He signaled Rodney and Teyla to come in, noticing the controls were recessed into the wall surface, barely visible.

The outer hatch shut and the lock cycled quickly, and John's ears popped again. Rodney was bouncing with impatience. As the inner hatch dilated open and Trishen moved inside, John took hold of the handy strap on the back of Rodney's tac vest, making certain he remembered to let John go first.

The interior was poorly lit, the light purple-tinted, and if John hadn't been already used to the relative dimness outside he would have been temporarily blind. The funny smell struck him next, even filtered as it was through the SCBA's breathing mask. It was peaty and rich, like walking into the organic fertilizer storage bay in the Botany lab. Not unpleasant, just different and not what he had been expecting. As Rodney and Teyla stepped in behind him, John looked around, squinting, still wary, seeing that the walls were a dark purplish rubbery substance. Teyla was looking around too, frowning uncertainly. There was a scatter of weird-looking tools and equipment near a wall cubbie, as if someone had been making a repair. Trishen was fussing with her suit, gesturing around a little anxiously with the air of someone hoping her guests would excuse the mess. She said, "The atmosphere in here should be breathable for you, since we can both tolerate the air inside the pressurized portion of the installation. I've been lucky that none of my environmental systems were damaged." She laughed a little nervously. "Though I didn't know what I would do if I was trapped here long enough to run out of provisions."

Deeply preoccupied, Rodney said, "We have plenty of food in the jumper." He was standing near the center of the space and looking upward. John stepped up beside him and saw a shaft that ran straight up through the ship, with arching struts and supports that gave it the look of a gothic cathedral. Turning back to Trishen, Rodney continued, "And if we're compatible enough to tolerate the same oxygen mix, then we should be able to-" Rodney's voice climbed an octave and the sentence ended on a gasp.

That made John whip around, jerking the P-90 up, made Teyla turn automatically and lift her weapon.

Trishen was taking off her helmet, silver hair spilling out in a long braid as the back plate opened. Teyla gasped with astonishment and horror, and John saw what Rodney had seen, the dead-white paleness of Trishen's skin, glowing even in this bad light. He whispered incredulously, "Son of a bitch." In the next instant she had lifted off the helmet and he saw her face clearly, the gill-like slits to either side of her nose, the glimpse of malformed teeth past her pale lips. John snapped, "Don't move," and stepped in front of Rodney, backing them both up until he was even with Teyla, Rodney behind them.

Trishen stared blankly at the guns pointed at her. There was surprise in the yellow slit-pupilled eyes, and that just pissed John off all the more. She said, "I don't understand." Her voice was hushed, but without the distortion of the helmet's comm unit, it was obviously a Wraith's voice.

Behind John, Rodney choked out, "This can't-This can't-" He burst out, "Tell me we're not this stupid!"

"We are this stupid," John said through gritted teeth. "Look, Trish, sorry we can't stay, but unlock the hatch or I'll blow your damn head off." He didn't know why he hadn't already killed her. He told himself it was a bad idea to fire enough rounds to kill a Wraith in the small confines of this cabin. But he knew it was because she was small and female and unarmed, and staring at him with this look of fear and betrayal, and he just couldn't make himself pull the trigger.

Trishen whispered, "It isn't locked. Just touch the control pad beside it." She stood frozen, still holding the helmet. "I don't understand-"

John didn't want to hear it. He said, tightly, "Rodney."

Rodney unfroze and ducked back to the hatch, and a moment later John heard the airlock start to cycle. He felt the tightness in his chest ease a little; he had been certain she had done something to seal them in here. Now all they had to worry about was more Wraith dropping out of that shaft leading into the upper levels of the ship.

Sounding sick, Teyla said, "Colonel, this is not possible."

"I wish, Teyla, but it really is." Teyla should have been able to tell Trishen was a Wraith, and the fact that she hadn't was just one more kick in the ass. John heard the hatch open behind them and Teyla pivoted to cover it. "Rodney, can you fix it so she can't trap us in there?"

"On it," Rodney muttered, and John heard thumps and a weird tearing noise.

Trishen shook her head a little, still pretending incomprehension. "I wouldn't do that. Why would I-"

"Sorry, but you're just going to have to do without these provisions," John said with acid emphasis.

"Got it," Rodney said, his voice tight. "I can only override the outer door's safety for a few seconds, so hurry. On my mark…Go!"

John felt the rush of air pouring out as the outer hatch spiraled open. Still covering Trishen, he took two long steps back as Teyla and Rodney ducked out, then turned at the last second and leapt through the closing hatch.

Out on the Mirror platform, under the dim light of the gas giant, John backed rapidly away from the ship. He and Teyla kept their weapons aimed, but nothing lunged out after them. Breathing hard, Rodney flung up a hand in frustration, saying, "That ship, that was hybrid Wraith Ancient technology, I should have seen it!" There was rage and disappointment in his voice, both of which John got completely. Their cool alien contact had turned into just a frigging Wraith trap. Though at the moment John was still in the rage end of the spectrum. "That textured wall material is an organic, the same thing they use on the interiors of the hiveships and cruisers! I can't believe-hybrid Wraith and Ancient tech!" Rodney finished miserably, "We could be very, very dead, and by we I mean all of humanity."

"It's got to be new," John said. Past the adrenaline rush of rage, he was starting to realize just how bad this was. This ship could see through the jumper's cloak. Rodney right, we are so screwed. As they moved further away from the ship, John tapped his radio. "Zelenka, can you read me?"

The answer came readily, though so thick with static John could barely understand him. "Yes, yes, Colonel, what is wrong?"

"It was a trap, she's a goddamn Wraith," John told him. "Move the jumper, now, just get it out of there. Send a message to base camp when you can. I'll contact you when we're clear."

Zelenka sounded flabbergasted. "Yes, we'll move it. But-But how can this be?"

"When you figure it out, let us know!" Rodney snapped.

"But I did not sense Wraith, even when I was looking right at her," Teyla protested, almost anguished. "How is that possible?"

John shook his head. Teyla should have known Trishen was a Wraith the first time the shuttle appeared. Oh yeah, screwed. "She has to have something that blocks your Wraith-sensing thing, like the shielding on her ship."

"Hello, that doesn't make sense!" Rodney protested.

John wasn't in the mood for an argument about semantics. "Whatever, Rodney, you know what I mean!"

Rodney began, "But-" Then a tremor traveled through the pavement under their feet and John heard a low rumble, like distant thunder. Rodney snarled in frustration, "Oh fine, now the Mirror's discharging!"

"Run," John ordered and they bolted. They made it through the cargo door before the tremor started to escalate, but the open corridor didn't provide any protection.

Over the growing rumble, Rodney yelled, "Keep going, find the nearest side corridor!"

John had noted the last branching passage that wasn't sealed off. He found it just past the first angle in the main corridor, an empty doorway with a shattered blast door, leading into darkness. John flicked on the P-90's light to see it was filled with broken crystal and stone debris. They could get trapped down here if the end was blocked, but from Rodney's increasingly urgent gestures, there wasn't time for another choice. They managed to get about twenty yards down it when the rumble turned into a dull roar and the floor shook hard enough to knock Teyla off her feet. Rodney caught her, and John caught him, and they dropped into a huddle against the base of the wall. The shaking intensified, sending dust and chips of loosened stone down on their heads. John pushed them both down and huddled over them, covering his head with his arm, hoping the whole building didn't come down on top of them.

But the shaking died away, the sound fading into silence, except for the pounding echo in John's head. He pushed himself up off Rodney and Teyla, pulling the P-90 up to flash the light across the ceiling. There was a network of cracks, still leaking a fine haze of debris, but no sign of imminent collapse. "You guys okay?" he asked. The breath mask had mostly kept the dust out of his mouth and nose, but his eyes burned with it, and the violent shaking made him feel like he had been pummeled by something.

Rodney sat up and sneezed, shifting his mask awkwardly. "You kneed me in the back and Teyla's P-90 hit me in the eye," he reported, "But other than that-"

"We are fine," Teyla finished, wincing as she held a hand to her head. "I-"

She took a sharp breath, and John looked at her worriedly. "What is it?" He didn't think any of the dislodged stone had been big enough to cause a serious injury, but-

She rolled her eyes and said wearily, "Now I sense Wraith."

Rodney swore. "Well, better late than never."

John nodded grimly. Whatever Trishen had that could block Teyla's ability must be shut down now. And that was weird, that she had even given herself a name; none of the Wraith they had run into that had condescended to speak to their cattle had ever done that. He tried his radio. "Zelenka, do you copy?" No answer but static.

"That last discharge is still disrupting the atmosphere," Rodney said, wiping dust off his forehead. "We're not going to be able to reach them for a while."

More good news. John grimaced. "Come on, we need to get out of here."

They all climbed to their feet, wincing, and Rodney said, "Yes, having failed to die in the moonquake caused by the Mirror's periodic bursts of quantum instability, we can now get back to running from the Wraith."

"I do not understand why a female Wraith would come here alone," Teyla said, sounding bitter. She checked her P-90, adjusting the tangled strap. "We have always believed they were few, and never left the hiveships."

"We couldn't read life signs inside her ship," John reminded her, starting back down the passage. "She could have had a dozen males and drones in there waiting for her to walk in with dinner."

Rodney gestured in annoyance. "None of this makes sense. That ship, this elaborate story she told us. She couldn't have faked that data-She came through the Mirror." Rodney froze for an instant. "Oh, no. She came through the Mirror. She said we had a common ancestor-

Startled, Teyla added, "She told us she had never seen people like us-"

"She meant people who were this easy to catch," John said sourly.