Nightfall

Chapter One

He had disobeyed before.

He had done it so many times that it had become a joke among many of the adults in the settlement. He saw it, in smirking asides or quick grins, in comments made that they thought would fly above the head of a youth. There’s Laaro, they might say, the reckless boy who climbed atop the grain silo roof on a dare and fell in. The careless boy who tried to swim the shallow lake where the root-taps grow. And then they would shake their heads at his folly, as if they felt sorry for him. But no, not for Laaro. For his mother and father.

He paused in the undergrowth and crouched low. His heart was hammering in his chest, so loud in his ears he would have sworn they could hear it all the way back to the lodge house. Larro chanced a look behind him, through the snarl of twisted scrubland, off in the direction of home; and he immediately regretted it. Rods of faint yellow lantern-light bobbed and shifted, sweeping this way and that across the grasslands, coming closer. On the cool, still air of the night he could hear the grunt and spit of mai cats on their leashes, pulling at his scent. With them, the rumble of adult voices, most distinctly the dry snap of the Elder Aaren’s words.

A tremor of fear shot through the boy’s body and he let it go, for one moment wondering how he might be treated if he turned back and went to them. He studied his bare arms, his thin shirt. Perhaps, if he bit himself, drew blood, ripped his clothes, he might sell them on the idea he’d been chased by a wild mai.

Laaro’s teeth bared in a smile. They would never believe me. He had told tales too many times to be trusted now. He could come home with the head of a Wraith in his back pocket and Aaren would be the first to claim he had made it from sticks and mud.

The smile became a grin. Somehow that seemed funny to him. Somehow, that was enough to push him back to his feet, from the undergrowth, back to running. Laaro’s bare feet pat-pat-patted across the earth, as he zigzagged wide of the well-worn hunting trails.

I will not go home. Not yet. The boy’s jaw set firmly, but his outward defiance was weakening by the moment. He had been out here in the savannah since second sunset, moving in the pattern that his uncle Haafo had taught him, the way that a tracker would loop back and forth, as they searched for animal signs before a hunt. The quarry he tracked was the most important he had ever hunted; his father Errian.

Laaro’s mistake had been to speak of this idea to his mother, and in turn she had told Aaren, her face all pinched and sad as it had been since Errian’s disappearance. Aaren, blunt and graceless like a mud bovine, made stern rebukes and waggled his fat fingers at the boy. Aaren told him it was not the business of a youth to interfere in the order of things; and then he had forbidden Laaro to leave the settlement.

All of which showed how little Aaren understood Laaro. Why else had he climbed the silo, swum in the lake? Because he had been told not to do it. Someone slow and ugly and old like an Elder couldn’t understand that challenge was what Laaro looked for every day of his life. It was that or boredom — the tedium of schooling and housework had to be broken by something.

But still he felt his resolve faltering. If Aaren was out here, then his mother knew he’d fled. He saw Jaaya’s pinched face again in his mind’s eye and felt a stab of guilt. Laaro didn’t want her to be sad; he wanted to come home having rescued Errian, and reunite his parents. To be the hero for real that he was in his games and play.

Fear seeped into him, pushing aside his boldness. He was caught between two compulsions; what scared him more? The thought of the punishment he’d get if he let himself be caught, or the fear of what lay out in the night? Not the mai cats or the arachs, but the bigger, less definite things. The Giants that hid in the stars. Maybe even the Wraith.

Reflexively, he looked up and saw the glittering ring of the sky river that bisected the night above, from horizon to horizon; and beyond the great moon with its smaller brother peeking over its shoulder. Laaro shivered and moved on carelessly, his foot catching an exposed root.

The boy grunted and stumbled, turning in place as a strange new sound reached his ears. It was like thunder, it was like the roar of a great cat, it was like the crash of a cloudburst. It was all these things and none of them.

Panic seized him. Suddenly, he felt lost. Laaro looked around, abruptly aware that he had gone beyond the limits of his own explorations. His gaze found motion and light, down in a shallow vale where pillars of old brown rock five times the height of the boy stood sentinel.

The light was a cool silver, glittering and shifting. It reminded him of moonlight cast off water; and in a swift, dizzying rush, Laaro realized where he was.

The Gateway.

There were many rules Laaro was happy to break, many adult edicts he would ignore without a care in the world — but the Gateway… To come here without the blessing of the Elders was said to mean death. Uncle Haafo had told him stories of the ghostly guardians there that allowed only the chosen, the knowers of the symbols, to approach the great ring of grey metal. Some said that voyagers could come and go through the centre of the Gateway, to other places — even to the stars, although Laaro doubted that could be possible. He had never seen voyagers; only the Elders had, in the years before his birth. Everyone knew how long it had been since the Gateway had opened; ever since the coming of the Aegis and the Giants.

And then there were the other stories. The old, terrible stories of the Wraith, the monsters that ate men like an arach would kill a click-beetle.

With a shriek of sound the shimmering light vanished, plunging the vale into darkness once more. Laaro blinked furiously, his night vision lost to him for a moment where he had been staring at the brightness in the ring. In his fascination he had meandered further down the shallow incline, almost to the shadow of one of the outermost pillars. The boy hesitated, the question on his lips; what had come through the Gateway? He backed off, staying low, desperately trying to look in every direction at once —

— and bumped into something soft, covered in cloth.

Laaro spun about and found himself staring at figure a good head taller than he was, clad in a dark, matt clothing that seemed to suck in the faint light from the night sky; and the face…

Pale skin and wide eyes caught the lunar glow, and Laaro glimpsed a mouth open in an ‘O’ of fury. The intruder howled and the boy screamed back at it, unable to stop himself. Wraith! his mind cried, and he threw out his hands, swatting at the alien.

Laaro hurled himself away and broke into a full-pelt run, charging toward the lip of the shallow valley as fast as his legs could propel him. Sharp beams of light stabbed out after him, trying to fix Laaro in their centre. He clawed at the ridge as he pulled himself up it, frantic to escape. The question as to what he was more afraid of had been answered for him, and now all he wanted was to get away, to find an adult even if it was Elder Aaren.

But on the lip of the ridge there was another one; this figure was larger, and for a second Laaro thought it might have been one of the Giants. The chasing lights caught up to them both and he saw clearly a man. He was broad across the chest, his face a dusky shade a little lighter than Laaro’s, and his hair was wild in thick locks that cascaded down over the shoulders of his leather jerkin. In one hand he held a weapon that dwarfed the spindly rodguns used by the Elder’s watchmen.

The warrior — and Laaro knew without question that the man could be nothing else but that — threw him a look of grim amusement and holstered the pistol with a flick of the wrist. Then, without pause, he rocked off his feet and grabbed Laaro by the scruff of the neck, lifting him clean off the ground. Before the boy could argue, he was being carried back down into the valley of the Gateway. The warrior dropped him to the dirt, and Laaro landed hard, smarting.

“Take it easy, Ronon,” said a woman’s voice, her words pitched high with concern. “It’s just a little kid.”

Anger pushed Laaro back to his feet. He tried to make his voice firm, but it trembled slightly at the end of his words. “I’m not little,” he snarled, looking up to see four more figures emerging from the shadows to join the warrior.

“Ah,” said another female, coming closer. “He has fire in him.” Laaro saw a woman with auburn hair and a careful, measuring gaze. She had the same look to her as the warrior did — he imagined she would be a keen fighter if pushed to it — but where the big man was all feral energy, she was calm and metered.

Laaro swallowed hard. Were these people from another settlement, perhaps from the northern tribes? He had to warn them. “I… I saw a Wraith!” He managed, the words tumbling from his lips. “Over there!” He pointed at the stone columns.

“Oh, hardly.” The strangers all carried small metallic lanterns that cast a powerful pool of light, and another man stepped into the glow from the direction Laaro had indicated. The boy flinched, recognizing the face he had seen lit by moon-glow only moments before. “That was me.” The man looked down his nose at Laaro, as if he thought the youth might be poisonous.

He felt foolish. The new arrival was not Wraith at all, but just pale of face in a way that the boy had never seen before. Glancing about he saw that only the warrior and the auburn-haired woman had skin like his; he looked beyond the lantern glow and saw there the other woman, the one who had called him little. She had long hair the color of straw pulled back in a tail, and on her face there was an expression of apologetic kindness.

Along with the one who had screamed and frightened him so, there was the last of them, who had had spiky black hair and a wry smile playing about his lips. All three of the pale-skinned people wore similar clothing, all in jackets the color of berrywater.

The one who smiled stepped forward and offered Laaro a hand in greeting, looking him in the eye. The boy understood immediately that he was being measured, but the man’s gaze didn’t feel like the accusatory glares of Elder Aaren. When he spoke, the dark-haired man didn’t use the tone of voice that most adults did when conversing with a child, as if being younger somehow meant you were an idiot. He talked to Laaro as if he were speaking to an equal.

“Hi there. You’re out a little late, aren’t you? Isn’t this a school night?” His smile deepened. “My name’s John, John Sheppard. What’s yours?”

The kid took the colonel’s hand and shook it firmly, not giving in to the fear playing around in his eyes. “I’m Laaro. Are you… Northerners, John-John-Sheppard?”

Sheppard smirked. “Just John is fine. And, uh, no, not exactly. We’re from a bit further away than that.”

“A lot more,” added Ronon, earning him a look from the boy.

“You’re… From the stars?”

McKay frowned. “He catches on quick.”

Laaro fixed him with a hard state. “I’m very clever.”

“Then you two should get on fine.” Sheppard gestured at his team. “Laaro, these are my friends. This is Teyla and Jennifer. These guys are Rodney and Ronon, who you already met. We’re, uh —”

“Voyagers?” asked the boy.

He nodded. “I guess that’s as good a name as any.”

The boy nodded back at him, thinking for a moment. Then he cleared his throat, speaking with the kind of careful formality that only a child could muster. “Um. Then, uh, welcome to the planet Heruun.”

“Thank you,” said Teyla. “We’re sorry if we scared you.”

“I wasn’t scared,” the kid lied immediately. “I was just… Surprised.”

Rodney made a Yeah, Right face and Ronon caught it, pointing at the boy “You screamed louder than he did, McKay.”

“That wasn’t a scream, all right?” Rodney sniffed. “It was an exclamation.” He waved at Laaro. “He could have been anything.”

“A Junior Genii?” Sheppard offered mildly.

Keller chimed in. “Maybe a pint-sized Replicator?”

“Why were you out here all alone?” asked Teyla.

Laaro’s face creased and Sheppard saw immediately that the emotional rollercoaster this kid was on was threatening to throw him off. “I… Wanted to track him down. Rescue him.”

“Rescue?” Keller repeated the word with a frown. “Rescue who?”

The answer came out in a rush. “My father. After the wane-night of the greater moon, when he disappeared —”

But the boy never got the chance to finish his sentence. Sheppard saw Ronon’s expression shift in an instant from watchful amusement to a warning glare. He knew that look from experience; it meant trouble was coming.

“Hear that?” The Satedan’s particle magnum pistol was already clear of its holster. “We got company,” he grated, panning his gun upward toward the valley ridge.

Sheppard brought his P90 submachine gun up to his shoulder, aware of Teyla doing the same at his side. He heard the mutter of voices and an odd sound that reminded him of growling engines.

A heartbeat later, harsh lanterns from the ridge were sweeping the ground around them and the colonel saw men with spindly rifles being led forward by animals straining against heavy leashes. He blinked in the light, his thumb on the gun’s safety catch.

Keller’s voice came from behind him. “Those are lions,” she said evenly, in a way that suggested she didn’t believe her own eyes.

The doctor wasn’t far off; the growling wasn’t from motors, but the big cats themselves, pawing at the earth and spitting. There were three of them, and as Jennifer had noted, they looked a hell of a lot like lions, but with sharper, more triangular skulls. They had the same kind of teeth, though. Lots and lots of teeth.

“Nobody said anything about us gating into the middle of Wild Kingdom,” said McKay with a grimace.

“Take it easy,” Sheppard retorted, making the casual words into a command.

“Laaro? Laaro!” A woman called out the boy’s voice, and John guessed that she had to be his mother. By the way the kid’s shoulders sank there was no other person it could be; the big cats didn’t seem to faze him at all, but the ire of his mom… Well, Sheppard could relate. He’d heard his own name called in just the same way when he’d been Laaro’s age.

Figures detached from the main group and came scrambling down toward them, but the cats remained where they were, snarling and pulling on their leashes. Like the boy, they were regular humans, all of them with the rangy look of people who lived off the land and worked it hard in return. There wasn’t a fair face among them, their skin-tones ranging from warm browns to deep ebony; they looked on Sheppard and his team with suspicion.

A man with a stern expression shot the boy an acid glare and then turned the same look on the colonel. At his side was a woman wearing her hair in a high top-knot; Sheppard saw the family resemblance between her and Laaro immediately, confirming his earlier thoughts.

“Who are you?” demanded the man. “We saw the flash from the Gateway…”

“They’re voyagers,” said Laaro, putting emphasis on the word, “from the stars. They… Perhaps they can help me!”

The kid’s mother came to him, her face a mix of elation and anger. “Why did you run away?” she asked him. “If you had only waited until morning —”

The stern guy — Sheppard had him pegged now as some kind of authority figure, a guess based on the number of bangles jingling up and down the length of his right arm — waved her into silence and approached the group. “Is the boy right? You came through the portal of light?”

“The Stargate,” said McKay. “That’s right.”

“I’m Colonel John Sheppard and this is my team. We’re from a place called Atlantis, maybe you’ve heard of it?” added Sheppard. “We’re not invaders, we’re just here looking for… For information.” He gestured to the others to lower their weapons.

“I do not know this ‘Atlantis’. I am Elder Aaren. And I must ask you, what do you seek on Heruun? If you’re here to trade, I warn you we want for very little.” The man moved carefully, and Sheppard was aware that the men on the ridge with the tubular rifles were following his every move, ready for a signal to open fire; but his team knew how to play these kinds of confrontations from mission after mission in the field. No sudden moves, just nice and easy.

“We seek information about the Wraith,” said Teyla. The reaction from the locals was the same one John Sheppard had seen a hundred times across the Pegasus Galaxy; cold, hard fear.

“The Wraith.” Aaren said the name and then spat in the dirt. “Thank the Aegis that they have been banished from our world. You will find no trace of them here.”

Sheppard and McKay exchanged glances. “Is that so?” said Rodney. “Banished, huh? You guys are lucky, then.”

“Luck has no bearing on it,” came the reply. “The Aegis protects us from their predations.” Aaren beckoned the colonel toward him, with other hand waving down the guns of his men. “Come. See for yourselves.” The man’s manner changed from wary mistrust to smugness in a heartbeat.

“What about Laaro?” said Ronon. “He said his father is lost. You people were out looking for him?”

“We were looking for my son!” said Laaro’s mother. “His father… He…” She broke off and shot a look at the elder.

Aaren leaned closer to speak to Sheppard in a low voice. “The boy is…troublesome. He brings nothing but worry to poor Jaaya, here. He doesn’t quite understand how things work.”

“Right,” Sheppard replied carefully. To be honest, he was having trouble understanding how things worked around here as well, but he kept that to himself for the moment.

“His father is well. He’ll be coming back tonight.”

“From where —?” Keller started to ask the question, but Aaren was already moving off, beckoning once more.

Laaro was being alternately hugged and scolded by Jaaya, and he trailed her up toward the ridge, throwing Sheppard and the others a glum, defeated look.

“So, we’re going with them, then?” said McKay.

“I guess so,” said the colonel, his eyes never leaving the boy’s.

The walk back to the settlement took a while, but the trail was easy going and the two groups moved in a wary lockstep. Rodney McKay kept pace behind Sheppard, half so he could listen in on the colonel’s conversation with Aaren, but also so he could keep someone between himself and the guys handling the lion-cat-things.

The pre-dawn light was emerging at the horizon, an orange-pink band pushing blue into the dark sky overhead.

“Their clothes,” began Keller, apparently thinking out loud as she studied the locals. “Some of them, they’re like a burnoose, those wrap-around things. All lightweight stuff. Kinda Arabian-looking.”

“Maybe,” offered McKay. “This is a savannah region, probably similar to, oh, Southern Africa back home. Figures that they’d have similar dress sense to folks from those places.” One of the animals made a grumbling snarl and pounced on something at the side of the road. Rodney heard a squeal and the crunching of bone as its handler pulled it off its kill. “Oh. Snack time. How nice.”

Keller blinked. “That’s a big kitty, all right.”

“Just as long as it doesn’t want me to pet it,” he replied.

“Ah, lions don’t bite you. Not unless you annoy ’em, or something.”

McKay arched an eyebrow. “You’re from Wisconsin. What makes you a safari expert all of a sudden?”

“Hey, I must have watched Born Free about a million times when I was Laaro’s age.” She grinned. “You know? Born Free, as free as the —”

“I know how it goes,” Rodney retorted, cutting her off in mid-flow. He sniffed and glanced up.

Keller followed his gaze, staring at the fading glow of the glittering banner in the sky. “What is that up there?”

“Ring system,” he explained, “like Saturn has. Ice and dust particles, mostly, held in check by gravitation and —”

“Huh.” Jennifer smiled slightly. “Guess you must have been more a Star Wars kind of kid.”

Rodney shrugged. He didn’t see what bearing that had on anything. “I owned a light saber,” he admitted.

“Owned, or still own?”

He glanced away. “It’s mint in box, okay? And quite rare.” A few steps ahead, Sheppard was walking in conversation with Aaren, and Rodney found himself listening in once more.

“So, this ‘Aegis’ that you spoke about. You said it protects you. It’s a device? A person?” McKay could imagine the direction the colonel’s thoughts were taking. Were the locals using Ancient technology of some sort to drive off the Wraith? The Atlanteans had seen that kind of thing before, on other worlds like the Cloister planet, Proculus and Halcyon.

“It’s not our place to question the nature of the Aegis,” said Aaren, politely but firmly. “It simply is.”

McKay rolled his eyes. So it was another gods-in-the-sky thing then. Great. That was the problem about traveling around this galaxy, where the feeding patterns of the Wraith made sure that hardly anyone ever got their civilization up past their equivalent of the Middle Ages. Nine times out of ten, every new world they went to was just like a visit to the Renaissance Fair. The thing was, every time they did meet people with a tech level closer to Earth’s, they usually ended up being very unfriendly.

“Your people don’t mind being defended by a mysterious benefactor?” Sheppard pressed the point a little more.

Aaren smiled and shook his head. “That is like asking what holds up the sky or who built the moons. These things exist. And we are grateful for them.”

The colonel changed tack. “So, what happened with Laaro’s father?”

“Ah, Errian, yes.” The Elder glanced up the road and his voice dropped; Laaro and Jaaya were only a few meters away, at the head of the party. “The boy lacks discipline, you see. He has no patience to wait.”

“He’s a kid,” said Sheppard. “Kids aren’t real big on waiting for things.”

“Just so,” nodded Aaren. “Errian is one of the Taken. He has been graced several times now. It comes to me as a surprise that the boy has not made his peace with it.”

“Taken.” Sheppard repeated the word and shot a warning look at Rodney.

Aaren was still nodding. “Like all those so chosen, Errian went from his bed in the night, while the settlement slept.”

The man’s words chilled McKay, in their matter-of-fact manner. His thoughts raced; in his book taken was just another word for culled, a nicer term to cover up the cold horror of being captured by the Wraith. “But you said the Wraith don’t come here,” Rodney pushed forward, and Aaren glanced at him.

“Not for a long time, no, not since before the Aegis came.” He gestured at Laaro and his mother. “Jaaya has tried to impress upon her son the reality of the matter, but he resists all good sense. Against my words, he still came out here all alone, as if he thought he could bring his father back himself.” The Elder shook his head, as if the idea was the height of idiocy.

“Then where is Laaro’s dad now?” Sheppard said sharply.

Aaren blinked at the colonel’s tone, but said nothing of it. “The dawn is coming,” he noted, “and Errian will come with it.” The Elder quickened his pace and pointed ahead down the trail. “Come now. We have arrived.”

McKay looked in the direction Aaren was pointing and his mouth dropped open. “Whoa.”

Rising up from the middle of the grasslands was a stand of trees that were broad and wide around the base like giant redwoods reaching skyscraper-high into the air. The trunks exploded outward in vanes of thick branches, each one ending in a fan of lush green and smaller boughs. For a moment, Jennifer thought she saw hordes of glowing fireflies in among the leafy canopy, but then she realized her perspective was off. Keller raised a hand to shield her eyes from the rays of the fast-rising sun and got a better look. The trees were massive, tightly packed and meshing into one another like interlaced fingers; and in between every branch there were platforms and great big woven pods that reminded her of low-hanging fruit. What at first she thought were aerial roots were actually tethers and ropes extending out and down to the ground, leading up to clusters of egg-shaped huts and long, tubular lodges connected by wooden catwalks and byways.

“There’s a whole town in there,” she said. Even as she looked, Keller saw the first white puffs of smoke from chimneys as someone stoked a morning cook fire. There were dirt track roads snaking around the bases of the trees and their hanging gardens, and the Herunni led them on, into the shadow of the woods.

“Who does their decorating, the Ewoks?” said Rodney, incredulous.

“That’s some tree house,” agreed Jennifer. “I had one just like it. Only smaller.”

McKay shook his head. “Not me.” He made a vague gesture in front of his face. “Nosebleeds. And Hay fever.”

Along the road, a man was walking with difficulty toward their group, another younger man helping him to find his way. Keller was wondering who he was when a cry from Laaro answered that question for her. The boy exploded into life and bolted the distance between them, barreling into the figure with such force that he almost knocked him down. Jennifer threw a look in Jaaya’s direction and saw tears on her face, tears of joy.

Aaren nodded smugly. “There, you see. As I said. The Aegis protects.”

“That’s Errian?” Sheppard asked.

Ronon folded his arms, unconvinced, while Teyla watched the reunion. “But did you not just say that this man was abducted?” The Athosian woman put hard emphasis on the last word; she had been listening grimly to Aaren’s words on the journey from the Stargate, and Jennifer had no doubt that she was dwelling on thoughts of her own people, who had recently been spirited away from her by unknown forces.

“I said he was Taken,” noted the Elder. “And now he is Returned.”

“He doesn’t look…” McKay faltered, trying to find the right word. “Uh… old.”

“Keller?” Colonel Sheppard nodded towards the family group.

He didn’t need to say it out loud. Go take a look. Jennifer skirted around Jaaya and came to Laaro’s side. The boy’s face was lit brilliantly from within, and he was talking a mile a minute, babbling on about his adventure that night, about his search for him, the Stargate, and more.

He saw her coming and grinned even wider “Father, look. This is one of the voyagers. Her name is Jenny-far!”

“Hi,” Keller said, feeling a little self-conscious. “Uh, would you mind if I took a look at you, just to see if you’re okay?”

“I…” Laaro’s father gave a wan nod. “Of course.”

The man who had been helping Errian to walk gave her an up-and-down look. “You are a healer?” He had wavy hair, intense brown eyes and a dark scattering of beard. He reminded Jennifer of a cute Indian geneticist she’d known at medical school.

“That’s right.”

He pursed his lips, considering. “As am I. My name is Kullid. And I assure you that Errian is well.”

Keller accepted this with a nod, but pressed on anyway. “No doubt. But it never hurts to have a second opinion.”

The Atlantis team stood in a loose knot in the shade of the tree-settlement. Teyla looked to the horizon and saw the sun finally emerging from behind a range of distant hills. In the moment’s pause, she had removed her jacket and stowed it in her gear pack, sensing the day’s coming heat on the wind. The air felt good on her arms and the freedom of movement she gained made her feel more comfortable still. Ever since the boy had appeared and spoken of his father in such a frightened manner, Teyla had sensed something amiss on this world. It was nothing preternatural, just a deep-seated instinct that gnawed at her. She looked to Ronon and saw that he felt the same thing as well. Unease. Suspicion, even.

She turned back to find John Sheppard watching her intently. “I know that look,” he said. “Are you getting a…” He trailed off and made a fluttering gesture near his head. “A sense of something?”

“There are no Wraith nearby,” she said flatly. “I would know it.”

“Define ‘nearby’, Teyla,” said McKay.

She eyed the scientist. “Forgive me, Rodney, but my psychic connection to the Wraith does not come with a precise readout.” She failed to keep an edge from her words.

“Just asking…”

Teyla frowned, chiding herself for reacting with irritation to the question; but there was an undeniable tension within her that seemed to be growing worse with each passing week. She sighed. Ever since she and Jennifer had returned from New Athos, ever since her own tribe had vanished like vapor, Teyla found it harder and harder to maintain her focus on the here and now. Every stray moment found her thoughts returning to her lost kindred, her mind conjuring up terrible thoughts of who might have taken them, and for what reason….

And then there was the other concern. Teyla’s hand slipped toward her belly without conscious volition. She looked away and found herself meeting Keller’s gaze as the doctor walked back to the group. A silent communication passed between them.

“So?” Sheppard jerked a thumb at Errian and his family. “How’s Daddio?”

“He’s a bit disoriented and dehydrated. Very fatigued. I’d say he probably hasn’t slept for a couple of days, maybe more. He told me he doesn’t remember where he’s been.”

Ronon grunted. “I’ve had mornings like that. Mostly after too much beer.”

“Amnesia?” Sheppard’s lip curled. “Aaren said the guy had been missing for a couple of weeks. He said all of the ‘Taken’ are gone for at least that long.”

“How many are there?” said Ronon, half to himself.

Keller’s brow furrowed in a frown. “Without doing a full medical work-up, I can’t say much more at this point —”

McKay waggled his finger. “But what about the big question?”

Keller shook her head. “No, Rodney. The answer is no.”

“Errian was not fed upon by a Wraith?” Teyla had to say the words aloud to fix them in her thoughts.

“As far as I can see, the man’s never been anywhere near a Wraith.” Keller replied. “No organic decay like we see in the premature aging they cause, no bone thinning that I could detect and most importantly, no sign of a feeding wound.” She opened her hand and held it up, mirroring the pose the aliens used when they attacked.

“That makes no sense,” Ronon retorted. “Wraith don’t take people, keep them up all night, then send them home with hole in their memory. They’re predators. They only want prey.”

“So Aaren was telling the truth, then,” said Teyla. “But if this Aegis he spoke of drives away the Wraith, then what happened to Errian? Who took him?” She nodded in the direction of Laaro and his parents.

“What do you say we find out?” Sheppard asked, as Jaaya approached them.

“Voyagers,” she began, smiling. “Now my husband has come home to us, there will be a celebration. Perhaps, if you would wish, you could join us? My son… He finds so little to keep his attention these days, and now you are all he can speak of.”

Sheppard made a face. “Well, uh —”

Teyla spoke before she was even aware of the words leaving her mouth. “We would be honored, Jaaya.”

“Yeah,” echoed the colonel. “Honored.”

The woman bobbed her head. “And we have much room in our lodge. You are welcome to think of it as your own while you visit us. The celebration of the Returned will be a great feast!”

“The Returned,” echoed Teyla. “There are more than one?”

“As it always is,” Jaaya answered, her smile faltering a little. “Twenty are taken. Twenty are returned.”