Secrets

Chapter Four Traveling

The woods were growing thicker, the trees smaller but more closely spaced, forcing them closer to the banks of the stream. At least it was running steadily in the right direction, and the going was easier along its edges. They were making good progress, Ronon thought, had covered close to 6 faerings since morning — that would be, what, 17 or 18 of the Lanteans’ kilometers. Jennifer was holding up well. If anything, she’d been getting stronger, didn’t seem at all bothered by whatever had made her pass out on the hive ship. He was beginning to think maybe it was just a reaction to the retrovirus after all, something that had happened once, and would not repeat. Rodney, on the other hand… He glanced over his shoulder to see McKay leaning heavily on a thin metal rod, sharp teeth bared in a silent snarl. Rodney saw him looking and straightened, glaring, but Ronon wasn’t fooled. They had a serious problem on their hands.

He squinted at the sky, trying to gauge the sun’s position among the branches. Definitely past the zenith, declining toward sunset, but he’d hoped to get a little further while the light lasted.

“If you were thinking of going easy on me,” Rodney said, “I want you to know that I’m fine. Well, as fine as I’m going to be, hiking through an alien forest just waiting for something to trigger my allergies, but, as these things go, generally all right.”

If he didn’t look back, Ronon thought, it was unmistakably Rodney. Take a look, though, and it was a Wraith, a hungry Wraith, too close behind. The skin between his shoulder blades crawled at the idea.

“Maybe we ought to take a break?” Jennifer looked from one to the other. “You know, take a drink, maybe split a power bar?”

Ronon nodded reluctantly. Rest now, and maybe McKay could make it another faering before they camped for the night. “OK.”

He swung the improvised pack off his shoulder, offered Jennifer the container of water. She fumbled with the unfamiliar fastening for a moment, then drank deeply and handed it back. Ronon drank, too, and out of the corner of his eye saw Rodney settle onto the ground at the edge of the stream. He trailed his feeding hand in the cold water, his face tight and expressionless, and Jennifer took a breath.

“Rodney.”

“Yes?” McKay didn’t look at her.

“Rodney, I have to ask. When was the last time you fed?”

Rodney flinched, and Ronon looked away, unable to bear the picture that formed in his mind: Rodney in the feeding cells of a hive, choosing from among the bound humans that filled the niches, Rodney with his hand buried in a stranger’s flesh, drawing the life from their body in a single terrible rush of pain.

“It’s been a while,” Rodney said. He wouldn’t look at them, as though that made it easier. “Not since I — remembered who I was. Which makes it several weeks, at least, maybe as many as five.” He paused. “Too long. So if you’re going to shoot me, make it somewhere non-lethal, please. I’m not sure how well I’d regenerate.”

Ronon grinned at that, but Jennifer just nodded.

“So you can regenerate?” she asked. “We weren’t sure how — complete — the transformation had been.”

“Complete,” Rodney said. He paused. “At least — well, I can, could regenerate small things, cuts, bruises, minor burns. I didn’t get shot or anything like that.”

“Let me see your arm,” Jennifer said. Rodney hesitated, and she frowned. “Come on, Rodney, I’m going to have to examine you sometime.”

“I’d prefer it were in slightly more sterile surroundings,” Rodney said. “The chance of some weird alien infection seems way too high.”

He broke off, flushing, and Jennifer grinned in spite of herself. “That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about right now. Take your coat off.”

Rodney shrugged himself out of the supple leather, and Jennifer knelt beside him, her long hands moving deftly over his neck and shoulders. Ronon reached back, rested his hand on his blaster for reassurance. This was Rodney; there was no reason to think he’d snap, snap and spring, his feeding hand flashing up and out to fasten on Jennifer’s throat — The image was too clear, clear and true and shocking, and Ronon shook his head, trying to drive it away.

Jennifer was still talking as she worked. “— no bruising at the injection site, which I would have expected since I wasn’t, well, very careful about it? We were kind of in a hurry. So I’d say you still have some ability to heal yourself. Otherwise —” She had taken the notebook and pencil from the first aid kid, was jotting down information as she spoke. “Otherwise, I think you’re in pretty good shape. From what we’ve been able to figure out about the Wraith, anyway.”

She pushed herself to her feet, and Rodney looked up at her. “Which is how much?” he demanded.

“Enough,” Jennifer said. Her eyes flickered, but she plowed on anyway. “Enough to manage getting you back to yourself. You said there was a maintenance drug?”

“Yes.”

“When did you have your last dose of that?”

Rodney shrugged the coat back over his shoulders. “The morning of the attack. So that means I’ve missed one, almost two doses now.”

“OK.” Jennifer stared at the notebook, her hands still, and Ronon cleared his throat.

“You should eat. If you’re going to. And then we need to keep moving.”

“Right.” Jennifer’s voice was just a little off, and she turned hastily away to rummage in the makeshift pack. “Do you want half?”

“Yeah,” Ronon said. It wouldn’t do much for his hunger, but it would do until they made camp — there was a pair of coneys in the pack that he would cook then, solid protein to sustain them. Jennifer unwrapped the bar, broke it scrupulously into two sections. Ronon took his share, and she turned away, wandering a little way up the stream as she ate. Ronon watched her go, made himself finish the sweet sticky rectangle.

“Ronon,” Rodney said. He spoke softly, too quietly to be heard more than a foot away. “I wouldn’t — you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

In spite of knowing better, the image came flooding back, Jennifer withering under a Wraith’s hands, and Ronon suppressed the desire to reach for his blaster. “Damn right you won’t,” he said, and stooped to collect the pack. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

They stopped at sunset in a small clearing beside the stream. Ronon set up the shelter and cleaned the coneys while the others collected wood for the fire, then spitted the coneys and set them to cook above the flames. The pinewood burned fierce and hot, sending up puffs of sparks when a particularly resinous branch caught, and the air smelled of burnt sugar and the roasting meat. Jennifer sat cross-legged by the fire, frowning over her notebook, pausing now and then to scribble something. Behind her, Rodney moved restlessly along the edge of the circle of firelight, still gathering wood as though that would take his mind off things. In the gathering dark, his shape was too familiar, white hair and black coat, and Ronon felt his shoulders twitch again. Wraith had circled outside his fires before.

“Hey, McKay.”

Rodney turned, too fast, and Ronon shuddered. “That’s enough wood for now. Come and sit down.”

“Yes, fine,” Rodney said, and stooped to pick up another branch.

Jennifer looked up, the firelight gleaming on her hair. “Ronon. Is there any way we could make, I don’t know, broth of some kind? Boil some of the meat?”

Ronon considered for a moment, running over his mental inventory. “Not unless — hey, McKay.”

“What now?” Rodney dropped his armload of wood on the pile they’d already gathered, dropped down on the far side of the fire. They were sitting at the three points of a triangle, Ronon realized, equidistant around the fire, each as far from the others as they could get.

“Is that carrier thing fireproof?”

“What?” Rodney frowned. “No. No, definitely not.”

Ronon looked at Jennifer. “Then, no.”

“What?” Rodney asked again, and it was Jennifer who answered.

“I was hoping I could maybe boil up some broth for you. If you — if the drug is wearing off, that might help get your digestion working again.”

Not much chance of that, Ronon thought, but said nothing. He turned the spitted coneys again, and fed another branch into the fire, watching the sparks flare.

“I could stand to eat a little something,” Rodney said, almost wistfully. “I mean, actual food — this smells really good.”

Jennifer hesitated. “It probably couldn’t hurt,” she said.

When the coneys were done, Ronon pulled them off the fire, set them on broad leaves he’d collected earlier and cut them into manageable portions with Jennifer’s multi-tool. He had a feeling she’d be more willing to eat if it looked more or less like a normal portion. After a moment’s hesitation, she took the tool herself, carved off a sliver of the meat for Rodney.

“You can have some of mine, too,” Ronon said, but she shook her head.

“You need more food than I do. And he’s not getting much, anyway.”

She was right, and Ronon settled back, methodically stripping the meat from the bones. It was tough and savorless, tasting more of smoke than anything. If he’d been on Sateda, he would have had salt, carried in a jar no bigger than his thumb: common issue in the army, common property for anyone who traveled wild. This tasted like a Runner’s meat. He killed that thought, made himself keep eating.

Across the fire, Rodney nibbled gingerly at the sliver of coney breast. There was an odd look on his face, as though he were remembering something and wasn’t sure if it were good.

“How do you feel?” Jennifer asked, after a moment, and he looked up with a quick smile.

“Better, I think. I think it’s helping.”

“Do you want some more?” Jennifer was carving as she spoke, and Rodney nodded.

“Thanks.”

Ronon watched him eat, caught in the wavering firelight, a shape in black hunched over a strip of meat. It was not a reassuring sight, even though Wraith do not eat, and he looked away.

“More?” Jennifer asked, and Rodney shook his head.

“No — well, yes, but I think it would be smarter to wait and see.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Ronon said, gruffly, and Jennifer nodded.

“Yes,” she said, and looked at Rodney. “Good night, then.”

Rodney looked back at her across the fire, his face tired and thin, the firelight giving him a passing hint of human color. “Good night,” he said, and for an instant his voice wavered.

Ronon woke in the cool light of dawn to the sound of someone being comprehensively sick on the far side of the dying fire. He rolled over, expecting it to be Jennifer, but she was sitting upright in the shelter’s mouth, her face unreadable. Beyond the fire, Rodney straightened, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.

“I should know better,” he said, weakly, and Jennifer pushed herself to her feet.

“Let me take a look at you.”

“I’m fine,” Rodney said. “It’s just — you know how I am with strange foods, and alien animals cooked over an open fire kind of fit that description.”

Jennifer ignored him, came around the fire to inspect the mess. Rodney backed away.

“Oh, god, that was bad enough when Newton had a hairball! Don’t tell me you’re going to — oh, that’s disgusting!”

“You said you felt better after you ate,” Jennifer said. Her voice was remote.

“I did!” Rodney paused. “I did.”

“Don’t lie to me!” Jennifer glared at him. “None of this has been digested. At all.”

“I did feel better,” Rodney said. “Until I didn’t.”

Ronon rolled his eyes, crawled out of the shelter. It wasn’t that he had expected Rodney to be better, to be less a Wraith — but, he admitted, he had allowed himself to hope. And they were still a long way from the Stargate. Reluctantly, he picked up the Wraith device that someone — Jennifer, he told himself firmly — had left within reach, and checked the nacreous screen. It showed that they had covered a little more than half the distance to the Stargate, but he couldn’t find that as encouraging as it should be. Not with Rodney still doubled over, one hand pressed against his stomach.

“I’m fine,” Rodney said, to Jennifer, and was promptly sick again.

They got a later start than they had the previous day, and Ronon resigned himself to at least another day’s travel. He’d hoped that maybe, if Rodney was stronger, if everything had gone right, that they might reach the Stargate in one long day’s march. At least he’d managed to snare another coney for this night’s meal, and, if he couldn’t catch another on the march, there were always roots and berries. He recognized several edible species, or at least their close analogues, and the meat had agreed with him and Jennifer well enough that it was unlikely there was anything actually poisonous in the vegetation.

What he didn’t like was the way the ground was changing. The trees were thinning out, the grass growing taller, coarser, and the stream they had been following seemed wider. The current was stronger, too, the sound of the water louder, and he wasn’t surprised when they came out from under the last of the trees to find themselves on the edge of a cliff. The stream plunged over the edge, and ten meters below, rainbows glimmered in the cloud of spray.

“Oh, that’s just lovely,” Rodney said, and sat down hard underneath the closest tree.

Ronon leaned forward, mindful of the loose stones and crumbling soil, and peered down into the canyon. A river had carved it, still ran down its center, shallow but fast, its bed strewn with boulders. It had been higher in the past, Ronon thought, judging from the debris scattered along the banks, but it was fast enough that it would be a struggle to cross. More to the point, the cliff face was close to vertical, and the rock looked loose and friable. He could — maybe — climb down, but he doubted he could get either Rodney or Jennifer down without rope. And rope they didn’t have. Nor were there vines or anything else that looked like a likely alternative.

He straightened, looking along the length of the cliff. Downstream, it seemed to rise higher, but once you crossed the waterfall, it looked as though the slope might ease. If he followed it further, there might be a place they could get down without a climb. And get back up the other side. Except — He looked over his shoulder at Rodney slumped beneath the tree. Rodney didn’t have the strength to waste casting up and down the cliff for a safe crossing.

Jennifer forced a smile. Her hair was coming loose from its severe tail, wisps clinging to her skin, and he couldn’t help thinking again how pretty she was. “I’m guessing this is a problem,” she said, and he nodded.

“Yeah.” Beautiful and fragile and indomitable, he thought, and as hard to read as the Earth people always were.

“I don’t think I can get down there,” she said, and leaned cautiously over the edge. “Not without rope.”

“Which we don’t have,” Rodney said. “Nor, may I point out, do we have anything to make a rope with.”

Jennifer grimaced at that, as though at a memory.

Ronon said, “Rodney’s right.” He glanced at the sky — after noon already, which meant he’d need to find a way down fairly quickly. The river below them looked relatively shallow, no more than waist deep at the deepest points, but the current was fast, and it wasn’t something he wanted to try to cross in failing light. No, he’d have to find a crossing, and to do that, he’d need to leave the others here. Jennifer with Rodney. Jennifer with a Wraith — no, Jennifer with Rodney in a Wraith’s body. That was the only safe way to think of it, the only way he could bear to leave them. He drew his blaster before he could change his mind, held it out to Jennifer. “It’s set on stun,” he said. “I’m going to look for a place to cross. Shoot him if — if there’s any trouble.”

“Oh, for —” Rodney broke off, looking pinched and miserable.

“There won’t be,” Jennifer said, but she took the blaster. “Thank you.”

“If there is,” Ronon began, and stopped, knowing it was pointless. “Don’t hesitate,” he said at last, and turned away.

Rodney rested his head against the bole of the tree, and closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to look at Jennifer turning Ronon’s blaster over and over in her hands. Somehow this was not what he’d expected from a rescue. First of all, he’d assumed they’d pull it off neatly, and that he’d be back on Atlantis, safe in the infirmary while Jennifer and Carson figured out how to reverse the transformation. Though, given the way missions usually turned out, that was probably too much to expect. He’d lost track of how many plans had gone wildly wrong, starting the first day they walked through the gate. So being stranded on a strange planet three days from the Stargate was probably just more of the same. And he’d expected that the whole team would be there, John and Teyla, and probably a couple of squads of Marines — they’d brought in the heavy guns when Teyla was missing, after all. And, most of all, most painfully of all, for some reason he’d thought that if Jennifer had come to his rescue that somehow it might end up like the movies, Jennifer in his arms promising everything would be all right. He could almost smell the faint clean scent of her hair pressed against his lips, her skin giving way under his claws as he fed —

He jerked upright, appalled by the thought, by the pulsing hunger, closed his feeding hand painfully tight over the handmouth. Jennifer gave him a wary glance.

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Rodney answered. It was true enough, though not the whole truth. He felt — lost, alien in this body, caught up in instincts he still didn’t completely understand. It wasn’t that he couldn’t control himself, of course he could; it was more that the lines were blurring, Rodney McKay and Quicksilver, Atlantis’s cleverman and Death’s scientist. Jennifer was still looking at him, and he made himself smile, hoping it was more than a baring of teeth. “Lightheaded. Which, you know, really isn’t that surprising —”

“How long can a Wraith go without feeding?” Jennifer asked. Her voice was still remote, too controlled, and suddenly Rodney wanted nothing more than to smash that calm, to drive her into his arms.

“I have no idea. They made me think I was one of them, just the way we did with Michael, which, by the way, was an even more stunningly bad idea than we thought it was at the time, so they weren’t exactly telling me things that I was supposed to already know. It all depends, whether you were well fed to start with, whether you have to heal, or if you’re exerting yourself — maybe even your genetic heritage. There’s no single factor! It’s all completely individual.”

“And you last fed — a month ago, you said?”

Rodney stopped, his anger too hard to sustain. “About then, yes. Look, Jennifer — I didn’t feed myself.” That seemed important, something she needed to believe. “They fed me, first Dust, and then Ember — they were the clevermen who took care of me, who — managed — me. I mean, I know it’s — people are still dead, but —”

He stopped, unable to go on, and Jennifer gave him a wincing smile. “Oh, Rodney. I’m so sorry.”

That was something, though he would have liked the touch of her hand. “I’m all right,” he said. “I can make it to the Stargate.”

“You know,” Jennifer said. “Um, I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s not a good thing,” Rodney said. “Thinking, on a mission — that’s usually a bad sign.”

She smiled, but abstractedly, and worked Ronon’s blaster into the front of her jacket. The butt protruded at an awkward angle, but it left her with both hands free. “Carson and I have been doing a lot of work toward getting you back to normal. We’ve made good progress, and in the process, we’ve learned a lot more about Wraith physiology. And about how Wraith feed, what actually happens —” She fiddled with the zipper of the jacket, holding the blaster more securely. “That’s part of how we developed the retrovirus, you know? Well, that, and working with Todd. He was working on something like it already.” She took a deep breath. “My point is, I think this version of the retrovirus works. It worked in simulation, and I think it will work now, so I think it’s time —”

“Oh, no,” Rodney said. “Absolutely not. No, no, no, that’s a terrible idea —”

“The transformation is — in all our simulations, it’s a strenuous process,” Jennifer said. “It puts an enormous strain on the system. And you’re hungry already.”

“Hungry,” Rodney said. “Not starving.” He hoped it was true.

“You — we may need to test the virus,” Jennifer said. Her voice was perfectly steady. “We need to get you back to Atlantis in as good shape as possible.”

“No,” Rodney said again. “Jennifer —” He stopped, shaking his head. “OK, hypothetically, I see your point. And, maybe, once we’re back in Atlantis, if there are no other options, then, OK, yes, we could maybe have to revisit this. But not now. Not here. If anything goes wrong —”

“You are changing,” Jennifer said softly. “You may need to feed while you still can.”

“Ronon says we’re only one more day from the Stargate,” Rodney said. “One more day.” He held up his feeding hand, felt the mouth throb with his heartbeat, with the pulse of his hunger. “I’m still — I haven’t changed that much. Not enough to matter.” The words were bitter on his tongue.

Her mouth thinned, but she nodded reluctantly. “OK,” she said. “One more day.”