Sorry for the delay in this, my friends. My sister is visiting me from Kenya over Christmas, and so I've been slightly distracted. Hope you enjoy
oOoOoOo
As soon as they entered the bar, John could see why Ronon had likened it to the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars. The characters that frequented it seemed just as disreputable as the ones in the movie.
However, he didn't let his eyes linger on the strange and varied mix of characters he saw before him. He wasn't looking for strangers; he was looking for the familiar features of Dr Carson Beckett. For a moment, he thought he saw the familiar blue eyes gazing at him across the room, filled with their usual compassion. But he realized quickly, that his own eyes were playing tricks on him. The eyes belonged to a painting, hanging on the bar's rather soiled walls.
Ronon had obviously been scanning the room too. And with his added height, had an advantage over the others.
"He's not here," he said, decisively.
"Not here, as in "not here"?" Rodney asked, indicating the room with his hands. "Or not here, as in "NOT HERE"?" This time Rodney swept his arms around more widely.
"I mean, he's not here," Ronon replied, raising his eyebrows at the scientist.
"Have you any idea where he might be?" Teyla asked, eyeing the various doors that led off the main room of the bar.
"Those doors over there," Ronon said, pointing to his left, "lead to the gaming rooms."
"I doubt if Carson will be there," Teyla said, with a quirk of her eyebrows.
"Those lead to the entertainment rooms," Ronon continued, pointing to the other side of the room.
"Do they," John said, sounding half interested.
Rodney thumped him on the arm. "Concentrate!" the Canadian said.
"And those," Ronon continued, pointing to the far end of the room, "lead to a whole load of "guest" rooms, that you can hire for as long as you need to."
"That seems like a good place to start, then," John said, heading towards the doors Ronon had just indicated.
Before the group managed to get half-way towards the doors, a large, hairy man stepped in front of them. He was the sort that made Ronon look neat and tidy, and although he wasn't as tall at the Satedan, he made up for it in width.
"How much for the boy?" the man asked, abruptly, pointing at Jinto.
"He's not for sale," John said, immediately.
"But how much for him?" the man persisted.
"He's not for sale," Ronon rumbled, placing his not inconsiderable bulk between Jinto and the man.
"Everyone has a price," the man sneered.
Ronon reached out a large hand, and seemingly without effort, he grabbed the man by the furry collar of the coat he was wearing and lifted him off the ground. Once the man's eye line was level with Ronon's, the tall man leaned forward until his face was only inches away from the other man's.
"We said he is not for sale," Ronon stated, pronouncing each word carefully, as if he was speaking to someone who wasn't very bright. "If that's not clear enough for you, then maybe this'll help."
With that, he head-butted the man, giving him what Carson would have called a "Glasgow Kiss". The man crumpled to the floor, twitched once, and then lay still.
It said a lot about the type of bar that it was, when no-one seemed to bat an eyelid at what had happened. All the patrons simply ignored the fallen man, even to the extent that they stepped over him, when they needed to get passed his prone figure.
The team made it to the doors without further interference. Ronon kept Jinto close by his side all the time, and the boy seemed willing to be kept there. Teyla took up guard at his other side, and with John and Rodney close by, the young lad seemed to relax. John glanced at him, trying to assess how the Athosian was coping. Jinto's eyes were wide, and John saw both fear and excitement reflected there. As he looked at the boy, Jinto's eyes met John's. He nodded acknowledgement of what he saw in the boy's eyes, and the unflinching way that the youngster met his fear.
Reaching the door, John opened it and ushered the others through, as he and Ronon kept watch. As the door closed behind them, Jinto wasn't the only one who let out an audible sigh of relief, even if his adolescent sigh was very definitely the loudest.
Allowing the boy a moment to recover, John turned to Rodney.
"Anything showing up on the life-signs detector?" he asked, nodding at the device Rodney had taken out of his pocket.
"Nothing," Rodney said with an edge of frustration in his voice. "There must be something here that jams the signal."
"Most people here don't want to be found," Ronon replied.
"Okay, Jado," John said, looking at the chicu that had been hiding in Jinto's rucksack. "Let's see if you can find Carson."
The little creature chattered at him angrily and then hid its face in Jinto's neck.
"His name's Jada," Jinto corrected.
"And he seems really keen to do as you tell him," Rodney added helpfully.
"Thank you, Rodney," John said, turning to the other man, and giving him a smack on the head.
"What was that for?" Rodney asked, as the chicu chattered in apparent delight.
"I just felt like it," John replied.
Teyla gave the two men a pointed look, before smiling at Jinto.
"You seem to forget, John," she said. "The reason we brought Jinto with us was because Jada would obey only him."
John looked slightly abashed at this reminder, while Ronon just snorted his amusement.
"Okay, Jinto," John responded, trying to recover the situation. "Could you ask Jada," – he stressed the final syllable – "to find Carson for us."
The boy grinned widely, and then turned to his pet. He took its small face between his hands and gently forced the chicu to look into his eyes.
"Jada," he said softly, but firmly. "Find Dr Beckett, nice Dr Beckett." As he said this, he lifted a discarded glove they had managed to find that Carson had used.
The little creature sniffed it delicately, then turned to Jinto and chattered happily to him for a moment; it then put out its long, delicate tongue and gave the boy a lick on the ear before it scampered off.
If the situation hadn't been so critical, it would have been amusing to see the four adults and one boy chasing after the tiny creature as it scampered from door to door. Sometimes it would stop, and cock its head to the side as if it were listening. Then its long tongue would flick out as if it was sampling the air, before it took off in hot pursuit of whatever trace of Carson it was following.
After half an hour, the little chicu stopped decisively in front of a door, and then turned to Jinto and chattered determinedly.
"Is Carson in there?" Rodney asked, almost before the creature had stopped chattering.
"All Jada says is that his presence is strong there," Jinto said, a slight frown forming between his brows.
John nodded to Ronon, and both men drew their guns. Teyla shepherded Jinto and his pet to the relative safety of the far side of the corridor, and drew her own gun. Rodney studied the life signs detector as if he could make it work by sheer force of will.
John nodded again, and Ronon kicked in the door with one forceful blow. The two men then jumped through the new opening, guns at the ready, sweeping the room for potential dangers.
The room was depressingly empty.
"All clear," John said, his tone half-hearted.
The others joined them in the room, scanning the room themselves in the hope they might find something the others missed.
"Are you sure that thing knows what it's doing?" Ronon asked.
It was Rodney who answered. "It does," he said simply, holding up a power bar wrapper.
"Carson put that in his pocket, just before Michael took him," Rodney said, sounding depressed. "I know it's the same one, because he ripped it open funnily." As Rodney spoke, he held up the wrapper, which formed a spiral.
"Damn," Ronon said, thudding his fist into the wall in frustration. The echo of his disappointment reverberated round the room.
oOoOoOo
The Lanteans' progress worried Michael. He had not anticipated that they would arrive quite this quickly, or that they would be able to trace them as easily. He had Carson well hidden, for now, but he knew it would only be a matter of time before some low-life on this planet betrayed his whereabouts.
The ship he had planned to use for his getaway was still several days from being ready. It still needed extensive repairs, and although it could fly, it wouldn't be any match for the firepower his enemies, all of them, could throw at him.
He needed to bide his time, be patient and hope that the good doctor's friends would not find them. But patience was not something Michael had in abundance.
He glanced round at the doctor. The Scot was sleeping like a baby, curled up on the bench in the corner of the room. He was sleeping off the latest round of drugs Michael had fed him.
The Wraith had been more than economical with the truth when he spoke to Beckett earlier. The drugs wouldn't kill him, well, at least not straight away. He'd only said that to see the fear spring into the Scot's eyes. Michael enjoyed fear, in others anyway.
But his words hadn't been complete lies. The drug would kill the doctor, just not immediately. As well as making the addict pliable and open to suggestion, the drug also gave them great bursts of energy. In his most manic phase, Carson had put together a form of the retrovirus, that was, he had assured Michael, the first stage towards converting the semi-Wraith into a full Wraith. Michael believed him. The drug made it difficult for the doctor to hide anything.
Now Carson was sleeping off the exhaustion caused by the burst of continuous activity. That was how the drug killed. It caused the addict to over-strain their body, working more frantically than nature ever intended, more frantically than even Rodney McKay at his most desperate. The exhaustion that followed would increase each time, until eventually their body just gave out under the strain.
Michael turned and looked at the ashen face of the sleeping doctor. He, better than most, knew how strong the doctor was, both physically and mentally. They'd already fought a battle of wills, and although the Wraith had won that battle, Michael did not feel that victory in the war would automatically be his. There was a stubborn, hidden strength to the man. A strength that Michael hoped would allow the doctor to finish perfecting the retrovirus before the drug consumed all his strength and left the Scot too weak to live.