Chapter 14

Rodney kicked at the damp, leaf-strewn ground, digging the toe of his boot into the dirt. There was nothing he could do, nothing to fix, no solution that could spring, fully-formed, from the seething mass of his panic-heightened intellectual processes. He felt useless.

Elizabeth and the Manarians had cooked up a plan between them to allow Smeadon to go through the Gate, but to have forces ready to intercept him on each of the planets where he had established alternative covers. When Gard had heard about the plan, he had shaken his head.

"He'll not go to any of those," he said. "He'll have had word that I've been there, sniffing around after him. Unless the Manarians know some places that I didn't find, which is unlikely."

They waited, Lorne's team staking out the farmhouse and Stackhouse and his men covering a perimeter around the cave entrance. Gard had gone and Rodney hoped he wasn't planning his own ambush, which could put John and Teyla's lives in danger. Rodney and Carson waited in the camp, trying to keep the fire going; the locals had already departed. Two of the three hours were up, and Rodney was twitching with nerves, wanting to do something, to provide some kind of viable alternative. He felt a tug at the sleeve of his jacket.

"Not now, Boudicca."

The tug came again, accompanied by a small growl. Rodney looked down into the priss's narrowed eyes, the glare conveying impatience and urgency. She bounded around him and began pushing him with her head and paws.

"I'd say your friend wants to play!" said Carson.

"No, she doesn't. Do you?"

Rodney crouched down so that he was on Boudicca's eye-level. She gave a long, throaty growl, followed by a decisive snarl.

"That's the first sensible thing I've heard in hours," said Rodney. He checked and reholstered his Beretta. "Carson, bring your kit. We're going."

"What? Going where?"

Rodney scrambled to keep up as the priss disappeared into the sparse, scrubby woodland, her tail low, her carriage the slink of a stalking predator. He turned to check that Carson was following, and then plunged between the thorn trees.

oOo

Their hands were not tied, and yet there were no opportunities for escape. Eyes followed John and Teyla as they were directed, at gunpoint, through the cavern; many pairs of eyes and most of them hostile. The soldiers were clustered in small groups of bedrolls, each around a campfire, over which were suspended cooking pots. John looked up at the roof of the cavern: blackened, as if the fires had been in place for quite a while. There were woodpiles here and there. John scanned the bedrolls: a couple of hundred, he estimated. The logistics of this haphazard and ill-supplied operation made John frown. Having signed-off on many re-supply forms for the Atlantis kitchens, he knew very well exactly how much food a force of this size would consume. Where was it all coming from? And the firewood; how many trees had they cut down to keep this area of the cave complex habitable? Something told John the answers to these questions were important.

"Move!" John felt a sharp jab in his back and tried to pick his way through the groups of soldiers more quickly. Where was Karron taking them? There were at least two entrances to the cave complex, John thought; one where they had entered in the armoured vehicle and one where they had been taken to Smeadon. They hadn't actually seen an entrance that way, but the room had given the impression of a cellar. If Karron was betraying his leader, he couldn't take them either way; there would be troops loyal to Smeadon at both entrances, which implied that there was some kind of back door.

They had reached the end of the cavern where the walls narrowed toward a black crevice. John's eyes flicked to Teyla's and he saw his own uncertainty reflected. If Smeadon had struck a bargain for their release, these troops would not want their hostages, their barrier against attack by Atlantean forces, to be spirited away.

The muzzle of a gun pressed into his cheek and Karron's harsh voice whispered threateningly over his shoulder.

"Just try it. Try it and I'll shoot her. Do you think these men care if there's one or two of you?"

"They'd care if there's neither. They'd care that you're a traitor."

The muzzle pressed more harshly. "Try it, then, and see your friend killed."

John allowed himself to be pushed forward into the narrow passageway.

oOo

"Rodney, wait!" Carson struggled up the narrow defile, labouring under the load of his heavy kit. Rodney didn't hear, and Carson was losing sight of him on the overgrown path. It was like a steep tunnel, earth and rock underfoot, overhung by briars and thorn bushes, sometimes narrowing so much that Carson had to force his way through, his arms protecting his face. He could no longer even hear Rodney, and then the way became so overgrown that he had to get down on his hands and knees and crawl, the damp seeping through the knees of his pants. His pack snagged on something; he was stuck.

"Rodney!" Carson tried to push forward but the tangle of briars didn't yield. Then he felt himself unhooked and there was a hand in front of his face. He grasped it and was pulled, feet flailing, out into the open, onto coarse, tussocky grass. Carson heaved himself gratefully up and stood, bent, hands on his knees, puffing.

Fresh, blustery wind pushed at him in gusts, splattering large drops of rain in his face. Banks of low cloud rolled across the gray-brown, undulating landscape; they had emerged onto the high moorland. Carson turned and looked back the way they had come. The slope below was steep, rocky and, in places, sheer. A sweep of hostile vegetation plunged down through overlapping buttresses of land; if he hadn't known it was there, Carson would have struggled to trace any route passable without climbing equipment.

"Rodney, what are we doing up here?" Carson had to shout over the roaring of the wind in his ears.

"Following!" yelled Rodney. Carson was surprised; he knew his friend was not usually enthusiastic when it came to physical activity, and the exhilaration in his face, the pink cheeks and gleaming blue eyes made him look like a stranger. He supposed the release of pent-up frustration and helplessness must have given Rodney a burst of energy.

"Come on!" Rodney grabbed Carson's arm and pulled him along the faint animal trail between the winter-brown heather and stalks of tough grass. A cloud-bank tumbled across in front of them and they could only follow the trail and hope Boudicca was ahead. Carson felt the cold clamminess against his face and settling in his hair. Rodney, only a couple of yards ahead, was a dim, dark gray shape amidst the paler gray surroundings. Then he came into focus and Carson realised he had stopped. He could hear Rodney's panting breath and his own, but nothing else. Rodney spoke, and his words were muffled and dead, damped by the engulfing grayness.

"What's that?"

Carson moved up alongside him. A great mass of darkness reared high above them, looming out of the threatening unknown, seeming to shift in the swirls of obscuring vapour. They stood, unmoving, silent. Then there was an eerie, hollow-sounding call and Carson's stomach dropped and his teeth clenched in fear. Rodney, however, stepped forward and, with a great gust of wind, the rolling grayness was swept away into ragged streamers and Carson could see a huge outcropping of black rock. On a ledge halfway up, stood their guide. She called again, turned, and disappeared into the solid mass.

Rodney looked at Carson. "There must be a way in!" he said. "Boudie's found us a back door!"

oOo

The question of food supply was answered in the first antechamber they reached, where John and Teyla had to push through ranks of hanging carcasses of small sheep-like creatures. The animals represented a significant hunting effort and provided a potential answer to another question, which would interest the locals very much. John wondered if he and Teyla could use the carcasses as swinging weapons or shields, but he was made to walk through first, while Karron held his weapon trained on Teyla, and then he was held at gunpoint while Teyla came through. Karron and the other two men were irritatingly careful, not giving away any advantage to their prisoners, even when the string of electric lights ended and they had to progress by the waving beams of flashlights.

There had been a narrow opening at the rear of the cold storage cave, which was the beginning of a long, uneven passage, where John had to concentrate hard to retain his footing. The floor rose and fell abruptly, the walls sometimes leant at an angle or turned through sharp zig zags as the split in the ancient rock had, aeons ago, shattered through the weakest points of the crystalline structure. John found himself using both hands and feet to make his way, which would have been exhausting even if he were fit and, as it was, his ribs erupted in shocking stabs of pain at every movement, the wound in his arm throbbed and burned, and he could feel sluggish trickles of blood running down toward his wrist. The air had a uniform chill deadness, with no enlivening draught to tell of fresh air ahead. For a while, John had heard only his breathing and the sound of boots against rock, flat and close in the confined space of the passage. Then he had a sense of space about him, the bobbing beams of light flew out into black emptiness and his rasping breath was enlarged and flung back at him by distant surfaces.

He picked his way cautiously forward and then stood, relieved to be properly upright, a hand to either side resting on tall, thin stalagmites. He looked over his shoulder and saw Teyla, outlined in the flashlight beams, her face not visible, but the droop of her shoulders telling of her exhaustion.

Karron's voice came from behind a beam of light.

"Keep going!"

"Which way?" John asked, his croaking voice harsh in the huge void of the cavern. One of the flashlight beams flickered here and there and then settled on a black hole, about a third of the way round the chamber to John's left. They would have to climb to reach it.

He continued, doggedly, weaving his way through the eerie formations, finding a secure grip on their smooth dampness before setting down each foot on the treacherous surface; John was very sure that a twisted ankle would mean abandonment, or worse. He came to the undulating wave of flowstone which led to their exit. If Karron made them both go first here, he and Teyla could swiftly disappear from sight into the blackness of the passage; John decided he'd rather take his chances in the labyrinthine cave network than stay in Karron's gun sights any longer.

"Wait!" A sharp command and Karron sent one of his men up first, who held his weapon steadily trained on John and Teyla as they climbed, their hands rapidly becoming numb in the thin trickle of icy water that came from the passageway. At the top, John thought his exhaustion was causing his ears to hiss, but as they moved along the damp tunnel the hissing grew louder and resolved itself into the rush and tumble of water over rock.

Soon, they stood at the edge of a rolling mass of white water, hurtling down to their left and falling abruptly into the darkness, to drop into the immeasurable depths.

"Go!" barked Karron.

"Go where?" snarled John.

The flashlight probed here and there up the stream.

"Up this side, then across there, where those rocks stick out, then, see, through that crack." Karron didn't sound quite so sure of himself and one of his men muttered something about there being 'much more water' than previously. John studied the route picked out for him and began to climb, interested that Karron was letting him go first. He pulled himself up, cautiously, feeling the freezing drops of spray on his face and hands. He reached the crossing-point and peered into the baffling chiaroscuro of ice-white churning foam and black-shadowed treachery. This, John thought, with absolute conviction, is a bad idea.

oOo

Rodney eyed the fissure in the rock with trepidation. He wondered how narrow the passage beyond would be and if Boudicca had taken into account the size of her companions. It was remotely possible that she had taken into account the crushing dread of at least one of her friends when faced with confined spaces, telepathy being what it was, but, Rodney supposed, her attitude was almost certainly one of 'beggars can't be choosers', 'any port in a storm', or at least the priss equivalent of such sayings.

"Rodney!" A querulous voice came from below the ledge and Rodney crouched down to help Carson up the rest of the way.

"We're going in there?" Carson asked, regarding the unprepossessing cleft with dismay.

Rodney replied with a smile that was supposed to be encouraging but almost certainly wasn't. Boudicca growled impatiently from beyond the threshold. Carson's eyes flicked around the ledge they were standing on and up to the overhang above their heads. He took off his pack and dumped it on the ground.

"I can't do this on my own, Carson!" Rodney felt panic stirring at the thought of tight walls of rock closing in on him.

"You won't have to," said Carson. "I'm just getting a few items."

Rodney crouched down next to him and watched as Carson withdrew from his pack a reel of fine thread, a pencil and a tin. He opened the tin and took out a fish hook.

"Why do you carry fish hooks round with you?" asked Rodney, momentarily diverted from their situation.

"I like fishing!" Carson replied, defensively. "And they come in handy sometimes!" He threaded the fishhook onto the line, tied it tightly and then, selecting a hairline crack in the rock, forced the hook in and hammered it home with a loose shard. Then he stuck the pencil throught the fishing line reel and waved it at Rodney.

"Now we won't get lost!" he said.

"Okay, good plan," Rodney acknowledged, grudgingly. "Flashlight?" He held up his own.

"Oh, yes, here it is." Carson shouldered his pack and they followed Boudicca into the darkness.

oOo

Carson did not assign to himself any heroic attributes whatsoever. A spool of thread unwound in his hand and, yes, he did stride forward relatively boldly into the darkness; and yet he didn't feel in the slightest like Theseus in the labyrinth, going to do battle with the fierce minotaur. He felt like an out-of-his-depth doctor, reluctantly, but determinedly doing what he had to do to rescue his good friends and colleagues.

"How much line have you got on that, Carson?" Rodney's voice sounded high and tense.

"I'm not sure. Over a thousand yards, anyway."

"Oh. Okay."

"Will that be enough?"

"I have no idea!" Rodney stopped and turned, his flashlight flaring in Carson's eyes. "I don't know where we are in relation to the inhabited parts of the caves, I don't know how far we have to go or how narrow it'll get or if..."

"Rodney!" Carson interrupted. "Rodney, breathe!"

"Yes, breathe! Breathing's good! In and out and in again and so on!"

"Breathe, don't talk!"

Carson felt the furry bulk of the priss wind her way in between them.

"We'll be fine, Rodney. Boudicca knows what she's doing."

"Yes, yes of course she does." Carson heard his friend take another deep breath and let it out slowly. "Right. So. Not going to panic any more. Onward and downward!"

"Right you are, Rodney!"

oOo

John had decided to crawl, hand and foot, over the protruding rocks, which meant he was continuously doused in the icy water, but gave him more stability and more of a chance of seeing his way in the scattered flashlight beams which reflected confusingly off the agitated foam. The continuous roaring, the dancing spots of light, the penetrating, bone-deep chill, the pain of his injuries: everything seemed to be against John, as if an implacable will were pitted against his strength. He kept going, gritting his teeth, squinting into the darkness to pick his next hand-hold, bracing himself against the force of the flow. The final stretch was wide and John had to perch, shivering on a point of rock and leap wildly before he lost his balance; he landed, awkwardly, but safely away from the torrent of water and pulled himself up to sit, curled up, his arms around his knees, trembling with cold.

John watched Karron cross next, hoping he'd fall and be swept away. He thought for a moment that his wish had been granted, when Karron fell short on the final leap; for several seconds he clung with both arms to a rock, his legs swinging away downstream, but then he found purchase with one foot and pushed himself up and out of the water. Shuddering with cold, he nevertheless positioned himself to cover John with his gun and watched as the first of his men crossed.

The man stood at the edge of the tumult of water, uncertainty in his twitching fingers and flicked glances toward his colleague.

"Get on with it!" Karron ordered.

He stepped out onto the rocks, made it about halfway and then froze, irresolute, unable to decide on his next foothold. The other soldier called out advice and John saw Teyla look in his direction, wondering if a chance to fight back had arrived. The step was taken; a poor choice and the man's foot came down on the edge of an unbalanced rock, there was a splash and he was gone, swept instantly away to disappear into the darkness. The other man's weapon and flashlight wavered, John saw Teyla tense, ready to attack, Karron grasped John's collar, hauled him close and he felt the bite of the muzzle in the side of his neck. Teyla sank back down.

"Your turn! Now!" Karron shouted at his remaining subordinate.

The man shook his head. "I... I can't! I can't do that!"

"Yes, you can! I order you to move!"

The man backed away, shaking his head. "No, no, I'm going back!" He turned away from the river and scrambled back into the passage, his light dimming and finally disappearing as he retreated. John felt Karron thrust him away to a safe distance as he moved back, whipping his flashlight back out of his pocket. Karron shone its beam out over the water, keeping his eyes and weapon fixed on John. The light wavered and, although John couldn't see, he guessed the gun was shaking too.

"Cross!" Karron's voice was higher, showing his strain. "Now!"

Teyla stood at the water's edge. John saw her breathe slowly in and out and he knew she was calming herself, allowing her senses to attune to the task ahead of her. Karron called out again, his voice thin and desperate. Teyla ignored him. When she began to cross, it was as if she were creating a new dance, her movements as fluid and as powerful as the uncaring, unceasing flow beneath her. She remained upright and sprang lightly from point to point with perfect poise, defying the power of the water with her strength and grace. She landed, stumbled and sagged and John caught her arm. In the thin wavering light he saw the gleam in her eyes; exhausted, yet sure and true, still Teyla no matter what ordeals she had to endure.