A/N: There's some pretty horrible stuff happening in the "makeshift infirmary". If you've got a sensitive disposition, you may want to turn away now, because I'm not going to be nice to the poor Padanarams.

Chapter 4

The building was as poor on the inside as Carson had expected. There were no beds, but blankets lined either side of the room. Most had one occupant, some had two, and all of them were sick. The air was loud with coughs. Smoke lingered from the fire in the central hearth.

Carson scanned the room, and his eye was drawn to a child of six or so. He was blond like the others, and had the look of Carson's sister's boy about him. Only his overlarge eyes moved in his face. He had thrown off his blanket and his white limbs seemed like only skin and bone. He watched Carson and the others, but there was no reaction in his face.

Propped on the next blanket was a young woman. She was pregnant, but Carson suspected she might lose the baby by the way the coughing wracked her body. Above the swollen belly her ribs showed and her arms were skeletal.

All around the room the same sights repeated themselves. Here, an elderly woman wiped bloodstained spit from her lips. Next to her, an infant squealed in distress, while across the room a couple of children tended to the sick.

Worst of all were the eyes. Every person able to open their eyes had trained them on the newcomers.

"Oh, by the Ancestors," Teyla breathed.

Carson followed her eye. A small girl lay on a torn rug. Her eyes were closed, and she lay too still. Teyla stepped across the room to the little body.

"Who are you?" a boy asked. He sat at the side of a lady struggling to breath, one hand on her shoulder. He was young, but he appeared to be the eldest of those still able to walk.

"I'm Doctor Carson Beckett, from Atlantis."

"Atlantis was destroyed," the boy said.

Damn, Carson thought. He hadn't been off world in a while, and forgot the whole secrecy business.

Teyla rescued the situation. "It was destroyed. We are from a group of the survivors who managed to gate out in time."

The boy accepted this without reaction. He had bigger things to worry about. "Why are you here?"

Teyla continued. "I am a friend of the village. I have traded with Rina on occasion. We had need of supplies, and when we heard of the illness, we wished to help." She knelt down at the side of the still form.

"Why? We cannot pay."

"We do not want paying!" Carson said. His hands itched to get started, but he felt a need to gain this boy's trust first.

"Then what do you want?"

"Just to help." Carson said. He pointed at the figure Teyla was reaching out to touch. "I do not want anymore of that."

The little form was still as Teyla stroked its cheek with a glove.

The boy turned away from them. He looked about ten. "My name is Levin."

"You are Rina's grandson."

"Yes. That is Covin." He did not look towards Teyla, but Carson sensed he was discussing the small dead body.

"She was my cousin," Levin said.

"I am sorry," Carson said. As always, he was struck by how useless those words were.

Levin shrugged.

"I think we can help," Carson said.

The boy nodded as he spooned some water into the pale lady. "I hope so." He looked up, and Carson saw a twinkle in his eye. "Otherwise, you got dressed up for nothing."

"Aye lad," Carson couldn't help a smile. "These are protective garments. We'd not be much help if we got sick too. We haven't been exposed to the illness the way you have."

The boy nodded. "It was Gerlin's idea. He said that the illness was shared between those who were ill and those who cared for them. He told us that you could not become ill twice, and asked those of us who recovered to stay and tend the sick."

"He sounds like a smart man."

"He was our healer," Levin said. "He became ill. We have left his body over there," he indicated a corner that Carson could see was full of dark bundles. "We don't know if we should bury those who die outdoors or if they should stay here to protect those outside." The youngster was obviously torn.

Carson allowed himself a moment of sorrow at the suffering here. He marvelled at the strength of the children who flitted around with water and cool rags, and he wanted to weep for Levin's loss. He looked at the pile of dead, and wondered how many of the small crowd that had followed them through the village would find answers there.

Then he filed the emotions away. It was time to work.

There was a rap on the wall like a pebble being thrown and Ronon lifted the curtain. "It's your equipment, Doc."

Carson had Ronon set up the computer and microscopes. Carson had learned that the man was surprisingly good at the technical aspects. He set up the mini-lab on a table and lined up various reagents and slides according to Carson's instructions.

Teyla questioned each of the children about the illness. She spoke to a number of adults. Her gentle manner calmed the most skittish, and her skilful questioning extracted the relevant information in a quarter of the time it would have taken Carson.

That meant he was free to oversee his new infirmary. He moved around the room silently the first time, and picked out the dead bodies. He carried them to the furthest corner of the room. He added two adults and three children to the makeshift mortuary in that initial sweep. Once he had things under control, he would have that section of the building emptied, but for the moment he didn't have the time.

Then he began taking samples of blood. He took pinpricks from the infants, and larger samples from the adults to test for viral or bacterial DNA. He took samples from some of the recovered children as well to look for an antibody response. Each person held their arm out as he approached. They suffered the tourniquet without complaint and did not twitch as the needle was inserted. Carson wished, momentarily, that everyone he had to take blood from would acquiesce so easily. Rodney, for example…

He wrote a name on each sample. Some did not respond when he asked their names and he documented them by their distinguishing clothes. He tagged everyone once their samples were taken. He took samples from the various foodstuffs scattered about the room. There was a large jug in the corner of the room that contained clear water. He filled a sterile pot with that, and another with dirtier water from a basin. He labeled them as "clear jug water", and "dirty basin water".

He then began collecting samples of other bodily material. It wasn't the most glamorous of jobs by any stretch. He collected rags containing sputum, and took other samples from the corners of the room. Each was labeled and lined up beside the equipment. Ronon watched him for a moment, and Carson thought he saw the Runner's nose wrinkle up behind the mask of the hazmat suit.

"Don't tell Rodney this is how we spent our afternoon," Carson said as he scraped something unspeakable into a sterile tube.

Ronon gave that enigmatic smile. "Your secret is safe, Doctor."

"Thank god. He'd never let me live it down." He capped off the tube.

He planned on analyzing the blood samples first. Teyla came to stand beside him. "I have learned a great deal from the children, but I am unsure if anything will be of any help."

"Anything may be significant."

Teyla nodded. "Very well. Levin told me that four days ago, he became ill with a simple coughing illness. They are common, but normally in the winter months. Very quickly, the cough became worse, and he told me it was hard to breath. The others agree. One said it was like breathing through a thin reed. There were headaches and pains and a great tiredness that would not lift. Levin remembers being fevered."

"Carry on," Carson prompted.

"Gerlin became ill as the first recovered. Some of those who were affected at the same time are improving, but only a few. Those who die do so quickly. The fever builds, and then the coughing subsides. Levin says they slip into a sleep that they cannot be awakened from, and soon they die."

Carson nodded, and filed the information.

"I need to know who became infected and when, as well as who is related to who."

"It will be a difficult task."

Carson agreed. He expected the two hundred odd samples he had collected were going to be the easier part.

"I will begin now. Perhaps some of the adults who are improving will be able to assist." She gathered a PDA and a stylus from the table top and headed to the blankets closest to the door.

-

Once Carson set the system up to automatically scan the samples, he began making his rounds of the 30-odd patients that scattered the floor. He dished out simple analgesics to everyone, and stirred hydrating salts into the jugs of clear water.

All the while his skin itched under the suit. Condensation formed on the inside of the mask, and he had to smear it across his forehead so that he could see.

Ronon began the task of clearing the south corner of the bodies. One at a time, he carried them out of the woolen hanging into the sunlight. He told the villagers that they would need to dig a grave.

-

SGA

-

After an hour of searching the route from the Crethin village to the Stargate, Sheppard finally picked up a group of life signs that could only be Lorne's missing team. As they over-flew the sparse forest, he spotted the bedraggled men making slow progress towards the gate. The team was a mess. At John's side, McKay muttered, "What have they done now?"

One of the figures looked up and spotted the jumper through the branches. He waved an arm and gestured to his colleagues, who in turn looked up as well.

"Try to signal them again," John said, although he didn't hold out much hope. They'd been trying to raise Lorne since they came through the gate. "I want to know if I should be ready to shoot anything when we land."

"I'd say it's a good bet. I doubt even Lorne could get his men in that kind of shape without some help."

Sheppard was inclined to agree. The radio silence only confirmed it.

John brought the jumper down to hover above the sparse treetops, while McKay took the opportunity to stand for a better look.

"Five men," he said. "Three needing help. Lorne I think, and those blond guys."

"Any activity in the vicinity?"

Rodney was silent as he scanned the trees. "I can't see anything."

"Right. We're going fifty meters north."

Half way to the landing site, Rodney's head jerked up. He looked like he'd forgotten something important. It was an expression John had learned to dread.

"What?" he demanded.

"They were waving," Rodney said.

"Of course they were waving. They were glad to see us."

McKay shook his head. His eyes were as large as saucers. "Maybe they weren't waving. Maybe they were warning us."

John resisted the urge to sigh. Rodney had been on edge all day, and it was hardly unexpected that he was jumping at shadows now.

He brought the jumper down into the clearing to land. Rodney studied the life-signs detector, but the only signals were the five limping figures.

Lieutenant De Marco was first out of the trees. John was relieved to see him whole and mostly uninjured. The same couldn't be said for Lorne and Corporal Campbell. They were both limping and supported by the other guys.

"Colonel Sheppard," Lorne said.

John leaned against the doorway of the jumper. He smiled. "Major. Can we give you a lift somewhere?"

"Home would be good, sir." He shrugged off Tony Smith's assistance and hobbled on board himself.

John winked at McKay. This was going to be good.

"So how did the mission to the harvest festival go?" John asked innocently as he gunned the jumper to life.

All four members of the team looked at Tony Smith, "Nice folk, the Crethins," Lorne said. "They just don't like loud noises in the middle of their religious ceremonies."

Tony seemed very interested in the pattern on the floor.

"Go on," John encouraged.

De Marco summed it up. "Imagine a mobile phone going off during your kid's speech in their first school play. Then imagine what you'd want to do to the person owning that phone. They were like a horde of angry parents."

"You got beat up?"

Lorne shrugged. "Not exactly."

"I don't know about you, sir, but I got beat up." De Marco said as he rubbed his knee through his pants.

"Then we discovered they like to collect radios and P-90s."

John smiled. "Would you like to go home then?"

Tony Smith answered. "Yes, sir. And I never want to come back."

-

SGA

-

Two hours later, Carson was no closer to an answer to what was causing the infection. He cursed ignorant computers, and fumed at the conditions he was working in. Good god, he was a geneticist! It was hardly the branch of medicine one chose if they enjoyed working in primitive conditions. He hated the hazmat suit. He hated the clumsy fingers that lacked the co-ordination to actually work a digital microscope. He kept pressing too many keys on the keyboard at once.

And he hated that three more people had come into the hall, coughing. Worst of all though, he hated the bodies that Ronon carried out without complaint. Each one was another family bereft because he hadn't solved the problem quickly enough.

Another three were failing quickly, including the little blond boy with the big eyes who looked his nephew. He had inserted IV's, and given them fluids as well as antibiotics, but there was no change. He didn't have enough supplies and not enough time to both solve the problem and treat those who were ill.

Once he found the foreign agent in the blood, at least he would have a reference to search the other samples.

-

"Doctor Beckett, we are due to check in with home," Teyla said. She put special emphasis on the final word, and Carson was grateful. He did remember they were in hiding, but he was inclined to get distracted.

"Aye." He filled an empty syringe from a vial in his pocket. "Go and give them a call. I'll be right here."

"What shall I report?"

"That I'm still working on it."

Teyla nodded. "Very well."

The second child Carson gave the injection to was a little older. Levin stood at his shoulder and said, "I think he looks a little better."

Carson studied the pale face in front of him. The cheeks were sunken and the veins on his neck stood proud. His pulse was rapid and his breathing shallow.

"Aye, lad, perhaps he is," Carson said.

"Doctor Beckett!" Teyla called urgently.

She so seldom raised her voice that Carson was up in flash. Reflexes that were honed by years of emergency pagers had him up and running to her before his brain had processed what she had said.

Five steps took him to the desk where she stood. She was not beside a patient, but standing at the radio system. It blinked green for a signal received.

"What is it?" Carson demanded. Ronon had joined them.

"The light."

"Aye," Carson said. "It's the radio. It's meant to light up."

Ronon seemed to understand something Carson didn't. "It only lights up when it's receiving a signal."

"From At… home."

Teyla shook her head, still obviously shaken. "I have not contacted them, Doctor. The light was already on. It is receiving a signal from here on this planet."

Carson glanced around the fire-lit room. His patients scattered the floor on piles of blankets. Rays of afternoon sunlight spread in through holes in the walls and curtains. The most complex piece of equipment these people had access to was a weaving loom.

"Who on this planet would have the technology to be signaling us?"

Ronon shrugged and said, "Let's find out."