Chapter 15 – Trouble
"Elizabeth, I definitely think that we should forbid Carson to visit her," John said firmly, standing in the door of Weir's office. He kept his gaze on the woman sitting at the other side of the desk.
"Trust him," Elizabeth answered calmly. "He is not a naive fool; he knows exactly what he is doing. She cannot circumvent him, I know."
"Oh, don't tell me that it's a normal thing that he read out a book about turtles to that monster, and now he gave her another one, if I remember well, it's about chinchillas. And even that necklace... Elizabeth, he is losing control! He feels so sorry for her that he mistakes her for an innocent patient of his, and that shrewd, sly beast takes the chance to deceive him!"
"Trust him," she repeated with cool determination, though she needed all the ability she gained during her years as a diplomat to pretend that she was not worried in the least. "He is one of the most respectable persons I know, so I trust him..."
"Okay, okay, I like Carson as well, that's not the point," John squelched her. "The problem is not that I don't trust him. I just don't trust that slippery, malignant monster."
"We brought her to Atlantis," she said with sadness in her greenish eyes, "Now we can't back out of this anymore."
"Yes, we can. We can ban Carson from visiting her, or we can execute this beast anytime we deem it necessary."
Elizabeth got up from her chair, and she clenched her left hand on her right wrist behind her back anxiously, though her response showed categorical staidness. "I won't handle Carson as an incapable child; I won't forbid a thing to him. He can decide what is expedient for him, and what is deleterious. And I won't order the execution of Claire after having spent more than a week healing her and keeping her alive, especially if Carson began to like her!"
"Elizabeth, I think you are making a big mistake passing by Carson's naivety. We should lock him out of the great room containing Claire's cell. He visits her at least eight times a day, he has his meals with her instead of having them in the canteen, and he spends more time with her than with any other patient... I'm afraid he begins to trust her."
"And what if she begins to trust him too? Wasn't it your purpose when you brought her to our city to persuade her to cooperate with us?" she objected. "When you convinced me to order Carson to heal her, you told me that you believed her to be able to stand in with us."
"But Carson becoming Wraith nutrition wasn't my purpose! I think you should order the elimination of that monster or lock Carson completely out before he does something irreversible..."
"No." Doctor Weir replied immovably, "I'm holding on to my former decision, she stays alive, and Carson can visit her anytime he considers it useful."
Sheppard gave in. "Alright, I'll try to be a bit more optimistic. Maybe he can truly find a way to persuade that beast," he said, but his voice did not sound convincing.
A smile appeared on Elizabeth's face. "I guess Colonel Caldwell should see us once, when we are arguing about a decision," she remarked.
"Why?"
"Because he believes that I always do what you say to me, without even weighing anything else up."
"That's funny," John returned her smile, "Because you generally don't give the orders I suggest, only on about half of the occasions."
"Well, I suppose the colonel believes so because it happens even much more often that I agree with you than that I agree with him about what the best way would be to solve a problem."
"Yeah, that's true. Maybe..." John could not go on, because Weir's radio head-set buzzed on the surface of the desk. "Doctor Weir to the Camera Room, please," the snappy voice of a sergeant echoed in the office.
She put the head-set on hurriedly and switched on the channel. "I'm on my way," she replied, leaving the room with quick steps, signing for Sheppard to follow her.
"I ordered a sergeant to check all the footages concerning every suspicious area where that mysterious Corporal Ridge might have shown up," she explained to him while they stepped into the transporter.
"I don't see how Ridge could get into the city. He is not in any database, he has never ever served in Atlantis or aboard the Daedalus," John wondered, pressing the point on the glass-map they wanted to reach.
"When I showed the portrait of Ridge to some of the scientists who kept repairing a malfunction aboard the ship when Teyla was abducted, they could recognize him, they saw this guy roaming aboard the Daedalus that morning, but they all thought he was one of our citizens. They suspected nothing wrong."
"He seems almost alright at first sight, the only thing that bugs is his malicious smile."
"Not to mention the disgustingly easy-going way he is swinging the baseball bat, though he surely used it a few minutes before to beat a woman until bleeding," she added.
"That guy is a total creep, how the hell could no one notice it aboard the Daedalus?"
Elizabeth sighed, "You know scientists. They were busier with the cables and the monitors than with a nerd carrying a bloody baseball bat and carrying a woman's body wrapped in a blanket through the Control Room of their ship..."
"Hey, hey, hey, just don't say sweeping generalizations." They heard Rodney McKay's voice, and the scientist stepped out of the entrance of a lab next to the transporter. "There are some scientists who are very attentive and perceptive, always aware of their surroundings, with great knowledge of human psyche and..."
"Please, don't say that you consider yourself to be one of them," John interrupted him with a bantering smile.
Rodney neglected Sheppard's sentence, he turned to Elizabeth. "May I join you?" he asked. "I have something to talk to you about."
"Okay, come," she nodded briefly, "We are on our way to the Camera Room. What would you like to share with me?"
"With the help of Hermiod, we were able to resettle the database of the beam-technology system of the Daedalus, and we found out where Ridge teleported Teyla's wounded body: he teleported her to the tarmac of the puddle jumpers. Or have you heard of it yet? I asked Colonel Caldwell to inform you."
"The colonel doesn't talk to me anymore, I guess I totally screwed up things with him somehow," Weir replied woefully, "So it's better if you tell me about the new developments in detail."
Rodney started to explain to her how they managed to get back the deleted information. In the meantime, they reached the room where the camera records were stored. Ronon was already in, staring at the monitor where the sergeant was examining a picture.
"I wanted you to have a look at this, Ma'am," the sergeant signed for Weir and pointed at the smaller monitor on his left. He started to play the footage by pressing a button on the keyboard. The record showed the young, blond Ridge walking across a corridor and stopping at the entrance of the hall where the puddle jumpers were stocked. He leaned to the panel controlling the alarm system, opened it up with a practiced motion; he took out a yellowish, flat crystal, and then put it back turned to the other side. The features froze on the faces of the observers, watching Ridge manipulating the protecting system of that room about two weeks ago.
"He is not a human," Doctor Weir said suddenly. "Even Rodney McKay would be unable to handle these systems with such ease, and as far as we know, Rodney is the most educated person in the two Galaxies when it comes to Ancient technology."
"Not just as far as we know," they heard McKay's slightly affronted voice from the background. "I'm the best, it's unquestionable."
"Okay, so the point is that this guy is either possessed by the mind of an alien form of life, or he is a complete alien," Elizabeth concluded, making a motion towards the picture of the corporal in question.
"It seems probable," Sheppard nodded, "but why the hell did he need Teyla? Where did he carry her?"
"It was a high risk for him to abduct her. He must have had his reasons to take a chance on the whole action," Ronon murmured in front of himself. "He either hates Teyla very much, or..."
"... or he loves her," John finished the sentence for him.
Ronon's face turned pale. "Teyla never mentioned any stalker following her and trouble her, so I think we should examine the hatred option," he snorted.
"Don't leave out the possibility that she might have had an intimate relationship with this mysterious Corporal Ridge," Sheppard said. "What if things went bad between the two of them? She might have dumped him, or..."
"Maybe she made him jealous," Ronon joined in the idea, gnashing his teeth. "She might have done a million things she shouldn't have..."
"Will you, please, stop blaming Teyla?" Weir intervened sharply. "All the same why the abduction happened to her, it was not her fault, I'm sure of that. If someone gets attacked so brutally, it's never the fault of the victim. Even if she had a romantic relationship with Ridge, which I absolutely doubt, she would never provoke someone into beating her and kidnapping her leaving huge blood-pools behind."
Ronon seemed to regret his previous fury. "You are right," he told Weir with shamefaced quietness. "It's not Teyla's fault."
"Okay, let's get back to the origin of our conversation," she suggested. "If we are talking about an alien form of life, which is quite familiar with Ancient technique and even able to handle an Asgardian database, Ridge must be presumably either a Goa'uld or a Wraith. My guess is a Wraith, because he showed extreme knowledge at switching off the protecting system of the jumpers."
"The Wraiths might need Teyla for examining her ability to feel their presence and to join their lines of communications," Rodney remarked in the background.
"Yes, it's not a bad idea, but this attack seems different," John shook his head. "I would say that even if there was an objective reason for kidnapping her, this guy must have felt it personal..."
"Okay, so we are back to the thought that he either hated or loved her," Ronon growled. "Do we know about an alien with these kinds of feelings for her?
They all looked at each other questioningly, but none of them could give a useful response.
"I think we should search her room thoroughly, maybe we can find signs who this human-looking alien can be," Ronon suggested.
"No, that's out of the question," Doctor Weir shook her head. "Those are Teyla's private things, and anyway, you've already checked everything that seemed suspicious in her room."
"I have, but I haven't searched for presents from a secret lover."
John said, "I really agree with Ronon. She might have kept some knick-knacks or some other teeny-weeny spangles he gave her, if they truly had a relationship..."
"Oh, please! Look at the distasteful expression on his face - there's no chance of Teyla falling in love with him!" Elizabeth made a gesture in the direction of the maliciously smiling Ridge's snapshot. "I don't think we should go through every private detail of her life just to make sure there's no way this guy could be her lover. I know that he wasn't."
"How can you be so sure of it?" Ronon asked with emphasis.
Elizabeth seemed to be a bit ill-at-ease, "Er, I just..."
"So she told you about someone else she was in love with?" John made his guess with a crafty wink of his eyes.
"We shouldn't discuss her most intimate emotions like this," Doctor Weir answered quickly. "I know she didn't fall for Ridge, and that should be enough for both of you."
"Okay, okay," Sheppard accepted her reply, though Ronon seemed still apprehensive, he rested his eyes on Doctor Weir curiously. He was about to ask something, but at the same time the head-sets of Rodney, John and Elizabeth buzzed, and the worried voice of an officer became audible, calling the three persons instantly to the Control Room.
"Uh-oh," McKay knitted his eyebrows. "I suppose we have a problem there. Let's make a bet. I stake on it half of my next salary that it's about the super-hive."
"Okay, my bet is on our Wraith captive," Sheppard gave his hand on it, and McKay pressed it quickly. Doctor Weir sent a disapproving glance at the two of them.
As they rushed into the Control Room, they found the officer standing in front of a computer in a dumbfounded, numb posture. "We have got a message from the jumper sent out to keep an eye on the super-hive," he reported to the three arriving persons. "The super-hive which used to float aimlessly in space, now started off and it's coming exactly in the direction of our city."
"Switch on our hiding system," Elizabeth gave her order at once, keeping her balance. Then a heavy, troubled silence lingered in the room; they all knew that the news might have meant that the Wraiths aboard the super-hive somehow learnt about Atlantis still standing there, and it must have meant that their hiding-technique would prove to be useless.
Suddenly McKay quickened, and he patted Sheppard's shoulder, "Hey, I won half of your next salary."