Chapter 20 – Start
"Are you sure it's the perfect place for us to land aboard the super-hive?" Rodney asked Claire suspiciously, as he saw which spot she pointed at on the hypothetical map of the hive she designed in ten minutes with the help of an Atlantisian computer.
"If you don't believe me, try to solve your problems alone," she snarled at him.
"Hey, don't come at each other," Doctor Beckett warned the two of them. "We have so little time..."
"When I promised you that I would help, it wasn't in the deal that I'd have to endure the pugnacity of your primitive friends," Claire growled, but she turned back to her work obediently.
"Did you hear that?" Rodney looked glum. "She called me primitive!"
Carson rolled his eyes. "Claire, please, try to understand my friends, they risk their lives by following your plan..."
"So what?" She typed a line of characters into the virus program she was editing. "Haven't they ever risked their lives?"
"Not on a Wraith's advice."
"Just tell him to shut up, and everything's going to be alright," she murmured in front of her, while she added another combination of numbers to the program.
"I can't work with this creature any longer!" Rodney slammed his palmtop on his desk, and he turned to leave.
Doctor Beckett looked at Sheppard with a distressed grimace, but the soldier did not seem to be very eager to help, so the doctor had to rush after McKay and held him back.
"Just ten more minutes," he begged him. "She's almost done with the program and you need to stand beside her because you are the only one who is able to check her work."
It was at least the sixth time that he had to mediate between the Wraith and McKay, and with each time the conflict became more and more serious. "Why can't you two just simply work in silence?" he asked, exhausted from his attempts to straighten up things.
"He questioned the sense of my suggestion," Claire replied.
"She scoffed at me!" Rodney lamented.
"I think I'd better take a walk and check whether Elizabeth managed to get the Wraiths' permission for the negotiation," John suggested, and he was quickly backing in the direction of the exit of the lab before Doctor Beckett could have gotten him involved in his efforts to make peace between Claire and Rodney. He grabbed a cup of coffee on his way to Weir's office, but as soon as he reached his destination, the sight that greeted him gave him the idea that he should have gone back to Carson, trying to help him with McKay and the Wraith. He saw Caldwell and Weir still arguing of no avail in the office as he had left them half an hour before. He took a deep breath, and he walked into the room, interrupting their quarrel.
"Are you two still debating about the question who should go with Elizabeth to negotiate with the Wraiths?" he asked with disbelief. "Are you sure it's the right thing to spend your time with?"
Only when they heard his remark, did Weir and Caldwell seem to realize how much time they had wasted on arguing.
"Okay, so we should cut things short," the colonel gave Sheppard a nod, and then he added, looking at Weir again, "If you deny my offer to escort you, I'll forbid Hermiod to transport you and your friends aboard the hive. The Asgard has to obey my orders, so you can't carry out your plan, if you don't let me join you..."
"What?" Elizabeth gasped. "You are trying to blackmail me?"
"Yes, I am," he replied unabashedly.
"Okay, okay, so the colonel will escort you," John concluded, lifting up his hand by way of warning, when she was about to give an indignant response. "We don't have the time to question his decision."
"It's nonsense," she kept on fretting. "I don't see why we should risk an officer's life in a situation like this. It's Colonel Caldwell's sick idea to make me feel even worse about the fact that I am following a Wraith's plan, I know..."
"Anyhow, you should accept my request, and come with me to the Control Room now to get in touch with the Wraiths aboard the hive," Caldwell intervened.
Weir whipped around and left the room without saying anything else.
"Uh, wow, I've never seen her angry like this before," Sheppard told Caldwell with a commiserating look on his face, while they were following her out.
Rodney read the stock of the virus program Claire had created. "This is almost as good as if it had been made by me," he announced with a grin.
"It was an enormous compliment," Doctor Beckett explained to Claire, who was standing beside him with unyielding tenseness on her face.
"When I have finished here, I want to go back to my cell," she said with empty stoniness.
"Well, I can escort you there right now, if that's what you want." The doctor took her chained left arm by the elbow, and he led her out of the lab.
"Finally, this monster is out of here," McKay heaved a sigh of relief. "The air freezes around her... I really don't like the look in her eyes."
A sergeant dialed the channel of the communication system of the super-hive for the fourth time, and Weir repeated her message that she wanted to talk to the leader of the Wraith community as soon as possible.
"I guess they won't reply," she said when this new call of hers was not answered again; she felt a bit disappointed. "Okay, we should make up another plan to..."
Suddenly, the speakerphone of the Atlantisian communication system creaked, and with loud whizz, the picture of a red-haired, pale Wraith queen appeared from the darkness on the monitor. She was sitting on a mold-colored piece of furniture, similar to a human throne. The black shadows of the amorphous, organic tissue of the hall surrounded her.
Weir cleared her throat. "Hello there," she said vaguely.
"What do you want to tell me, human?" the queen asked with arrogance in her voice.
"I have an offer to you," Elizabeth got stuck for a minute at the beginning of her message because Caldwell obtruded himself next to her, forcing her to make him enough space to stand in front of the monitor as well. Reluctantly, she let him do so, though she did not seem particularly pleased with the fact that he had come closer. "Atlantis means the most important headquarters to us, and I'm willing to offer you anything you find valuable enough, if you let our city stand, and you withdraw your forces," Doctor Weir went on.
The Wraith queen made an ugly face in disgust. "You can offer nothing to me, you pathetic human. We'll destroy your city and hunt down all your citizens. It will be a great feast for my legion."
"Oh, so you are not interested in an exchange? If you let Atlantis unharmed, I'd give you the coordinates of a densely populated planet," Elizabeth said with determination.
"I don't care," the queen replied apathetically. Suddenly she looked to the left with a questioning glimpse, and when she turned back, the expression on her face was much more interested than before. "Which planet?" she inquired.
"The Earth." Weir tried to put as much firmness as she just could into her voice.
Eager, hungry sparkles appeared in the grayish, inhuman eyes of the queen. "That's something worth considering." She leaned back in her throne, and she turned to her left again. She was observing something for a while, and then she asked Weir, "How do you want to work out the exchange?"
"To show my trust and goodwill to you, I offer my visit aboard your hive, and there we can talk about the details of the process." Elizabeth realized only at this moment that at some time she nervously took Caldwell's hand next to her, and she was still keeping it cramped with her fingers stiffly - she did it totally unwittingly. She hastily let him free, and she tried to pretend that nothing had happened; she concentrated on the Wraith queen's face in front of her on the monitor.
"Your offer is really... adventurous," the queen gave her response leisurely. "You have the nerve, well... let it be. You can get transported aboard my hive in half an hour. Alone."
"Alright, I'll be there," she promised, but Caldwell interrupted her. "That's out of the question," he told the queen sharply. "She won't go alone; I'll escort her aboard your hive."
To Weir's greatest disappointment, the Wraith queen nodded calmly, "You can join her, but no one else. I'll soon give you the exact time when you can come." She cut off the communication, and her picture disappeared from the screen.
"Colonel, have you seen it?" Doctor Weir whispered to Caldwell by her side.
"Seen what?"
"Someone was there, in the background. I saw someone moving in the shadow. And the queen turned her eyes strikingly often to the left."
"Why should any Wraith hide from our glance?" Caldwell asked wonderingly.
"Because we knew him or her?" she guessed.
"We don't know any Wraith personally. Any Wraith that is still alive..."
"Maybe it was a human, not a Wraith."
"It's truly weird," John remarked, stepping next to both of them, "But I don't think we have enough information to find it out."
"Shall we ask Claire about it?" Elizabeth brought the idea up.
"I think we had enough of that Wraith's subtle lies," Caldwell said brusquely.
"Do you really think she lies to us?" Weir asked.
"Of course she does. She is a Wraith."
"Alright, I'll order Rodney to secretly change the coordinates Claire suggested for the location of the group's arrival. If her fellows know about us all and they set up a trap, at least Rodney, Ronon and John will have the chance to avoid it by arriving at a different place they would expect them."
"Finally, you have a reasonable idea," Caldwell told her with unkindness.
"Well, it's not something you can say about yourself!" she riposted coolly.
Doctor Beckett sat down on the chair in front of Claire's cell. He used to sit there a lot when he was talking to the Wraith about harmless things like animals on the Earth or human traditions like celebrating birthdays. Now he felt a bit uncomfortable as he took place and turned to her standing not far from him, in the corner of her jail.
"They are my best friends, Claire," he started talking slowly, weighing every word he uttered. "If your plan is a trap, please, tell me now. There's no use sending my friends to die there..."
She answered sedately, "My plan is not a trap. I found it out to save your city. You can trust me."
Doctor Beckett folded his hands on his knees. "You have my trust, you know it. Just, please, think it over once more. If you have any doubts about my friends' safety, please, tell me. I don't want to send them away to die for nothing. If you have just a little kindness to me in your heart..."
"You can trust me," she repeated. "You don't need to beg me for pity for your friends. My plan is safe, they should do everything as I told them, and it will be alright."
Carson expected at least a little vagueness from her. This immovable equanimity and self-assurance made him feel perplexed. "How can you be this sure?" he asked.
"My plan is good. Have faith in me."
And the doctor could not do anything else, but try to obey her request and try to trust her with all his heart, but it was not easy as his eyes met her usual, cold immobility.
"You know what this all means to me," he whispered with pain in his voice.
"I do." She still did not show any sign of hesitation.
"Alright, I'll go then to say good-bye to my friends and to wish good luck to them."