John was finishing off his sandwich, watching Lorne's team worriedly, when Rodney called him through his mic.
"Sheppard, I've got it. I've got the planet."
John jumped up to his feet, exchanging did you hear guys hear that? looks with Ronon and Teyla. They both nodded.
"That fast? You've set a new record, Rodney," John said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant.
"Well, Dr. Neal and Company decided to finally be of use," Rodney said dryly. "With the information they gave me I had a much more specific search perimeter to work within. And it's actually planets, nine of them."
"Sounds like we're gonna be busy," John said. He snatched up the jacket he had slung over the back of a chair and ordered the handful of Marines in the room to call in some more as they wouldn't be back for a while. They all nodded and did as John commanded.
"Carter's already scrambling some teams," Rodney said. "Naturally we're included." And naturally, Rodney didn't sound too thrilled about that.
There was silence for a moment as John, Ronon and Teyla left the infirmary. Then Rodney said, "I heard what happened in the infirmary. Is Lorne's team okay?"
"They will be," John replied stubbornly.
"Sheppard, consistently believing the impossible to be existent isn't going to save their lives."
"That's right, Rodney. We are."
Rodney sighed. "Yeah, I guess we are."
A few minutes later John's team was assembled and fully geared. A short briefing with Colonel Carter and Dr. Parrish told them what they needed to do, and they were hurled through the Stargate to another world.
…
Kathy felt like a snail that had just wandered into a beehive. Here in Parrish\Pokorny\Neal's lab, the three scientists were working away furiously. A glance at their keenly focused expressions told Kathy without a doubt that she was not needed here, and so silently she backed out of the room.
She stood outside in the empty hallway, the buzz of activity inside the lab muffled by its closed door. She stood there for a moment, not sure what to do. Just a short while ago she'd had her hands full just keeping the scientists away from each other's throats, but now that they had been given a common task to focus on, they weren't taking the time to aggravate or take offense. That was good.
But Kathy couldn't help feeling cut adrift. She was floating around wherever, with nothing useful to contribute. She loved help, but now there was nothing for her to help with. She had been out of the active field for so long, contenting herself with research, that when crunchtime came she was useless. What was worse was that she had willingly navigated herself into that corner.
Kathy gnawed at her lip, a habit of hers whenever she was nervous. Okay, I'd really rather not think about this right now. Think of something else, something else…
"Major Lorne," Kathy found herself saying aloud. Instantly she felt guilty, for she very selfishly wanted to stay away from the infirmary. And she knew it was selfish. Ironic, wasn't it, a doctor who didn't want to see who was in the infirmary.
Kathy continued to gnaw away at her lip, standing alone in the hallway. Finally… "Oh, come on, God!" she burst out. "I was just starting to get to know these guys! I only just found out their names! There's, there's Evan, and Keenan, and oh, what's his name… Steven! And Michael and Sandy too…"
She started pacing in the limited confines of the hallway, knowing that in this empty hall no one would intrude on her little rant against her Heavenly Father. "I mean, they've got so much to live for," she said. "How can You be taking them away now? They're not ready! They… they have no idea who You are. It only takes a glance to see that. Well, maybe Houser and Lorne, but I don't know… How can You just take them away like that, without giving them a chance?"
She paused, then nodded consent. "Okay, so You probably have given them chances, but can't You give them one more? I mean, You're ever-forgiving, surely this can't be too far of a stretch? These guys… they're good guys, but you know, you just can't be… good enough. They still have to take the leap!"
Kathy sighed, her argument spent. "Okay," she said, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her hand. "You know what You're doing; I don't. Just… take care of them, God. Please take care of them."
She looked up at the ceiling, but really at something beyond the ceiling, and wondered if He would do as she had pleaded.
The lab door opened behind her, and Kathy jumped. It was Jeff who had come out, and without a word he closed the door behind him.
"Tantsuyushchikh babochek!" Kathy exclaimed, "You scared me, Jeff!"
Jeff cocked an eyebrow. "That language… Russian, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Dancing butterflies, something my Russian babushka says when she's startled."
"Oh yeah, you're half Russian, aren't you?"
"Russian-Jew, actually," Kathy said. "So… you came out here to…? I mean, shouldn't you be working?"
"My assistants can manage without me for a few minutes," Jeff replied. "It's not like I can't trust them to do what they're good at. I came out here to ask you about something."
"Yeah?" Kathy tilted her head curiously.
"When Colonel Sheppard was in here a few minutes ago… you said that you'd seen something that had the same effects on a whole village of people that Lorne's team is suffering right now, and that they all died," Jeff said. "What happened?"
Kathy swallowed. "I'm not too particular about talking of these things…"
"Well, get unparticular," Jeff said without sympathy. "What you saw could be key in saving the lives of Major Lorne and his men."
Evan Lorne, Steven Reed, Keenan O'Meara, Sandy Houser, Michael Saint. Their names flashed across Kathy's mind almost faster than she could catch them. She looked down at the floor.
"I hadn't thought of that." Her voice was quiet.
"I had figured," Jeff replied. "That's why I came out here to ask."
"Well…" Kathy folded her arms, chin dipping down as she dug into the uncherished memories. "It was some adverse reaction to their water. There was something wrong with it, and… well, they all ended up dead. The entire village, and anyone who came there to drink their water. We lost some doctors, too. Couldn't figure out a cure for it."
She shook her head. "It didn't make sense, though. It was a clean well. It had been checked and designed to filter out anything that could cause bodily harm. It shouldn't have killed anyone. But it did; it slaughtered an entire village."
Jeff nodded silently and indicated for her to go on. Kathy paused a moment, raking her mind for other details.
"It was an isolated incident, I remember. Nothing like it had happened before and nothing like it has happened since," she said.
"Is the water still there?" Jeff asked.
Kathy shook her head. "They filled the well up," she said. "It's under at least a dozen feet of soil, and the whole area has been banned for human activity. The stuff was in the food, animals, everything. They're still trying to purge it from the land, and with no success, I've heard. The people died and their livestock died."
She paused. "Though, I do remember noticing something… the only thing that thrived in that place was the produce. The same thing that was killing the people was feeding the plants. Except the plants were poisonous, of course."
Kathy paused, pursing her lips. "It really was a strange thing. I remember thinking there were a lot of rocks for that kind of place, though."
Jeff's eyes shot wide, and he seemed to grow out of the sudden increase of his interest. "Rocks?" he repeated. "You're sure you don't mean… meteorites?"
Kathy's eyes grew wide at the proposition. "Well, it could be… I hadn't thought of it before…" Her brow furrowed. "But what does that have to do with it?"
"Well, I'm no expert on these things," Jeff said slowly. "But if it was a chemical, mineral, or whatever else carried on a meteorite that crashed into a water source… the chances are it could be from here, Pegasus Galaxy."
"That's millions of lightyears away," Kathy said.
"I know, but bear with me. Is it really all that impossible?"
Kathy hesitated, then shook her head slowly. "No… I guess not."
"And even if it's not from here exactly, it could be something related," Jeff said. "If that's the case, what you know could prove to be invaluable. Do you remember what the chemical looked like? Did you ever see it?"
Kathy nodded. "Yes I did, and I could never forget it."
"That is just what I wanted to hear," Jeff said, smiling for the first time Kathy had seen since the accident in the previous lab. "Come on, we need to go talk to Colonel Carter." He started forward.
"No, I need to go talk to Colonel Carter," Kathy said, stopping Jeff with a palm against his chest. "You need to go back to work."
Jeff nodded, and turned and went back into the lab. "Pokorny, about time you got back!" she heard Neal snap. "Don't leave while—" The closed door cut off the rest of his words.
Kathy stood in the hallway a moment longer, arms hanging at her sides as she stared ahead dazedly. Then a grin lit up her features, and she released a quick laugh. At last, she was somebody useful!
She spun around and dashed down the hall as fast as she could go. She entered the transporter and tapped on the appropriate location, coming out into the control room seconds later. The first person she saw was Chuck, working away at his station.
"Chuck!" she called out to the technician sharply. "Is Colonel Carter here?"
Chuck nodded in the affirmative and started to point, but then Colonel Carter turned around from where she was standing in front of the Gate and said, "Yes, and whatever you've got had better be important."
"It is," Kathy assured her. "I've got a long story for you, Colonel, but I'll try to be brief. Back on Earth I saw some mystery disease or poison, we were never sure which, take out an entire village. The symptoms were nearly identical to what is happening to Major Lorne's team, except for the increased hostility and paranoia at the beginning. We found out that it was a chemical in the water, but we weren't able to create a cure."
Colonel Carter frowned. "So you're here to tell me that you've seen something exactly the same and there's no cure?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying!" Kathy exclaimed. "Well, yes it is, but there wasn't a cure then. Now we have some leads to work with, Major Lorne's team may have a chance."
Colonel Carter's lips lifted slightly. "That's more like it." She looked over at the Stargate. "I just sent the last team through the Gate for samples of the Pegasus yew. I can contact them and tell them to grab water samples as well. Thank you, Dr. Sanders. Is there anything else I need to know?"
Kathy shook her head. "No." She turned to leave.
"Thank you, Dr. Sanders," Colonel Carter said again, more fervently. "Your help could prove vital."
Kathy nodded. "Yeah, well, I just hope it works." She turned again and this time left the control room.
…
John kept his head low as he pushed his way through the undergrowth. Gosh, this place was worse than a jungle—and John had seen his fair share of jungles. Elsewhere Ronon was growling impatiently. He couldn't use his machete to chop through everything, they couldn't risk damaging the plant they were looking for.
"You will all be heading into jungle planets," Dr. Parrish had told them. "That is the environment this plant grows in. The Pegasus version of the yew tree is not a conifer. The leaves will be wide and dark green, glossy in appearance on the top. The berries should be either be bright red or bright orange, depending on their ripeness."
John's lips had turned down. Jungles. Those were not his favorite places.
Animals chattered, birds shrieked and called at each other, and John thought that he saw a four-tailed squirrel… sure, this was another galaxy, but why would a squirrel need four tails?
It was unbelievably dark, even though it was midday, summer, and boiling sticky hot besides. The tree branches interlaced together so tightly above, one could only see a few patches where sunlight came through. As a result, things were very shady, and the light had a green look to it, making John think of the Underworld and the Lady of the Green Kirtle.
"I really, really, really, REALLY hate jungles!" Rodney spluttered as he had to pull another clump of vines from out of his face. For some reason he kept walking right into them. All that was left was for him to stick his foot into a beehive.
Even their guest botanist was handling this better. Of course, botanists went into jungles all the time… it kind of came with the territory.
"Keep your eyes open, Rodney," John said. "The sooner we find this plant, the sooner we go home."
"And the sooner Major Lorne's life and the lives of his men are removed from peril," Teyla added softly, and all quieted, temporarily pushing their frustrations aside to look for the besought plant.
John knew it was some kind of tree, or more like a glorified bush, that would probably look nothing like a yew—bright colored berries, probably red, and broad and glossy dark green leaves. Not needles, Parrish had stressed.
The problem was that all of the leaves down here were broad and glossy. Not so many dark ones, but John still had to look at them all to be sure. How did botanists tell them apart? They all look the same.
Rodney finally struggled out of the next clump of vines and immediately tripped over a root. John groaned, wanting to slap his hand to his forehead. He couldn't, unfortunately, he was a little too busy trying to keep the vegetation from eating his weaponry.
Uh-huh. Ten years later and jungles still weren't his thing.
John turned his head and started when he saw Teyla perched atop Ronon's shoulders, a hand up against a tree to hold her steady whilst the other shaded her eyes.
Dr. Stalls, their botanist, looked up at her. "See anything?" he asked. "Remember, it's not coniferous…"
Teyla continued to scan. "John," she called down to him, "I can see one! It is a tall, thickly leaved bush. The leaves are dark, they seem to catch the light, and I can see many bright berries—orange, not red."
"Which way?" John asked.
"East, a few degrees north," Teyla replied. "Two o'clock, I think you'd say."
"Two o'clock, got it," John said. He craned his neck around, searching for his frazzled scientist. "Rodney! Did you get that?"
"Do you think me deaf, Sheppard?" Rodney huffed, floundering in an attempt to get out of the giant thing he had somehow fallen into. It looked like a cross between a fern and a cabbage.
John shook his head, cracking a grin at the flustered Rodney. "You really do love your nature walks, don't you, Rodney?" he said. "Just gotta get your hands all over it."
"Just shut up and get me out of this!" Rodney snapped, waving his hands at John angrily and promptly falling on his face.
John laughed. Pointing his gun aside, he reached down and pulled Rodney up with his other. Rodney started spitting, trying to brush the grime off his spoiled uniform, and trying even harder to recover his wounded dignity.
"Come on, Rodney," John said. "It can't be that far."
"Oh, it can't, can it?" Rodney grumped. "Huh. We'll see about that."
Dr. Stalls glanced over at him. "I'm beginning to see why you're an astrophysicist," he remarked.
John shook his head with an amused chuckle, and followed after the direction Ronon and Teyla had taken. About ten minutes later (which was far, Rodney complained) they reached the tree, and according to the Dr. Stalls, it was just the one they were looking for.
"Hello, gorgeous," Dr. Stalls said, smiling fondly at the plant. Yep. It had long been established in John's world that botanists were weird.
John tilted his head back to look up at the massive bush. It was pretty, in its own killer plant sort of way.
"Okay guys, let's start plucking this thing," John said, pulling a set of thick gloves out his pack, cloth on the inside, rubber on the outside. "The boys back home want as many leaves, twigs, berries, and bark samples as possible."
"How about a sapling?" Ronon suggested, lifting the proposed object he had ripped out by the roots.
John blinked at it for a moment. He then looked over at Dr. Stalls, who nodded, and turned back to Ronon. "That works," he decided. "See if you can find any extras. I don't want to come back here again if I can help it."
"We'll still have to harvest the main plant for berries, the saplings are much too immature," Dr. Stalls said. "Oh, and Mr. Dex? Don't handle the bark so much, that's poisonous too."
Ronon looked down at the sapling in his hand, eyebrows bouncing upwards. "Oh." He shrugged, passing it over to Rodney and pulling on the pair of gloves Teyla handed to him.
Rodney panicked as the uprooted bush was placed into his gloved hands for him to hold. "Wha-what are you thinking?" he spluttered. "This stuff is so poisonous—"
"Relax, Rodney, it only damages you if it gets into your bloodstream," John said, looking up from the bush he was digging up.
"Have you ever heard of skin absorption?" Rodney hissed.
"Would you rather help us with digging these up, Rodney?" John asked, waving the sharpened spade in his hand. "These shovels can get pretty sharp." He waggled his eyebrows dramatically. "People lose fingers."
Rodney backed away. "No, no, that won't be necessary."
"Of course it won't be," John muttered under his breath, and resumed his work.
Altogether they brought back five fair-sized bushes. The scientists swooped upon them and took them away almost before John had time to blink.
Colonel Carter looked surprised when she beheld John's group standing in the control room.
"Colonel," she said. "I hadn't expected you back so soon." She paused, thinking a moment. "Well, I've already called the other eight, so it probably won't be necessary to send you back."
Rodney balked. "Send us back? Why would you send us back?"
"Dr. Sanders," Colonel Carter replied. "Apparently she's seen something, a chemical that has near-identical effects on the human body as the poison Major Lorne and his team were injected with."
John's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Yeah, she told me that, but she didn't say she thought they were connected."
"She probably didn't think so herself at the time," Colonel Carter supposed. "She said she'd be able to identify it when it's brought back."
"That's good to hear," John replied. His head tilted. "But how could she have seen something like this? Is she just mistaking it for some disease she saw?"
"That's why she's a doctor and you're not, Colonel," Carter answered. "Dr. Sanders is fully capable of telling the difference between poisons and diseases, she has degrees in both."
"Oh." Another thing she neglected to mention.
Both seemed to realize they were staring at the other and waiting for a word, so Colonel Carter told John and his group to go get cleaned up. Ronon, Teyla, Rodney, and Dr. Stalls headed off, but John paused and called up to Colonel Carter, asking if she had a moment.
She did, and John trotted up the stairs, dirt, mud, and who knew what else marking the squeaky-clean surface. Chuck looked down at the mudprints, then up at the Colonel. He grinned in approval and offered a thumbs-up. First man in Atlantis to track mud across the floor without getting chewed out. Kudos, man.
John grinned back and slapped a quiet high five with the Canadian as he passed by. He went up with the Colonel Carter into her office.
"What did you want to talk to me about, Colonel?" Carter asked as John closed the door behind them.
"Major Lorne. How is he, ma'am?"
Colonel Carter's expression was grim. "Not good, Colonel," she said. "They've got hours. If we don't find what we need…" Her voice trailed off, and she looked off into the distance pensively. "And we've only got the one stasis chamber. We'd stave off death for one, and fail the other four."
She turned faced to John. "We don't have much time left, Colonel. To be honest with you, I don't know how much good your retrieval of the plants will do," she said. "They might be beyond saving."
"I'm not giving up on them, ma'am," John said, chin tilting up defiantly.
"I didn't say we were, Colonel," Carter replied. "I'm just saying that we could be cutting it very, very close."
"Then let's cut it," John answered.
Carter smiled briefly, nodding in approval. "Good answer. Thank you for your work, Colonel. You can go now."
John nodded and turned a quick about-face, striding out of the room. Before closing the door he just managed to catch Colonel Carter's mutter of, "Now what am I going to do with this mess?"
John grinned and went to clean up. A spit shower was necessary to eliminate the smell of jungle, and a quick change into a fresh uniform made him look like a new man.
The first place he went to was the infirmary, and just outside of there he found himself waiting with Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, Colonel Carter, and a smattering of others who knew the five men whose lives hung in the balance.
This was the part John hated the most: the waiting. But then, there was nothing else he could do.
Colonel Carter brought them all up to speed on Kathy's information. "I've talked with Dr. Sanders a little more since she first spoke with me," she said. "The very slight possibility exists that she may have seen a variant of the poison that is in Major Lorne's team's bloodstreams right now."
"How so?" John asked, turning his head to watch her.
"While she was in a particular area, everyone there died, including all of the animals and some of the doctors with her. It turned out there was some kind of chemical in their water well. They couldn't figure out what it was exactly, it was unrecognizable, and they were unable to find a cure."
"A doctor's worst nightmare," Teyla murmured softly. John agreed.
"Research into the area shows that once there are frequent meteor showers there," Colonel Carter added. "The theory is that some of the meteorites originated from Pegasus, carrying something from over here to over there, crashed into the earth, infected the area's water and killed everybody."
Rodney was about to comment, but Colonel Carter raised up a hand and stopped him. "I know, McKay, the possibilities are astronomical, but crazier things have happened."
Rodney couldn't argue with that.
"The well has since been filled up, and the whole area of land is fenced off because the chemical in the water tainted the whole area. It's easy to spot, because the plant life there is booming. The only problem is that all of it is poisonous."
"The plant life went crazy?" John looked over at Carter. "The planet our yew samples came from was all jungle… Except," he paused. "There were animals. You couldn't miss the racket, and I did spot a four-tailed squirrel."
"Why would a squirrel need four tails?" Rodney asked.
"That's what I want to know," John replied.
"Animal life?" Carter repeated. "But Dr. Sanders said there weren't any animals left in the village by the time the chemical had done its work."
"Maybe the local fauna have developed an immunity to the chemical," Rodney said, rising slightly with a look of excitement. "We could go back there and catch one—"
John and Colonel Carter shook their heads simultaneously. "There's not enough time," she said, and John added, "The animals there were already wary of us. We could hear 'em, sure, but I only saw one or two actual animals. It could take days to catch one, and we don't have that kind of time."
Rodney deflated. Ronon looked up at John accusingly, and growled, "Are you giving up?"
"No, Ronon!" John said quickly.
"There simply isn't anything more we can do now," Colonel Carter explained. "All we can do now is wait and hope for the best."
And that was just what they did.
John spotted the doctor who had kindly knocked out Major Lorne earlier standing at the infirmary door. Quickly their little group gravitated towards him, eyes asking the same questions.
"What have we got?" John asked.
"We're running the water through as many tests as many tests as we can," the doctor replied. "Thankfully we collected a lot, so we can run most of the tests all at once. The plants and soil samples from the planets are all being processed right now, hopefully they'll shed a little more light on what we're dealing with here."
John looked beyond the doctor at Lorne and company, just visible behind him. "How much time do we have?"
The doctor sighed, brow creased in worry. "Hours, Colonel," he said. "I'd say six at the very most, two or three at the least."
"Can't you buy them any time?" John asked.
"That's what we did by sedating them, and putting them on life support," the doctor replied. "They can't even breathe on their own right now, Colonel. The machines are doing it for them. But life support isn't going to work for long. We need the cure now."
John nodded, still watching Lorne. The breathing apparatus connected into him was apparent. His chest was still rising and falling too fast, but at least his face wasn't the alarming red it had been before.
This man was dying. In a mere handful of hours, he and his men would be gone.
But John wasn't going to let that happen. Not in his city.
The doctor stayed with them a moment longer, but soon he was gone again, back to his work.
Rodney was sitting on a ledge, holding a cup of coffee in his hands that had thus far gone ignored. "I remember when it was you we were waiting out here for," he said suddenly. "That time with Elia…"
"Rodney, I thought we had all agreed that was an incident we would never bring up again," John said curtly. "More so than bug one."
"Technically, they both involved bugs…" Rodney said, sounding a bit distant.
"Rodney. We are not talking about this."
"Right. Sorry."
John nodded, and was unable to restrain a grimace. The "bug incident" was probably the most intense pain he had suffered, surpassed only by the sensation of a Wraith extracting lifeforce from his chest, and the "Elia incident" was the most freaky. When you were completely distanced from your humanity, you did not want to talk about it.
Or think about it, for that matter.
John leaned against the railing behind him and reached into his pocket, pulling out his ever-present citrus. It was an orange this time, so actually edible. Rodney sent him a glare, but John ignored him. He just wasn't in the mood for toying.
Absent-mindedly he pierced through the peel and ran his thumb along the widening gap, eventually removing the entire peel. This he carefully looped around until it formed the hollow outline of an orange. He bent over and placed it on the floor beside his boot, then straightened up and slowly ate the orange piece by piece.
It wasn't that he was hungry; it just gave him something to do. He had long since counted the geometric Ancient shapes that were in view. But eventually he knew that the orange would be gone, and he would have to resort with playing with its peel to keep his mind away from the morbid possibilities.
Rodney was staring into his cup so intently John half expected the contents to froth. Ronon was alarmingly still. Teyla was silent, watching and waiting for news. Colonel Carter… she was worried, but she was leader. Naturally whatever she felt would be kept well hidden.
John continued to dally over his orange, waiting, waiting. He hated the waiting. Because anything could happen in the meantime.
Sorry for the delays. Things have been going crazy fast around these parts. Also, went on a gotta-catch-up-on-my-chores spree which has carried over into today. So editing was something I haven't had much time for. Sorry.
This was one of the harder chapters to do. It is not easy to do scientific stuff when you have very limited access to the Internet.
Also, unexpected "Conversion" reference. It just popped into my head as I was writing the scene, so I put it in. It seems to fit, I think.