Act 3

"For how long?" Woolsey asked after he had listened, Sheppard thought, very patiently, to Ynek's explanation of what had happened to his people and the reasons for it. Ynek looked at him as though he had grown a pair of rabbit ears and buck teeth. Speaking more slowly, as if to a child, Woolsey repeated his question. "How long have these visits been going on for? When did they begin?"

"I understood the question, Mister Woolsey," Ynek answered, his tone leaving no doubt in Sheppard's mind that he took exception to be spoken down to. "And yet it makes little sense. There is no 'how long,' it simply is. It began before my distant ancestors were children, and without your help it will continue long after my descendents have joined with them in the beyond."

"So what you're saying is that the Haradians have always made these visitations to your village and chosen from among your young people one who will go with them… on a regular basis?"

"Yes," Ynek said, glancing at Sheppard. John thought he saw a puzzled hint of concern in the man's eyes, as if he doubted, suddenly, how anyone led by such a simple-minded individual, as Woolsey appeared to be, could possibly help them.

"Don't mind him," he said, though he didn't know why he bothered trying to defend the base commander, "he's just making sure that he's dotted his I's and crossed his T's."

"He too has superiors to answer to?" Ynek asked astutely.

"You better believe it," Sheppard said, relishing the chance to openly complain about Stargate Command and the IOA, "and those guys make Dickie here look positively genius."

Woolsey frowned deeply at him as he cleared his throat. "Yes, well my superiors aside, tell me, what is it you want us to do for you?"

"A man from my village recently received a visitation from a being he called an angel, who spoke to him and told him of those who would come from beyond the Ancestors' Ring to help us win our freedom from subjugation at the hands of the Haradians." Ynek began. "Shortly after telling of the visitation, and insisting on the need to send for help against our oppressors, he was murdered. Those in the village believe that it was Lisstha that killed him."

"But you don't," John put in, for clarification, and when Ynek shook his head he asked, "Why not?"

"Because Lisstha was Miran's lover. Two more faithful and devoted people you would never meet." Ynek answered.

"So you suspect someone else – one of the Haradians perhaps – ensuring that you would give over the woman." Woolsey said.

"Lisstha has disappeared." Ynek said and shook his head.

"Doesn't that rather support her involvement in his death?" Woolsey asked, "Fleeing the scene of the crime?"

"You think it's this 'angel' of Miran's, don't you?" Ronon asked, peeling himself from the doorway, where he had been keeping watch over the milling throng of refugees in the Gate Room below.

"That is my fear," Ynek confirmed, "though I believe him to be no angel."

"What do you mean?" Sheppard asked, glancing between Ronon and Ynek.

"Before he spoke with the elders of our settlement, Miran approached me and told me of the visitation, and what the one that came to him said."

"And what was that?" Woolsey asked.

"Miran was told that the Haradians take our women and our young people to bring them into servitude with others who use them until they are no longer wanted or needed, and who then execute them with impunity, in a most foul and horrifying way. The visitor said that they are sacrifices, not to the Haradian Hag, as we have long believed, but to these others who also use our settlement as a testing ground… quarantine."

"Just hold on a minute," Woolsey said, "What do you mean, quarantine?"

"I did not understand either. I merely repeat the words that Miran told to me," Ynek said. "And now, because Lisstha did not go to the Haradians, they have come to our village, destroyed our homes, and taken many, many of our people – our young people – on whom the future of our settlement depends."

"And you want us to do what?" Woolsey asked.

"We want your help to get them back." Ynek said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

**

As soon as he was out of sight of the road, Halling slipped from the cobbles into the shadow of a copse of trees and then deeper into the undergrowth. Crouching low, he pulled aside a hanging branch and slipped into a woven shelter, where the rest of his warriors lay concealed.

"We were right to come here," he said quietly, his tone low and serious.

"There is news?"

Halling nodded, "Several days ago a group of strangers came to the village. And several of the townsfolk disappeared in the night that followed. The strangers said they would return for their needed supplies." Halling held up his hand to discourage interruption, "Unlike them, I know, to announce their presence so openly, but… it is a start; a place to begin."

One of the other men came forward, "So we will remain and await their return."

"Indeed," Halling said earnestly, "and when they do, we must move quickly. If they are who we believe, and we are to use them to lead us to where we might find Teyla, we cannot afford to make mistakes."

"We will be ready," the others agreed as Halling settled down to try and get some rest. He knew it would be the better part of a day before the others returned and that resting was important, but he was disturbed by one of the other things that he had heard, and had not shared with his fellow Athosians.

He managed to slip in unnoticed behind a couple of the local men, but when he sat himself at the corner of the bar, the innkeeper at least had taken note of him and after only a moment set down a tankard in front of him and held out an all but overflowing jug of ale in query.

Halling nodded, and slipped what he thought passed as coin on this world onto the wooden top of the bar.

"You are new here, friend," the innkeeper said quietly as he poured the frothing, brown liquid into the tankard.

"A trader, passing through on my way home," Halling lied.

"And from the look of it, successful," the proprietor looked at the coin he now held in his hand.

"It is hard not to be," he lamented, perhaps a little exaggerated, "When one's trade is medicine and so much sickness on so many worlds."

The innkeeper had frowned then, "Sickness?" he asked, "not on any worlds in these parts, my friend… not in many a year."

Then it was Halling's turn to frown, "Then you are most fortunate," he said. "There is an illness spread among the worlds of this galaxy that is killing all in its path. It is not proud; takes young and old alike. It cares not for its victims."

"Aye, I've heard of it," the innkeeper says. "But we are kept from it and it from us by the keepers on our outlying worlds."

"Keepers? You mean the Wraith?"

The man's face darkened, "They care not for the how of its prevention. They come as they have always come. No… the keepers I speak of are men. Men who, on the worlds nearby, keep care of the Rings of the Ancestors so that they lead not to distant places where the plague is rife."

Halling raised his tankard then, to take a sip of the warm ale; to allay suspicion of his motives. "Then you are fortunate indeed," he said.

"We were." the innkeeper corrected him. It was then the man told him of the arrival of strangers, making demands of the settlement. Halling felt elation rising in him to have so quickly found a trail that might lead him to find a way to Teyla, but at the same time his heart and stomach sank to think that Michael was still taking others for his experiments; was widening his network still further.

"But if they came, and now with you here, it means the keepers are not safeguarding us any longer," the man said, interrupting his thoughts, "and that means that we must fear that the sickness might, as well, find its way here."

It was the fact of men that were guarding the stargates that bothered Halling. In his time on Atlantis he had come to understand only a little of how the stargates worked, but it was his understanding that if one knew the symbols to press to dial any world in the galaxy, then the stargates would simply form a bridge between the two worlds. Preventing a series of gates from being a part of that network, he was certain, required far more knowledge than the average local civilisation would possess.

Whether it was of Human, Wraith or even of Michael's design to keep these worlds isolated, was a question that Halling was not sure he wanted answering.

**

"The answer is still no," Woolsey said firmly. "I didn't hear a single thing in that man's story that has changed the situation."

"But aren't you even a little bit curious about who's behind all this?" Sheppard asked, leaning forward to address the whole of the assembled senior staff.

"Frankly, no," Woolsey snapped. "Priorities, Colonel Sheppard."

"Responsibility, Mister Woolsey," he snapped back. "These people came to us for help. We can't just turn them away?"

"You don't actually believe we can help these people?" Rodney chipped in, most ungenerously, Sheppard thought. He fixed Sheppard with an astonished expression.

"Why not?" Sheppard asked, spreading his hands in invitation for anyone to give him a good reason why they couldn't just gate to the planet, find these bullies and convince them to leave Ynek's good people alone. Of course, frustration at sitting on his hands while Teyla was out there somewhere, needing them to find her did not help his desire to beat something to a bloody pulp.

"Because, Colonel Sheppard, in spite of being asked to help by these people, this matter really is none of our concern," Woolsey told him with mock patience.

"You're wrong."

About to argue, Sheppard closed his mouth again as Ronon spoke. The big Satedan did not back down when all eyes, including Woolsey's, turned his way, expecting further explanation.

"Ynek described this woman that came to choose the sacrifice as being ancient," he said, "more than that, as being the same 'hag' that haunted the village in his grandmother's time."

"You're thinking Wraith Worshipper, aren't you?" McKay asked, as if suddenly becoming more interested in the possibility to help these people.

"How else could she be so old and still be alive?" Ronon turned the question back on McKay.

"But I thought," Woolsey interjected, "that if one received the 'gift of life' from a Wraith, it would preserve your youth as well. In which case, surely she'd come to these people as a young woman, not a hag."

"Preserves your youth, yes," Ronon answered, "but I don't think there's a person alive who could tell you the effects of prolonged exposure, because sooner or later, even the most devout Wraith Worshipper manages to piss off their masters and then..." he didn’t finish the sentence, he didn't need to.

Rodney paled. "So you're suggesting that this woman has been a Wraith Worshipper for so long that even their 'gift of life' can't keep her looking young, only keep her alive."

Ronon shrugged, as if to say, 'why not?'

"Well that's all very interesting, but I still don't see how that makes it our business," Woolsey said.

"Because it represents a deviation from what we know of the Wraith and their tactics, and if you expect to defend this base from their attacks you need to make it a priority to investigate any and all Intel concerning such deviations by the Wraith in order to inform any future defensive strategies," Rodney rattled off quickly and offhandedly, before turning to Ronon and asking, "He said the arrival of the Hag is always preceded by the appearance of a red star in the sky and a flash of lightning. Cruiser, do you think? Dart?"

"And then there the matter of this 'angel' Ynek said appeared to Miran," Sheppard added.

McKay nodded, "And the description he said that Miran gave to him, you'll agree I think when I say it sounded very like the description of one of Michael's hybrids, maybe even Michael himself for all we know."

"Before you get ahead of yourself, Doctor McKay," Woolsey interrupted, "There's still the question of what we are going to do with all those refugees from M3X-667."

"That's the other thing that makes it our business," Sheppard answered with a wry smile. "If you expect to get those people off the base, then we have to go make their home a safe place for them to be. Rodney can't be expected to find an uninhabited world for every race of people you happen to—"

He didn't get the satisfaction of finishing the sentence that he'd meant as a reminder to Woolsey of his destruction of their alliance with the Athosians. A security alarm began to sound all through the city, and after only a moment one of the technicians from the control room raced into the conference room.

"It's the infirmary," he said breathlessly.

**

Ronon pulled his gun as he raced ahead of the others into the infirmary, almost toppling a gurney as he made his way to the isolation room. Behind him, Sheppard swore and dodged aside as the bed wheeled into his path.

The two men came to a halt just inside the room and Sheppard almost had to turn aside. It was only Keller's shouted instruction that grabbed a hold of his senses and kicked him into business mode.

"Get those men out of here!" she yelled, struggling to hold the thrashing Lorne to the bed and at the same time point to the soldiers that Woolsey had left in guardianship of her patient.

"You heard the lady," Sheppard said as he turned menacingly toward them. Ronon in the meantime slipped past him to help restrain the stricken Major.

"What's going on?" Woolsey asked as he arrived and pushed his way past the exiting marines.

"And get him out of here too," Keller began.

"I'm staying," he said firmly. "What happened?"

For several minutes, Keller couldn't answer as Major Lorne cried out again with the pain of his ongoing transformation, arching his back and lifting himself off the bed in spite of Ronon's restraining grasp. Finally the wave of agony appeared to pass, and he fell, limply back to the bed, allowing Jennifer a moment to catch her breath.

"About an hour ago," she told them, "I noticed that the rate of transformation was no longer being held back by either the NTRI drugs alone, or the cocktail of those drugs and Doctor Becket's original retrovirus. I began to the wonder if the sedation I had him under was interfering with the actions of his own immune system, so I reduced the sedation. For a while he stabilised, only a little but even a little was a big step at that point, but then, in the last ten minutes he just went crazy… his pressure shot through the ceiling, he broke freed of the restraints, and started…" she gestured to the bed before finishing, "writhing in agony. One of your two men hit the panic button."

"And it seems like a good job that he did," Woolsey said with an audible frown. "I did warn you that it was not a good idea to keep Major Lorne here in this condition."

"Save the 'I told you so'," Ronon growled at him.

"I had it under control," Keller told them, "until his marines tried to interfere. Seems like he reacted to the presence of other soldiers."

"The question is, Doctor Keller," Woolsey asked falsely calm, "What are you going to do about it."

"What are we going to do," she corrected him. "As much as you're not going to like what I have to say, there's very few options left available to us."

"What do you mean?" This time Sheppard asked the question that he knew was burning in everyone's thoughts.

"The only thing I can do for the Major is to sedate him again, but the minute I do that, the rate of transformation is going to pick up. I have done everything I can think of to stop, or even slow this happening, but I'm out of ideas." She looked at Woolsey then. "If I'm going to help the Major at all, I need help, and that means you're going to have to authorise Colonel Sheppard and the others to go after Michael. Because right now, I either need the serum so that I can wake Carson and get him to help me or I need Michael – regardless of how dangerous that will be."

For several long moments there was a terrible silence in the isolation room until another agonising wave came over Major Lorne, and he screamed again, contorting his body against the restraints that Ronon had refastened. His eyes snapped open, the irises pale against the white. Woolsey looked away and sighed.

"Very well," he said on the end of the sigh, adding to Sheppard a moment later, "Assemble your team, and meet me in the gate room in fifteen minutes."

**

The ten silent, still figures flanked the cobbled road that led between the settlement and the stargate. Halling waited in the lea of a massive tree that stood beside the road. He had argued endlessly with his companions on the best course of action – whether to simply attack the entire group of soldiers as they came past, or to wait in silent ambush for the last man, and pick him off alone, interrogate him and find the next step along their path.

Each option had its merits and its dangers. Taking out the entire group, if they truly were hybrid soldiers, or even just Michael's agents would alert him to the problem and make him more than cautious, expecting attack. Isolating and capturing the last of the soldiers to pass would mean that if they could not get him to reveal what information he knew they would be no nearer to discovering where Teyla was potentially being held. There was no single or easy answer, but in the end the question answered itself.

"We must hurry," one of the leading soldiers turned to the others. "Already we are behind schedule. If we are caught here when their culling begins, and are trapped among the villagers, he will not be pleased."

"You have the modified crystal?" a soldier in the rear of the party asked.

The first soldier shook his head. "The crystal is already installed in the dialling device. I was instructed to keep it there, in case we needed to make a quick escape," he said. "You remember the address for the rendezvous?"

"He would not allow me to forget."

Halling sighed, it was to be all or nothing then, and they would have to make their attack after these soldiers had dialled the gate. Silently he signalled to the others to let them pass, and to follow as only the Athosians knew how; silent as a creeping fog on a still evening.

**

"Rodney?" Sheppard looked up at the control room in consternation as the gate powered down for the third time in a row.

"It's no good, I can't get a lock," McKay called down.

Exasperated, Sheppard took the stairs almost two at a time, leading the rest of the team, with Woolsey trailing behind, up into the control room.

"What do you mean, you can't get a lock?" he asked. "Bravo team came from that address."

"Just that," McKay said, looking more than a little flustered. "The gate dials all the symbols, the first six symbols lock, but the second the 'Point of Origin' registers, the gate just… shuts down."

"Could it be a problem with the dialling device… the city's computers?" Woolsey asked, concerned.

"It's possible, I suppose," McKay answered, "but Zelenka and I only just ran a full diagnostic on all the city's systems, and everything was fine."

"Is there any way to test it?" Sheppard asked, trying to stay patient.

"Without running another diagnostic?" McKay asked, and when Sheppard nodded he said, "The only way to do that is to try dialling another gate."

Sheppard raised his eyebrows, and then when McKay didn't move, he gestured toward the dialling computer.

"Oh… right… yeah," McKay thought for a moment and then pressed a sequence of symbols on the dialling computer. Everyone turned their attention to the gate room, where, as it should, the gate dialled through to the requested address and a stable wormhole formed. McKay frowned, and walking toward the balcony claimed, "You know… that's truly bizarre."

"Rodney…" Sheppard began in warning tones, not wanting McKay to laps into a totally irrelevant line of thought.

"No, no, no," McKay said, "hear me out. The reason Zelenka and I did the diagnostic in the first place was because we encountered this same issue when I was trying to find a suitable place for the Athosians to settle."

"But that was nowhere near to Ynek's homeworld," Ronon put in, then asked, "was it?"

"No, it wasn't," McKay moved back into the control room and called up the display of system to which they were having trouble establishing a wormhole. "Originally, though, we were looking in this part of the galaxy because it seemed to be reasonably uninhabited, and we'd had very little reports of Wraith activity from around there."

He took up a light-pen and drew a circle around first one, and then another of the worlds and then, with the pen, pointed to the first of them.

"This is the place to which we were originally going to send Halling and the others," he said, and then pointed to the place they were currently trying to dial. "And this is Ynek's home, M3X-667. I wonder…"

Without even asking for permission, he plucked a tablet out of the hands of a nearby technician and began to access one of the city's systems by remote network, and then returned to the dialling computer, disengaged the current wormhole, and began to input another set of symbols.

"Rodney, what are you doing?" Sheppard asked, growing more concerned by the moment at the time this was all taking; time that neither Teyla, nor Major Lorne had.

"Trying out a theory," McKay answered.

"Forget the theory," Sheppard snapped, "just… find the nearest gate address we know we can dial to, and get us a wormhole. We can go the rest of the way by Jumper."

"But—" McKay started to protest.

"Just for once, Doctor," Woolsey said, "I have to agree with Colonel Sheppard. While this anomaly is troubling, it can be investigated once the Colonel is underway with his team."

"Find me that address, Rodney," Sheppard called out, already heading for the stairs to the Jumper bay.

**

Even though the Athosians outnumbered the soldiers more than two to one, Halling found that he and his warriors were hard pressed against them. He had waited until the last moment he dared, after the soldiers had dialled the gate address, to call for the attack before any of them could pass through the shining blue puddle. He watched carefully as the leading soldier had removed the extra crystal from inside the device while the gate was still active, and tucked it inside his shirt. Only then did he roar out his command for them to attack.

The soldiers were fast and strong. He knew they would be, enhanced as they were by the genetic changes forced on them by Michael, and wanting to take them alive made the battle harder still.

He fought with fist and staff until his muscles burned and his lungs cried out for air at the repeated blows rained upon his chest by the soldier he fought. The ground around them became splattered with blood and littered with fallen weapons as each side sought the upper hand and in doing so disarmed his opponent. The air was filled with the sound of flesh on flesh, and the occasional snap of bone, and yet still they fought on.

Halling took a sharp blow to the temple and stumbled, falling to his knees with his rival over him, poised for a killing blow. He whispered a prayer to the Ancestors, and held himself still until the last second, when the feet of his opponent shifted in the dirt, and then he launched himself from his knees toward the man. Surprise was on his side, and his shoulder connected hard with the man's thigh, unbalancing him, toppling him over and bringing his head to connect with the side of the dialling device. The soldier fell, stunned if not unconscious, to the ground and Halling scrabbled in the dirt to find the man's fallen weapon. Coming to his knees fired the Wraith stunner time and time again, until all the others lay fallen too.

"Secure them," he ordered breathlessly, "and see to our wounded. There is much I would learn from these four."

"We will tell you nothing." The soldier he had fought with was quickly recovering from his fall. He moaned the words as he began to drag himself to his knees.

Uncharacteristically angry, Halling turned and kicked out at the man until he fell again to the ground. Then he grabbed the man's hair and pulled back his head and, pressing the weapon into the man's neck, he growled, "You will tell me what I want to know."

**

"Talk to me, Rodney," Sheppard said, as he carefully manoeuvred the cloaked Jumper through the rock strewn canyon toward the co-ordinates he'd been given for the energy readings that did not at all match the agricultural nature of the planet's evolutionary level.

"I'll remind you," McKay snapped from the co-pilot's seat. "I was not going to come on this mission at all. I was press ganged into it!"

"And now you're here," Sheppard reminded him, "And as much in danger as the rest of us if anything happens and they detect our Jumper, so… talk to me."

"Um… you shouldn't go much further. I should start looking for a place to set down, and then we'll have to go the rest of the way on foot," he paused and then complained, "again."

"That's all I wanted to know," Sheppard said, and nodded.

"Why Zelenka couldn't come along I'll never know, I mean, it was my idea to investigate the problem with the gates around this system."

"Relax," Ronon said, mild amusement in his voice, "I'm sure Doctor Zelenka won't discover anything you couldn't have."

"Ha, ha, yes. Very funny," McKay retorted.

"Would you two knock it off," Sheppard admonished both of them as he set the Puddle Jumper down behind a small copse of trees. Turning to Ynek he asked, "All right, which way?"

"The Ancestors' Ring is just beyond the next rise, and beyond that, on the other side of the river, by the foot of the mountains is the city of the Haradians."

"Sounds like quite a hike," Ronon said.

"It is not so far as you might think," Ynek said, shaking his head, "it is only fear that makes the journey longer."

"Well then I guess we'd best get started," Sheppard said, getting out of his seat and beginning to strap on the gear and weapons he might need. "McKay…"

"You sure you… don't want someone to stay behind and guard the Jumper," McKay asked.

"For that one I think it will be a long journey indeed," Ynek said with a grin.

McKay gave him a sour look, and then he too began to gather the weapons, and other equipment that he would need.

**

Lisstha twisted her hands again her bonds, and pulled at the tether that held her staked to the ground like some common animal. Her arms were sore from being pulled behind her for so long, and her head ached from the constant fear, that came in waves, sometimes threatening almost to stifle her. She looked across the narrow cave in which she was held to the figure that stood, motionless still, on the narrow ledge overlooking the surrounding area.

He kept to the shadows at the entrance, his back upright and straight, a tension there, a strength she knew, first hand now after she had tried to free herself from his grasp. It was then he'd tied her hands and something in her sensed that this was not always his way; that there was something in him that was tired.

Even tired he was alert. He must have sensed her watching him, for he turned from his the watch he was keeping over their surroundings, his head tilted just a little.

"Why are you doing this?" she finally asked him.

For a moment she thought, like all her other questions, he would refuse to answer, but then he took a step in her direction, speaking quietly, and almost, she thought, with regret. "There are times when matters that were once… unknown by many, must be brought into the light." Then he tipped his head back a little, as if coming suddenly awake, and in a tone more clipped and final than before said, "It is a necessary step to complete my work."

"Your work?"

"You wouldn't understand," he told her, and began to turn away again, to return to his watchfulness.

"I'm not stupid!" she told him, fear driving her to be angry. When he did not offer more, she demanded, "What do you want from me?"

"Absolutely nothing," he said without turning.

"Then free me," she pleaded.

He turned back to her then, his head tilted, and a frown of confusion barely visible through the shadows in which he stood. "Where would you go?" he asked. "You cannot return to your people. They consider you to be a traitor and if I released you to those who would take you to their masters, you would not survive. You are no longer useful to them." He regarded her for a moment after in silence, his eyes burning in a way that chilled to the core, before he said, "No. I have learned to value what resources I might gather."

"But you said—"

"I said I wanted nothing from you," he corrected her before she even finished the sentence, "but I may yet find a use for you."

"Please…" she began to twist her hands once more in a bid for freedom at the coldness in his voice. "Let me—"

"Need I remind you of the value of silence?" he warned, and glared at her again until she became silent and still. It was only then that she noticed the sounds of other, coming nearer, and that in spite of this he did not seem alarmed in the slightest. He barely turned his head and asked, "Where are the others?"

"They returned as captives." Two men stepped from the narrow path that led to the cave, one of them answered as he came into the dim light. She could barely make out the disfigurements that marred his cheeks, and those of his companion also, and the same, strange mottled, pale veined flesh.

"The Lanteans?" he asked, seeming to be undisturbed by the news.

"Athosian warriors," his subordinate answered, "some of those whom the Lanteans freed."

"Hmmm," he said, and for a moment she thought he almost sounded amused. "So they too have followed my little trail of breadcrumbs." Finally turning to his men, he became once more terse, his manner clipped and almost as if he were offended. "No matter," he said, "they may share the same fate as Colonel Sheppard and his team."

He tilted his head for a long moment, and seemed to be concentrating, or thinking deeply, before he straightened and said, "Come, there is no more time. We must set matters into motion, and then leave this place." Lisstha shivered as he jerked his head toward her and said, "Bring the girl," before he turned and went ahead of them down the narrow path.

**

Rodney McKay made a sour face as his foot squelched into the mud at the bottom of the trench in which they sheltered from sight. Raising his head slightly he peered into the distance, and then took his turn with the binoculars as Ronon passed them his way.

There were figures in the field ahead, many of them, men and women alike. Each was similarly dressed in what looked to be home spun cloth, and thought the style was not as rustic as the surroundings would suggest – to all intents and purposes it seemed to Rodney that they had stumbled on a simple farming community – they were simple and functional; tight fitting pants and a sleeveless tunic that was belted at the waist. They were working together to build some kind of structure.

He pressed the control on the side of the binoculars to zoom in still further on one of the men. He was of average height and build. His dark brown hair, though long was gathered tidily in a thong that held it away from his face, to fall in a single tail down his back. His facial features appeared to be what Rodney would consider normal for a human male who quite obviously, from the individual's build, spent much of his time working out of doors. There were no blemishes, no facial grooves that should not be there, and the tone of his skin looked healthy. In fact, he looked in appearance very similar to Ynek himself.

"I thought you said the Haradians were soldiers," he hissed to Ynek.

"They are. Many of them," Ynek answered, "those you see here are the workers. They build and farm to strengthen the Haradian community. "The soldiers dwell within the taller buildings in the centre of the town."

"Great," McKay snapped, adding sarcastically, "So what you're telling me is that we've gotten ourselves into the middle of a local war. Way to go, us!" He began to lower the binoculars, ready to relinquish them into Sheppard's hands, when something about the man caught his eyes. "Wait, wait," he said, and tugged against Sheppard's grip on the equipment. "I think I saw something; some kind of… of marking on his neck."

"It's called a tattoo, Rodney," Sheppard answered lazily, snatching the binoculars out of his hands, "and having one doesn't mark you out as some kind of heinous villain."

Ronon leaned over and grinned at Rodney before turning to Sheppard and asking, "What's the plan?"

"Well," Sheppard said, surveying the distant settlement with the binoculars again, "I don't see any sign of anything out of order. Nor do I see any of Ynek's people." Rodney wondered to himself how Sheppard could tell the difference, but held his tongue. "So I guess we just… go on out there. Make contact and try and settle this through diplomatic channels. They look reasonable enough, and they don't appear to be carrying any serious kind of weapons."

"It is the soldiers have the weapons," Ynek said.

"Well, we'll try to avoid them for the time being." Sheppard answered, "See if we can't get these people here to bring us to the leader. Hopefully get your people back, and then we can be on our way."

He sighed himself. He could almost hear Woolsey's 'I told you so.'

"Come on," Sheppard slapped the top of his shoulder, and then started out of the ditch, leaving Rodney to extricate himself from the mud and follow. He made another face as he did so, trying to shake the water and the oozing mud from his boot.

They walked openly toward the Haradians, keeping Ynek behind them for the moment. Their weapons slung across their chests and holstered, appearing casual. As they neared the team of builders, one of the Haradian men turned and shielding his eyes again the sun, came toward them.

"Greetings," the man said, "you are… far from home."

"Hi," Sheppard answered, halting a few feet away from the man. By now the others had stopped working and were looking at them with guarded curiosity. "We're not staying long, just… like to see your elders, ruling council, whatever… clear up a little misunderstanding and then we'll be on our way."

"Misunderstanding," the man echoed in question, "ruling council?"

"Yeah, the people who lead your… settlement," Sheppard said.

Rodney peered at the man, trying to get a better look at the tattoo on the side of his neck, but the man's own shadow obscured that side of him in the late afternoon sun, and he was on the wrong side to see it clearly in any event.

When the man noticed he was looking, not wanting to appear rude, he looked away, to peer at the mountainside beyond the Haradian settlement. It was smoothly angled, vegetation growing sparsely on its screes and slopes; a deep, dark stone, like granite, very old – established.

"By all means," the Haradian said, nodding to Sheppard and then gestured with a hand to a small path that led past the fields where the building was taking place, into the heart of the town. "I would be happy to bring you before them."

"Thank you," Sheppard said, then gestured himself for the man to precede them. "After you."

Rodney followed, and whether out of paranoia or not, something about the way the people who remained behind to see to the building behaved, made even the hair on his toes stand on end.

**

Zelenka raised his glasses for a moment to rub the bridge of his nose before he resumed peering at the results streaming back at him as he tried to dial yet another of the gates in the near vicinity of M3X-667. He muttered to himself as he watched, growing bored and feeling he was getting nowhere.

"Chevron locked, chevron locked, chevron locked," he said of the last of the six symbols came alight in the middle ring of the gate, and then circled to find its place beneath the lighted chevron. "Sending Point of Origin… wait for th— wait, that's not right." Suddenly he was alert, and backing up the streaming data he peered again at the string of text that had flashed across his screen, almost too quickly for him to see. "That can't be right, it's not possible," he said to himself, and then once more started the dialling sequence.

His frown deepened as once again the same sequence of text flashed across his screen just before the gate deactivated. He brought the text back up on his screen and began to quickly decipher its meaning.

"Oh no," he said, his voice becoming a little more tremulous. He quickly turned to one of the technicians and said, "Get me the recorded data from Bravo team dialled in from M3X-667," he said, "and then find Mister Woolsey. We have a problem." To himself he muttered, "A big problem."

**

"Prisoners of war, Colonel Sheppard," D'nuos, leader of the Haradian Military told him, "taken because our neighbours broke with the accord set up by our ancestors long before this time. I assure you they are being humanely treated."

"But that's just it," Sheppard said, "it wasn't Ynek's people. We believe that there was some kind of… outside interference… someone else that came and took that girl before she could be brought to join you here."

"You sound very certain, Colonel." D'nuos said. Sheppard didn't like the tone in his voice, and once more looked the man over. He was looking for anything, besides the man's arrogant manner, which reminded him disturbingly of the Genii, that could account for the bad feeling that was growing in him by the moment.

As the others of his people he was simply dressed. Though not quite in uniform, the tight fitting pants were of a thick, deep blue, almost black woven fabric, and the tunic he wore was of the same dark colour. Unlike the others, over the tunic he wore a mid length jacket-like overcoat that hung, unfastened about him. The coat was long enough to conceal any weapons the man might be carrying, and perhaps, he decided, that was what was bothering him. The coat's collar was starched, and stood up about the man's neck. There was no insignia, no sign of rank. The entire outfit was simply one stark colour.

Sheppard glanced out of the corner of his eyes, to see Ronon standing tense and alert. The Satedan's hand rested within easy reach of his weapon. Something wasn't right, and he didn't like that they were so enclosed.

"As certain as I can be," he said, and shrugged a little, using the movement as an excuse to begin a slow walk around the room to which they had been shown. It was an octagonal room that was deep within the Military compound they'd entered to speak with D'nuos. Exits led from the room in most directions, with the external doors behind them. The building, as all of the others was stone clad wood. The room's wood lining was polished and dark, made of the local fauna, as he'd noticed the wood of many of the trees in the area was a deep brown in colour. He could detect no hidden chambers, no bolt holes from which hidden weapons could be discharged. Nothing that should give him cause to be assaulted by this feeling. "From everything I've heard," he added softly, turning back to face D'nuos.

The Haradian was looking at a small hand held device and listening to the whispered words of another of the soldiers, who stood just behind him. Sheppard had been so absorbed in his examination of the room that he had failed to hear the man enter.

"Indeed," D'nuos agreed, looking up from the device and giving him, and the others, a rather thin smile. "It seems you're right. There has been a rather large misunderstanding."

**

Lisstha bit her lip against the pain in her hand where her captor had sliced deeply into her palm and clung tightly to the wad of fabric he had then torn from the bottom of her shirt and pressed into her hand. They had been in a clearing among some trees, and by some magic of a device he held, he had called, out of nothing, a rounded metal box. It hadn't taken him long before he had opened a door in the rear of what turned out to be like some kind of carriage, and after dragging her inside, and cutting her bonds, had sliced into her hand with the knife he took from one of his men.

She stood a little away from him now, flanked by the two others of his men, watching as his hands began to move with assured confidence over the symbols on the small altar beside the Ancestors' Ring.

He had barely touched his fingers to three of the sacred symbols when the Ring beside them began to hum with power. She saw him frown, and then watched as he quickly stepped away and reached for the weapon at his side. His men did likewise, though neither released their hold on her.

There was a sudden whoosh of sound and the bright blue of sun on a waterfall flared in front of the Ancestors' Ring, before the brightness became a steady mirror-like surface stretched in the space within the circle. The three with her all pointed their weapons at that space, and stood tense… waiting.

Minutes passed, and nothing happened. Her captor tilted his head, and then turned slightly to look back in the direction from which they had come.

"Someone is attempting to communicate with Colonel Sheppard and his men," he said. Almost before he had finished voicing his realisation he took the two steps that brought him to her side, and snatched her arm from the grip of one of the others. "I cannot remain here any longer. When the wormhole deactivates, dial the fourth tertiary site, and from there our secondary facility. Remember to retrieve the crystal."

With his instructions given, he turned and began to walk quickly up towards a plateau, high in the nearby hill. Lisstha practically had to run to keep up with him.

**

"Colonel Sheppard, this is Atlantis, please respond," Zelenka's voice sounded clear as crystal in his ear.

"I hear you, Radek, what's up?" he asked, trying to sound casual in the face of the concern, no… fear he heard in the scientist's voice.

"Colonel, there's no time to explain. You and the others are in danger. I found out what was blocking the gates and—"

Booted footsteps sounded from all around Sheppard, and he stopped listening to what Zelenka was trying to say to him, making a sudden grab for his P90, and feeling his back come into contact with Ronon and Rodney's back. The almost comforting whine of Ronon's weapon charging sounded in his ear.

The comforting feeling faded quickly as he turned his head from side to side, allowing him to look around them.

"Oh crap!" he said softly.

Coming soon