Nightfall Read online

  “I do not know this ‘Atlantis’. I am Elder Aaren. And I must ask you, what do you seek on Heruun? If you’re here to trade, I warn you we want for very little.” The man moved carefully, and Sheppard was aware that the men on the ridge with the tubular rifles were following his every move, ready for a signal to open fire; but his team knew how to play these kinds of confrontations from mission after mission in the field. No sudden moves, just nice and easy.

  “We seek information about the Wraith,” said Teyla. The reaction from the locals was the same one John Sheppard had seen a hundred times across the Pegasus Galaxy; cold, hard fear.

  “The Wraith.” Aaren said the name and then spat in the dirt. “Thank the Aegis that they have been banished from our world. You will find no trace of them here.”

  Sheppard and McKay exchanged glances. “Is that so?” said Rodney. “Banished, huh? You guys are lucky, then.”

  “Luck has no bearing on it,” came the reply. “The Aegis protects us from their predations.” Aaren beckoned the colonel toward him, with other hand waving down the guns of his men. “Come. See for yourselves.” The man’s manner changed from wary mistrust to smugness in a heartbeat.

  “What about Laaro?” said Ronon. “He said his father is lost. You people were out looking for him?”

  “We were looking for my son!” said Laaro’s mother. “His father… He…” She broke off and shot a look at the elder.

  Aaren leaned closer to speak to Sheppard in a low voice. “The boy is…troublesome. He brings nothing but worry to poor Jaaya, here. He doesn’t quite understand how things work.”

  “Right,” Sheppard replied carefully. To be honest, he was having trouble understanding how things worked around here as well, but he kept that to himself for the moment.

  “His father is well. He’ll be coming back tonight.”

  “From where — ?” Keller started to ask the question, but Aaren was already moving off, beckoning once more.

  Laaro was being alternately hugged and scolded by Jaaya, and he trailed her up toward the ridge, throwing Sheppard and the others a glum, defeated look.

  “So, we’re going with them, then?” said McKay.

  “I guess so,” said the colonel, his eyes never leaving the boy’s.

  The walk back to the settlement took a while, but the trail was easy going and the two groups moved in a wary lockstep. Rodney McKay kept pace behind Sheppard, half so he could listen in on the colonel’s conversation with Aaren, but also so he could keep someone between himself and the guys handling the lion-cat-things.

  The pre-dawn light was emerging at the horizon, an orange-pink band pushing blue into the dark sky overhead.

  “Their clothes,” began Keller, apparently thinking out loud as she studied the locals. “Some of them, they’re like a burnoose, those wrap-around things. All lightweight stuff. Kinda Arabian-looking.”

  “Maybe,” offered McKay. “This is a savannah region, probably similar to, oh, Southern Africa back home. Figures that they’d have similar dress sense to folks from those places.” One of the animals made a grumbling snarl and pounced on something at the side of the road. Rodney heard a squeal and the crunching of bone as its handler pulled it off its kill. “Oh. Snack time. How nice.”

  Keller blinked. “That’s a big kitty, all right.”

  “Just as long as it doesn’t want me to pet it,” he replied.

  “Ah, lions don’t bite you. Not unless you annoy ’em, or something.”

  McKay arched an eyebrow. “You’re from Wisconsin. What makes you a safari expert all of a sudden?”

  “Hey, I must have watched Born Free about a million times when I was Laaro’s age.” She grinned. “You know? Born Free, as free as the —”

  “I know how it goes,” Rodney retorted, cutting her off in mid-flow. He sniffed and glanced up.

  Keller followed his gaze, staring at the fading glow of the glittering banner in the sky. “What is that up there?”

  “Ring system,” he explained, “like Saturn has. Ice and dust particles, mostly, held in check by gravitation and —”

  “Huh.” Jennifer smiled slightly. “Guess you must have been more a Star Wars kind of kid.”

  Rodney shrugged. He didn’t see what bearing that had on anything. “I owned a light saber,” he admitted.

  “Owned, or still own?”

  He glanced away. “It’s mint in box, okay? And quite rare.” A few steps ahead, Sheppard was walking in conversation with Aaren, and Rodney found himself listening in once more.

  “So, this ‘Aegis’ that you spoke about. You said it protects you. It’s a device? A person?” McKay could imagine the direction the colonel’s thoughts were taking. Were the locals using Ancient technology of some sort to drive off the Wraith? The Atlanteans had seen that kind of thing before, on other worlds like the Cloister planet, Proculus and Halcyon.

  “It’s not our place to question the nature of the Aegis,” said Aaren, politely but firmly. “It simply is.”

  McKay rolled his eyes. So it was another gods-in-the-sky thing then. Great. That was the problem about traveling around this galaxy, where the feeding patterns of the Wraith made sure that hardly anyone ever got their civilization up past their equivalent of the Middle Ages. Nine times out of ten, every new world they went to was just like a visit to the Renaissance Fair. The thing was, every time they did meet people with a tech level closer to Earth’s, they usually ended up being very unfriendly.

  “Your people don’t mind being defended by a mysterious benefactor?” Sheppard pressed the point a little more.

  Aaren smiled and shook his head. “That is like asking what holds up the sky or who built the moons. These things exist. And we are grateful for them.”

  The colonel changed tack. “So, what happened with Laaro’s father?”

  “Ah, Errian, yes.” The Elder glanced up the road and his voice dropped; Laaro and Jaaya were only a few meters away, at the head of the party. “The boy lacks discipline, you see. He has no patience to wait.”

  “He’s a kid,” said Sheppard. “Kids aren’t real big on waiting for things.”

  “Just so,” nodded Aaren. “Errian is one of the Taken. He has been graced several times now. It comes to me as a surprise that the boy has not made his peace with it.”

  “Taken.” Sheppard repeated the word and shot a warning look at Rodney.

  Aaren was still nodding. “Like all those so chosen, Errian went from his bed in the night, while the settlement slept.”

  The man’s words chilled McKay, in their matter-of-fact manner. His thoughts raced; in his book taken was just another word for culled, a nicer term to cover up the cold horror of being captured by the Wraith. “But you said the Wraith don’t come here,” Rodney pushed forward, and Aaren glanced at him.

  “Not for a long time, no, not since before the Aegis came.” He gestured at Laaro and his mother. “Jaaya has tried to impress upon her son the reality of the matter, but he resists all good sense. Against my words, he still came out here all alone, as if he thought he could bring his father back himself.” The Elder shook his head, as if the idea was the height of idiocy.

  “Then where is Laaro’s dad now?” Sheppard said sharply.

  Aaren blinked at the colonel’s tone, but said nothing of it. “The dawn is coming,” he noted, “and Errian will come with it.” The Elder quickened his pace and pointed ahead down the trail. “Come now. We have arrived.”

  McKay looked in the direction Aaren was pointing and his mouth dropped open. “Whoa.”

  Rising up from the middle of the grasslands was a stand of trees that were broad and wide around the base like giant redwoods reaching skyscraper-high into the air. The trunks exploded outward in vanes of thick branches, each one ending in a fan of lush green and smaller boughs. For a moment, Jennifer thought she saw hordes of glowing fireflies in among the leafy canopy, but then she realized her perspective was off. Keller raised a hand to shield her eyes from the rays of the fast-rising
sun and got a better look. The trees were massive, tightly packed and meshing into one another like interlaced fingers; and in between every branch there were platforms and great big woven pods that reminded her of low-hanging fruit. What at first she thought were aerial roots were actually tethers and ropes extending out and down to the ground, leading up to clusters of egg-shaped huts and long, tubular lodges connected by wooden catwalks and byways.

  “There’s a whole town in there,” she said. Even as she looked, Keller saw the first white puffs of smoke from chimneys as someone stoked a morning cook fire. There were dirt track roads snaking around the bases of the trees and their hanging gardens, and the Herunni led them on, into the shadow of the woods.

  “Who does their decorating, the Ewoks?” said Rodney, incredulous.

  “That’s some tree house,” agreed Jennifer. “I had one just like it. Only smaller.”

  McKay shook his head. “Not me.” He made a vague gesture in front of his face. “Nosebleeds. And Hay fever.”

  Along the road, a man was walking with difficulty toward their group, another younger man helping him to find his way. Keller was wondering who he was when a cry from Laaro answered that question for her. The boy exploded into life and bolted the distance between them, barreling into the figure with such force that he almost knocked him down. Jennifer threw a look in Jaaya’s direction and saw tears on her face, tears of joy.

  Aaren nodded smugly. “There, you see. As I said. The Aegis protects.”

  “That’s Errian?” Sheppard asked.

  Ronon folded his arms, unconvinced, while Teyla watched the reunion. “But did you not just say that this man was abducted?” The Athosian woman put hard emphasis on the last word; she had been listening grimly to Aaren’s words on the journey from the Stargate, and Jennifer had no doubt that she was dwelling on thoughts of her own people, who had recently been spirited away from her by unknown forces.

  “I said he was Taken,” noted the Elder. “And now he is Returned.”

  “He doesn’t look…” McKay faltered, trying to find the right word. “Uh… old.”

  “Keller?” Colonel Sheppard nodded towards the family group.

  He didn’t need to say it out loud. Go take a look. Jennifer skirted around Jaaya and came to Laaro’s side. The boy’s face was lit brilliantly from within, and he was talking a mile a minute, babbling on about his adventure that night, about his search for him, the Stargate, and more.

  He saw her coming and grinned even wider “Father, look. This is one of the voyagers. Her name is Jenny-far!”

  “Hi,” Keller said, feeling a little self-conscious. “Uh, would you mind if I took a look at you, just to see if you’re okay?”

  “I…” Laaro’s father gave a wan nod. “Of course.”

  The man who had been helping Errian to walk gave her an up-and-down look. “You are a healer?” He had wavy hair, intense brown eyes and a dark scattering of beard. He reminded Jennifer of a cute Indian geneticist she’d known at medical school.

  “That’s right.”

  He pursed his lips, considering. “As am I. My name is Kullid. And I assure you that Errian is well.”

  Keller accepted this with a nod, but pressed on anyway. “No doubt. But it never hurts to have a second opinion.”

  The Atlantis team stood in a loose knot in the shade of the tree-settlement. Teyla looked to the horizon and saw the sun finally emerging from behind a range of distant hills. In the moment’s pause, she had removed her jacket and stowed it in her gear pack, sensing the day’s coming heat on the wind. The air felt good on her arms and the freedom of movement she gained made her feel more comfortable still. Ever since the boy had appeared and spoken of his father in such a frightened manner, Teyla had sensed something amiss on this world. It was nothing preternatural, just a deep-seated instinct that gnawed at her. She looked to Ronon and saw that he felt the same thing as well. Unease. Suspicion, even.

  She turned back to find John Sheppard watching her intently. “I know that look,” he said. “Are you getting a…” He trailed off and made a fluttering gesture near his head. “A sense of something?”

  “There are no Wraith nearby,” she said flatly. “I would know it.”

  “Define ‘nearby’, Teyla,” said McKay.

  She eyed the scientist. “Forgive me, Rodney, but my psychic connection to the Wraith does not come with a precise readout.” She failed to keep an edge from her words.

  “Just asking…”

  Teyla frowned, chiding herself for reacting with irritation to the question; but there was an undeniable tension within her that seemed to be growing worse with each passing week. She sighed. Ever since she and Jennifer had returned from New Athos, ever since her own tribe had vanished like vapor, Teyla found it harder and harder to maintain her focus on the here and now. Every stray moment found her thoughts returning to her lost kindred, her mind conjuring up terrible thoughts of who might have taken them, and for what reason….

  And then there was the other concern. Teyla’s hand slipped toward her belly without conscious volition. She looked away and found herself meeting Keller’s gaze as the doctor walked back to the group. A silent communication passed between them.

  “So?” Sheppard jerked a thumb at Errian and his family. “How’s Daddio?”

  “He’s a bit disoriented and dehydrated. Very fatigued. I’d say he probably hasn’t slept for a couple of days, maybe more. He told me he doesn’t remember where he’s been.”

  Ronon grunted. “I’ve had mornings like that. Mostly after too much beer.”

  “Amnesia?” Sheppard’s lip curled. “Aaren said the guy had been missing for a couple of weeks. He said all of the ‘Taken’ are gone for at least that long.”

  “How many are there?” said Ronon, half to himself.

  Keller’s brow furrowed in a frown. “Without doing a full medical work-up, I can’t say much more at this point —”

  McKay waggled his finger. “But what about the big question?”

  Keller shook her head. “No, Rodney. The answer is no.”

  “Errian was not fed upon by a Wraith?” Teyla had to say the words aloud to fix them in her thoughts.

  “As far as I can see, the man’s never been anywhere near a Wraith.” Keller replied. “No organic decay like we see in the premature aging they cause, no bone thinning that I could detect and most importantly, no sign of a feeding wound.” She opened her hand and held it up, mirroring the pose the aliens used when they attacked.

  “That makes no sense,” Ronon retorted. “Wraith don’t take people, keep them up all night, then send them home with hole in their memory. They’re predators. They only want prey.”

  “So Aaren was telling the truth, then,” said Teyla. “But if this Aegis he spoke of drives away the Wraith, then what happened to Errian? Who took him?” She nodded in the direction of Laaro and his parents.

  “What do you say we find out?” Sheppard asked, as Jaaya approached them.

  “Voyagers,” she began, smiling. “Now my husband has come home to us, there will be a celebration. Perhaps, if you would wish, you could join us? My son… He finds so little to keep his attention these days, and now you are all he can speak of.”

  Sheppard made a face. “Well, uh —”

  Teyla spoke before she was even aware of the words leaving her mouth. “We would be honored, Jaaya.”

  “Yeah,” echoed the colonel. “Honored.”

  The woman bobbed her head. “And we have much room in our lodge. You are welcome to think of it as your own while you visit us. The celebration of the Returned will be a great feast!”

  “The Returned,” echoed Teyla. “There are more than one?”

  “As it always is,” Jaaya answered, her smile faltering a little. “Twenty are taken. Twenty are returned.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sheppard’s team knew the drill; this wasn’t their first rodeo, after all, and together the Atlanteans had encountered their fair share of places that se
emed nice enough on the outside but nasty underneath. Isolated communities, strange goings-on, unexplained disappearances — it was all another day at the office for them. Leaving Laaro and Jaaya to put a weary Errian to bed, they elected to do a little bit of informal recon around the perimeter of the village.

  The team split into two groups, McKay going with Ronon and Teyla joining Sheppard; only Keller was new to this. Her off-planet experience was minimal and it had been on Colonel Samantha Carter’s insistence that he’d taken Jennifer along on this mission. It wasn’t that John didn’t respect the young doctor or anything like that, but she was an unknown quantity. He wasn’t sure how she’d react in a given situation…and that was why he’d brought her with him instead of letting her tag along with Ronon.

  And there was something else. Something going on between Keller and Teyla. Sheppard knew that recently the two of them had shared a dangerous experience when they were trapped by marauders on New Athos, and not for the first time he found himself wondering if something was being kept from him.

  He dismissed the idea with a slight shake of his head. Keller didn’t seem the type for keeping secrets, and Teyla… Sheppard trusted Teyla implicitly. If there was something the Athosian woman had to tell him, she’d get to it soon enough.

  Keller walked with them, her head turning this way and that as she tried to take in all the sights around them at once. “This place is so cool,” she said. “Can you imagine how much work it took to build something like this? A whole community, homes and a school and a market, a hundred feet off the ground.”

  John nodded. He had to admit, he’d never seen the like himself. Broad wooden walkways curved around the main trunks of the giant trees in shallow spirals, with smaller avenues radiating off like the spokes of a wheel. The homes Keller talked about clustered to the sides of the spokes, held there by rope, wooden trestles and big fat gobs of what had to be some sort of natural resin glue. At first glance, the Heruuni settlement had a ramshackle, shanty-town look to it; but on closer inspection it became clearer that the folks who had constructed it knew a hell of a lot about engineering, and probably about just as much about ecology. They were walking through the greenest town they’d ever seen, in more ways than one.