Subject to Interpretation - Part Three

[jadesfire]

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Rodney looked up as they came back into the lab, frowning. "I thought you weren't going to be long?"

"We weren't." Tilting his head a fraction, John half-smiled. "Sweet of you to be worrying, McKay."

"I wasn't." The answer was automatic and Rodney's eyes flickered nervously. "But you know how Ronon gets."

"Right." John turned ostentatiously towards Ronon, who was leaning against the wall again, looking as imperturbable as ever. "He hides it so badly."

Suppressing her smile, Teyla looked round the room, her eyes drawn to a flicker of movement, like a screen going dark, but all she could see was Ester, typing away on her laptop. As though sensing Teyla's gaze, she looked up and smiled.

"Everything alright?"

"Since no one's yelling at us to evacuate, I'd say that was a fair guess," Rodney said loudly, glaring at his subordinates. "Am I the only one doing any work around here?"

"Right now, you're the only one yelling," John said, not-quite amiably.

"Everything is fine," Teyla told Ester. "We have found evidence of Wraith activity in the city, but nothing more than that."

"Yeah, well. Nothing yet." When Teyla turned to him, Rodney waved a hand irritably. "They must have been doing something here. We just don't know what yet. And since it's the Wraith, I don't think it had much to do with puppies and kittens. Well," he added unhappily, "not in a good way, at least."

"Then we'd better keep looking, hadn't we?" John looked over as the first marine team came into the room.

"And since Ester's still trying to work out if the database here has anything new for us, and it turns out that the Wraith stuff is encoded too, so I haven't been able to pass anything on to the linguists, by 'we' I assume you mean 'me'." Rodney folded his arms emphatically.

"Unless you want Sergeant Robinson to have a go at the decoding, I guess so."

Rodney didn't even dignify that with a response, just sniffing and turning back to his computer. As the next group of marines filed in, Teyla slowly crossed the room towards Ester, glancing at screens and consoles as she went. Through a few years of working with Rodney, she had at least a vague idea of what some of the displays were showing, although most of them were in the Ancestral language at the moment.

As she came closer, she noticed Ester flicking between screens on her computer, the way all the scientists seemed to. It was as though they couldn't concentrate on one thing for any long period of time, and needed to have several tasks started at once in order to fit their attention span.

"Have you had any more success?" she asked, and Ester jumped.

"What?" Pushing her hair from her forehead, she looked confused for a moment, before her face relaxed again. "Oh. Yes, a little." Turning back to her computer, she brought up yet another screen that still meant little to Teyla. "I'm sure that the Ancients were doing some kind of research here that they considered vital to their war against the Wraith. That's why the outpost is on a barren planet, miles from the nearest Stargate."

"I believe Colonel Sheppard suggested that they positioned it so that the Jumper ride would be more dramatic." It took a moment for Ester to catch up, and return Teyla's gentle smile with one of her own, tense and tired. Teyla knew that most people who worked in close proximity to Rodney for a prolonged period of time tended to find it wearing on their nerves, but there was something more to Ester's expression than that. Perhaps she was not coping well with the heat.

"Perhaps," she said, sighing. "They certainly didn't want anyone finding them easily. This is a dead planet in a dead solar system. And then, just to be sure, they encrypted all their files as tightly as they possibly could. The little we've been able to decipher talks about the war, the Wraith, their numbers, defeats in battle, all the usual stuff. What it doesn't say is if they managed any breakthroughs."

Teyla frowned. "If they had, would we not know about them already? I mean, would they not have communicated them to Atlantis?"

"Maybe. Or maybe something happened to them, like it did to the Aurora." Shrugging a little, Ester turned back to the computer. "I'm sure the answer's here, somewhere. We just have to find it."

Loud bickering from the other side of the room drew Teyla's attention, and she looked over to see Ronon and Rodney in a stand-off over an MRE. She shook her head.

"I believe the others are starting dinner," she said dryly as Rodney whined,

"...you know they're my favourite..."

"Deal with it," Ronon shot back, holding the pack too high up for Rodney to reach.

"If you two can't play nicely," John began, and Teyla missed the rest as she turned back to Ester.

"Will you join us for something to eat?"

Ester was already absorbed in her work again, and her voice was vague as she replied. "I'll come over later. I just want to..."

The sentence trailed off and Teyla gave up, going back over to help John separate their team-mates. Between the distracted scientists and the men who behaved more like boys on occasions, Teyla was starting to feel like a mother hen with a particularly difficult brood.

Her stomach growled as she sat down to eat, accepting the meal one of the marines offered her. She was more hungry than usual, already, and Jennifer had warned her to be more careful about eating and resting properly. Still, if she continued this way, she would be equalling Rodney in her demands for food.

It was suddenly difficult to swallow, and she rested her fork on the foil packet as she tried to get herself under control again. There was nothing as yet to give her away to the others, and she was not ready to tell them, not yet, not with the loss of her people still so raw and her own inexperience weighing so heavily on her. Most of the Athosians her age had children already, or had taken in those who had lost parents to cullings, or still had their own parents to provide them with advice and support. However much she was sure her team would want to help care for her, they were not exactly the best candidates for parental advice.

Still, it was hard not to smile when Ronon slapped Rodney's hand away before he could steal his dessert, getting a brief stab with a fork in response, and John had to intervene, again, before it could descend into a full-scale food-fight. Perhaps, she considered, she was more prepared for parenthood than she thought.

---

It was hard for Teyla to say what had woken her. The science team had worked late, eventually crawling into their sleeping bags alongside the marines when even Rodney had admitted he was getting tired. The movement had disturbed Teyla from her light doze, and she'd dropped into a fitful sleep, waking every time someone coughed or turned over.

She was fully awake now, though, and for no good reason that she could tell. Sitting up slowly, she looked round at the other still forms. John, Ronon and Rodney were on her right, the scientists on her left and the marines over by the door. In the dim light from the consoles, no one seemed to be stirring.

Which was odd, she realized, since someone should have been awake and keeping watch. Carefully, she reached out and touched Ronon's shoulder, knowing he would come awake swiftly and silently.

She looked round more carefully as he sat up, trying to find Yates, who should have been on watch duty.

"What is it?" Ronon murmured, close enough to her ear that his breath stirred her hair.

For answer, Teyla waved a hand towards the doorway, still trying to find what else what missing. Everything seemed to be where they had left it, all the crates of supplies, the various laptops and tablets, and some paper notebooks that one of the linguists had brought with him.

It wasn't until Ronon said, "Where's Doctor Almunia?" that Teyla found what had been bothering her. The corner of the room where Ester had been working, which had been lit gently when they'd turned in, was now dark, and when Teyla turned to the sleeping scientists, she couldn't see the distinctive dark head amongst them.

"I'm gonna wake Sheppard," Ronon said, throwing his sleeping bag open.

Nodding distractedly, Teyla untangled herself from her own bag and reached for her boots. She'd just laced them up when John came over, his voice disturbing some of the marines.

"What's going on?"

Teyla didn't bother to keep her own voice low, not now that she knew something was wrong. "Ester is not here."

Within five minutes, everyone was on their feet, and Rodney was cursing the inconsiderate nature of computer programmers.

"She's taken the life-signs detector," he grumbled, trying to flatten down his hair and pull his jacket on at the same time. "And of course, she knew exactly how to disable the internal sensors so that we can't find her. She's not answering her radio, either."

Yates, a pale young man with the close-cropped hair that so many of the Earth soldiers favored, was trying not to meet John's eye.

"She said she was taking the watch, sir."

"Right, because they're here to protect us, not the other way around." It was hard to tell whether John was angrier at Ester for vanishing or at Yates for letting her. "Pair off and start searching," he said to the marines in general. "Radio if you find anything at all."

"She probably just thought she could get a jump on some kind of research," Rodney said, coming over to join them as the marines practically bumped into each other in their haste to obey John's orders. "It's a jungle out there, in programming terms, and some of these scientists can get scarily competitive."

"You don't say." John finished doing up his tac vest and stopped the last pair of marines before they could leave, glancing back at the nervous-looking science team who were huddled in a corner of the room. "You two stay here, and radio us if she comes back. Ronon and I will take the north tower. Teyla, you and Rodney head back to the other lab, just in case she got in her head to do a little sight-seeing." His voice was clipped and steady, and Teyla didn't bother arguing. There was no point when John was like this

Rodney obviously didn't share her opinion, but he closed his mouth quickly when John glared at him.

"We find the missing scientist, you give her a talking to and we'll all have some breakfast," he said, looking towards the window. "It'll be dawn soon."

The southern sky was already becoming lighter as Teyla and Rodney entered the neighboring tower, although they still needed their flashlights to see by.

"I shut off most of the power to these areas to save the generator," Rodney said. He had put on his tac vest and was clutching his rifle nervously. While he didn't exactly look comfortable with the weapon, nowadays she at least trusted him not to shoot her by accident.

"Wait a moment." As she ran her flashlight over the floor, Teyla spotted something in the scattered sand. "Footprints."

"Well we were here earlier," Rodney pointed out. "Are they ours?"

"No." The latest set of prints were going in to the tower, laid over the set that must be hers and John's from before. There were no corresponding ones coming out. Teyla lifted a hand to her radio. "Colonel, I believe Ester came to this tower."

There was a brief pause, then John said, "Right. On our way."

"Should we wait?" It was fairly clear from Rodney's voice which he would rather do, and Teyla had to admit that the ambience of the city was not doing much for her nerves either. The growing light was deepening some shadows even as it eliminated others, and she found herself sweeping her flashlight across an area that she had already checked twice.

"She may simply be having a look at what we found earlier." Teyla wasn't any more convinced by that than Rodney. But it was possible, just as it was possible that Ester had wandered into an area more unstable than those they had already encountered. If she had been injured, then she would need help sooner rather than later.

Jerking her head for Rodney to follow, Teyla slowly set off down the corridor, trying to see round every corner and into every room that they passed, and all the time following the footsteps in the sand.

They lead just where she had expected, and she found herself hesitating before opening the door. Her fears were ridiculous, she knew, since Ester was part of the Atlantis staff. She had probably simply wished to see what John and Ronon had discovered, and wished to do so undisturbed. All of which would have been plausible if she had not gone to such lengths to avoid discovery.

Clenching her jaw, Teyla checked that Rodney was behind her, then waved her hand over the sensor. The doors slid apart soundlessly, showing the room beyond to be dark as before, lit only by the weak light of the rising sun. Cautiously, she stepped through the open doors.

Inside, she ran her flashlight over the consoles, which were now glowing gently, the tendrils of the Wraith technology casting strange shadows in the dim light. Nothing had changed, that she could see, although an odd shape on one of the consoles caught her attention. She hesitated, but the room felt empty, nothing here by the remains of whatever experiment the Ancestors had been carrying out.

"Rodney."

Teyla kept scanning the room, turning and turning again as Rodney side-stepped into the room, apparently trying to see into all the corners at once.

"Is she here?"

"I do not believe so." Not willing to relax just yet, Teyla nodded to the console. "But she was here. I think she left her computer behind."

"Right." Giving the cocoons a final, nervous glance, Rodney went over to the console, brushing the tendrils from the tablet and pressing a few controls. "She downloaded all the Wraith data into here. Huh."

"Can you read what it says?" Yet another sweep of the room brought up no signs of Ester, so Teyla let herself relax enough to go and peer over Rodney's shoulder.

"Not exactly, but this?" He swept a finger along a line of symbols that meant nothing to Teyla. "This looks like some kind of coding."

"For the computers?"

"I don't think so." Tilting his head a little, Rodney scrolled down a few lines of code. "See the repeats? When I was six, I tried to write out the whole human genome sequence. Four letters, billons of times over. Of course, once I ran out of paper I moved onto the walls. Dad wasn't so happy about that part."

Teyla tried to disentangle what Rodney was telling her from what he was actually saying. "Is this is a genetic code? For a person?"

"Yes, to the gene part. As for what it is?" He shook his head. "It could be a person, I suppose."

"It's not for a person." The words made Teyla's head snap up, her hands closing around her gun automatically. Ester was closing the distance between them, her gun already up and pointed at them. "Please," she said, her face pale in the dawn light, "put your guns on the console."

Rodney obeyed automatically, and Teyla didn't attempt to stop him, although she hesitated with her hand on the vest-clip of her rifle. Her initial shock was fading, replaced with the calm that usually preceded a battle. This battle might even be one she could win with words. "Ester?" she said, trying to find the connection that she had made to the woman the previous day. "What is going on?"

"I'll explain everything, but right now, I really need you to put your gun down. Please." Her voice was calm and sure, but Teyla could hear the tension underneath it. "I don't want to hurt either of you."

"That's good." Rodney's hands were already raised, and his voice was little more than a squeak. If it had just been her, Teyla would have taken whatever risk was necessary. With things as they were, she undid the clip and placed the gun carefully on the console, resisting the urge to put her hands protectively on her stomach once they were empty.

"Thank you." Ester pointed the gun unwaveringly at Teyla, but when she spoke, it was to Rodney. "Doctor McKay, please disable the door lock so that no one will be able to open it from the outside."

"What?" Rodney glanced at Teyla, who didn't dare give him any kind of reply. Ester's hand was too steady.

"Lock the door." The words were firmer this time, and Rodney turned a little, brushing against Teyla. When she glanced at him, he was looking at her, panic in his eyes. That was the last thing they needed.

"Go on," she said softly, still not looking away from the gun.

Rodney hesitated for another moment, then put his hands down and hurried over to the door. "I think you should know," he said, "that any one of your colleagues will be able to release this from the outside, not to mention the fact that Ronon's going to try to shoot his way through. They know we're here, and it's not going to take them long to-"

"Are you done?"

Rodney had been working as he talked, and he glared over his shoulder when Ester interrupted him. "Nearly. But you know, I get nervous when people point guns at me, or my friends, and when I get nervous I talk. If you don't want me talking, I suggest you just put the gun down and we try and discuss this like sane, rational adults. Not that I think you qualify for the description at the moment, but we could at least pretend."

"Rodney." Teyla pitched her voice low and firm, trying to stop the babbling. She knew from experience that Rodney could keep that kind of monologue up more or less indefinitely and Ester looked as though she was losing patience.

"Okay, I'm done." Stepping away from the door, Rodney folded his arms and hunched his shoulders. "What exactly are you doing, if you don't mind my asking?" He sounded annoyed, and Teyla actually found that she appreciated the angry bravado, especially since it was keeping Ester's attention fixed on him. Slowly, she began to move one of her raised hands towards her ear as Ester said,

"I'm trying to finish what the Ancients started." The gun, which had begun to move towards Rodney moved back towards Teyla, and Ester shook her head. "Please, just take your radio off. Both of you. Throw them over here. Then come back and join us, Doctor McKay. I'm sure you're going to be interested in this."

Unfolding his arms a little, Rodney said, "I doubt that very much," but he copied Teyla's example and tossed his radio to the floor at Ester's feet. She took a step forwards, crushing the delicate instruments.

"Now," she said, looking straight into Teyla's eyes, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to stay out of my way while we work."

A cold fear settled at the pit of Teyla's stomach, and all she could see was the perfect circle of the gun barrel, the hole seeming impossibly dark and bottomless. She had trusted Ester, liked her even. The betrayal was sickening.

"If you kill me," she said slowly, forcing the words out, "there will be nowhere for you to go. The others will-"

"I'm not going to kill you." Ester stepped back a little, tipping her head towards the cocoons in a gesture that did nothing to allay Teyla's fears. Still, she kept her hands clenched by her sides, not wanting to give herself away, to Ester or Rodney. The cocoon should do no more than hold her still, and she would not make her unborn a child a hostage against her. "But I am going to ask you to step over here," Ester said evenly, "or I will shoot Doctor McKay. His help would be useful but not necessary."

"And what makes you think I'm going to help you at all?" Rodney asked as Teyla gritted her teeth against the revulsion that made her stomach churn.

"Because I really don't need your help that much," Ester said simply. "It'll speed things up a little, but I can manage without you. So you can either help me, or I will shoot you. Your choice."

Rodney opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again as the gun swung back towards him. He swallowed hard. "I won't help you if you hurt either of us."

"That's fine." The smile that Ester gave Teyla was almost warm, affectionate. "I have no intention of hurting you, I swear. I just need your help. You'll understand in the end, I know it."

Teyla looked up at Rodney. His mouth was a tight, unhappy line and his eyes kept darting from the computer to Ester to the cocoons and back again. He looked frightened and angry, but no longer panicked, and she took that to be a good sign. He would think of something, or she would. They just had to trust each other.

Taking a deep breath, Teyla walked out from behind the console and stepped towards the nearest cocoon.

---

Teyla was cold. The cocoon held her fast, thick tendrils wrapping round her arms and legs, others around her waist and chest, their surfaces slippery and chilled, drawing all the warmth out of her skin. She could breathe, but the air was foul, catching in her throat and burning in her nostrils. There was no way of marking time in here, her senses overwhelmed by the thick membrane in front of her face. Everything felt slow and muffled, as though she was trying to wake from a deep sleep. Her mind struggled against the lethargy, a faint tingle at the base of her skull stopping her from just slipping away. She clung to the feeling, pushing herself to reach out further, following the nagging Wraith-sense as far as she could.

After what could have been hours, or maybe minutes, the membrane drew back, the whole front of the cocoon retracting and letting her fill her lungs with fresh, dry air. It could only have been a few minutes since Ester had shut her in there, because the light beyond the window was still pale, not yet reaching the full brightness of day.

Ester smiled apologetically, the sincerity of it a contrast to the gun in her hand. "I really am sorry," she said, "but I need your help to complete this, and I knew you would object."

"With good reason." Across the room, Rodney was standing by a console that was still covered in tendrils, leaning on it with both hands. When he spoke, it was to Teyla, his eyes on hers and his face set in a grim expression. "Looks like the Ancients had been at it again."

"They were visionaries." Ester spun to face him. "They were trying to save the galaxy."

"They were trying to cover up their mistakes."

Teyla bit back her instinct to defend the Ancestors, recent experience warring against childhood teaching and long-ingrained beliefs. For all that she had seen with her own eyes that the Ancestors were not the infallible heroes she had believed them to be, she still found Rodney's lack of reverence for them difficult to take.

"They let the Wraith loose in the galaxy," he went on. "They created the Pegasus replicators in an attempt to stop them, and when that failed, they ran back to Earth, leaving Pegasus to cope with the fall-out."

"They were out-numbered," Ester shot back. "And this place proves that they were prepared to consider any possibility to save the humans of this galaxy."

It sounded as though they had had this argument several times while Teyla had been incapacitated, and she struggled ineffectually, fighting her own frustration as well as the bonds. "What are you talking about?"

Rodney got in before Ester could. "The Ancients thought they could make a deal with the Wraith, and we all know how well that usually turns out."

"It would have worked." Ester's voice had all the fervor of a believer's. "They just needed more time."

"They needed their heads examined!"

All three of them jumped as the door shook with a loud thud.

"That's Sheppard," Rodney said, turning to Ester. "What are you going to do when he gets in here, eh? Assuming Ronon doesn't just shoot you first? I can't help feeling you're going to have a hard time explaining this one."

"Those doors are blast-proof. And I re-encrypted the door lock on top of your encryption. It will take them hours to get through it." Taking a step towards Rodney, Ester pointed at the console. "Is it finished?"

He looked down, frowning. "Yes."

"Good."

There was something in the way she said the word, Teyla catching on a moment before Rodney did, and throwing herself against the cocoon's bindings. They gave a fraction, but still held her immobile, and she tried to call out a warning. Her heart caught in her throat as Ester suddenly crouched, and Teyla saw the dark shape of a backpack on the floor.

"Now wait just a second..." Rodney had backed up against the wall, his hands raised and Teyla wanted to shout at him again because he now had even less cover than before. It meant that when Ester pulled the small stunner free of the bag, she had a larger target to aim at. She didn't miss.

Rodney hit the floor with a sickening thump, and lay still. Held up by the bindings, Teyla tried to get her breath back, relief and anger coursing through her. For her part, Ester straightened up slowly, turning the stunner over and over.

"For ten thousand year old technology, these work fairly well," she said, putting the stunner and her gun on the console. Then she turned to Teyla. "He'll be fine, but I need to give this my full attention and it's hard with him complaining all the time."

There was another thud from the direction of the door, and Ester's eyes narrowed. "We're going to need to work fast."

"What are you doing?" Struggling again, Teyla fought back the helplessness that washed over her. "Please, just release me and we will-"

"I will let you go, I promise." Ester had gone over to the console that Rodney had been working on, running her eyes over the display. "But I need your help first." She looked up, her eyes shining. "If I'm right, then this could be a permanent solution to the Wraith threat. They were so close. McKay fixed the last glitches in the programming, so we're just about ready to start."

"What are you talking about?" Teyla's left wrist had marginally more mobility than any other part of her, and she focused on turning it, twisting gently as she tried to keep Ester talking. Distraction was probably her best chance at this point.

"They were trying to create an alternative food source for the Wraith," Ester said simply.

Teyla stared at her, momentarily speechless. What she was suggesting seemed insane. "What?"

"They were trying to create an alternative food source. A non-sentient, human-based lifeform that the Wraith could-"

"Breed?" Teyla's stomach churned. It was bad enough for the Wraith to treat human like cattle, but for the Ancestors to do the same…

"Feed on. Yes." Lifting a hand, Ester went on, "They would be non-sentient. Like animals, but with enough human DNA that the Wraith could accept them as an alternative, biologically and psychologically. They even consulted with a Wraith scientist, built him this lab to experiment in. They were really trying."

"Rodney was right," Teyla said, her voice choked. "They were mad."

"They were desperate." Shrugging a little, Ester turned back to the console. "And in a strange irony, they provided the human population with a way of protecting itself. When all the experiments failed, the Wraith scientist took what he had learned about genetics here and went away to follow his own line of research, mixing human and Wraith DNA in an attempt to create the perfect food source."

"He created my ancestors," Teyla whispered.

Ester glanced up. "Yes." The console beeped, and she looked down again. "Which is why I need you. I think they were onto something in mixing human and Wraith DNA, but they went in the wrong direction. They assumed that the beings would be humanoid, since that was the form the Wraith were accustomed to. But there's no reason for them to be that way. Unfortunately, I only have one possible source of Wraith DNA and-" She broke off, obviously startled, looking from the display to Teyla and back again. 'The scanner is picking something up.'