Ad Noctum: Chapter 7

“Felicitations,” Rush said dryly. “Be sure you tell Kiva just how on fire I set everything.”

Chapter warnings: Stressors of all kinds. Violence. Injuries. Torture. Abduction. Anxiety. Panic. Purposefully insensitive discussion of mental health issues. Loss of agency. Mind control. Boundary problems. Manipulation. Gaslighting. References to suicide. Drug use. Death wishes. Indirect references to sexual assault. 

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: None.

Chapter 7

As soon as the gold deck of the transport room solidified beneath Volker’s feet, he launched himself at Rush with a strangled shout. They collided in a cloud of aquamarine shot through with amber sparks. Volker’s shoulder burned as they struggled on the deck.

“Dale. Dale.” Telford hauled Volker back. “God damn it.”

Volker’s cheekbone took a glancing hit from Rush’s knee as the mathematician scrambled away, trying to avoid losing his third fight of the day.  

With a burst of fury, Volker tore himself from Telford’s grip. He led with a punch, connecting with a bolt of pain that reverberated from his knuckles to his shoulder. “You bastard,” he shouted. “You complete psychopath. You—”

Rush slapped Volker, open-handed and sparkling with a starlit smack.

“That’s enough!” Telford shouted.

Volker twined his hands in the loose material of Rush’s borrowed uniform and pinned him to the floor.

Rush bucked, nearly unseating Volker. “Recedere,” he snarled.

This time, Telford dug his fingers into Volker’s injured shoulder and hauled. The room skewed, and Volker found himself shoved across the floor. He hit the wall. 

Hard.

A faint echo rang through the room and through his head. Acid pain ran from his shoulder down his arm and up his neck. Blood rushed in Volker’s ears like fast-breaking waves. He reoriented himself, came to his knees—

Only to find no one looking at him.

Telford and Rush stared at one another, breathing hard, their expressions closed.

Sure.

That seemed about right.

Volker sank back against the wall, curling around his aching shoulder. His eyes watered, and he scrubbed at his face with his hand and tried to catch his breath.

“What did you say?” Telford had nothing left of the synesthetic blue the kassa dust had conferred.

Rush levered himself up on one elbow, shook his hair back with the faintest glint of topaz, adjusted his glasses, and didn’t answer. His gaze swept the room with pointed aridity, then settled on Telford. The mathematician telegraphed disapproval.

Telford compressed his lips, shut his eyes, and looked up at the ceiling with the air of a guy who was one million percent done with hidden LA surveillance devices. When he spoke again, his tone was pitched to carry. “Are you going to stay here? Or am I going to zip tie you and leave you on the floor?”

“I’d zip tie him,” Volker said.

Unbelievably, Rush gave Volker a hurt look.

Volker glared back, trying to summon electric aquamarine from clear air.

“You got it.” Telford sounded almost cheerful as he reached into his pocket and—

Oh.

Actually pulled out some zip ties. 

“Cousin Dale votes for zip ties,” Telford said. “At least until we leave this system and complete our internal scans.”

“Unnecessary.” Rush mustered every ounce of dignity Volker had ever seen him scrape together. He didn’t move from his calculated recline on the floor.

“If you could reliably control your behavior for more than ten seconds at a time, maybe I’d believe you,” Telford said. “Hold out your hands.”

Rush narrowed his eyes at Telford. He didn’t move. “There’s a fight we keep deferring,” he said silkily. “Would y’care to have it now?”

“Maybe,” Telford said, “maybe, on your best day, you could do me real damage. But this is far from your best day. You’re exhausted, you have to be sore as hell from getting worked over by Kiva, you inhaled psychotropic dust, you’re disinhibited, and you just lost three fights. Two of them to Dale.”

Rush held himself still, all his kassa-conferred color gone.

Volker felt acutely guilty. Then he felt guilty for feeling guilty. Then he felt confused about feeling guilty for feeling guilty. Rush had nearly killed the pair of them. Not even twenty minutes ago! He could spend a night in zip ties for that.

Right?

Ugh.

“Actually,” Volker offered, “maybe we should hold off on the zip ties—”

Telford glared at him. “You have so many opinions about it? You do it.” He dropped his handful of plastic ties on the floor next to Volker. “I’ll be back. Don’t kill each other.” With that, he walked through the door to the transport room and sealed it shut behind him.

“Y’know, he will surprise you at times,” Rush said conversationally.

Volker slumped against the gilded wall, buried his face in his hands, and sobbed. 

He wanted his old life, with its radio arrays and infinite cat food and reality TV. Its internet. Its reasonably sized beds. 

Rush leisurely gathered himself off the floor of the transport room, got to his feet, and paced over to Volker. He turned on his heel, put his back to the wall, and slid down the metal until they were shoulder-to-shoulder.

“What are you—” Volker began, his voice thick with swallowed tears.

The mathematician didn’t reply. He pushed his glasses up his face and straightened the seams of his borrowed uniform. Then, with truly impressive dignity, he selected a zip tie from the floor and wrapped it around his own ankles. He fed the free end through the self-locking mechanism and yanked it tight.

Volker stared at him.

Wordlessly, Rush offered Volker a zip tie.

Volker wiped his eyes and took it.

Rush held out his hands.

Volker sighed and wrapped the plastic strip around the other man’s wrists. Rush shook his head. Volker moved the tie. Rush shook his head again, then pulled his hands out of the open loop. The mathematician grabbed the cuffs of his borrowed Air Force uniform and pulled them down, so the tie would be over the cloth, rather than digging into his skin. Volker nodded, then tightened the plastic strip a little at a time, until it was just enough that Rush couldn’t pull his hands through it.

Rush rolled his eyes, then made a small motion with his wrists to indicate Volker should keep going.

Volker shook his head.

Rush shot him an unimpressed look and used his teeth to tighten the tie further. He gave Volker a pointed look.

Yeah. Because that’s what Volker’s day had been missing. Zip Ties 101. 

Volker tipped his head back against the wall and let a few tears flow back into his hair. “Sorry,” he said, ragged and quiet, and if the LA had left new monitoring devices that picked that up, then that was just too darn bad for everyone because he’d decided that Dale the Space Pirate was gonna be a nice guy and stay a nice guy.

Even if it got him killed. 

Rush sighed, then leaned his head against Volker’s shoulder.

You’re the worst, Volker mentally informed Rush. You were definitely going to let us die in a fire.

Silent tears leaked from Volker’s eyes. He let it happen.

The door swished open and Telford reentered the room. “Fucking hell,” he whispered, staring at the pair of them. “What was in that dust?”

Rush lifted his head with a small pained sound in the back of his throat. “This room’s clear, I take it?”

“Yeah,” Telford said. “No new devices. The only ones on the ship are the one on the bridge and Dale’s communications sphere. We’re back in hyperspace.”

“Felicitations,” Rush said dryly. “Be sure you tell Kiva just how on fire I set everything.”

“What did you do to Dale?” Telford approached and sank into a crouch. He gripped Volker’s chin, then held up a finger. “Follow.” He traced a smooth path through the air. Satisfied, he let Volker go, then shifted to sit beside Rush’s bound ankles. Telford tried to work a finger beneath the narrow band of plastic. When he couldn’t, he gave Volker a nod. “Nice job.” 

“Thanks,” Volker said dully.

Telford glared at Rush. “You give him a hard time?”

“Yes,” Rush hissed.

“Shout some Ancient at him, maybe?”

“Fuck off, David,” Rush said. “No clue what you’re referring to.”

“Recedere.” Telford’s expression was flat, but his eyes shone like hot metal. “That’s what you said.”

“You’re mistaken,” Rush replied lazily.

“I heard you,” Telford replied. “You said you’d keep me informed.”

“You know everything that I know.” The mildness of Rush’s tone was unsettling.

“I want a knife,” Volker interrupted.

They both stared at him. 

“I get that I can’t have a gun,” he said, “but I want my own knife. And my own zat. Today.”

“Disinhibited.” Rush quirked a brow at Volker. “Yes, I suppose I see it now. Y’can have a knife.”

“You can have a knife when I’m sure you won’t stab Rush with it,” Telford clarified.

“That means never.” Rush looked sympathetically at Volker. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find you one.”

“Hey.” Telford gripped Rush’s calf and pressed a thumb, hard, against what had to be sore muscle. From the face Rush made, it looked like it hurt. “Focus. I don’t know everything you know, Nick.”

“You do,” Rush hissed, brimming over with cold-brew fury. “How could it be otherwise? You’ve been with me every single fuckin’ moment of every single fucking day.” He tried to bend his knee and writhe away, but Telford dug in, a vicious, hungry expression on his face—

Volker shoved Telford. Hard. The man lost his grip on Rush and fell out of his crouch.

No one spoke.

Telford and Rush stared at Volker in total astonishment. 

Volker turned to Rush. “So, do you have a knife on you, maybe?”

“Let’s say, for the sake of argument, I did. What would you like to do with it?” Rush asked him politely.

“Cut you free.” Volker gave Telford a hard look.

“Interesting,” Rush said. “It seems Dr. Volker doesn’t care to participate in Casual Friday Torture. Not sure he’s a good fit for the workplace culture you’ve built, David.” Rush studied Volker, then said, “I appreciate the sentiment, but, for the record, I suspect Colonel Telford is correct regarding the effects of that dust.” He glanced at Telford. “Maybe you should zip tie Dale, as well?”

“What?” Volker said. “No! I swear to god, man. Every time with you.”

“No one’s zip tying Dale.” Telford sighed, got his feet under him, and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Nick,” he said, sounding defeated. “What happened on Altera? Will you just tell me?”

Altera? That didn’t sound like a Goa’uld word to Volker. It sounded Ancient. It sounded like a place. And more than that. There was something in the name itself that rang like a silent chime in Volker’s mind. Like there was more to hear in the word than just the sound of it.

“I told you.” Rush, exhausted, tipped his head back against the wall. “I proved the Riemann Hypothesis.”

“Shut up,” Volker said. “You did not.”

They both looked at him with raised brows. Rush’s were unimpressed; Telford’s were interested.

“Well, he didn’t,” Volker said, addressing Telford. “There’s no way.”

“I did,” Rush smirked. “All nontrivial zeroes of the analytical continuation of the Riemann zeta function have a real part of—” Rush broke off expectantly, like he was leading a senior seminar.

Silence.

“One half,” Rush said with theatrical disappointment.

“Bullshit,” Volker snapped. “I don’t know what Altera is, but you didn’t prove the Riemann Hypothesis there. That’s not just a thing you go and do.”

Telford pressed his palm to his face. “You haven’t broken into Ancient since Altera,” he said, trying to scrape together some patience. “And I want to know why it just happened again.”

“Yes well,” Rush said, “not exactly a Millennium Prize problem, is it? I was attacked. Confronted with the prospect of death-by-astrophysicist.”

“You’ve been attacked more times than I can count,” Telford said. “This was something else.”

“Feel free to speculate,” Rush said coolly. “I’ve got nowhere to go.”

“It was either the dust or it was Dale. Which.”

Volker raised his eyebrows at Telford.

Rush shut his eyes and sighed dramatically. “Perhaps I do have somewhere to be after all. Volker,” he said quietly, “there’s a knife at my left ankle. Fetch it for us, would you?”

“Dale then,” Telford said softly, taken aback.

“What?” Volker asked.

Rush’s eyes snapped open. “Piss off, David. Y’can get t’fuck. It certainly wasn’t ‘Dale.’ Dale is wholly trivial. He’s here because I needed an astrophysicist. Get a grip on yourself. You’re an embarrassment to your civilization. Barely capable of rational thought, let alone deductive reasoning. Hours into my last ‘meeting’ with Kiva, I told her you needed to be fuckin’ replaced. Really made her work for it. Like she dug it out of me. My greatest, most closely guarded secret. Your. Total. Incompetence.”

Telford stared at Rush, his expression neutral, his eyes dark. “Yup. Okay. Definitely Dale.”

Volker hoped his brain would catch up and start offering ideas. Right now, it was fresh out.

“Dale is immaterial,” Rush said. “I’m tired and disinhibited. I’ve had a notable week. The drive to speak Ancient is always there.”

“Is it?” Telford looked speculatively at Rush. “I wouldn’t know. But—Dale was affected by the kassa derivative back at that facility. Pretty strongly, from the looks of it. The LA has been experimenting with chemical compounds of all types, but—” He trailed off, as though internally debating something. Finally, Telford asked, “Is he like you?”

“Fuck off. No. Don’t be ridiculous. No one’s like me.”

“What do you mean am I ‘like him’?” Volker asked.

Telford’s eyes flicked to Volker, then back to Rush.

“Go ahead.” Rush fixed Telford with a glittering gaze. “Ask me. Ask me everything you think is important. Ask me everything you want, so badly, to know. Tell me all your questions. Define your knowledge gaps for me. Who can say? Maybe I’m disinhibited enough to throw some answers your way out of pure spite.”

“What about a trade?” Telford asked. “Question for question. Answer for answer. Single round.”

“Questions up front,” Rush said, his voice hard. “You’re first.”

“Why am I first?”

“Because I’m zip-tied on the floor,” Rush said, icily polite.

“Fine. My question is why’d you really take Dale.”

“Unanswerable. Pick something else.”

“Okay, my question is what happened on Altera.”

“Also unanswerable. Do better.”

Telford clamped his jaw. “Fine. How many cyphers have you cracked?”

“Answerable. My question is what’s the full name and rank of the undercover operative we met tonight.”

“No. Off the table.”

“You guys do this a lot?” Volker asked. The pair of them glanced at him, then back at one another.

“No deal,” Rush said.

“Think of something else,” Telford demanded.

“No.”

Unease leaked through the cracks in Telford’s expression. “Why do you want his surname so badly? So you can blow his cover the next time you see him? He’s a friend of mine, believe it or not. I tell you his name and he’s as good as dead.”

“A friend of yours? Interesting. Threaten to execute your friends on a regular basis, do you? Threaten to zat them in the head and disintegrate their corpses?”

“More often than I’d like, yeah.”

“I won’t blow his cover. Tell me his surname. That’s the price. The only price.”

“Tell me why you want to know so badly.”

“No.”

“If I agree,” Telford said. “If. How do I know you won’t lie?”

“I’ll lock the bloody chevrons for you, next time we’re in front of a stargate.”

“How will you know I’m not lying?”

Rush pulled off his glasses and scanned the room. His eyes lingered on Volker, then flicked away. “I’ll know,” he said. “You first.”

“Everett Makepeace,” Telford said. “Rank of Commander.”

Rush dragged his eyes away from empty space and looked back at Telford, eyebrows lifted. “Four,” he said quietly. “I can get four to lock in an ordinal fashion.”

“Four,” Telford repeated. “And how many have you disclosed to Kiva?”

“Three.”

“I’m on your side,” Telford said.

“Right.”

“Nick.”

“David.”

Telford swallowed. “I really am. You can tell me,” he said. “As you solve them.”

Rush slid his glasses back into place. “Certainly.”

“Nick. Really. You can tell me.”

“Who else am I going to tell? Fuckin’ Dale?” Rush swept his hair out of his eyes with his bound hands, then pulled a knife from his own boot and used it to slice through his ankle ties. He flipped his grip, catching the tip of the small blade beneath the plastic at his wrists. With a small application of pressure, he snapped the tie free.

Rush spun the weapon by its blade, which seemed like a bad idea, then presented it to Volker, handle first. “Be good,” he said. Then he got to his feet and strolled in the direction of the door. “Always a pleasure, David,” he threw back casually, over his shoulder.

Telford didn’t reply.

The door swished shut.

Volker set the knife down next to him on the floor of the transport room.

“So, next time you restrain someone,” Telford said evenly, “don’t leave them their knife.”

“Yeah,” Volker replied in a cracked whisper. “Guess not.”

He bent his head and ran his hands through his hair. It smelled of smoke and anise, and he caught a faint flicker of residual aquamarine as the strands shifted. He took a breath and tried to picture the wide openness of the California coast. From the sun-drenched cliffs of the PCH, only the curvature of the Earth could limit sight.

Everything was fine. He was alive. He hadn’t died in a firefight. He hadn’t died in an explosion. He hadn’t died of smoke inhalation. He hadn’t burned to death in a locked room. He’d opened the door. He was alive. Everything was fine.

Telford stared thoughtfully at the closed door to the transport room, his eyes dark and his expression unreadable.

“What did you mean?” Volker asked.

Telford looked at him, but didn’t answer.

Volker tried again. “What did you mean when you asked him if I was ‘like him.’ I’m nothing like him. We couldn’t be more opposite.”

“Nice try,” Telford said.

“Nice try?” Volker echoed, high-pitched, high-strung, and maybe still high. “You think I’m bullshitting you? You think he’s told me anything? He’s told me nothing. At all. I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t know why you’re upset about the Ancient, if that’s what that even was; I don’t know why it’s significant, I don’t know anything. So you can tell me why the heck you think he took me.”

“Don’t say ‘heck’,” Telford murmured absently, his eyes back on the door to the room. “The concept of ‘hell’ exists in Goa’uld and Alliance culture. The concept of ‘heck’ does not.”

“I don’t give a heck,” Volker shot back. “Why do you think he took me?”

Telford gave Volker a long, measured look.

Volker tried to pack every micron of annoyance into his expression.

Telford pushed himself to his feet, then offered Volker a hand.

Volker looked at him sourly.

“I have a theory,” Telford said. “You want to test it? C’mon.”

Reluctantly, Volker took Telford’s hand and let the other man pull him up.

“There’s a way to know.” Telford led Volker in the direction of the work room. “Goa’uld technology is an ostentatious shellac job over older, more sophisticated hardware.”

“So?” Volker asked.

“Goa’uld tech is all jailbroken,” Telford said. “But genuine Ancient devices? They have a genetic requirement.”

“A genetic requirement?” Volker echoed as they entered the workroom. “Meaning you have to be an actual Ancient to use one of their devices?”

Telford went to the wall, opened a crate in the corner, and began unpacking a mixed collection of interesting-looking devices. “You need a special gene to turn them on. There are at least three genes. Maybe more. Some humans have them.”

“That’s weird.” Volker watched Telford line device after foam-packed device on the gold deck. “Are you saying you think I have one? Just because Rush screamed some Ancient at me?”

“Maybe,” Telford said.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Volker pointed out politely.

“It might from his perspective,” Telford muttered, still rooting around in the crate.

“Even from his perspective—whatever that is—he knows I don’t speak Ancient. It would make no sense to address me in Ancient.”

Telford came up with a small, hand-held device of silver and glass. It was powered down. “There’s a connection between the language, the genes, and the tech.” He stood, the dead device in his hand. “They intertwine. It’s not common knowledge. The only reason I know it is because it drove Dr. Jackson crazy. And he and I—” Telford shrugged. “I’ve made a study of him.”

“Tapes Guy?” Volker asked. “Is that why we have all his collected works? He’s your intellectual crush?”

Telford gave Volker a dark look. “Replace ‘crush’ with ‘enemy’ and you’ll be closer.”

“Tapes Guy is your enemy?”

“Yes. And one of the things that irritated the shit out of Tapes Guy is that if you have the Ancient gene—it’s easier to learn their language. The more genes you have, the easier it is to learn. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. He was so irritated about it that he barely admitted it was a real phenomenon, but it is. Maybe you’ll figure out how it works.”

“Me?” Volker asked.

“Maybe,” Telford said. “Hold out your hand.”

Volker extended his hand.

Telford set the device on his palm. As soon as it touched his skin, it lit up with a friendly blue glow.

Volker was so startled he nearly dropped it.

“Okay,” Telford said. “Don’t do anything. Just hold it. Hold it and wait.”

“Wait for what?” Volker said.

Telford shook his head, watching the door. 

Volker, his heart beating fast and hard for no reason he could explain, watched with him.

The door swished open with a pneumatic hiss.

Rush stalked into the room, his expression thunderous. He walked up to Volker, swiped the device out of his hand, and spun on his heel. In the doorframe, he turned, fixed them with a photoelectric glare, then vanished into the darkness of the hall, in the direction of the engine room.

Telford let out a slow breath. “He didn’t know I had that.”

“Well, you don’t have it anymore,” Volker replied.

“Worth it,” Telford said, “because we confirmed two things. You have at least one of the genes. And—he can detect powered-up Ancient tech.”

“How the heck is he doing that?” Volker asked.

“Don’t say heck,” Telford murmured, staring after Rush.

After showering away any remains of the kassa derivative that might still be on his skin and eating a silver-wrapped meal packet, Volker felt better. 

He sat in the cargo bay, back in his Alliance leather, and idly arranged pieces of dried cat food in the shape of a Christmas tree on the cargo bay floor, trying to outpace Mendelssohn’s progressive crunching. He figured he’d used up two handfuls’ worth of cat food on the tree, which was maybe not the best decision on his part. He would need to start thinking about where in the galaxy he could buy food for Space Cats.

“Merry Christmas, buddy,” Volker said. “It’s hard to say if I’m getting the dates right with all the time zone changes, not to mention the time dilation. Plus the lack of real ‘day,’ and real ‘night’ and dead iPhone batteries and whatnot, but, sure. We’ll say it’s Christmas. I owe you one ‘Kitty Christmahanakwanzika Basket’ from the Dog and Cat Emporium down the street.”

Mendelssohn looked up at him and meowed.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Volker said. “Am I disturbing your dinner with all of this boring conversation?”

Mendelssohn went back to eating.

“So what did you do today?” Volker asked. “Sleep? Explore the cargo bay? Sleep some more?”

The door to the room slid open with a pneumatic hiss.

In his peripheral vision, Volker saw Rush’s knee-high boots and the hem of his Time Lord coat. He didn’t feel like looking up.

“The fuck have we here?” the mathematician asked with profane politeness.

“Um.” Volker studied the partially-consumed pattern on the floor and tried to think of anything to say besides, “A Christmas tree.” It took a minute, but it came to him. “Sierpinski gasket.” He gave Rush a small shrug.

“Doesn’t look very accurate,” Rush observed.

“Well, my cat destroyed the self-similarity by—y’know. Eating it.”

“Mmm.” Rush bent down, ostensibly to examine Volker’s Christmas-tree-turned-fractal, but really petting the cat. “This is a piss-poor rendering.”

Volker shut his eyes and tried not to implode from irritation. “Can I ask you something?”

“I despise all the fuckin’ prefacing, Volker. Stop levering normalcy on everyone you meet. As if being a paragon of sanity isn’t insult enough.”

“I’m gonna go ahead and interpret everything you just said as, ‘Yes, Dale, you can ask me a question’.”

“Your prerogative,” Rush said, petting the cat.

“Are you crazy, or are you faking it?” Volker asked.

“Neither.” Rush didn’t look at him.

“Soooooo. Crazy, then.”

Rush smiled faintly. “How insensitive.” The mathematician dropped to the floor next to Volker, stretching his left foot out in front of him.

“Insensitive? Me? You have got to be kidding me.”

Rush, moving like every muscle hurt, reached down to his own ankle. It was only then Volker noticed the knife buckled around his calf, outside his boot. Rush handed Volker the sheathed blade. “You’ll be needing this.”

“Is this your weird apology for almost killing us both?” Volker took the interlocking strips of leather. “I left your knife in the transport room. I didn’t think you were seriously giving it to me.”

“I believe you left your knife in the transport room,” Rush said airily.

“Uh, thanks. I guess. It definitely doesn’t make up for almost letting me burn to death, in case you’re wondering. But I’ll try not to stab you with it.” Volker buckled the leather guard around his own ankle. 

“It wasn’t an apology,” Rush said, “and I certainly won’t hold it against you if I find myself on the receiving end of the thing. Now. My question, which you’ll note I don’t preface, is do y’want to sit in an empty room doing fuckin’ nothing, or would you prefer to analyze your database, which, aside from its inherent interest, may improve our long-term chances of survival?”

“I wasn’t ‘doing nothing.’ I was feeding my cat.”

“Mmm,” Rush said. “Noted.”

“Aren’t you tired after the whole getting-tortured-for-hours-then-drugged-by-Telford thing?”

Rush shot him a disapproving look. “That was yesterday.”

“And then getting your ass kicked while under the influence of a Lucian Alliance psychotropic drug,” Volker finished. “Twice. Two-point-five times, maybe. Today.”

Rush shook his hair back, then economically swept what remained of the cat food off the floor and dumped it in his pocket.

Mendelssohn looked up at him reproachfully.

“Yeah, so, just so you know? Hoarding cat food? It’s not helping my perception of your mental health.”

Rush shot him a withering look, got to his feet, and walked over toward the door. “Script Kitty,” he said sharply. “Come on.”

“No,” Volker said, half to Rush, half to the cat. “You don’t get to rename my cat. And even if, in some bizarro alternate dimension, you did get to rename him? I veto ‘Script Kitty’. It’s offensive.”

Mendelssohn padded toward Rush.

Rush took a piece of cat food out of his pocket. He held it up, then feinted a toss at the door.

“Are you trying to train him?”

Mendelssohn lifted a paw in hopeful anticipation.

Rush quirked an eyebrow at the cat.

“Cats aren’t supposed to be trained, Rush, they’re—”

Mendelssohn meowed, and the door to the cargo bay swished open.

Rush tossed the piece of food into the hall, and the cat darted after it.

Volker got to his feet. “Did you program the doors to recognize his vocalizations?”

“Obviously,” Rush said, heading toward the workroom, ignoring Mendelssohn, who was looking at him, clearly hopeful. “Are you coming?” He hit the door controls and entered the other room without waiting for a response.

“I feed you.” Volker scooped Mendelssohn off the floor and looked the cat in the eye. “Okay? You got that? Me. I bought that cat food he’s been feeding you. Don’t be fooled.”

It wasn’t until hours later, after Telford had called it a night, when Volker’s eyes burned from staring for too long at his glowing screen, when Mendelssohn had sprawled on the floor at his feet, that he finally shifted his laptop aside and cleared his throat.

Rush ignored him.

Of course he did.

“So. I have some special gene.”

“Do you?” Rush said without looking up. “Congratulations.”

Volker stared at linear streaks of hyperspace and tried to hang onto his patience and let go of his despair. “Is that why you brought me here?”

Rush shut his eyes. He sighed, pulled his glasses off, and pressed the heel of one hand into his eye.

“You haven’t told me anything about this address that Telford says is the final final frontier. You haven’t mentioned it. Not once.”

Rush said nothing. He scanned the room like he was taking a quorum.

“You don’t need me for this.” Volker gestured at the computer in front of him. “To merge two databases and mine them? For this, you could get by with an enterprising undergraduate.”

“True,” Rush said.

“You’re a cryptography rockstar. There are probably like, I don’t know, a whole bunch of Dateline Specials and podcasts and Nova documentaries about what happened to you.”

Rush sighed and looked plaintively at the empty air. “Classless.”

Volker smiled faintly. “Yeah. Maybe. But look at this from my perspective. The P=NP Guy shows up at my office and decides to abduct me? Me. A Pretty Good Astrophysicist? Says he needs me? To help with what? A cryptography problem? Telford seems to find it semi-reasonable, but that doesn’t erase the fact that it makes no sense.”

“Right. Because what I actually need y’for is the location of a naquadria-laced planet?”

“So why not just take the dataset?” Volker asked. “It. Not me.”

“Unanswerable,” Rush said, like he was reading answers out of the air. “Try something else.”

“Did you know I had the gene to turn on Ancient technology?”

Rush stared at nothing. He nodded once.

“When did you know?” Volker tried to keep his questions simple. Concrete.

“That’s harder,” Rush said. “I’m not sure.”

“How can you not be sure?” Volker asked. “Did you know I had the gene when you came to my lab? The first time you saw me, when I walked down the hall? When you were waiting, standing outside my door. At Caltech. Did you know then?”

“You don’t care about when,” Rush said. “What you really want are why and how.”

“I care about when,” Volker countered. “When is related. When has gotta be the easiest of the three.”

“Yes,” Rush said reluctantly. “But, in an absolute sense, it’s not easy.”

“Okay,” Volker said. “But is the question of when ‘unanswerable’?”

Rush considered this, his eyes on empty air. “No,” he decided.

“Great. So, when did you know I had the gene?” Volker asked.

“It was an assumption I made, long before I ever saw you,” Rush said.

“An assumption? Based on what?” Volker asked.

“Unanswerable.” Rush slid his glasses back into place and looked down at his laptop. 

Volker reached across the table and closed the display, forcing Rush to look at him. The other man’s eyes were wary, his features frozen in place.

“Tell me anything,” Volker invited. “Any piece of it—what you want, why you want it, how you came here—anything, Rush. Anything. Anything at all.”

“Find a planet.” Rush left the room.

It took Volker three days of combing his database and superimposing sets of data to find even one planet with the emission spectra he was looking for. After half an hour of drilling down on the numbers, he determined the planet wasn’t emitting sufficiently to meet the minimum criteria Rush had specified.

In other words, it didn’t have enough naquadria.

That didn’t mean it wouldn’t be useful.

Rush had been forthcoming enough that Volker had at least some understanding of the mechanics of what they were trying to achieve: tapping the energy of geologic deposits of a radioactive, unstable element and using it to power the establishment of an Einstein-Rosen bridge that traversed an unusually vast distance, or, put another way, an Einstein-Rosen bridge that really freaking distorted the topology of spacetime.

Much as Volker was dubious of Rush and Telford, he found that the idea of harnessing energy on a planetary level and thereby putting humanity solidly on the Kardashev scale was something he could get behind.

It took almost no effort for Volker to persuade Telford and Rush that, even though the planet wasn’t suitable for their purposes, it was worth a trip to improve their capability to detect and map naquadria deposits.

Volker had worked his way slowly through the information in the ship’s databanks that pertained to naquadria, but there wasn’t much other than its chemical composition, which at least gave him something to go on in terms of predicting its likely emission spectrum. The Goa’uld had considered the material sacred. Unfortunately, that meant they hadn’t left much additional information lying around in the database of an off-the-shelf tel’tak.

Still, Volker took what little information there was and started a slow translation of the pertinent entries, Jackson’s text in one hand. He hunched over the laptop-based interface with the mainframe Rush had rigged up and went back and forth, screen-to-book and book-to-screen, making notes.

That was where Telford found him when they were about a day out from the planet.

Volker didn’t look up when the other man entered the room, figuring he was on his way to grab a silver-wrapped meal. Instead, Telford sat down at the table opposite Volker and fixed him with the kind of look he usually reserved for Rush.

“Hey,” Volker said warily.

“Hey,” Telford replied. “How’s it going?”

“Okay. Better. With the translation, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Telford said. “It’s been about five days since Varro gave you that communications sphere.”

Volker nodded.

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Telford said, his voice low, “but you need to contact them.”

“Already?” Volker tried to fight the dread Telford’s comment produced. “Today?”

“It’s a perfect opportunity,” Telford said. “You have something to pass on. Set Rush up as the one who discovered this planet. Make this little trip his idea. Best-case scenario, they’ve heard of it and we get intel we can use about what might be down there.”

“Worst-case scenario?” Volker asked.

“You blow your cover,” Telford said. “And then—”

“Torture, death, yadda yadda yadda,” Volker cut in.

“Yeah. So don’t fuck up.”

“Oh, okay,” Volker said. “Thanks.”

Telford smirked. “Just don’t make any witty observations, and you’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be witty,” Volker said. “Check.”

“Don’t say ‘check’.”

“Right.”

“Good.” Telford pushed to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, you want to do this now? Right now?”

“Yeah,” Telford called over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Volker trailed after Telford. “Can we practice first?”

Telford didn’t reply until they had entered the cargo bay. Then he turned to Volker, his eyes nearly black in the evening-level light. “The best way to survive this,” he said quietly, “is to become who you pretend to be.”

“Is that what you did?” The words landed like a gauntlet.

Oops.

Telford ignored his question. “Become the man who doesn’t need to practice. The man who speaks Goa’uld, who’s grown up in a culture that doesn’t prize wit or sentiment or sensitivity. The man who lives for the work of his hands. The man who believes in the primacy of the Lucian Alliance over any and all subjugators. Be the man who’s known nothing but generations of physical and mental slavery to false idols. Become hard. Shut your mind. Shut your mouth.”

“That’s not who I am,” Volker whispered.

“I know.” Telford put a hand on Volker’s shoulder and dug his fingers in companionably.

Neither of them said anything.

Telford’s hand fell away. “To activate the communications device, just hold it up and look at it.” He lifted Mendelssohn off the floor. “Let me know how it goes.”

Volker watched as Telford left the room, Mendelssohn draped comfortably over his shoulder.

“Seriously?” he muttered.

Volker rooted through the pile of things he’d rescued from his house before Rush set it on fire. He’d stuffed the communications device into a sock. Sock in hand, he found a small space between storage containers, just large enough to wedge himself into. For all he knew, the little silver sphere offered the observer a 360-degree view of its surroundings. Probably best to keep the Earth clothes and the high-end cat food out of frame. 

He tried to envision himself, not as Dale Volker, tenured Caltech professor, but as Dale of the Sixth House. Dale who spoke Goa’uld, Dale who was cautious, Dale who was smart, Dale who didn’t talk more than necessary.

Dale, who was, most of the time, a nice guy.

He eased the sphere out of the sock. It settled in his palm, heavy, smooth, and slightly warm.

He held it up. The surface shimmered gold, then resolved into an image of Varro’s face.

“Dale,” Varro said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“I have something to report,” Volker said, suppressing a shrug at the last minute. “Is now—” He broke off with a swallow. “A convenient time?”

“If it works for you,” Varro said, “it works for me. Go ahead.”

Volker threw a glance at the cargo bay door as though checking for listeners, then said, “Rush has found a planet.”

Varro’s face was difficult to read.

“He’s not sure it will work for whatever Kiva wants it for,” Volker said, “but he wants to check it out anyway.”

“Why?” Varro asked.

“He thinks he can get more information about this naquadria stuff if we make a stop there. Readings that will help him with mapping and possibly with the detection of a planet that would meet Kiva’s standards.”

“Where is this planet?” Varro asked.

Volker gave the spatial coordinates according to Goa’uld convention, and Varro looked down, as though inputting data into a device Volker couldn’t see. He frowned.

“That’s an old Alliance outpost. Fourth House. It was abandoned last year.”

“Why?” Volker asked.

Varro looked back at him steadily. “Long-term exposure to the radiation produced by naquadria isn’t conducive to the kind of productivity expected by Fourth House.”

“Ah,” Volker said.

What the heck did that mean?

“If I were you, Dale,” Varro said quietly, “I’d get those readings and go. Don’t linger planetside.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Volker replied.

“Do you have anything else for me?” Varro asked.

“No,” Volker said.

Varro gave him a measured look.

Volker felt compelled to add more. “Rush keeps to himself. Working on—whatever he’s working on.”

“But he is working?” Varro asked.

“He does nothing else,” Volker said truthfully.

Varro nodded. “Keep us apprised.”

“Will do.”

Varro’s face faded in a wash of gold. The sphere took on its usual silver cast, and Volker shoved it back inside his sock.

He took a long, shuddering breath and shut his eyes, leaning against the crates behind him.

That hadn’t gone badly. 

At least, not in an obvious way.

The planet was hot. Jungle air, heavy with humidity, fought Volker’s efforts to draw it into his lungs. It smelled of flowers and standing water and rotting fruit. Overhead, massive trees formed a thick canopy of verdant darkness through which light faintly filtered. They stood in a small clearing, full of muddy water up to their shins, in front of the remains of the Fourth House outpost.

“What I’d like to know,” Rush said, his accent crisp with irritation as he took in the corroded building, “is whose fuckin’ idea this was.”

Telford swatted a blood-sucking insect away from his own neck.

Volker squinted at the boxy outline of the structure, more than half swallowed by trees and vines. “Um.” He wiped away the sweat beading at his hairline. “When you say ‘fucking idea,’ what part of this would you be referring to?”

“Don’t start,” Telford sighed.

“Every part. I didn’t specify otherwise, did I?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Knock it off,” Telford ordered.

“Who builds an iron structure in the middle of a swamp?” Rush continued, undeterred. “It looks like shite, structurally it’s—”

“You know what, Rush?” Telford snapped. “Structurally, you’re—”

“Don’t fuckin’ embarrass yourself,” Rush shot back. He turned to Volker. “Are y’scanning?”

“Right,” Volker said dryly. “Let me just check my tricorder for signs of exotic isotopes.” He pulled out the little Ancient device Rush had handed him before they ringed down.

Telford glared. “Please tell me you didn’t just say ‘tricorder’.”

Above their heads, a flock of winged animals burst from the dark canopy, shifting branches and rustling leaves as they launched themselves with cries like monkeys. Featherless wings snapped and beat the air. Volker and Rush flinched at the sound, but Telford held his ground, watching the small animals block what little sky was visible through breaks in the overarching canopy.

“Those look carnivorous,” Telford said.

“Great.” Volker ignored his racing heart. “So, if I’m not supposed to call this thing a tricorder, what am I supposed to call it?”

“A modified Ancient lifesigns detector,” Telford said.

“A MALD?” Volker asked.

“Absolutely not,” Rush replied.

“Sure,” Telford said simultaneously. “But lose the ‘m.’ It sounds too much like ‘MALP’.”

“What’s a fuckin’ MALP?” Rush asked.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a military term. Not for you.”

“So we’re calling this thing an ALD?” Volker asked dubiously.

“No,” Rush snapped. “We’re not calling it that.”

“ALD is good,” Telford said. “I like ALD. The fuck do you think we should call it?”

“A modified Ancient lifesigns detector,” Rush replied.

“We’re going with ALD, and this conversation is over.” Telford gestured at the edges of the small clearing in front of the building. “Pay attention to the tree line so we don’t get ambushed or eaten by indigenous wildlife.”

Rush adjusted his glasses and swept his gaze over the muddy clearing in a bored, grandstand-y way.

“Yeah. Not getting eaten: check.” Volker cleared his throat. “I like that. But just so you know? If you want me to perform a spectroscopic analysis of an unknown compound using a foreign device?” He waved the ALD in Telford’s direction. “It’d be nice to give me more than five minutes to learn how it works. Either that, or, y’know, abduct a materials scientist next time.”

Telford looked pointedly at Rush.

“It’s intuitive.” Rush shrugged fluidly. “Like your iPhone. Furthermore, I believe it was you who wanted the additional data.”

“Like my iPhone? Did you seriously just say that?”

Rush ignored him.

“Well, thanks.” Volker swatted at a small insect intent on landing on his face. “That’s very helpful. And yeah. I ‘wanted’ the additional data kind of like Spock ‘wanted’ to help the people of Sigma Draconis VI.”

Neither Rush nor Telford dignified that with a response. Nor was it strictly true. He had been curious.

Volker sighed and looked down at the display, alight with foreign symbols in a language he had yet to even begin learning. “There isn’t a Goa’uld version of this thing?”

“There is indeed a shit version, yes,” Rush replied.

Telford exhaled, short and sharp. Either amused, or irritated, or derisive—maybe all three.

“Oh. Indeed. A shit version,” Volker parroted under his breath as he narrowed his eyes at the Ancient tricorder. What he really wanted was a concentrated naquadria deposit he could use to fingerprint its emission spectra. It would drastically improve their ability to detect and geographically map naquadria deposits on candidate worlds.

Emission spectra were his wheelhouse. Parsing out elements in situ in the crust of alien planets? Not so much his forte.

Rush headed toward the metal building. 

The corroding, creepily abandoned building.

If there were zombies, or giant Anaconda-esque snakes, or flying piranhas, or velociraptors, Volker was going to be so so so upset.

But not surprised.

Telford started for the building. 

“We’re going in there?” Volker asked. “Because, I mean, I don’t really—I don’t need to. For science.”

“We picked up no lifesigns,” Telford said. “There’s no reason to think it’s anything other than what it’s tagged as in the LA database—an abandoned chemical refinery.”

“Yeah.” Volker nervously split his attention between his Ancient tricorder and the dark greenery as he followed Rush in a slow loop around the “chemical refinery.” The building was rectangular, its surface pitted and its corners blunted by corrosion.

“Y’know,” Volker said, when they were back where they’d started, “according to Dr. Jackson’s handbook, the Goa’uld don’t have a word for ‘chemical’.”

“How is that relevant?” Telford’s eyes were invisible behind sunglasses.

Rush didn’t respond at all. His hands were on the rusted metal, his gaze directed up the planar surface above him.

“Well, the word is more like ‘substance of the earth.’ That’s how Jackson translates it. And at first I’m thinking, is this guy a hack? C’mon. I mean—” Volker gestured to encompass their non-Earth surroundings. “‘Earth’ seems kinda provincial out here, right? Obviously he doesn’t mean ‘planet Earth.’ The assumption is he chose ‘earth’ as a placeholder for soil, or dirt, but that would be limiting. And he didn’t say that, right? He says ‘earth’.”

“Right.” Telford’s rising intonation suggested Volker had better be making his point soon.

Rush said nothing, but his gaze flicked in Volker’s direction then returned to the building.

“He doesn’t choose ‘dirt’,” Volker continued. “He doesn’t choose ‘soil.’ He chooses ‘earth,’ I think, because of the connection to something that transcends the literal. Like the Ancient Greek elements. Air. Water. Fire. Earth. Broadly encompassing, yet grounded in the physical.”

“Sure,” Telford muttered, shin-deep in muddy water. “Jackson’s a goddamned savant. Tell me something I don’t know. What are you implying? That this may not actually be a chemical refinery?”

“Oh, it definitely could be.” Volker tripped over a tangle of reeds obscured by murky water as he started a slow approach to the building, Ancient tricorder in hand. “All I’m saying is we’re leaning a lot on a Goa’uld concept that doesn’t have a good English equivalent. We’re bringing a lot of our own biases to how we think about it. And this place was occupied by the LA, right? Occupied, not built?”

Telford, physically and mentally following, gave a grudging nod.

“So a naquadria-laced world,” Volker continued, “gets abandoned? Not once, but presumably twice—first by the Goa’uld, again by the LA. Given its potential as a power source, naquadria seems like something you don’t walk away from.”

“Point taken.” Telford paused to yank his foot out of a patch of deep mud. “But if they were working with naquadria here—in whatever capacity—this may be the place to get your detailed readings.”

“Why don’t we just stay outside?” Volker asked, as they drew even with Rush. “Maybe we can find a naquadria vein and track it?”

“Maybe.” Telford’s fingers tapped a slow rhythm on the edge of his zat.

“I’ll make you a deal, Volker.” Rush ran his hands over the rough and flaking metal of the building’s exterior.

“Dale,” Telford said. “We’re calling him Dale.”

Rush ignored Telford. “You get what you need before I find a way inside this place, and we’ll go.”

“That’s a little too National-Science-Olympiad-meets-Heart-of-Darkness for me, man,” Volker said. “No deal.”

Rush’s appraisal of the building took on an amused cast.

Telford watched the dark border of the trees.

Volker studied his device. Elegant blue symbols formed a radial pattern around a central circle. He tapped the image that looked like a sine wave, hoping it indicated electromagnetic radiation. A radial menu popped up, this one with green text and multicolored icons.

He spotted what he wanted immediately. A horizontal rectangle, black with four vertical lines, each a different color, greeted him like an old friend. “Oh, hey there, Balmer series!” Volker tapped the emission spectrum of hydrogen.

What he had in his hand was an excruciatingly beautiful, exquisitely sensitive, and exceptionally portable spectrum analyzer.

At a minimum!

Volker felt a surge of affection for the little gadget he held. The Ancient tricorder. The A-corder?

He wasn’t sure he’d be giving this little guy back to Rush.

The display shivered, rippling through the spectrum, phasing from green to blue to indigo to violet, swinging back around to red, frequency going up, wavelength going down, until it settled back at green.

Volker raised his eyebrows, not sure what had prompted the cheerful cycle through the visible spectrum. He shifted his grip, cradling the device a little more gently, then scanned the local environment. 

His signal-to-noise ratio for naquadria was unacceptably low. But. That ratio increased when he pointed the device at the building he didn’t want to go into.

Volker dragged a thumb across the display, hoping he could separate the naquadria emission spectrum from the surrounding environment. He was rewarded with—exactly what he wanted.

The muddy signal clarified into three separate and fluctuating analog measurements, labeled with Ancient text.

Seemed a little convenient.

Possessed by a desire to do some outlandish hypothesis testing, Volker held the device gently in both hands and focused on the mental image of naquadria’s predicted emission profile.

One of the lines turned a vibrant coral color. 

Holy crap.

When Rush had said “intuitive,” he’d meant it. Literally.

So, apparently, Ancients were freaking awesome?

Volker needed to learn Ancient. Like, ASAP. Today. Yesterday.

“Does this seem odd to you?” Rush murmured, his eyes on the building.

“Compared to what?” Telford asked, following the mathematician’s gaze.

“The color is wrong,” Rush replied. “The building is corroded, but—“ He broke off and rubbed his fingers together. They were coated with a grayish-blue patina of dust and flaked metal.

Telford stepped closer to examine the bluish dust. “Usually when the LA slaps together a structure like this, they go with an iron alloy and not a sophisticated one.”

Volker looked back at his device and the three signals it displayed. He pointed the A-corder at the water covering his feet. One of the lines rose to prominence and turned to shining coral.

“Can you refine naquadria from other ores?” he asked.

“No way were they refining naquadria here,” Telford said dismissively. “The LA doesn’t have the tech to attempt anything that dangerous.”

“Naquadah,” Rush said, looking at the blue-gray flaked metal on his fingertips. He shifted his gaze to Volker’s Ancient tricorder and said, “You’d refine it from naquadah.” 

The signature Volker had picked up from the water flashed several times like a strobe.

He looked up at Rush, startled.

Rush was studying the building again, his expression unconcerned.

The Ancient tricorder could read thoughts at a distance??

Volker wasn’t sure if he wanted to voice that hypothesis just yet, so instead he said, “There’s naquadah in the water?”

“Is there?” Rush bent to run his fingers just beneath the waterline. “Y’don’t sound sure.”

“Take a look.” Volker sloshed through dark, shallow water, angling the device so Rush could see it.

Rush nodded, confirming the identity of the spectral trace.

“They weren’t refining it here,” Telford said. “They weren’t. There’s no way.”

But they were. They had been. The A-corder shifted its spectral lines—a real-time rearrangement in response to Volker’s gelling insight. At the bottom of its screen was the green-blue trace of the naquadah emission spectrum. At the top was the slowly pulsing coral of the naquadria signature. And in the middle, in sunny yellow, was something that could only be an intermediate product.

“Yes,” Volker said, quiet and sure. “They were refining it here. There’s naquadah in the water. And, in this facility,” he murmured, holding the device aloft, “there’s naquadria and a clear intermediate product.”

Rush smiled faintly.

“Let me see that.” Telford held out his hand for the device.

As it left Volker’s fingers, the display died.

“Damn it,” Telford said.

“Oops.” Volker touched a silvery edge and it powered back up.

Telford studied the screen, his brow furrowed. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking at here.”

Instinctively, Volker glanced at Rush. The mathematician gave him a cautionary tilt of the head, but didn’t interfere.

“Look.” Volker separated and colored the three signals again with a spread of his fingers. “The turquoise is naquadah. The coral is naquadria, and the middle—that’s your intermediate.”

“Shit,” Telford murmured. “I see what you’re saying.” He watched minor fluctuations in the spectral readings. “It’s wavelength along the x-axis?”

“Yeah.” Volker couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “Good job.”

Telford gave him a dour look.

Volker kept his face neutral.

Telford continued, “And the spikes represent wavelengths at which this shit emits photons.”

“Yep.”

“So if they can’t find a naquadria-laden planet,” Rush said, pouring himself into the conversation like suspiciously reasonable coffee creamer, “they make one. How exquisitely enterprising. It does seem like them, doesn’t it? So determined.”

Telford suppressed a sigh. “That’s what it looks like. And for us to pick up the signature on your galactic map, or whatever, they must have made a lot of it.”

Volker eyed the forbidding building. “More than would fit in there. Unless that thing goes deep. Really deep.”

“I’d say that’s a safe bet,” Telford replied grimly.

“Oh yes,” Rush said, “but the question then becomes: why did they stop?” The mathematician stepped back from the dull gray metal, but his eyes didn’t leave the structure. “Why leave, when they’d made a near success of it?”

Telford grimaced, then scanned the tree line of the muddy clearing.

“Give us your knife.” Rush held out an imperious hand.

“You’ve got plenty of knives,” Telford said.

Rush circled his hand in a demanding flourish that ended, again, with an open palm.

Reluctantly, Telford drew an extremely normal pocket knife from his leather pants. “You have ten minutes to get in. After that, we ring back and get out of here. The sun is on its way down and I don’t want to stick around after dark.”

“Agreed.” Rush unfolded a blade and reached into the water, probing the submerged surface of the building.

“I know you’ve got this crazy genius thing going,” Volker said, “with a heavy emphasis on the crazy, but I don’t see how—”

Volker broke off as Rush squared his stance and brought the knife up and out of the water, dragging it along the surface of the building with a shriek of metal-on-metal. Blue-gray rust flaked away behind the blade. Rush stopped the arc only when it extended up beyond his easy reach.

“Well,” Telford said, staring at the groove in the metal, “that’s one way to ruin a knife.”

Volker stared at the perfect curve Rush had carved—no. Traced. He’d followed an arc inlaid into the building itself, invisible beneath the strange blue naquadah-rust. “How’d you know that was there?” Volker asked.

“a is to b as a+b is to a,” Rush breathed.

“Great,” Telford said with a frustrated roll of his shoulders.

“Um?” Volker tried to visualize what Rush had just said.

“More secure than a simple door.” Rush abandoned his scraped-out curve and stepped elegantly along the building. The hem of his coat brushed the surface of the standing water. “Childishly inadequate nonetheless. This is what happens when y’borrow codes based on semiotics as opposed to say—” he paused to dig out a portion of an arc located at chest-height, “—the factoring of large integers. If I gave a fuck, I could save Kiva a great deal of trouble. Alas, I’ve no such fucks to give.”

Volker ignored Rush’s monologue and studied the proportions of the building. “Is this thing a golden rectangle?”

“‘Course it is.” Rush drove the tip of the pocketknife into the convergence point of the spiral he’d traced. He worked the tip of the blade in different directions until a plate of metal cracked away from the wall. Rush pried it up to reveal a control panel, angled his head, and keyed in a code.

“Rush.” Telford splashed through the shallow water. “What are you doing?”

“Y’said I had ten minutes to get in,” Rush murmured. “Seems I only needed three.” He hit the last button, and the center of the logarithmic spiral broke open and folded inward like a collapsing flower. Metal petals peeled back into a rectangular doorway, its lip just above the surface of the standing water.

Inside, there was nothing but darkness.

“What did you just type in?” Telford hissed, his fingers curling around his zat.

“Phi,” Rush said. “Well, to be more correct, an eight-digit approximation thereof. One couldn’t actually type in phi without an input allowing for a representation of a radical. This is just a keypad.”

“Phi?” Telford pulled off his sunglasses.“What the hell is ‘phi’?”

“The mean of Phidias. He was a Greek sculptor. Goa’uld, maybe?” Rush shrugged. “Not pertinent. It’s a fuckin’ ratio, David. One plus the square root of five over two, suggested by the proportions of the building. Pick up a bloody book.”

“I don’t get how this is supposed to be secure.” Volker resisted the urge to step back from the gaping darkness.

“Obviously it’s not,” Rush replied. “It’s meant to be exclusive.”

“So knowing the golden ratio is like having an AmEx black card?” Volker asked.

“Pardon?” Rush asked politely.

“He’s not good with pop culture,” Telford said.

“Knowing the golden ratio is like a status thing in the Goa’uld world?” Volker rephrased.

“Yes. A ‘status thing’.” Rush packed a metric ton of disdain into four words.

“Well, I appreciated the layperson explanation.” Telford dragged Rush back by his jacket as the mathematician stepped toward the opening.

“You’re welcome?” Volker offered.

Rush jerked free of Telford’s grip with a soft splash. He shook his hair back and shot them an affronted look.

“Guys, are we seriously going into this—building? Refinery? Underground death trap structure-thing? I mean, I’m not a professional space criminal or anything, but like, this has bad idea written all over it.” Volker crossed his arms.

“We’re not ‘space criminals’,” Telford said.

“Worst-case scenario,” Rush offered, “we’re all killed.”

“I don’t think so.” Telford pulled a small flashlight from his leather jacket and clicked it to life. White light illuminated dusty metal.

“You don’t think what?” Volker shifted, uneasy. “You don’t think we’ll be killed, or you don’t think that’s the worst-case scenario?”

Telford peered into the dank interior of the building. “Option two.” He shook his head, blew out a rueful breath, and looked at Rush.

“Varro advised against hanging around this planet when I talked with him,” Volker said.

“Did he.” Rush dripped the words like sap.

“I’m with Dale on this one,” Telford said. “I’m not getting a good feeling about this place.”

Rush didn’t reply. The dappled sunlight played over his Time Lord coat.

“Tell me I’m wrong about this.” Telford’s eyes flicked between the darkness and Rush. “Tell me you really think this is a good idea.”

Rush gave Telford a Department-Chair-of-the-Alien-Rainforest smile. “So you’re with Dale, are you? Illuminating.”

“What are you talking about?” The thin film of sweat on Telford’s forehead gleamed in a patch of sunlight.

“Did they tell you not to look?” Rush hissed. “I know you talk to them. I know you—”

“No,” Telford said. “We’re not having this conversation. Not now.”

Rush widened his stance. He tossed Telford his ruined pocketknife in a glittering arc. “Then where?” he asked. “On the ship, where they’re listening? In an Alliance holding cell? Whom do you work for?”

“Guys.” Volker was pretty sure Rush was preparing for a fight. His hands were hovering, open and away from his body in what looked like a low-commitment Scarlet Witch pose. 

“If you’ve flipped,” Rush began, ginning up to something Volker didn’t want to see the end of. “If you—”

Telford, oozing casual charm, slid his pocketknife into his jacket. “I haven’t flipped, Nick. C’mon.”

“Maybe y’never needed to,” Rush said. “Do y’have a primary affiliation? Have you ever?”

“Hey,” Telford said with a breezy smirk, “fuck you, asshole. I’ve done nothing but cover for you with Kiva. She’s your employer. Not me.”

Rush’s gaze bored into Telford like an auger into heartwood.

“Pretty sure you don’t want to do this today.” Telford gestured at the dark passage. “Not when there’s a materials science mystery to solve and crystals to strip.”

Rush huffed, pulled a knife from nowhere, spun it once, then vanished it back into his sleeve. He relaxed his stance and stepped up into the cavernous doorway. “Fuck off, David. Die in fire.”

Volker caught Telford’s eye with a what-the-heck-was-that question on his face.

Telford met Volker’s eye with a genuinely unsettled expression, then stepped up to join Rush.

Volker sloshed a step closer to the opening. “Uh, is anyone gonna ask my opinion?”

No one did.

Ugh. Fine. He stepped up next to Telford.

“Rush,” Telford said, “take our six.”

“I think I’ll take point.” Rush started forward. “I have a hypothesis,” he added over his shoulder. “I’d like to direct our trajectory.”

“Oh yeah?” Telford waved Volker forward and took up a position behind him. “Is your hypothesis that fucking asshole scientists fare better against hostiles in the dark than trained military personnel? Because if so, I really have to admire your experimental setup.”

“Hmm.” Rush sounded amused.

Volker edged after Rush, his shoulders hunched. “I feel like it’s been maybe a day since I told you guys that I hate you?” he said. “I just want to reassure you that’s still the case.”

“My favorite part of our working relationship is the part when you say pointless things,” Rush replied.  

“We don’t have a working relationship,” Volker muttered. “Our relationship is kidnapper to kidnappee.”

“If we’re doing this, everyone is shutting the hell up and focusing,” Telford hissed, as the dark closed around them like black water.

As they advanced down the narrow, sloping passage, the air began to smell of something sickly-sweet and cloying.

Volker fought his claustrophobia by following the beams of their three flashlights patterning over the space ahead and behind. His little A-corder, friendly and bright in his palm, shone with more cheer than usual.

There was plenty of space. Just because he couldn’t see it didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

“Stop,” Telford said, low and crisp. “Lights down.” 

Rush flipped his light ninety degrees. Volker followed suit, but not before he caught sight of something further along the corridor. It was on the floor. It looked wet. Biological. Bad.

Telford murmured, “Hold here and watch our six.”

Halfheartedly, Volker glanced back in the direction they’d come.

Telford’s boots scuffed in the dust as his steps slowed.

Volker turned back. As Telford drew level with Rush, he grabbed the mathematician’s elbow, locking him in place, their silhouettes dark against their lowered flashlights. Light reflected off the bright frames of Rush’s glasses, but it was quickly swallowed by the surrounding dark.

Volker pulled a slow, shallow breath. The smell was stronger now.

Oh god.

“Did you see it?” Telford murmured.

“Yes,” Rush confirmed.

“See what?” Volker asked, sick with dread.

Telford looked back over his shoulder. “Turn around,” he said. “Watch our six.”

“See. What.” Volker’s throat tightened.

“Do what I say.”

Volker turned. He pointed his flashlight back the way they had come, watching the beam until it was winnowed away by too much dark. Behind him, Telford and Rush advanced together without speaking.

Their footsteps stopped.

Volker held tight to his flashlight. His eyes fixed on the darkness around his flashlight beam, he slipped the A-corder into his pocket, hiding its friendly glow.

A boot slid across the dusty floor in a startled half-step. Rush, probably.

Volker undid the snap that attached his zat to his thigh. He wrapped his fingers around the weapon. His feet were wet and cold, his boots caked with mud and full of jungle water. That seemed bad for running. Or fighting.

“You said,” Telford began, his voice so calm that it prickled the hair at the back of Volker’s neck, “that you had a hypothesis. How does this figure in?”

“I don’t—” Rush breathed. “I don’t understand what I’m looking at.”

“It’s the positioning of the wound that’s the key.”

Silence.

“She was a host,” Rush said, his voice hollow. “But this was supposed to be an Alliance outpost. You said it was Alliance.”

“Spies are everywhere,” Telford whispered. “And the Goa’uld may be down, but they’re not out of the game.”

“Guys,” Volker said in a hoarse whisper. “Seriously. What the heck is going on?”

“Does this or does this not support your hypothesis about what happened here?” Telford asked.

“It’s neither expected nor unexpected,” Rush replied. “It’s likely unrelated.”

“Does anyone want to clue me in on—” Volker turned and the words died in his throat as he took in the unmistakable sprawl of a human body on the dusty floor. It was a woman. Her skin was tight with decay, the front of her throat torn open, dark hair mingled with dust—

Volker spun back, facing the dark. His hands shook, his vision turned to a misty gray. The smell hit him full force, nearly unbearable now that it was identifiable.

Decay.

“Hey.” Telford was in front of Volker. “Hey.”

“Yep.” Volker’s throat clamped shut. “I’m okay.”

“I told you not to look.” There was a smile in Telford’s voice.

“Yes. You did. Absolutely you did. I know. I’m fine. It’s okay. I’m fine. I’m fine. With this.”

Telford closed a hand on Volker’s uninjured shoulder. “Yeah. You are fine.”

Volker nodded.

“It’s dead,” Rush said, still studying the corpse.

“Oh, really?” Telford asked. “Let’s give Dale ten seconds of humanity, yeah?”

“The Goa’uld,” Rush drawled, bored and superior. “It’s on the floor. Not three feet from her.”

Telford blew out a breath. He pressed his fingers into Volker’s shoulder with a brief pulse of reassurance before returning to stand with Rush.

This time, Volker followed. He breathed through his mouth and tried to ignore the rotting human body on the floor. Instead, he focused on the rotting snake on the floor.

“That thing?” Volker breathed as he got a good look at the pale worm. “That’s a Goa’uld?”

“Yeah.” Telford held his hand to his nose.

“That thing can live inside a person? It must be ten inches long!” Volker wiped sweat-damp palms on his leather pants.

“The fuck happened here?” Rush asked. “It tears out of her throat and dies not three feet away?”

“It was cut in half,” Telford said. “Hard to tell with the decomposition, but ten inches is too short. They’re more like eighteen to twenty.”

“Eighteen?” Volker echoed.

“So, it was killed by—fuckin’ parties unknown?” Rush asked. “Where’s the other half?”

“Eaten, maybe?” Telford said.

Rush looked up, the frames of his glasses shining with reflected light. “Pardon me, but what the fuck?”

“Eaten?” Volker’s voice cracked. “Why’re we jumping straight to eaten?”

Telford frowned as he examined the half-there alien worm. “It’s a known thing the Goa’uld do. They consume their young to impart vitality. They’d probably eat one another under duress.”

“So, weaving your assumptions into a linear narrative,” Rush said, “for some reason this thing left its host. During this transition, it was intercepted. Half of the thing was consumed or carried off, likely by another Goa’uld, while the other half was left to rot on the floor.”

“Yeah,” Telford agreed, “and not that long ago. Maybe a week? Maybe less? Also—these bastards are fast. It’s difficult to kill them when they’re transitioning between hosts. Unfortunately.”

“Varro said this place was abandoned by the Alliance last year,” Volker whispered. “You think she was killed a week ago?”

“Why eat only half?” Rush asked. “If it was eaten?”

“No idea,” Telford said.

“This will bother me,” Rush murmured.

“Which part?” Volker’s voice cracked.

“The half-eaten thing.”

“The part that bothers me is the part where there’s another one of these things down here,” Volker whispered furiously.

Rush looked at Telford. “This will be an unpopular question, I suspect, but, say, for the sake of argument, that y’cut one of these things in half. Would that unequivocally kill it? Or might the ‘head’ end survive being, er, favorably bisected?”

Volker and Telford stared at him.

“No one’s sure. Right then. Let’s keep going,” Rush said.

“Are you nuts?” Volker asked.

“It’s just getting interesting,” Rush replied.

“I’m taking point,” Telford murmured. “Form up and keep it tight. Rush, you’ve got our six.”

Caught between Telford and Rush, with no choice but to go on or face the darkness of the return journey alone, Volker readjusted his grip on his flashlight and stayed close on Telford’s heels as they advanced deeper into the refinery.