STARGATE ATLANTIS: Secrets (Book 5 in the Legacy series)

by Scott, Melissa

  Jasen pulled on Alabaster’s sleeve, standing next to Darling. “But what will happen to us?”

  Alabaster’s pale face seemed to blanch still further. “I will return,” she said. “I will return from time to time when I may. I will come and heal those of you I may. I do not know when it will be, but I will come as often as I can.” She put her off hand on the arm of one of the men. “Hear my word on this. But I do not know what will transpire in that celestial war, as Teyla names it. I go from here to the City of the Ancestors, where I hope to be reunited with my father.”

  A murmur spread through the room.

  “Oh, not good…” John began.

  “You go to stand among the Ancestors with your father?”

  “My father lives,” Alabaster said loudly. “He is not dead, and the City of the Ancestors is a place one may journey to while still breathing.” She glanced sideways at Teyla. “It is a citadel those of many worlds have visited, Athosian and Satedan and Genii and many more, a place left by the Ancestors now reclaimed by their children. I do not go to the land of the dead, but to a place no less living than this.”

  “Then why cannot we go there?” Jasen’s father demanded. “If people from other worlds have gone there, why cannot we accompany you, Our Bride?”

  Teyla looked like she was hunting for an answer, but Alabaster spoke first. “I do not see why you may not,” she said, turning to Teyla. “Why should not three heroes accompany me? Why should they not come before your elders and represent their people? Surely they are the children of the Ancestors too?”

  Teyla’s mouth opened and closed, her eyes still on Alabaster as though the queen spoke other words that could not be heard.

  “Crapola,” John said.

  “I do not see why not,” Teyla said, her eyes still on Alabaster’s. “But know that it is a hazardous quest, and those who undertake it will be changed by the things they see. It is not something to be done lightly or by those who fear what they may become.”

  At that a vast babble went up, young men arguing with each other, each claiming more courage or a deeper love of their Bride.

  “It’s like a zenana,” Rodney said wonderingly. “It’s like a human zenana. They all want to show off for her.”

  John shook his head. “You and Ronon take the ZPM and the other thing to the jumper. I’ll see if I can get them moving. Woolsey’s going to kill me.” Right. Hyperion’s weapon, Todd’s daughter, a Wraith kid, and a bunch of emissaries from an Iron Age society with no contact through the Stargate in ten thousand years. Oh, and Rodney crushing on a Wraith Queen, and Ronon’s head popping off. “Teyla, can we get going here?” John waded into the fray.

  It was, Dick Woolsey thought, not exactly a reassuring sight. They’d gotten almost used to Teyla walking around Atlantis garbed as Steelflower. That had become almost normal. But this was a real Wraith queen. And she came under a flag of truce as an ally.

  The three big human men with her looked like bodyguards, clustering close while at the same time looking around them with wonder and apprehension. Captain Cadman and the Marine team who had met the jumper on the gateroom floor looked wary, weapons just barely at port arms. Only Teyla looked entirely comfortable, five inches shorter than the Queen, her black uniform jacket in stark contrast to the Queen’s white gown.

  “Mr. Woolsey,” she said formally, “I would like to present Alabaster the daughter of Snow of the line of Osprey, and thus my kinswoman. She is also daughter to our ally, Guide. This is her son, Darling, and her attendants Perssen, Thessen, and Erach.”

  Woolsey inclined his head. “It’s a pleasure you meet you. I’m Richard Woolsey, in charge of this facility.” At least she was looking at him. Todd usually talked straight through him to Carter or Keller or Teyla.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Woolsey,” Alabaster said in her low voice. “Teyla says that you are a valued ally of my father, and that you will contact him for me. You must know that I am eager to speak with him after so many years.”

  “Yes, of course,” Woolsey said with a quick glance at Teyla. “Our procedures for contacting your father are somewhat indirect, as we do not know his position at any given moment. It may take several days to reach him.”

  “I have waited many years. Several days is a short time,” Alabaster said graciously.

  Woolsey looked around as Dr. Lynn hurried into the gateroom, somewhat late. He’d told him that he’d better get ready to play anthropologist as soon as Sheppard’s team returned with their guest. Well, now guests, as of course Sheppard hadn’t said anything about the entourage. Which was just like Sheppard.

  “Dr. Lynn will be happy to escort you to guest quarters where you can be comfortable,” Woolsey said. “Also, this is Captain Cadman, who will provide security.”

  “I will accompany you as well,” Teyla added with a reassuring trader’s smile. “To make certain that you and the others have all you might need for comfort.”

  “We will send a transmission in hopes that your father will soon reply,” Woolsey said. “Perhaps we can speak in a few hours, when you are settled.”

  Alabaster looked at Teyla, and it seemed to Woolsey that some words must pass between them telepathically. “Of course,” Alabaster said.

  Woolsey watched them go, feeling as though they’d managed that pretty well. Ronon was with the Marine detachment, and he could rely on Ronon not to let their guests get up to anything they shouldn’t. Cadman and Ronon worked together well without stepping on each other’s toes, a good thing since Lorne had just traded his crutches for a cane and still couldn’t walk without its help.

  To his left, Sheppard cleared his throat nervously. McKay was hovering at his shoulder, a case that looked as though it were of Ancient work cradled in his arms. He was at least looking less Wraith-like now, the sensor pits all but vanished, only the shock of white hair to remind people of what he’d been.

  “If Rodney and I could have a word?” Sheppard said.

  There was a note in his voice that undid all Woolsey’s satisfaction. “Very well,” he said, and motioned them into his office. He left them to find their own way, and sat deliberately behind his desk. “All right, Colonel, what it is?”

  Sheppard gave him a shifty grin. It was almost as though he was trying and failing to copy Teyla’s trader’s smile. “I know I didn’t say anything about Alabaster’s folks,” he said. “But they asked to come as a diplomatic embassy from their people. And I thought we always need new trading partners and…”

  “I don’t really see a problem,” Woolsey said. “Though I don’t see any great advantage, either. And you found the ZPM. So, I repeat, what is it?”

  Sheppard bit his lip, and Woolsey felt a familiar sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Well,” Sheppard began, and McKay swung the Ancient case up onto the desk.

  “We found the ZPM, yes,” he said. “We also found this.”

  He worked the latches and flipped back the lid. Woolsey leaned forward warily, to see an object nestled in what looked a bit like velvet padding — like a jewel in its case, he thought, irrelevantly, or some museum artifact. It looked like a scepter, or perhaps a mace; the head was bigger than a grapefruit, and studded with crystals, and another, larger crystal terminated the base of the shaft. The metal looked like naqadah, which meant it probably wasn’t purely decorative, and Woolsey frowned.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a weapon,” McKay said. “Teyla believes, and Alabaster confirms, that it was created by an Ancient scientist named Hyperion, who was tasked with building a weapon that would destroy the Wraith if they got out of hand.”

  “As they did,” Woolsey said, slowly. It made a kind of sense — it was what you’d do if you were experimenting with dangerous animals, be sure you had a way to control or destroy them, a failsafe to keep them from escaping and harming anyone else. Except that the Wraith hadn’t been made from animals, they’d been made from humans, from volunteers who revered the Ancients as their pr
otectors. He wished he could believe it wasn’t true, but he remembered his own brief encounter with the Ancients all too well. They hadn’t had time or thought to spare for the Athosians, and not much more for the humans from Earth — and the Replicators had slaughtered them, which was not satisfaction, but felt more and more like some rough justice.

  “Teyla says they stole it,” Sheppard said quietly. “In the escape, along with the ZPM, so it couldn’t be used against them. They were going to destroy it, but they couldn’t figure out how, so they hid it, sealed it up in a cave where no one could find it.”

  “And now we have it,” Woolsey said. He was furious, and desperately afraid. How could intelligent men be so stupid? The political ramifications were appalling. If the IOA found out about it, or the Genii —

  “We couldn’t leave it,” Sheppard said. “We had to open the cave to get at the ZPM. Once we’d done that, it wasn’t safe to leave it behind.”

  “Besides,” McKay said, “I’m pretty sure that given enough time I can figure out a way to reprogram it.”

  “No,” Woolsey said sharply.

  “But with the Ancient equipment here in Atlantis, I’m sure I can —”

  “As far as I am concerned, there is no weapon,” Woolsey said. Sheppard sat up straighter in his chair. “What do you think will happen if we say there is? Besides, we genuinely don’t know what it is. We know that you discovered an Ancient artifact of unknown provenance that we have not tested and have no idea what it does or how it works. Just like lots of Ancient artifacts we have discovered. Do you really think I want to tell everyone that we have a weapon that will destroy all the Wraith, and that we know this based on Teyla’s recovered genetic memories of a Wraith queen?”

  Sheppard swallowed. He saw the pit. And about time.

  “We have a thing. We don’t know what it is, or what it does.” Woolsey folded his hands in front of him, closing them over his anger and panic. There was no time for either one, not yet, and with any luck, not ever. “Sheppard, what were you thinking, bringing it here?”

  “I didn’t think we could leave it,” Sheppard said again.

  “And do you intend to use it?” Woolsey demanded.

  Sheppard’s eyes evaded his. “No,” he said.

  McKay looked at him sideways. “Just no?”

  Sheppard straightened up in his chair. “And kill you? And Teyla? And Torren? And every other Athosian with the Gift? Every other person in this galaxy who doesn’t know they’re descended from someone with Wraith DNA?”

  “I’m sure I could modify it so that it would just …”

  “Kill Wraith?” Sheppard asked.

  McKay winced, as though he hadn’t really worked it all out until now.

  Woolsey cleared his throat. “It may come as a shock to you gentlemen, but I do have a problem with assassinating our allies. This may surprise you, but that’s not how I do business.” It felt good to say that. He wouldn’t always have been able to say it, not with surety. Not when he worked for the NID. He hadn’t done it himself, of course. His hands were technically clean. He didn’t actually have definitive knowledge of any covert operation, of any assassination. He didn’t actually know it had happened. He had never needed to know.

  And maybe it hadn’t happened. Maybe he was, as Jack O’Neill had said, a paranoid little bastard. But it wasn’t how he did business, and this was on Dick Woolsey’s playing field.

  “Dr. McKay, I want you to take the ZPM and plug it in. Let’s see what we’ve got. I’ll expect a report in an hour. Colonel Sheppard, I want you to take the other box down to some location within the city about which you will inform no one, and lock it in the most secure place you can find. And by no one I mean even McKay, Teyla, and me. If we don’t know, it can’t be taken from us.” He swallowed hard. He’d been mind probed before, and they were all alive only because he hadn’t known what the plan was.

  Sheppard looked surprised. “OK.”

  “We need some time to think this through,” Woolsey said. “And we need to get this business with Alabaster squared away. If we do have the beginnings of an effective alliance against Queen Death as well as a working ZPM, we may be back in the game.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Fair One

  Jennifer glanced over to where her nurse, Marie Wu, was very carefully listening to Thessen’s heart. He looked more interested than frightened by what she was doing, and as Jennifer watched Marie took the earpieces out of her ears and offered them to Thessen so that he could hear his own heart.

  Alabaster followed her gaze. “She does much to reassure him,” Alabaster said. “You must realize that the people of their world had no contact with others because they had no access to the Ring. This is entirely new for them.”

  “I know,” Jennifer said. Her scans showed that Alabaster was the picture of health for a Wraith, something that probably ought not surprise her. “They seem to be coping well.”

  “They are all intelligent men,” Alabaster said. “I chose men to accompany me who I hoped would adapt.”

  She sounded like a pleased trainer, Jennifer thought, flinching just a little, pleased that her sheepdogs had performed well at the county fair. They’re good dogs and they’re pretty smart. Made me proud of them.

  “So it is you who has derived this retrovirus with Guide,” Alabaster said, her eyes on Jennifer’s face.

  Jennifer nodded. “We worked on it together, up to this latest iteration. I took the final trial myself.”

  Alabaster put her head to the side. “And you chose to be fed upon yourself?”

  Jennifer nodded again, not looking up from her instruments. “I did. And other than being exhausted for several days, and having some aching and soreness at the puncture site, I’m fine.”

  “That is quite remarkable,” Alabaster said. “The difference it would make to my people is enormous.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t think we’re ready for a mass trial,” Jennifer said tightly.

  “Why not?”

  Jennifer swallowed. “There are ethical guidelines… We don’t know that what happened with me was what usually happens… I can’t let those men take the retrovirus without being more certain…”

  Alabaster frowned. “But they came for that purpose. They volunteered to represent their people and be the first. If it works as you say, then it will do no harm to them.”

  “I just don’t think we’re quite ready for that yet,” Jennifer demurred.

  Alabaster sat down on the stool opposite her, perching on the edge in a way that seemed utterly incongruous for a Wraith queen. Teyla as Steelflower had always been conscious of dignity. Alabaster knew she was the genuine article and had no reason for anyone to doubt it. “Why did you work with my father on this?”

  Jennifer looked up at her, blinking. “Um, because genocide is wrong.” She was suddenly conscious that Marie had stopped speaking, of the silence in the infirmary. Only Thessen, who didn’t know the word, wasn’t looking in her direction. “It is,” Jennifer said. “That’s the bottom line. There has to be a way to stop the Wraith from having to kill to feed, or sooner or later there will be a way for us to kill you all.”

  Alabaster’s face was tight. “And if there were such a way?”

  “Somebody would use it,” Jennifer said. “I thought…your father and I thought…that maybe there was a third path.”

  Alabaster leaned back on the stool, her hands behind her, looking up at the ceiling as though something there held an answer. “I know why my father would prefer such a path,” she said. “But why would you?”

  “I told you,” Jennifer said. “Because genocide is wrong. Period. Always wrong. No exceptions, no excuses.”

  “And you believe that firmly enough to let one of us feed upon you, with no idea whether or not the retrovirus worked?” Alabaster sounded curious, as though this were all an academic question.

  “The first trial didn’t work,” Jennifer said. “Guide nearly killed me. I was in defib when he re
stored me.”

  “And yet you did it again,” Alabaster said.

  “Yes.” Jennifer met her eyes firmly. “It’s my job.”

  “Your job to save my people from yours? Or your people from mine?”

  “My job to save people,” Jennifer said firmly. “I’m a doctor. That’s my oath. I save lives. Your lives, our lives, everybody’s lives.” She slid onto the other stool opposite Alabaster. “I had a job, before I came to Atlantis… It was for an organization that went into the most war-torn parts of the world, places where famine was compounded by guerilla war, by tribal war and rape as a means of war… And we treated everybody. Civilians. Government soldiers. Guerillas. Every tribe. Because we were doctors. Our job was to save lives.” Jennifer looked around the infirmary, where Marie was now getting Thessen’s blood pressure, where Airman Drake’s broken ankle was propped up on nice white pillows while he played video games on his cell phone, and tears pricked at the back of her eyes unexpectedly. “That’s what I came here to do. But it didn’t turn out like that.”

  Alabaster put her head to the side, a gesture just like Todd’s, the one Jennifer had thought made him look like a courtly gentleman. “Why not?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “I spend most of my time being a General Practitioner in a military setting. I set broken ankles and wrangle over who’s had an eye exam. I dispense headache medicines and antacids and I patch people up so they can go back out and get shot again. It’s not what I wanted to do. It’s not what I planned to do. But Elizabeth needed me to do it, and then…” Jennifer looked away, blinking. “I was thinking recently I’d go back to Earth and maybe do that again, but…” She got up briskly. There was no good end to that sentence. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

  “If your retrovirus works, you will have saved many lives,” Alabaster said gravely. “Human and Wraith alike.”