by Jo Graham
Elizabeth looked at Dekaas, who was waiting patiently. “Force should be the last resort. But I realized why it existed. I realized why we need to have it, whether we use it or not. And that restraint is far harder than using it.”
Dekaas nodded. “I do not know your people, and I have traveled a great deal. I do not know a world where this might have happened.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. The memory was gone, or rather ended. “Neither do I,” she said. “But Sateda is where I should begin my search.”
Elizabeth slept in the second watch so that she could be awake in the third when Dekaas was off duty. At the beginning of the third watch she got a cup of bitter tea from the ship’s galley and settled in to keep office hours. No one came. Apparently the rush of patients had been because of Durant’s docking with other Traveler ships which had no doctors, and everyone who had been nursing an illness or injury had already been seen. The entire watch passed without a single person sticking their head into the infirmary. By the time seven hours had passed Elizabeth was more than a little bored. She wondered if she could leave to go back to the galley and seek out a meal, or at least see other people, but decided that the way things worked the moment she did half a dozen patients would show up and wake Dekaas. Instead, she took inventory of the infirmary. She might as well use her time to understand better.
Many of the things seemed familiar, though she couldn’t remember where she’d seen each thing. A small refrigerated case held a number of glass vials, each labeled in the same language she’d seen before
—
insulin, morphine. She touched them carefully. She knew what they were for. She knew exactly. For a moment a man’s image floated before her eyes, white coated, dark haired, frowning. But he was dead. She knew that. She’d stood at his memorial service, her hand on the casket that contained his remains…
Elizabeth took a deep breath. There was no more there, just the gaping hole in her memory. She had liked him, called him a friend. She was the one who had recruited him, who had brought him
—
where? Somewhere dangerous and far from home. And he had been killed. Like so many who had died because of her decisions.
The weight of it bent her head, and Elizabeth closed her eyes over the drawer of tools.
“Wondering what that is?” Dekaas asked. She had not heard him come in.
Elizabeth glanced down at the strange instrument in the drawer. It looked like the handle of something, at first appearing to be made of dark wood, but it hummed faintly with its own power source. The grip had a sliding knob on it, and where a tool or blade might go at the narrow end was a small aperture. “Yes,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s a Wraith screwdriver.” Dekaas smiled as he came over and picked it up. “They use it for mending small tears in the hive’s systems, grafting bioelectrical conducts together. I use it,” he thumbed the knob, and a blue electric glow began at the aperture, “for mending flesh. It can repair small tears in tendons better than sutures, and it can even repair some severed nerves. It’s valuable for those kinds of injuries, ones that aren’t life threatening or involve a lot of blood loss, but that can leave someone without the full use of a limb.” He turned it off again. “A screwdriver.”
Elizabeth nodded approvingly. “That’s very clever.”
“They have some useful things,” Dekaas said.
“I thought humans didn’t use Wraith things.”
“Most don’t.” He put it back in the drawer and closed it. “But the Travelers do. The Wraith are the main spacefarers in this galaxy. The Travelers can’t afford to scorn Wraith technology when it comes their way.”
“The main spacefarers?” Elizabeth asked, a prickle running down her spine.
“There are some others.” Dekaas sat down on one of the metal chairs. “The Travelers. The Lanteans. The Ka-Ni. The Asgard.”
“The Asgard.” Elizabeth frowned. That should be important. It should be. Only no pictures came to accompany the name.
“No one knows where their homeworld is. They show up once in a while on human settled worlds looking for stuff. If you leave them alone, they leave you alone.”
“Stuff?” Elizabeth asked. “What kind of stuff?”
“The same stuff everyone wants. Leftovers from the Ancestors.” Dekaas shrugged. “There isn’t a lot of that, let me tell you. Anything good that isn’t impossible to reach has been plundered a hundred times by humans and Wraith alike. How the Genii got their hands on an Ancient warship I can’t imagine.”
“The Genii have an Ancient warship?” And that seemed critical, tremendously important for reasons she couldn’t name.
“That’s what they say,” Dekaas said easily. “Me, I haven’t seen it myself, so I’m only willing to put so much stock in it. The Genii want to be taken as the leaders of humanity. They’d like everyone to think they have an Ancient warship and defeated Queen Death. Personally, I’m guessing that’s exaggerated. But it’s certainly true that the Lanteans have some Ancient tech. One of our captains has done some trading with them.” He nodded toward the refrigerated case. “That’s where we got some of those drugs.”
“The insulin,” Elizabeth said. “That has to be kept refrigerated. It had to be traded for.”
Dekaas got up and opened the case, pulling out one of the vials and handing it to her. “Read me the label.”
Mystified, Elizabeth did. “Morphine sulfate injection USP. Preservative free. Warning: may be habit forming. This solution contains no antioxidant, bacteriostat or antimicrobial agent and is intended as a single dose injection to provide analgesia via the intravenous, epidural, or intrathecal routes.”
“You read Lantean,” Dekaas said.
“What?”
He took the vial back. “This is labeled in Lantean. I can’t read it. Nobody on this ship can read it.” He paused. “I know what it’s used for because it was explained to me. But these letters
—
this is Lantean.”
“Why in the world would I read Lantean?”
Dekaas put the vial back in the cold box. “That is a very good question,” he said.
SGA-22 Unascended
CHAPTER SIX
Teyla came to see Daniel that afternoon in his makeshift office, where he had installed his books and computer. There was no shortage of space in Atlantis, which was such a change from Cheyenne Mountain that he had installed himself in a spacious corner room with two glass walls that let the sun stream in. He caught himself actually feeling guilty about the profligate use of space, and deliberately spread his books out a bit more.
Teyla had brought him coffee, which was nice of her even if Atlantis coffee managed to be even worse than Cheyenne Mountain coffee, which he wouldn’t have thought possible. He took a sip and tried to avoid grimacing. “I suppose a Starbucks franchise is out of the question,” he said.
Teyla looked amused. “It is a frequently made request,” she said. “Mr. Woolsey says he has suggested it would improve morale, but he doubts the IOA will see it that way.”
“I doubt they will, too,” Daniel said. “I don’t think the IOA believes in morale. I’m surprised that Woolsey does.”
“He has been a good leader for Atlantis,” Teyla said.
“I know, I know. People change. Maybe here especially. It’s just a little hard for me to remember that.”
“Was he so unpleasant when you knew him?”
“He was… determined to do things by the book. Let’s put it that way. Maybe that’s why Atlantis has been good for him. There’s not really a book that covers a lot of the things you see here.”
“Mr. Woolsey and I have contacted a number of our allies,” Teyla said. From her tone he could tell she wasn’t here with wonderful news.
“No luck, I take it.”
“We have not heard back from the Travelers yet. Of the rest of our allies, most have heard nothing of the Asgard. It is true that on a few worlds, there were very old legends of mysterious be
ings that appeared and led humans away, only to return them much later or not at all.”
“We have those, too,” Daniel said. “Probably because aliens kept showing up and messing around with various human cultures. Between the Asgard, the Ancients, and the Goa’uld, it’s a wonder anybody has any remaining doubt about whether people really get kidnapped by aliens, or faeries, or the gods, or whatever they were pretending to be at any given time.”
“Most people believe those legends speak of the Ancestors, or that they are merely better ways of explaining what had happened to people who were taken by the Wraith. We have nothing as specific as your people’s stories of gray aliens.”
“I think our Asgard got careless after a while,” Daniel said. “Or figured that gray aliens in spaceships was more believable than gods riding in chariots, or more culturally appropriate, or something. It’s hard to be sure why they did what they did, now that Thor isn’t around to ask. Not that he was the world’s best cultural informant anyway. Heimdall was actually better about answering questions without making cryptic pronouncements.”
“They were your friends?”
“Our allies. And friends in a weird kind of way. Thor always got along best with Jack, for whatever reason.”
“Is that surprising?”
“Well, Jack always says that he’s completely average and uninteresting, but since that’s almost entirely untrue, no, it isn’t. And apparently his genes are an excellent example of human potential to evolve into a higher form, if you look for that kind of thing. Really I think they just liked each other. I know Jack misses having the Asgard around, although he’d never admit it.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I miss them too.”
“Was there no way for their species to survive?” Teyla asked.
Daniel shook his head. “They didn’t think so. They were suffering from genetic damage caused by repeated cloning over hundreds of generations. In the current generation, it was causing a degenerative illness they couldn’t cure. As far as I can tell, they really believed their situation was hopeless. All that they ended up able do was choose how their lives ended and what happened to their technology afterwards.”
Teyla shook her head. “I am not sure it is a choice that I can imagine making for myself or my people. Any chance of life seems better than none at all. Even if you can see no solution to a problem, there is always some slim hope.”
“I think you’re right,” Daniel said. He shook his head. “But you were telling us about what you’d heard from our allies. It sounds like basically we struck out.”
“Not entirely,” Teyla said. “None of our human allies appear to have anything more than old legends to share with us, but we were able to make contact with our allies among the Wraith as well. Queen Alabaster says she may have information of interest to us.”
“Okay,” Daniel said after a momentary pause. “Tell me how bad an idea that is.”
“Alabaster was our ally in the war against Queen Death,” Teyla said. “She has been faithful to the treaty we agreed to after the end of that war.”
“The treaty that the IOA hasn’t actually agreed to yet.”
“The Wraith have so far been willing to accept our own provisionary agreement to the treaty, as long as none of our warships venture into their territory.”
“Have we actually told them that we don’t have any authority to promise that, because Earth’s battle cruisers don’t actually belong to the Atlantis expedition?”
Teyla put her head to one side. “Do you believe that would be a wise negotiating tactic?”
“No, I’m not arguing with everybody acting like we have a treaty, I’m just trying to figure out where we stand. So, we have a treaty, but actually the only ones on our side who’ve actually agreed to the treaty are the Atlantis expedition. Our battle cruisers report up the chain of the command, which means in practice they report to Jack, who’s not going to break the treaty unless he has a good reason to. And the Wraith say they’re keeping the treaty, but actually we don’t really know what they’re doing.”
“We have had some reports that the Wraith have offered the retrovirus on several worlds in their territory,” Teyla said. “And there have been no recent reports of cullings on the worlds that they have agreed to leave alone.”
“So that’s something. What’s your feeling about Alabaster?”
“I think she will continue to hold to the treaty at least until she has experimented more widely with the retrovirus. She would like to find a way for the Wraith to feed repeatedly on humans without killing them.”
“More immediately, do you think she’s really willing to meet with us, or do you think it’s some kind of trap?”
“We should be cautious,” Teyla said. “But Alabaster is a sensible person. I don’t believe either she or Guide would betray us without a good reason.”
“That’s comforting, I guess. Is Dr. Keller still travelling with their hive?”
“So Alabaster says. It would be good to see her, and to make sure that she is all right.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” Daniel said. “I’m up for meeting with Alabaster if Woolsey will go for it.”
“Many people hesitate to meet with the Wraith,” Teyla said.
Daniel shrugged. “I’ve been to a meeting of Goa’uld system lords. That was worse. Besides, I figure it’ll be interesting.”
“I expect it will,” Teyla said.
On his way into the dining hall for lunch, Daniel ran into John dumping his tray on the way out. He could see the rest of John’s team still eating. Torren was on Teyla’s lap, reaching for French fries off Rodney’s plate; Rodney scooted the tray back as an evasive maneuver, with a tolerant smile that seemed entirely uncharacteristic. Ronon took the opportunity to steal a French fry from the other side of Rodney’s plate, handing it to Torren, and Teyla shook her head at them both.
“Did Teyla tell you we heard from the Wraith?” John said.
“Yep.”
“We’re trying to set something up. I take it you want to come with us.”
“I’m the archaeologist, so, yes.”
“I figured you’d say that. In which case, officially I can’t recommend that you get Carson to give you the retrovirus before we go, because it’s an untested experimental drug. You only get it if you ask for it personally and then sign a stack of waivers saying that it’s probably a bad idea and also not guaranteed to work.”
“But… ”
“But we’re going to visit the Wraith, so think about it. Personally anything that makes it less likely that I’m going to die like that makes me feel better.”
“Your team has taken the drug?”
“Me and Teyla,” John said. “Rodney was thinking about it, but Carson said no, he’s not doing anything to mess with Rodney’s genes now that he’s got him back to normal again. More or less normal.”
“I’ll talk to Beckett about it,” Daniel said. “But I’m basically in favor of not dying, given a choice.”
John glanced back at the table, where Torren was now clambering over Ronon’s shoulder. “Some people would say it’s preferable to the alternative. If you’ve taken the drug and someone sticks you in a feeding cell, you’re going to be there for a long time.”
“I’d rather have the chance,” Daniel said immediately. “There’s always some way out.”
John shrugged, unsmiling. “Then talk to Carson,” he said.
SGA-22 Unascended
INTERLUDE
The Traveler ship Durant made planetfall on Dhalo at midmorning local time, though a thick cloud layer covered the landing site until the last moment. Elizabeth assumed they were landing based on instrument readings, since from the windows of the dining room she could see nothing but gray clouds.
Suddenly the clouds thinned, Durant making a wide circle toward their landing point. Beneath was a land of dark green and brown, heavy vegetation along a wide, placid river in the rain. Huge, twisted trees spread massive leaves to the sky, and t
he ship’s course led it over a town partially built out over the river, small boats moored at fragile-looking long docks, while the shore was built up with buildings in white and red, a few on the highest ground of stone with elaborate carvings. It was strange and beautiful and fascinating.
Ahead there was a cleared field marked out in banners like yellow windsocks, and Durant settled onto it, sinking heavily into the soggy ground. A rainy season, Elizabeth wondered. Or just a particularly wet day?
The Durant’s lower hatch opened. Across the field there were figures moving in the heavy rain, a welcome party or a trader party. The comm unit crackled to life. “OK, folks. Going out to get permission to trade. Get your things together if you have independent trades. I’ll leave the comm on so you can hear terms.”
As they grew closer Elizabeth frowned, trying to get a better look through the rain streaked window. There were twenty or thirty men all wearing bright colors, mostly bright pink and red silks that clung to their bodies in the rain, long black hair pulled back from their faces beneath steel caps. Perhaps that was just a ceremonial uniform, but the bows they carried weren’t. They stopped in a semicircle three ranks deep facing the ship.
“This does not look good,” Elizabeth said to herself.
The captain came down the ramp smiling. “Hi folks! How’s everybody doing? Prince Raiuna! How are you?”