by Jo Graham
“Nothing hinges on this stupid debate tonight,” Sam said. “It’s just a bunch of kids arguing abstractions. And like we can convince anybody that we need space based systems? Today?”
“We have to learn to,” Sib said. “It’s just a different kind of impossible fight. You want that future in space? Then we’ve got to sell it. We’ve got to sell it to the people who matter, the people here who are going to remember this day for the rest of their lives, who are going to be the voters and the decision makers. We don’t get but one shot. It may not be the big one yet, but we can’t know that. We can’t know that it isn’t. We can’t know that we’re not convincing somebody who will be president. This might be the big thing, the thing we’re meant to do, the whole point of our lives.”
“You think?”
“Why not?” Sib shrugged, opening her notebook. “Maybe you’re the one who will convince people that the price tag is worth it.”
John Sheppard bent his head over his coffee, a rueful smile on his face. “Yeah, I see that,” he said. “I remember that day. Though I never thought I was going to another planet. I figured I was going to law school.”
“I didn’t dream this was possible in 1986,” Sam said, looking up again at Atlantis’ soaring windows. “If you’d told me then I’d be here, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“Me neither,” John said. “How’d we get here, anyhow?”
“One step at a time,” Sam said. “A lot of luck and a little faith.”
“And a whole ton of hard work,” John said. He touched his mug to hers in a mock toast. “Which I should get back to.”
“Me too,” Sam said, pushing back from the table.
John picked up his tray, half turned to leave. “Nice pep talk, Carter.”
“I aim to please,” Sam said.
Chapter Eighteen
Osprey
Teyla dreamed, and in her dream she stood in the woods of Athos. It was early spring, and frost silvered the morning grass, clouds of mist rising where the sun struck ice, transpiring in a gray, soft blanket that clung to the hollows around the trees. In her dream she passed through the woods, insubstantial as fog herself. Her heart pounded tight in her chest. They were coming.
And then it was not the woods of Athos, but that planet where Ellia had dwelled with the man she called father. They hunted her through the woods. She could hear them coming. She could hear them coming as she fled, alone and on silent feet. She could hear them coming after, the faint whine of the puddle jumper, the voices of the hunters behind. They were coming.
Mist wreathed her. It surrounded her. It hid her. She vanished, insubstantial as a dream. One passed close by, gun in hand, his black boots leaving footprints in the dew, his head bent forward over his weapon, dark hair and muddy green eyes, intent upon his prey. He did not see her. She was a pale shadow, a trace of cloud across the moon.
Closer. Closer. There was the rattle of gunfire, and he ran toward it, toward the shore of the lake. It was only a water bird startled from its nest, white wings beating against the morning sky.
Osprey.
And then she sat in the tents of Athos, her fingers stabbing at a difficult piece of handwork by the fire, while Charin’s hands moved smoothly, her voice weaving in and out of an old tale. “Once there was a girl who was transformed into a white bird, and the Ancestors hunted her because she was a changeling…” She sat by Charin’s knee, bright patterns of thread shimmering in the firelight, half dozing. “She had become a revenant, and she returned at night to drink the life from her kin, but by day no man could find her, because they sought a girl, not an osprey.”
The flap of the tent stirred in a cold wind, the flames wavering. Teyla looked up. Elizabeth Weir stood in the doorway, the flap stirring behind her between the doorposts. She wore a red shirt and dark pants, and her eyes met Teyla’s firmly. “Once, in the City of the Ancestors,” she said.
“Once in Emege,” Charin said serenely.
“I was in this village once,” John said, looking up from beside the fire. “I was drinking tea with this guy, and he had exactly your eyes.”
“Exactly your eyes,” Todd echoed, moving the gaming piece on the board between him and John. “She had exactly your eyes. The Osprey queens are the strongest.”
“Cordelia,” Elizabeth said. “It all came from Lear’s cruelty.”
“I do not know this story,” Teyla said, stretching out her hands to Elizabeth, but she smiled and stepped away. “Tell me.”
“I’ll need a blood sample,” Jennifer said, putting on her latex gloves.
“You know the story,” Elizabeth said. Her eyes slid to John and back. “You are the story.”
“Once, when Arda ruled in Emege,” Charin began. “Long ago and far away.”
“Do you need that much?” John asked, holding up his right arm where blood ran in long rivulets from claw slashes. Jennifer bent to catch them in a vial, his blood dripping on the floor with a sound like thunder.
“I need all of your blood,” Jennifer said. “I need it all.”
“Don’t be greedy,” Todd said. “If you drink it all today there will be none tomorrow. There will be none for Osprey.”
John’s eyes met hers over Jennifer’s head. “It’s for you,” he said.
“No,” she said, and took a step back in horror. Her hands were a Wraith queen’s, Steelflower’s hands. Only the feeding slit was open. She could feel her pulse pounding in it, lips engorged with hunger, aching with need.
“They fed upon the children of Emege,” Charin said.
“Once in the City of the Ancients,” Elizabeth said. “Once, in the Lost City.”
Teyla’s hand stretched out, reaching for him, and John lifted his chin but didn’t flinch.
Todd smiled. “White ghost,” he said. “Wraith.”
Teyla wrenched awake, her heart pounding. Around her, the soft shiplight of Todd’s hive ship came up, adjusting to a rosy daylight glow. She lay in her chamber, in the queen’s chamber. There were no sounds other than the soft purr of the ship’s systems. No alarms sounded, and the merest mental touch assured her all was well. Guide and Jennifer were at work in one of the labs.
Teyla clasped her hands together, trying to still them.
“Elizabeth,” she whispered. “I do not understand…”
Jennifer closed her eyes against the glare of her laptop screen, still seeing formulas and graphs swimming behind her eyelids. She sat back, releasing shoulders sore from being hunched for hours, and reached up to cup the back of her neck, trying to knead out some of the knots.
It felt every bit as late as it was which, a glance at her watch told her, was almost three in the morning, Atlantis time. She vaguely remembered Teyla saying goodnight several hours ago before heading to her quarters, but at the time she’d been busy fiddling with the Wraith version of a microscope and some slides and, after that, setting up another round of cultures, hoping that this time one of them would do something.
At least they were making some progress, she thought, even if it wasn’t as fast as she would have hoped. But she did think — finally — that they were getting somewhere. With a yawn, she sat up a little straighter and put her fingers back on the keyboard, trying to focus.
Twenty minutes later, notes finished, she leaned over one of the workbenches, watching behind plastic goggles as the newest biochemical compound turned blackish purple in the vial. Once its color was uniform, she carefully measured out three drops onto the waiting culture dish.
She yawned again and tried to cover it with her sleeve, then stood there for a moment with one hand braced on the workbench, hoping for a second wind. Across the room, Todd looked up from his own workstation and took her in at a glance, seeming amused.
“I would not advise falling asleep so near the prototypes,” he said mildly. “If you require rest, go.”
Jennifer had to swallow before she could speak. “No, I’m fine,” she said, trying to ignore how good the word ‘rest’ sound
ed. “Just need a minute.”
Todd rose smoothly and crossed the room with long, purposeful strides, looking as fresh as ever. Absently, Jennifer noted his good color, the sheen of his skin and the way his hair gleamed in the soft light. He looked like the picture of health, for a Wraith anyway, and she tried hard not to think about what that meant. Tried not to wonder who his last meal had been. The thought made her lips press together with distaste, and she looked down at the cultures, willing the retrovirus to work.
“Come, then,” he said, at her shoulder, and Jennifer was proud of herself for not jumping. She looked up, and he gestured elegantly, inclining his head and turning over one long-fingered hand. He could have been a character from a romantic novel, some dangerous and courtly gentleman with his carriage waiting outside. It was that that left her so off-balance, she thought. It was hard to remember that he thought of her as food.
“I need to stay at this.”
“If you are to function, you will need food and drink,” he said, shrugging and not quite meeting her gaze. Maybe this was weird for him too, dealing with humans as something other than meals. She wondered if he pretended that they were Wraith, if that was easier than admitting to himself that all humans had personalities and interesting ideas and got tired when they’d been working too long.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
Todd led her through the twisting corridors of his hive, still enough of a labyrinth after several days that she would have been hopelessly lost alone. She suspected that it hadn’t remained entirely unchanged, anyway; more than once she’d thought she caught walls shifting out of the corner of her eye. The room he took her to looked a lot like the one where she’d first met with him, the first time she’d ever seen a hive ship or been up close with a Wraith. It seemed like a thousand years ago.
He sat with her and must have called telepathically for food, because after a moment, a drone came in with a tray. The food was only fruit, but at this point in the day she was happy to see it, and there was a cup that when she took a cautious sip contained water, flat and entirely tasteless. She wondered if the ship distilled it somehow, if she was drinking part of what ran through the ship’s veins.
“Thank you, Todd,” she said, and then realized that couldn’t be his actual name. Colonel Sheppard had started calling him that, because none of the Wraith had ever given them a name, or been willing to speak to them much at all. “Your name’s not really ‘Todd,’ is it?”
In the dim light, the star-shaped tattoo stood out in sharp contrast to his skin, and his eyes seemed to flicker as he moved and the light shifted, like golden embers from a flame. Rodney had eyes like these, now. He tilted his head, hair spilling over his shoulder, a trail of silver against the dark leather. “It is not.”
She wasn’t sure if his lack of elaboration was simply a statement of fact, or an indicator that he didn’t want to have this conversation with her. Talking with Todd about anything except their research made her feel all too sharply how alien they were to each other. “You do have them, though, right? Individual names?”
Jennifer wondered for a moment if the question was somehow offensive, but Todd barked a laugh, showing sharp teeth. “We do, little one,” he said. “All of the thousands of Wraith who live, each of us has our own name, and a name for our lineage, and our ships have names, and our planets. We are not nameless beasts.”
She looked at him, his face still again, his features standing out sharp in the dim light. “So, what is your real name?” she asked. “I’d rather not keep calling you Todd if there’s something that would be more polite.”
Todd frowned. “That...is a harder question than you realize. A Wraith is named from the shape, the sense of his mind. The images and sensations others feel when they speak to him. It is a difficult thing to capture in a word.”
She nodded. “So, not like us, then. Not just a name that really doesn’t mean anything, like Jennifer.”
He looked confused. “But your name has meaning, does it not? Pale, or perhaps fair. Fair One is how you are known to us.”
“I — ” Somewhere between flattered and bemused, it took her a moment to get it. “That’s what my name means, but it’s not why I was given it. I mean, I was born in 1981. There were two other Jennifers in my class.”
“Ah.” Somehow, she thought he seemed offended by that idea. “Yes, I suppose we are quite different.”
“Still,” she said, reaching out impulsively to touch his sleeve, as if he were a patient. Establishing rapport, that was what they’d called it in med school. “If you can say that you call me ‘Fair One,’ there has to be a way for you to tell me your name, right? Something that sort of sums the telepathic stuff up.”
He stared at her hand, looking white and washed-out against the black leather, then at her face, strangely and deep, as if seeing her for the first time. “My name,” he said at last, “my name is one who goes alone, ahead. One who is sure-footed and certain, capable of finding a way for others who follow behind. Leader might come close, but not a ruler.”
“Scout?” Jennifer tried, but he shook his head.
“No, for a scout is solitary, but I am...” He freed his sleeve from her hand, his own fingers moving on the table, as if trying to find the shape of something. “Guide. Guide is what you may call me.” The smile he gave her was sharp and strange for a moment. “I give you my true name, Fair One.”
“Guide,” she repeated, and tried to smile in return.
The conference room at Homeworld Command was once again in use by the IOA.
“Dr. Daniel Jackson.” S.R. Desai steepled his hands thoughtfully. “That is different.”
“I thought you might think so,” Jack O’Neill said.
“He is one of the best of the best,” Konstantin Nechayev said, nodding seriously. “I must say that my government would strongly support Dr. Jackson as head of the Atlantis expedition. We have worked with him for many years, and he impressed us a great deal when he assisted us in the matter of our development of gate technology some years ago. A man of towering intellect!”
Jack gave him a look as if to say, don’t overdo it.
“That he is,” Desai agreed. “With the kind of broad humanist perspective the job demands. Which,” he shrugged, “has been sadly lacking since Dr. Weir’s death. I think Dr. Jackson is an excellent candidate.”
Shen and Strom alike looked speechless.
“I do not know Dr. Jackson personally,” Aurelia Dixon-Smythe said, glancing over the curriculum vitae before her. “But unless the PM has some objection, he seems a reasonable choice.”
“SG-1,” Strom said, making it seem like some sort of epithet. “Dr. Jackson has a long history.”
Nechayev beamed. “He does indeed. If I understand your position correctly, Mr. Strom, it is the position of your president that the head of the Atlantis position must go to an American. Understandable. You are paying the bills, and so you expect to call the shots, to put it bluntly. Some of our other esteemed colleagues are determined that it should not be a member of the military. I, myself, had no objection to Colonel Carter, and voted against her replacement as you may recall. So. Name me an American more qualified than Dr. Daniel Jackson.” He looked around the table with a smile.
“Jackson is…” Shen began, and then lapsed into silence. Whatever he was, it could not be summed up immediately.
Dick Woolsey opened and closed his mouth. He didn’t look at Jack, and for a second Jack felt sorry for him. But this was just like the business with the Replicators. Dick had to play this naturally.
Nechayev was doing the heavy lifting as he’d promised. “I am very pleased with this suggestion,” he said into the silence. “Very pleased indeed. I know that the President had the warmest possible feelings toward Dr. Jackson after the incident where he assisted Dr. Markova. His personal thanks, as I recall.”
Desai’s brows twitched. He knew this was a set up, but he also knew Jackson. “I think this is certainly an aven
ue we should explore,” he said.
LaPierre looked entirely blindsided and glanced at Nechayev with scarcely concealed astonishment. “I thought a few years ago you wanted to execute him?”
Nechayev shrugged. “That was when he had been compromised by the Ori. Obviously that situation resolved itself.”
“You mean I resolved it,” Woolsey said.
“If you consider allowing yourself to be overpowered and transported away while the prisoner stole a starship to be resolving it? Yes,” Nechayev said. “Come now, Mr. Woolsey. Your interactions have not always been successful, or in fact competent. Allowing yourself to be captured by the Replicators?”
“That was…”
“Unavoidable, yes.” Nechayev waved a hand. “And yet the fact remains that you, and Mr. Strom, and Ms. Shen, and some of our predecessors who are no longer part of this body, decided on a disastrous course that nearly lost us not only Atlantis but also nearly caused a Replicator invasion of Earth. Had Atlantis remained under military control…”
“Now also recall I opposed that decision bitterly,” LaPierre put in. “As did Mr. Desai.”
“Yes, it was the three of us,” Nechayev agreed. “I do not recall, what was your role in that, General O’Neill?” He all but winked at Jack.
Jack looked as innocent as possible. “Me? I nearly got nuked. Oh, and then we defeated the Replicators and took back the city.”
Roy Martin, the new American representative, choked on his coffee. “You, personally, General?”
“Me, Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard and his team,” Jack said. “With the invaluable contributions of Mr. Woolsey, who volunteered to be interrogated by the Replicators in order to give them false information.”
Woolsey looked at him sharply, and Jack saw understanding dawn. Daniel Jackson was a poison pill, and a sufficiently plausible one that Woolsey’s detractors would panic.