by Jo Graham
“Everything you’re saying is true,” Carson said. “I’ll say as much to Colonel Sheppard. As to whether I think you should take the risk…” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t do it to you as your doctor. But I want to help Rodney as much as you do, and if you’re determined to do this to yourself, I won’t stand in your way.”
“Thank you,” she said, her expression lightening.
Carson shook his head. “I just hope we won’t both be sorry.”
Sam ducked through the noisy gym to the small practice room in the back, dodging around four treadmills occupied by jogging Marines who were watching a long-ago recorded football game on the TV along the wall and arguing about every play. The door wasn’t locked and it was quiet. Which was a good thing. She preferred not to try to concentrate on yoga with TV and football and loud arguments about ‘You are so bogus, man!’ Her Zen was a little harder to find than that.
Teyla stood in the middle of the room, bent into an incredibly painful looking pretzel pose, her green Wraith skin incongruous with her Athosian gym clothes.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, starting to back out. “I didn’t realize this room was taken.”
“You are welcome to come in,” Teyla said, extending her arms to begin coming out of the posture. “It is very noisy in the main gym.”
“Thanks.” Sam put down her towel and bag on the bench beside the window. It was dark outside, and the stained glass looked muddy against the night. “I was looking for somewhere to do yoga without so much of a crowd.”
“It is difficult to concentrate with the television,” Teyla agreed, bending in another way that Sam thought seemed pretty much impossible. Teyla made it look easy.
“That, and I’m not sure I want some twenty year old commenting on my fat ass or saying, ‘Hey, Carter can only bench press whatever.’ I never used to be able to figure out why Jack started using the SGC gym at an ungodly time of morning, but now I get it.”
Teyla looked at her critically, and also upside down. “I do not think your ass is fat,” she said calmly.
“It’s not as skinny as it used to be, and I do a lot of sitting on it on the Hammond.” Sam sat down on the floor, taking off her shoes. “I have to be a lot more conscientious about going to the gym now that I don’t have people chasing me and shooting at me on a daily basis.”
“And you are not twenty,” Teyla said serenely, inverting and stretching forward on her toes.
“That too.” Sam started her stretches while Teyla leaned forward again, her back leg perfectly straight as she bent from the waist over her front leg. Sam was forty one. She couldn’t have done that when she was twenty, and Teyla couldn’t be more than a couple of years younger than she was. And she’d had a baby.
“I do not wish that I were,” Teyla said contemplatively as she came up. “I was very foolish when I was twenty.”
“I was very serious.”
“I imagine that you were.” Teyla looked at her, and her Wraith face was hard to read, though her voice was not. “Have you always known exactly what you wanted?”
“No.” Sam put her right leg out, bending forward over it. Her forehead sort of touched her knee. Kind of. If she shifted off the hip bone. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
“I have too,” Teyla said. Her voice was rueful. “That one’s name was Jorrah, and I was unwise to marry him.”
“Mine was Jonas,” Sam said. She could definitely feel the pull in her hip. God, she was sick of that thing popping! Her hip was getting as bad as Jack’s knees. “But at least I didn’t quite marry him.” She straightened up. “He turned out to be crazy.”
“Jorrah was not crazy. Only manipulative.” Teyla was on the other leg now, but there was a wobble in the pose this time. She wasn’t holding it right. Left leg. The bone bruise she’d had a couple of months ago, no doubt. Those things took time to heal.
“Check,” Sam said. “I dated one of those too. He wanted to get a dog and that was really the last straw.”
Teyla didn’t look up. “What is wrong with dogs?”
“Nothing is wrong with dogs.” Sam switched legs, stretching her left one out. “If you like dogs. If you have the kind of life where you know you’ll be home at a certain time and you can let the dog out and feed it.”
“Of course,” Teyla said. That hip was definitely wobbling, but she was determinedly holding the pose. “I thought perhaps it was some sort of Air Force taboo against dogs.”
Sam snorted. “No. We’ve got some weird ones, but nothing against dogs. I was engaged to that one too.”
Teyla’s mouth twitched. “You seem to have had some close calls. You have been engaged how many times?”
Sam put her forehead to her left knee. That was easier. “Three,” she said, only hesitating slightly. “Maybe I’m just hard to marry.”
“That may be so,” Teyla said seriously.
Sam stretched. “You know, when you live like this… Maybe the time will come when I’m ok with staying on Earth and getting a dog and being home at night. One day the Hammond will be somebody else’s. But I can’t imagine who I’d be if I didn’t want to walk through the Stargate.”
Teyla’s voice was rueful. “Nor I,” she said, coming out of the pose. “I am Teyla Who Walks Through Gates, and I cannot imagine that I would remain myself if I were content to always be in one world when there are so many to know. But it seems that my compromises do not have to be as cruel as yours.”
“Don’t they?” Sam asked, lifting her eyes to Teyla’s Wraith face, feeding hand and Athosian clothes.
Teyla took a breath. “Perhaps they are,” she said. “Only different.”
“You have your son.”
“Yes.” Teyla sunk to the ground in one graceful move, her legs folding under her like some sort of water bird. “But I no longer have my rank and position among my own people. You have that. Athosians tolerate the Gift, unlike most of the peoples of this galaxy. But this…” She glanced down at her arms, her long emerald nails. “If I say that I am Steelflower? This they will not understand. It is too far and too much. I will be outcast.” She shook her head, looking up at the darkened window above. “You have your starship.”
“I do.” Sam crossed her legs. “And that’s not as smooth as I’d like it to be. I’ve always been the wonk, not the inspirational leader. I’ve always been part of a team. A starship crew has to be a team, but the captain has to stand a little apart. I can’t be in there shooting the bull with Franklin and Chandler.”
“I can see that.” Teyla leaned back on her arms, arching her back. “What about Mel Hocken? Is she not officially part of the Daedalus’ crew? It seems that the two of you have much in common.”
Sam took a deep breath. “There are complicated reasons why that’s not a good idea.”
“I understand,” Teyla said, and she thought she did. After all, she had lived among these people for more than five years, and she thought she understood their taboos, even if she did not understand the reasons for them. “Athosians are more accepting than many peoples because we have been repeatedly been culled to the bone. We live so close to the borders of the land of death that we know better than to reject any love that comes, whatever its shape or form. Who shall say that anyone should not care for another, or that a child should have one father alone when what is important is that everyone be part of the whole? Otherwise we will die.” She leaned her head back, looking up at the beveled ceiling. “And yet if Kanaan saw me like this he would wonder if Torren were safe with me.”
“You would never hurt Torren,” Sam said sharply.
“Who knows what a Wraith would do?” Her smile was grim. “People would wonder. If Kanaan said, ‘I do not want Torren to live with her because Atlantis is too dangerous, and because the new man she has chosen is not of our people,’ Athosians would mock him. Kanaan is jealous, they would say. It is unseemly to be possessive of one who has moved on, problematic to upset the group with attachments which are not mutual. He would lose face,
and none would listen to his complaints. But if he said, ‘She is Wraith, and she no longer knows who she is,’ that would be a different matter. ‘Who can tell what she might do? It is too dangerous for a son of Athos, for my son.’”
“That totally sucks.”
“So do your compromises.”
“Yeah.” Sam said. “They do.”
“Which is not to say that Kanaan would do such,” Teyla said. She sat up straight, her brow furrowed. “I do not think he would. But I have been wrong so badly before.”
“Jorrah?”
“Yes.” Teyla shook her head.
“At least he didn’t try to set himself up as a god on a small planet?” Sam asked.
Teyla laughed, as she’d meant her to. “No. Did Jonas?”
“Oh yeah.” Sam put the water bottle down. “Never can say I don’t have taste.”
“I think perhaps we will chalk it up to experience,” Teyla said. “But John may be right that we are all a little cracked.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Devils and Dust
It was going to be close. Jack could see that. One vote, maybe two in either direction. A vote against sending Woolsey back to Atlantis was essentially a vote for Daniel. Now that they’d gotten in contact, it was obvious that someone had to be appointed immediately, and the crowd who didn’t want Atlantis in the hands of the Air Force weren’t about to leave it that way forever, with Sheppard in “temporary” charge that dragged on for months and months. If he’d really wanted to power grab, Jack thought, the smart thing to do would be just stall. Sheppard could run the show for the better part of a year that way.
But it wasn’t Sheppard’s forte. He’d gone into this intending to send Woolsey back to Atlantis. If that wasn’t possible, Daniel was the best option, though frankly Daniel might kill him. Administration was not exactly Daniel’s thing.
The swing vote was Roy Martin. And so Jack was surprised to see him by himself in the conference room a good fifteen minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. The IOA ran on diplomatic time, which meant the principals arrived fifteen minutes late. So Martin shouldn’t put in an appearance for at least half an hour. Also, surely the other IOA members wanted to bend his ear one way or the other? Unless they were all sure of his vote.
All of that ran through Jack’s head in the moment he checked in the doorway, an ironic smile on his face. “Senator Martin. Speak of the devil!”
Lieutenant Anderson, who was laying out the coffee service at the back of the room, started to attention, but he waved her down. She was furniture today, albeit furniture with sharp ears.
“Am I the devil, General?” Martin’s eyes had a distinct twinkle. “I recall my honorable opponent did put cartoon horns on me in that ad back in ‘84. But then I expect he and the devil were old friends.”
“As I recall you lost that election, Senator,” Jack said.
“If at first you don’t succeed…” Martin said. “You can’t keep a good man down. And some other clichés.” He laid his leather portfolio on the table before a chair with its back to the window. “Let me ask you one question, General.”
“Anything,” Jack said, opening his arms expansively.
“I’m not sure I want to know just anything,” Martin said. “That’s a dangerous opening to give me.”
“I expect it is,” Jack said.
Martin met his eyes. “Who’s the better man?”
Jack swallowed. “Daniel Jackson.”
“Who’s the man for the job?”
“Richard Woolsey.” Jack sat down on the edge of the conference table. “There are some jobs that don’t call for good men. They call for men who can get it done.”
“Who can handle this, you mean,” Martin said. He leaned on the back of his chair. “Why do you think I have this job, here in my golden years?”
“You raised a hell of a lot of money,” Jack said.
Roy Martin laughed. “A lot of people raised a lot more. I’ll tell you why I’m here, General. I’ve been governor and I’ve been senator. I’ve lost and won and lost and I’ve served my time. Other than the importance of keeping active as a senior citizen, I’m here for one reason. I’m the President’s man. I’m never running for office again and this is my last appointment. I don’t owe anybody anything, and I’m not thinking about my career on down the line. I’m seventy-eight years old. I’m here because the President can trust me to serve no one’s interests but his.” Martin shrugged. “The President is satisfied with Richard Woolsey’s performance. That’s good enough for me.”
Jack nodded slowly. “That’s very clear, Senator Martin.”
Martin sat down in his chair, beckoning to Anderson who was hovering with the requisite cup of decaf. “Hell of a thing,” he said with a smile that might have been gamin sixty years ago. “Making decisions about other planets. But I suppose it was me or Dean Smith or Andy Griffith. You might do better with me.”
“I don’t know,” Jack said easily, sitting down in his usual place. “Andy likes to fish. Do you?”
Lt. Colonel Davis stuck his head in the door. He was far too experienced to look surprised to see Martin already there. “Sir? Mr. LaPierre and Ms. Dixon-Smythe have arrived. Shall I bring them up?”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Let’s get this party started.”
Dick Woolsey looked around the gate room with an expression of immense satisfaction. Winter sunlight streaked in through the high windows, the multicolored glass transforming it into patterns of light across the floor. Atlantis, just as it should be.
Except for the Wraith. It took him a moment to remember that Teyla was still in her disguise and not recoil when she hurried down the steps to greet him, her smile strange on the face of a Wraith queen.
“Welcome back to Atlantis, Mr. Woolsey,” she said.
“It’s good to be back,” Dick said, and dropped his voice. “I didn’t really expect to be.”
“We are very fortunate that you are,” Teyla said.
“I see you’ve been busy,” Dick said, gesturing at her embroidered skirts and boots, the rest of the Wraith queen clothes.
“Very busy,” Teyla said, “But I think it has proved useful.”
Dick couldn’t help a smile of admiration. “It’s very convincing.”
“Wraith politics is complex,” Teyla said. “I should like to discuss it with you more fully at your convenience.”
“I’d like that,” Dick said.
Colonel Sheppard came down the stairs in his black uniform, an expression on his face that Dick was almost ready to call relief. Or at least thankfulness that they were getting no worse than Dick Woolsey returning. “It’s good to see you back,” he said.
Dick nodded, lifting his head to the soaring ceiling. “It’s good to be home.”
Jennifer hesitated outside the door of Woolsey’s office, straightening her jacket and taking a deep breath. She’d prepared her arguments and run through her reasons for why she needed to test the retrovirus again a hundred times in her head. The problem was, in her head she’d been arguing with Colonel Sheppard. She was pretty sure that Woolsey wasn’t going to buy ‘he’s a member of your team, so we need to do whatever it takes’ nearly as easily.
Still, now he was expecting her, and if she made some excuse to postpone the meeting, there was no telling when she’d actually get his undivided attention again. Her whole point was that they couldn’t afford to wait. She squared her shoulders and went in.
“Dr. Keller,” Woolsey said. “I’m glad to see you’re up and around. I hear you had quite an ordeal.”
“Actually, that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said. “You’ve read my report on the retrovirus, right?”
“I have,” Woolsey said. “Although I admit I’ve been trying to get up to speed on a lot of things pretty quickly. It sounds like things have been busy around here while I was gone.”
“That’s one word for it,” Jennifer said. “Okay, here’s the thing: I’d li
ke permission to conduct another trial of the retrovirus. I figured out what we did wrong the first time, and I feel really confident that this time it’s going to work.”
“Another trial,” Woolsey said. He raised his eyebrows. “And by that you mean letting Todd...”
“Feed on me again,” Jennifer said. “After I’ve taken a dose of the new retrovirus.”
“I’m sorry,” Woolsey said. “I think that’s out of the question.” He shook his head. “Even letting you conduct a human trial of the retrovirus at all at this point is a fairly severe breach of normal research protocols, and with the additional risk of being fed on — I can’t authorize that.”
“It may be the only way to save Rodney’s life,” Jennifer said. “We’re not sure that he’ll survive any attempt to restore him to human form without having recently fed. And it’s not like we can let him just — just go out there and feed on somebody without this.”
“No,” Woolsey said. “But I’m also not going to let you risk dying — again — in an attempt to come up with a treatment that, at best, will benefit a single patient. I know weighing costs and benefits isn’t very popular, but it has to be done, especially when the cost may be someone’s life. Your life.”
“Todd isn’t going to kill me,” Jennifer said. “He has every reason not to. After all, he wants to prove that this will work.”
“You think it would be that useful to him to be able to feed on humans without killing them?”
“I think he knows what it could mean for both the humans and the Wraith,” Jennifer said. “It would mean that we don’t have to kill each other.” She expected him to interrupt, but when he didn’t, she went on. “As long as the Wraith have to kill humans to live, they have a problem. We’re not going to stop fighting them until we entirely wipe them out. They can’t entirely wipe us out, or they’ll starve to death. So they just knock down any world that gets too technologically advanced, and then eventually people rebuild and start fighting them again. It’s never going to end.”