STARGATE SG-1 ATLANTIS: Homeworlds : Volume three of the Travelers' Tales (SGX Book 5)

by Sally Malcolm

  “You don’t want to do that,” John said.

  “This has all been a misunderstanding,” Teyla said. “Put the weapon down, and we will discuss it.”

  “Yes, put the gun down,” Rodney agreed rapidly.

  “If you know what’s good for you,” Ronon said, and leveled his own pistol at Sigurd’s head. Rodney felt that the situation was rapidly getting out of hand.

  “I will not kill you now,” Sigurd said, although he kept the gun pointed at Rodney’s chest. “But you must be punished for your disrespect to the Ancestors.” He jerked his head, and the men holding John and Rodney began dragging them across the square.

  “I can take them,” Ronon said, but although Rodney had every confidence that Ronon was a match for Sigurd, he didn’t feel like staking his life on Ronon’s ability to take Sigurd down before Sigurd could pull the trigger.

  “Get out of here, get backup,” John said. “Now!”

  The villagers were slower to move toward Ronon and Teyla, seeming uncertain whether they were included in the charge of blasphemy. Teyla nodded in answer to John’s order and turned on her heel, sprinting back toward the gate. Ronon hesitated, then followed Teyla at a run.

  “Let’s talk about this,” John said as Rodney watched the only members of their team who weren’t being held at gunpoint sprint away into the distance. “We weren’t trying to insult the Ancestors, but we’re really sorry if we did, so how about you just let us go, and we won’t bother you anymore.”

  “Take them away,” Sigurd said to his men. “They have offended the Ancestors, and we will let the Ancestors decide their fate.”

  “Let me guess,” Rodney said. “You’re going to ask the Oracle. Do you not understand that we’ve been trying to tell you —”

  “You will hold your tongue!” Sigurd boomed, and one of the men put a none-too-clean hand over Rodney’s mouth. He struggled, but wasn’t sure it was worth trying to bite. “I will tolerate no more blasphemy against the Ancestors. Vasti —” He waved a hand for the young engineer, who after waiting for a nod from Emille scuttled forward to Sigurd’s side. “Ask the Oracle whether the Lantean blasphemers should live or die.”

  They were hauled through the streets to a building on the outskirts of town. It was clearly some sort of shrine; wreaths of flowers and plates of food lay against the walls and under the trees that shaded the old stone building. The interior was a single room just big enough to house the familiar game-board display panel of an Oracle and what was unmistakably a barred jail cell against one wall.

  Rodney was shoved forward ungently into the cell. John was tossed in after him, and their captors slammed the door shut.

  “All right, all right!” Rodney snapped. “You do know that the Oracle doesn’t actually need us to be in here in order to decide what to do with us, right? It’s a machine. Most of its processing power isn’t even here, it’s at the other end in the input device —”

  “Please be quiet,” Vasti said nervously, his hands moving over the Oracle’s screens. “I need to explain the situation in a way that the Ancestors will understand.”

  “So do that,” Sigurd said. He waited, none too patiently, as Vasti tapped his way through screens on the device. It was clear that Vasti read Ancient, although he seemed to have missed several shortcuts that would have made it easier to use the Oracle’s interface. Rodney opened his mouth to say so, and then closed it again. This probably wasn’t the moment to provide an unasked-for tutorial.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier for us to just work this out without involving the Ancients?” John said.

  “You involved the Ancestors when you spoke against them and compared them to the accursed Wraith,” Sigurd said.

  “I wasn’t comparing them to the Wraith. I was trying to explain —”

  “Silence!” Sigurd said again, which put a real damper on their side of the conversation. He turned on Vasti. “Well?”

  “Oracle of the Ancestors,” Vasti said hurriedly. “What should the punishment for the Lanteans’ blasphemy be?”

  The Oracle spoke in the clear recorded tones of an Ancient who had probably been dead for tens of thousands of years. “For their crimes against the Ancestors, you must bring them before the village council in the morning to be tried for the crime of heresy.”

  “A crime of which you are certainly guilty,” Sigurd said darkly.

  “And what exactly is the penalty for heresy?” John asked.

  Vasti swallowed hard before he spoke, but Rodney already had a sinking certainty of what he was going to say. “If you are found guilty, you will be put to death.”

  They were left in their cell with a plate of bread, a pitcher of water, and promises that their trial on the morning would be fair, whatever that meant by local standards. Through the bars, Rodney could see the Oracle still glowing, although it didn’t appear to be receiving any more transmissions.

  “This is just great,” Rodney said. “Absolutely perfect. Why is it that every time someone believes that they have direct personal knowledge of the will of the Ancients, the will of the Ancients turns out to be that something bad ought to happen to us? Why aren’t they ever convinced that the Ancients want them to throw us a party and bake us a cake?”

  “Because these Ancients are being impersonated by the Wraith, and the Wraith never want us to have cake,” John said.

  “I don’t see what the Wraith have against cake! If we’re going to be eaten by the Wraith —”

  “We’re not going to be eaten by the Wraith.”

  “Only because we’re going to be executed! We at least ought to have cake if we’re executed!”

  “If they made us a cake, you’d question whether their food handling practices were sanitary,” John said.

  “Only because I doubt they are. And you’re changing the subject.”

  “No, now I’m changing the subject. Does anything strike you as screwed up about this?”

  “Everything about this strikes me as screwed up,” Rodney said. “We’re going to die on an alien planet for an incredibly stupid reason, which is pretty much the scenario that I’ve spent a lot of time trying to persuade myself isn’t going to happen every time we walk through the gate. Clearly the more paranoid parts of me were onto something.”

  “You’re such an optimist, McKay,” John said. “Look. Assume for a minute that the Wraith are controlling the Oracle. Vasti just told them that we’re from Atlantis and that we’ve been snooping around here asking questions. Are the Wraith likely to tell these folks to put us on trial and execute us?”

  “No,” Rodney had to admit. “That’s a lot more pleasant than what the Wraith would do.”

  “They’d tell them to keep us locked up until the Wraith could come and collect us for the whole ‘kneel before me while I poke around in your head, puny human,’ routine. If they’re particularly smart Wraith, they might threaten our lives in order to draw Elizabeth and the back-up team into a trap.”

  “We’re smarter than that.”

  “On a good day, but they don’t know that. But the last thing they’d do is tell the people here that they can actually kill us outright. If we’re dead, we’re not even good for a midnight snack.”

  “You think it’s not the Wraith?”

  “I think something’s screwy here, and I don’t know what.” John’s radio crackled, and he thumbed it on immediately. “Teyla, Ronon, report.”

  “Colonel Sheppard,” Teyla said, sounding relieved. “Are you well?”

  “No, we are not well,” Rodney said over John’s shoulder. “We’re in a jail cell that smells like the problematic end of a goat.”

  “We’re fine for right now,” John said. “Tomorrow may get dicier.”

  “I have Major Lorne here with a backup team,” Teyla said. “He’s prepared to extract y
ou by force if that should prove necessary.”

  “I’d like to try to get out of here without Lorne coming in guns blazing,” John said. “We’re not exactly having fun right now, but a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt if we have a firefight in the middle of a crowded town square.”

  “What has Zelenka found out?” Rodney demanded. “And don’t tell me ‘he’s working on it.’ I expect him to be working on it, but I also expect him to finish working on it so that we can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Dr. Zelenka said to tell you that he was able to trace the signal after the last transmission,” Lorne’s voice said. “Apparently someone used the Oracle less than an hour ago —”

  “To determine our fate,” John said. “Magic 8 Ball said ‘ask again later.’”

  “Here’s the weird part,” Lorne said over the radio. “Dr. Zelenka says that it looks like the signals are coming from somewhere here on PX7-MYB.”

  Rodney and John exchanged looks. “Was Zelenka able to pinpoint the source of the transmissions?” John asked.

  “They look like they’re coming from the village,” Lorne said.

  “Okay. Take your team and search the village. Pay particular attention to Sigurd — he seems really invested in the Ancestors being responsible, but that could just be to throw us off the trail. We need to find out who’s sending these transmissions, and fast.”

  “Sheppard,” Rodney said warningly. The door opened, and Vasti stepped inside. John cut the transmission at once, but Vasti came over to the bars, his face alight with interest.

  “You’re communicating with the other Lanteans,” he said. “With a machine. A radio.”

  “That’s right,” Sheppard said.

  “It uses radio waves to transmit sound,” Rodney said. “It’s a simple principle. It wouldn’t require much more than you have here. You’d need a tower to get transmissions across any distance, but all you need to build a tower are trees, and you’ve got plenty of trees.”

  Vasti turned away from the bars. “I’m not interested in your advice. You’re a blasphemer. But if the Ancestors gave their blessing to such a thing, it would be a great man who brought it to our people. Even Emille would have to see …” He trailed off, and then said, as if to himself, “She is not the only one to whom the Ancestors speak.”

  Rodney turned to John, unsure whether he should be trying to discourage Vasti. John shrugged. After all, they’d intended to make this experiment in the first place, and there was only so far they could go to warn the locals of the consequences of their actions. Vasti had made it pretty clear that he wasn’t interested in being warned.

  Vasti poked at the computer screen, inputting data and frowning at the results and choosing from more menus. Finally he looked satisfied.

  “Oracle of the Ancestors,” Vasti said. “Can you tell us how to achieve the transmission of sound across long distances using ‘radio waves’?”

  There was a lengthy pause before the Ancient voice spoke. “Your own studies may yet achieve this end in time. Tell Sigurd that whatever materials you need for this study should be provided to you. We would be pleased if you developed a device for this purpose.”

  “I have to tell Sigurd,” Vasti said excitedly, and burst out through the door, leaving it swinging for a moment before returning to lock it behind him.

  “They said yes?” Rodney said, blinking.

  John looked equally baffled. “They said yes.”

  “We should be looking for signs of the Wraith being here,” Ronon said as he led Lorne in a wide circle around the outskirts of the village. He felt that was the most critical point, and that some of the others weren’t keeping it firmly enough in mind.

  “We have seen none,” Teyla said.

  “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any. It could just mean we’re not looking hard enough.”

  “We don’t know that the Wraith are responsible for any of this,” Lorne said. “Let’s just take a look around, scan for energy readings, and see what we can turn up.”

  “It’s always the Wraith,” Ronon said.

  “It is not always the Wraith,” Teyla said. “But it seems the most plausible explanation.”

  “Let’s find the device,” Lorne said. “Then we can look for explanations.”

  They skirted the back of Sigurd’s house, a garden with a hanging electric lantern illuminating growing vegetables and a placidly munching goat. It was remarkably similar to the other back gardens they’d investigated, with no sign of an Ancient device. Lorne looked at his scanner and shook his head.

  The houses were getting further apart as they approached the outskirts of town, and it was possible now to make out individual tracks on the muddy road, but they looked like normal signs of people and animals traveling around the village. Instead of the familiar tread of Wraith boots, all Ronon saw were blurred marks of leather-soled handmade shoes.

  “Perhaps we should double back toward the center of the village,” Teyla said in an undertone as they approached a wood-framed house half dug into the side of a hill. Beyond the house, the road petered out into a narrow trail winding up the hill through thick trees and underbrush. “I doubt there are many more houses to be found farther into the woods.”

  Ronon stepped over a low and crumbling wall, and then stopped to check it more closely. “Look at this.”

  Lorne crouched to examine the remains of the wall along with him. It was falling apart with age, but the stones were cut smoothly and fitted together neatly. All the stone walls they had seen in the village had been fieldstone. Ronon explored the stone with his hands, and found a metal seam, free of rust despite its obvious age.

  “Old ruins,” Lorne said.

  “Emille did say they were close to the village.”

  “And there goes the scanner,” Lorne said. “There’s a power signature coming from inside that house that isn’t from the local electrical power.”

  “Watch out for Wraith.”

  “When don’t we?” They moved cautiously in on the house, Ronon and Lorne in the lead, Teyla and the two Marines who were the rest of the backup team following behind them. The house had a front door with an electric lantern hung from a hook to light its porch, but Lorne frowned at his scanner and then jerked his head to motion that they should circle around to the side of the house.

  There, a door was set into the side of the hill at an angle, looking like it might lead down to a cold cellar or coal bin. Lorne opened it with care, and electric light blazed from within. He nodded to Ronon, and he moved in first, Teyla following him. The Marines were good fighters, but they weren’t as good at moving quietly.

  He descended a set of wooden stairs until he could see the cellar room. A table-sized control module that was clearly the work of the Ancestors stood in the middle of the room, its surface lit with colors and crawling with text. A tangle of wires ran from it, suggesting it had somehow been connected to the local power system.

  Emille was bending over the device, her face lit by colored light, her fingers moving swiftly over the screen. Behind Ronon, the staircase creaked, and Emille looked up, and then flinched back, her face falling into stricken dismay. “I can explain,” she said.

  Ronon was already moving, his pistol out. “I’ll bet you can. How long have you been working for the Wraith?”

  “I’m not working with the Wraith.”

  “Liar. They’ve been feeding you all this information, haven’t they? Did they promise you that they’d spare your life when they culled your world?” He backed her up against the wall, his pistol leveled at her chest. “They lie.”

  His radio abruptly crackled into life.

  “Ronon, report,” Sheppard said.

  His finger itched to pull the trigger. Instead, he said, “We found the Wraith worshipper. It’s Emille. She�
�s been controlling the Oracle right from her house.”

  “I’m not a Wraith worshipper,” Emille snapped.

  “I don’t think she’s had any contact with the Wraith,” Sheppard said. “But I do think I know what’s going on here. Bring her back to the shrine. It’s time we had a talk.”

  Rodney felt a surge of relief as the door of the shrine opened and Ronon came in, pushing Emille in front of him, followed by Teyla, Lorne, the back-up team. Emille stood stiff-backed, her chin high. “That took you long enough.”

  “We were busy,” Ronon said. “Now. You. Talk.”

  “You have a right to be angry,” Emille said. Her lips tightened. “But so do I. Do you understand how thoroughly you’re about to ruin everything?”

  “Why don’t you explain,” John said.

  Emille ran one hand lovingly over the Oracle’s console. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to understand the secrets of the Ancestors,” she said. “Digging in the ruins when no one else would help. Reconstructing whole sciences when no one else cared. I figured out how to generate electrical power fifteen years ago. And Sigurd said that it was a waste of time and a waste of coal, and wouldn’t give me a single bit of help.”

  “And then the Oracle spoke to you?” Teyla suggested.

  “The Oracle never spoke to me,” Emille snapped. “I worked for every single thing I learned, do you understand? No one taught me, no one helped me. Not for fifty years. I worked and I experimented and I did everything the wrong way a thousand times before I did it the right way once, and finally I learned what our ancestors knew. But I couldn’t go any farther without help. I’m old now. I needed young people with strong backs. I needed metal and coal.”

  “So you found a way to get Sigurd to give them to you,” Rodney said.

  He felt a surprising degree of sympathy. He could think of times when he would have lied without hesitation if it would have gotten him adequate research funding. All right, maybe he wouldn’t have claimed that divine powers wanted him to study naquadah power generation, but on the other hand, if it would actually have done the trick …