Blood Ties

Chapter thirty-five

"This decision came from the highest levels, Dr. Weir." Woolsey folded his arms. "MIM-316 is the sole source of the plant life that can be used to trigger the Wraith genes in humans on Earth. Eliminating the risk requires that 316's biosphere be neutralized."

Elizabeth sat back in her chair, looking at him with appalled disbelief. John wished he could be as surprised. The cynical part of his brain had suspected something like this was coming. "Wipe out everything on that planet," she said bluntly. "Just like that?"

"As you're aware," Woolsey replied, standing stiffly near the head of the SGC briefing room table, "DNA analysis has confirmed that several IOA representatives, and of course members of their families, are also burdened with fragments of the genes."

Analysis, my ass. John knew damn well the bottom-feeding bureaucrat had gone into panic mode as soon as he'd realized that his late cousin's connection to Hanan implicated his gene pool.

Woolsey continued, "Since the SGC failed to end the threat on Earth-"

"That's going too far, Woolsey." Landry's tone was icy.

"Is it?" Woolsey was undeterred by the General's ire. "Your people were unable-"

"Our people?" Jackson raised his eyebrows. "Wasn't it your idea for us to work with the FBI profiler?"

"Be that as it may. Your top Wraith hunters were unable to prevent Hanan and a group of her cambion followers from escaping."

"Escaping to what? Death by hypothermia or drowning? You know the timeline of events. Less than an hour after the Greenpeace ship reported one of their Zodiac boats missing, along with a group of eight crewmembers that included Agent Larance, Hanan, and Baqir, a massive storm blew through the area. An inflatable wouldn't have stood a chance in those seas, and there's no way they could have escaped on foot through the ice pack."

With a gesture in John's direction, Jackson stood and activated the viewscreen, which displayed a grid map of Antarctica. "Over the last week, we've performed a comprehensive aerial survey of the entire continent. The deep-look scans indicated nothing beneath the polar ice cap except a surprising quantity of fresh water-enough to fill the Great Lakes a few times over, I'm told. The IOA might be better served to worry about the risk of mass drowning from an abrupt rise in sea levels if the ice shelves damming the water give way. It's far higher than the risk of a mass gene activation."

Woolsey shook his head, not reacting to the implied challenge in Jackson's tone. "You can't be absolutely certain on either aspect of that. For one thing, I've read the reports on global warming, and the conclusions are ambiguous to say the least."

Why the man had chosen to nitpick that particular issue, John had no idea, but he had to acknowledge Woolsey's first point-in spite of that `Wraith hunter' comment earlier, which might have been aimed at any or all of them and had sounded an awful lot like a pejorative.

John had led the flight of jumpers that had crisscrossed the frozen continent with sensors tuned to maximum settings. As powerful as the scans were, they'd barely managed to get a ping even from the already known Ancient base-and to achieve even that much he'd had to make use of a direct sightline through the tunnel dug by the Goa'uld Al'kesh during the Battle ofAntarctica. All things considered, he wouldn't be surprised if Jimmy Hoffa were under that ice cap. More to the point, since a cloaking system wasn't out of the question, it was still wholly possible that another Stargate or even a cityship like Atlantis waited below the surface.

Then there was the matter of Rebecca's new talent for sucking life from animals. He didn't want to hazard a guess as to how the remaining Lilith contingent from the Verreisen Sie Heim had fared in that monster storm, but if Rebecca's group had somehow managed to make landfall, the penguins and seals down that way would allow her to keep her Ninlil cohorts alive. A little cold probably wouldn't bother them too much.

Of course, John had no plans to voice those opinions in this forum. He wasn't about to give the IOA any further ammunition. The rest of his team had spent a fair bit of time on M1M316 and was adamant that the planet should be left in peace. Jackson had taken up the cause without being asked, pointing out that his standing with the IOA was more secure than that of anyone else involved. John, and to a lesser extent Elizabeth and Rodney, still had to make up lost ground after their unauthorized defense of their city, while Teyla and Ronon, being `alien,' hardly counted to the unashamedly xenophobic committee.

Although John didn't like having to hide behind a member of SG-1 to get things done, he'd seen the logic. Rodney, however, had never learned about the better part of valor. "Does it strike you as ironic at all that these cambion of which you're so terrified have the same genetic makeup you do?" He snapped his fingers. "Wait, I misspoke. I confused irony with hypocrisy. Subtle difference in this case."

John could practically hear Woolsey's teeth grinding. "If the creatures that escaped find a way to reach 316-"

"They're human beings," Jackson countered. "Not 'creatures'."

"If they've got Wraith genes, they're not human," stated Ronon.

So much for presenting a united front behind Jackson. John would have reined Ronon in, but Teyla beat him to it, spinning her chair sharply toward him. "Go ahead and kill me now, then. If that is the definition by which you view humanity, you must kill all of us." Her cool gaze swept from Ronon to John and then Woolsey. "Every one of us who harbors genes other than those you consider to be purely human."

"That's not what I said," Ronon backpedaled. "Just that they aren't the same as…" Failing to find an appropriate description, he trailed off, looking troubled.

"It might be time for you to rethink that perspective, Ronon." Elizabeth spoke up, her voice resolute but not without compassion. "I would never ask you, of all people, to stop hating the Wraith. The fact is, though, you're immune to their feeding because of a gene that originated from the iratus bug. Does that make you less than human? Or more?" She leaned forward, placing her forearms on the table. "The point of all this, and what many of us seem to be missing, is that not one person in this room, or anywhere else for that matter, has a `perfect' set of genes that's completely free of any trace of other life forms. We evolved from life that came before us. Because of that, we're all linked, not just between our two galaxies but across all others as well, because ultimately we're all made from the same building blocks of life."

For a moment, no one spoke, acknowledging her statement. His gaze downcast, Rodney said quietly, "That sounds like Carson talking."

Elizabeth gave him a wistful half-smile and a nod. "I remember him quoting Sagan once or twice. `For we are all star stuff."'

"Exactly," said Jackson. "If the IOA is willing to sanction genocide-"

.,It is not genocide," Woolsey argued. "MIM-316 has no human inhabitants."

Well, that brief truce hadn't lasted very long.

"Are we really going to have a semantic debate about what to call this particular form of mass murder?" Apparently it was Rodney's turn to be impassioned. "It's utterly insane, the idea of wiping out all life on an entire planet based on nothing more than the off chance that one of its plants might trigger an unwanted gene if it ever reached Earth. And it won't reach Earth, because its Stargate is sealed off to incoming travelers.

"You've limited your thinking to the Stargate," said Woolsey primly. "Other methods of access are possible. It's not as if the Trust hasn't found its way onto spaceships in the past."

Rodney's eyes narrowed. Someone should have warned the IOA weasel about daring to question Rodney McKay's thought processes, John thought with a flicker of spiteful amusement. Sometimes he really enjoyed watching Rodney tear into someone.

"And you've limited your thinking to this one gene," the scientist returned, his tone heavy with scorn. "As Dr. Lam pointed out at the beginning of this saga, the known genetic disorders in the human genome number in the tens of thousands. How do you compare them'? Are you absolutely certain that one of those genes won't suddenly switch on and wipe out a sizable chunk of the human population'? I would love to see the experimental results you've managed to conjure up within the last few days on that subject. You have extensively researched all of them, right'? You can say with confidence that French fries don't contain even more dioxins and triggers for cancer than the ones we already know about'? What about the observed link between soy sauce and breast cancer'? Should we send the Air Force off to blow up all the soybean fields on Earth'? Show me the research that says the Wraith gene is the biggest threat we face, please. I'm on the edge of my seat. If the IOA would occasionally extract its collective head from points south and listen to the scientists it employs, it's possible we would be able to avoid half the problems we face on a daily basis!"

Performances like that had been known to send Rodney's subordinates cowering into comers. Amazingly, and infuriat ingly, Woolsey didn't react. "This is a wholly different situation. We're talking about a known connection between the 316 ginkgoes and the gene that could turn half the human race into monsters able to feed on the other half. We have the capacity to eliminate that threat in a single operation. Dinosaurs, Dr. McKay, are not human. They became extinct sixty-five million years ago, an event which allowed humanity to be present here today. We want to ensure that remains the case"

Jackson, it seemed, wasn't ready to roll over just yet. "Has the IOA fully considered the idea that activating the gene, like the Ninlil intended, might make the human race stronger, more able to defend itself against a global attack from, say, the Orici?"

Woolsey's lips pressed together in a thin line. "It was discussed," he replied finally. "Leaving aside the risks, the logistics are too complicated. How could we even begin to prepare the public for such a massive change, both physiologically and socially?"

"Maybe now isn't the time," Jackson admitted, "but if we destroy 316, we're eliminating the possibility of ever activating the gene in the future. The risks you cite could be managed."

With a short laugh, Woolsey repeated, "Managed'? We would have people turning on each other feeding on each other."

"Do you really think the human race would descend into cannibalism just because it could?" Rodney demanded.

"You'd be surprised, and horrified, at some of the things people can and will do," Woolsey said mildly.

On that point, John couldn't dispute him.

The bureaucrat stood up. "The factors have been weighed, and the decision is final. I have a flight back to D.C."

As he strode out of the room, back rigidly straight, everyone else turned to the head of the table, their last hope for a reprieve. Landry shook his head. "This isn't something we can fight," he said simply. "You heard the man. Destroy MIM-316."

The preparations for their return to Atlantis were predictably subdued. Daniel Jackson had said his farewells to the team with an apology in his eyes. It hadn't been necessary-none of them were shortsighted enough to lump him in with the IOA simply by virtue of him being stationed on Earth-but it made John realize that his respect for the archeologist had taken a leap upward in recent weeks.

Rodney had been too despondent to bother going back to his locker for the stash of Starbucks beans left there weeks ago… until about five minutes before they were set to leave, when he abruptly changed his mind. "I'm going to need something to keep me from contemplating the futility of existence while I work on this monstrosity," he muttered, performing an about-face in the corridor. "Don't leave without me… as if you would."

John hadn't paid much attention to the ION s specific instructions for carrying out their world-killing plan. Essentially, he'd gathered, Rodney was to use a variation on the paired Stargates and black hole trick used in this galaxy once before. The end result would be the explosion of MIM- 316's sun. Just like that, they'd be the executioners of countless species-sentient species, if Teyla's report was anything to go by. Getting to sleep at night was about to become a lot tougher.

As the group continued toward the jumper bay, Teyla asked Landry, "General, with the greatest respect, how can your IOA be sure that 316 is the only planet in the Pegasus Galaxy where such an ecosystem can be found?"

Fair question. John checked Landry's expression from the corner of his eye and watched the General's features harden.

"We'll deal with that problem if and when it arises."

The other jumpers had returned to Atlantis at the conclusion of their survey duties, leaving only Jumper One wait ing for them in the preflight area. John settled into the pilot's seat and made it about halfway through his checklist before Rodney came running up the ramp, his arms full of coffee and chocolate. Dumping the goods into a mesh cargo pocket affixed to one bulkhead and closing the hatch, the scientist all but threw himself into his seat.

"Let's get this the hell over with," he said shortly. "The sooner I finish doing the IONs dirty work for them, the sooner I can take a dangerously hot shower and attempt to scrub my soul."

After checking to see that Elizabeth, Teyla, and Ronon had taken their seats, John eased the jumper up from the floor of the bay and aimed it toward the gate room. Normally he couldn't wait to get back to Atlantis after a visit to Earth, which probably said something about him that he didn't really care to contemplate too hard. Today, however, it was difficult not to approach the gate with a sense of reluctance.

"On top of being morally repugnant, this action is serving as yet another distraction from my current projects, not the least of which is my work on the city's star drive systems." Rodney drummed his fingers on the console in front of him. "While I don't have any expectation that we're actually going to need them in the near future, it's a worthwhile precaution to take, considering the fact that the Asurans are still skulking around out there. Also, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that we may run into other similar cities. Thanks to Dr. Jackson's discovery that several Babylonian cities may in fact have been named after cities in the Pegasus Gal-"

The event horizon swallowed them before he could finish, giving John a few prized moments of relative peace. When the puddle jumper emerged at the midway station of the gate bridge between the Milky Way and Pegasus, Rodney paused, momentarily disoriented. With a shudder, he said, "I am never going to get used to the sensation of being demolecularized for that long."

Outside the spartan frame of the station was the utterly barren void between galaxies, but ahead of them was the unbroken field of stars that was their destination. "I've come to enjoy this stop a bit," commented Elizabeth from behind John's seat. "Absolutely nothing else around for light years, like we're on a balance beam between two immense havens of life."

"Pretty mind-blowing to think that the light we're seeing from Pegasus actually originated at those stars over a million years ago." John sat back and took his hands off the controls for a moment. "With a strong enough telescope, we could park here and watch history unfold in both galaxies. We'd see Atlantis in its heyday, and the first humans figuring out the concept of tools…"

Catching himself, John shook off the philosophical reverie. He reached over to input the next gate address with one hand and initiated the multi-gate autodial program with the other. Waxing lyrical wasn't usually his style. Being yanked back from the edge of death twice in one day had brought him more up close and personal with the idea of mortality than he'd bargained for. As for Rebecca… He couldn't decide whether to pity her or be in awe of her existence. In either case, she was no longer the woman he'd thought he'd come to know.

After all that had happened and all that was still to come, maybe he'd just needed to find a little perspective.

Rodney suddenly turned toward him, his grin so blinding and out of place that John was instantly wary.

"You're freaking me out. What is it?"

The grin became calculating. "You've just given me an idea."