Exogenesis

Chapter Nineteen

The information was coming at him almost faster than he could take it in. John choked back his initial shock and forced himself to analyze the situation. Darts were skimming back and forth across the canyon, scooping up dozens of people at a time. As the jumper neared, he brought up a magnified view. None of these people appeared to be fleeing the Darts. Just the opposite, in fact; they were waving frantically, trying to draw attention to themselves.

The Darts moved methodically, steady beams of Wraithlight playing across the ground in deliberate patterns. Their strategy couldn't have been more different from the hit-and-run tactics employed by the Wraith. Somehow, there had been a terrible mistake.

"Shoot them!" Ronon yelled, his features instantly darkening at the sight of the Darts.

"No!" John broke off his course, causing the jumper to veer awkwardly. "Can't you see? They're trying to save those people"

Ronon's answering look made it clear he thought his team leader was unbalanced in more ways than one. John ignored him. "Jumpers Four and Five, what's your status?" Dammit, dammit, dammit! "Teyla! Witner-respond!"

"Jumper Five here, sir," came the reply. "We had a close call-everything collapsed on us as soon as we pulled the ZPM. But we're headed for the 'gate now."

Nothing from Jumper Four. "Four, respond," John tried again, with growing dread. If the structure had collapsed on Teyla and Witner as well… "Five, is there any way you can put the ZPM back where you found it?"

It was official now: everybody thought he was losing it.

"Due respect, sir, are you nuts? The whole thing's washed away. About half a mile of the cliff has already disintegrated. There's water gushing out everywhere. We're dialing the 'gate now."

John had no sightline to the lab from his current position, but he had a suspicion about where the Darts were headed. What the hell could they do now? "Radek, what's going on with the area where Teyla's ZPM was?"

A response came, but not from Radek. "Jumper Four is here," Teyla announced belatedly, sounding winded. "We were caught in the structure's collapse and barely escaped. The water has broken through the rock face, but only in a limited area, taking the structure with it. We have the ZPM and are returning to the 'gate."

"It may take a while for the fractured rocks to give way," Radek said. "Still, Colonel, you have very little time to look for Rodney."

John ached, from the fading painkillers and from the knowledge of what they'd just set in motion. If Rodney was in fact dead, at least he wouldn't have to live with the consequences of their actions. "The situation," he replied dully, "just got a little more complicated."

"Sir, Jumper Five has gone through the 'gate," Lorne reported. "There are now multiple Darts inbound to the lab from your direction. Permission to detach Jumper Two in order to engage them."

"It is not necessary," said Radek. "They cannot breach the lab's force field."

"I'm aware of that, Doc. I asked because I think Jumper One could use some backup."

"Negative," John said sharply. "Radek, disengage the force field."

About four different voices exclaimed, "What?"

"Sir, please repeat that order," Lome said, his voice taut.

"You heard me. What are the Darts doing?" John aimed for the nearest group of people on the ground, made up mostly of children by the size of them, and set Jumper One down on the floor of the gorge with a jarring thud.

After a pause, the Major answered, "That's weird. A bunch of people just appeared outside the lab, looking kind of dazed. All but one of the Darts have taken off and are headed back in your direc tion. Why would the Wraith dump people-?"

"They're not Wraith! Lower the damn force field and let them in before the ground collapses out from under them!"

Comprehending that they had to evacuate as many as possible to high ground, Ronon made for the rear of the jumper and opened the hatch. The ambient noise in the jumper rose as a dozen voices expressed their gratitude. Having trouble hearing his com, John leaned forward and cupped a hand around his good ear.

Radek's voice was immediately audible. "Rodney!"

With a surge of hope, John jerked upright. "Where?"

"Here, in the lab-with.. Pro boha." Radek sounded stunned and possibly a little repulsed.

Other voices soon overlapped the scientist's on the frequency. Above the commotion, John could clearly hear Vene's shouts. "Kill them! Kill the Wraith! Force them outside for the water to carry them away!"

Ronon's surprised grunt from the rear of Jumper One prompted John to turn in his seat, and suddenly all the reactions made sense. Sort of.

The kids clambering aboard the jumper were… different. Deformed, if he was being brutally honest. Many of them wore hooded robes, but those only partially masked their distorted features. Eyes and ears askew, misshapen limbs-it was like a lineup for Ripley's Believe It or Not.

"Lorne," John commanded with all the authority he'd ever possessed. "Stop Vend. Those people are not Wraith!"

When the jumper was filled to capacity, Ronon closed the hatch. John lifted off, trying to compensate for the craft's additional weight, and headed for the lab. "Everybody hold onto something if you can," he called over his shoulder. "This isn't one of my better days."

Flying around a bend in the gorge, he was struck speechless by what lay beyond the windshield. Several miles of the canyon wall had collapsed, and water was pouring out at an unimaginable rate. The flood was almost an entity of its own, primal in its wildness and astounding in its sheer force. The sight was beautiful, and terrifying.

Behind him, his passengers gasped in horror. John wanted to apologize, to explain somehow, but any attempt would have been pathetically inadequate. Instead, he turned his attention to the emerging scuffle on the radio.

"All of you, back off!" Lome was yelling over a crowd. "Just calm down!"

From the jumble of sounds, John guessed that the panicky cliffdwellers who had remained behind to witness the spectacle were now mobbing whomever the Darts were depositing on the lab's doorstep. Probably people much like his passengers. Radek was still babbling something about Rodney, who'd apparently been beamed in along with the first group of people. And they were people. The life signs indicator verified that fact, although some of the signatures were closer to Ancient than human. He blinked at the HUD in confusion. What in God's name was going on with this planet?

The sharp report of a P-90 told him that Lome was out of options and about to enforce martial law. Coming up over the cliff, John cringed at the repeated abuse of his favorite ride and all but slammed Jumper One into the sand beside the lab. He stood, waited for his balance to catchup, and lunged for the hatch. As badly as he wanted to get back to the trench and save more people, he had to put a stop to the massacre about to happen.

In theory, transit by Wraith beam should have felt as instantaneous as transit by Stargate. It didn't. There was a significant period of disorientation involved. When Rodney found himself whole again, he swayed on his feet and instinctively reached out. Turpi's hand steadied him.

Slowly, he became aware of the sounds of fighting and shouting that surrounded him. This was the Ancient lab, he was sure. He recognized the smooth metal floor under his feet. What was-?

A deafening clamor tore away the last tatters of his stupor. These days, he'd be able to identify a P-90 anywhere, even one foolishly fired in an enclosed space. The weapon presumably achieved its intended effect: everyone fell silent, except for a voice that he was certain belonged to Major Lorne.

"Rodney!" Radek was suddenly inches from his ear, pulling him away from Turpi's hands, and shouting excitedly in a mixture of English and Czech.

Rodney grasped blindly at his colleague, his bandaged hands bouncing off the other man's shoulders. "Tell me you haven't removed any of the ZPMs. Tell me!"

The ensuing pause trampled on his remaining hope. "It is too late."

"Oh, God! Do you have any idea what you've done?"

The syncopated rhythm of two pairs of boots joined the cacophony. "You used us!" Sheppard was fuming at someone-Vene, most likely. "You set this up to slaughter thousands of innocent people!"

"They did not know," Nabu declared from somewhere nearby. Rodney hadn't realized he'd beamed in with them.

Vend apparently hadn't caught on to the real issue at hand yet. "The Wraith are a scourge upon us. Why would we not rid ourselves of their evil?"

"Your people have not seen a Wraith in generations," Nabu responded scornfully. "You would not know how to recognize one unless it fed upon you."

"I recognize you and your minions well enough!"

And that tore it for Rodney. "All of you just shut up! Unless someone is about to reveal the existence of a time machine or any other such saving grace, be quiet and let me figure out what we can do."

"There is nothing," Radek said somberly. "The power matrix cannot support the load with two ZPMs removed."

Another set of running footsteps approached, lighter and faster. "Colonel," Teyla asked, "should we return home with the second ZPM?"

"Might as well." Sheppard's voice sounded agonized but resigned, with a tinge of disgust that surely was directed at the culpable bigot, Vend. "There's nothing we can do with it here."

"No!" Rodney countered, grabbing at Radek's arm. "Have you tried to reconfigure the matrix?"

"I ran several calculations before the ZPMs were removed. There is no way to stop what is happening."

"Wrong answer." Rodney wasn't about to accept that their actions would end so many lives. "Get back on that computer. We can…" His rapidly evolving plan hit a roadblock. There was no way they'd be able to do anything fast enough unless he could use his own eyes and hands. He began pawing at his face. "Somebody get these bandages off."

"Rodney, no," Turpi cried. "You must not" Her hands cupped his face, her mind imploring him.

"I can't save your people if I can't see," he protested. "Even if it does damage my eyes, you can heal them-can't you?"

She did not answer, and somewhere, in a fleeting instant of perception amid his desperate need to put things right, he got the sense that he hadn't asked the right question.

An odd silence filled his mind. It lasted for only a second, but it seemed to stretch endlessly, as if his life had paused just long enough to let him glimpse what might have been. The silence stretched until another second passed. How many millions of liters of water had tumbled out during that pause? And yet he felt that something far greater was also on the verge of plunging to destruction.

Nabu's voice finally broke through the silent void. "You must let him go, daughter." It was filled with overwhelming regret, and a sadness that Rodney might never have intuited had he not been blind.

Let him go? Turpi's voiceless sobs echoed in Rodney's mind, and he struggled to comprehend her anguish. But there was no time. Each second that passed reduced his chances of saving her extraordinary people, her children. He felt her knowledge of that, and then, as her hands fell from his face, he was alone once more.

Other hands carefully removed his bandages. He knew it was not Turpi, because she had backed away, already distancing herself from him. He swallowed back the sense of abandonment. Let him go? He wasn't about to go anywhere without her. He couldn't. When his fingers were free, he pushed the remainder of the gauze away.

Brilliant whiteness overwhelmed his newly grown eyes. He flinched and brought up his arm to shield them. "Lights," Nabu ordered quickly, and the flare dimmed to reveal two of his teammates holding the discarded bandages. Teyla had a nasty cut on her forehead, and Sheppard looked washed-out, but they were there-not blurry or dark, but clear and whole.

As his gaze swept over them and found Radek and Ronon nearby, he fought to rein in his overpowering relief. "It's, ah, good to see you guys," he said weakly. Whatever odd thoughts he'd been having a moment ago were overrun by the return of his normal senses.

Sheppard gripped his shoulder. "It's good to be seen."

Rodney next observed that the lab was now fully operational. Good. He hurried over to the main computer to analyze the power matrix, ignoring the fact that the place was filled wall to wall with people. There had to be some way to reconfigure the distribution in such a way that at least part of the system could be maintained long enough to…

After a few hastily assembled simulations, he was forced to bow to reality. "Congratulations," he told Radek bleakly, feeling sick. "You've done a flawless job of condemning to death hundreds of thousands of people who might have been this galaxy's single greatest defense against the Wraith."

"Don't blame him," Sheppard broke in, his cold fury focused on Vend. "These people have done nothing but screw with us from the moment we got here."

"We will not apologize for defending ourselves against the Wraith," Vene retorted, pulling himself up to his full height and glaring at Sheppard in return.

"For the last damned time, they're not Wraith!"

Anarchy threatened to erupt again, but Turpi's silent voice cut through all the accusations. "Father, I have never thanked you well enough for all you have done-for loving me, and for giving all of us hope for the future. I must now repay you in full measure."

The finality of her words chilled Rodney, enough to make him abandon his frantic attempts to coax a nonexistent solution from the computer. Spinning around in his chair, he searched the room. On one side stood Vend and a number of cliff-dwellers. Through the windows, now clear of sand, he could see that there were dozens more outside. He turned further until he caught sight of tall, distinguished-looking Nabu. Certainly at first glance the man could be mistaken for a Wraith, but the intelligence and wisdom in his eyes belied that thought instantly. There was also something more in his eyes, something Rodney had difficulty comprehending: tears.

And then Rodney understood why, when his gaze came to rest, for the first time, on Turpi, standing alone between the cliff-dwellers and the gifted children they had abandoned to the sands.

The hunchbacked creature was only identifiable as a woman because of her disproportionate breasts. Stick-legged, she had two uneven slits in place of a nose. One eye was missing, the other white and clearly blind. A few tufts of yellow hair stuck out pitifully from odd places around her head, and her ears…as far as Rodney could see, she had no ears.

Under his aghast stare she recoiled, and he instantly knew why the recovery of his sight had pained her so deeply. Turpi was not only a deaf mute, she was also functionally blind-and yet she could see with greater clarity than all of them.

It had taken only a split second between her words and Rodney's comprehension. Nabu reacted faster, crying "No!" as he rushed to her, his black coat billowing behind him. But it was too late. Turpi's body began to glow.

The crowd in the lab backed away, leaving Nabu beside her. "What's she doing?" Rodney demanded, leaping off his chair and reaching for her, terrified that he might already know. "What are you doing?"

The light grew outward from her body, filling the room and turning her translucent until she appeared ephemeral. Helpless, terrified in a way he could not yet define, Rodney looked around the lab. The villagers were cowering fearfully. Nabu's people, however, began to follow Turpi's lead. Those who had hands joined them, while others found different ways to establish some of kind of contact with each other. Remembering how Nabu had described their method of deterring the Wraith, Rodney understood that Turpi was linking many of her people's minds together, in order to…what? He knew, or at least, a part of him knew, but refused to accept.

Radek's stunned voice reached him. "I do not believe it."

It felt like a betrayal to turn away from Turpi. Still, he had to know. "What?" He studied the computer screen, but what he saw didn't fit within any logical rules. Somehow, the power level in the ZPM matrix had been sufficiently augmented to reestablish the force fields and stop the flow of water.

The rest of his team stood near the window, staring out at the landscape, astonished and disbelieving in equal parts. He rushed over to see for himself, pushing Vend aside, and was floored by the scene. An invisible wall had replaced the section of the cliff that had washed away. There was no telltale shimmer from a force field. As insane as the notion seemed, these people, these extraordinary, gifted children, were holding back an entire ocean with the power of their minds.

"Unbelievable," Sheppard said in a low voice, awed.

Barely hearing him, Rodney tried to put what he was seeing into context. How was she doing this? It couldn't possibly be sustainable. How would they-

Turpi's voice floated clearly through his cluttered thoughts. "You must choose, my dearest."

He swung around again. "Choose what?" Desperate to understand, he searched the light for some sign of her face.

Tears barely contained, Nabu nodded once, as if in reply to something Turpi was saying to him, and withdrew a long object from inside his robes. With a jolt, Rodney realized why they'd been unable to find Atlas's exogenesis machine in the lab. It had been somewhere else all along.

"With Turpi to lead them, my people's minds will be able to hold back the water, but only for a short time," said Nabu, firmly in control of his emotions once more. "I can use Atlas's machine to reverse what has been done, and allow Polrusso to continue on as it once was, without need of the ZPMs. You will have time to collect all of these ZPMs and take them back to Atlantis, so that the great city of the Ancients will become a starship once more."

Gasps could be heard from many of the villagers as the truth was laid bare. Vend's shock was evident, and he turned an angry gaze on an unrepentant Sheppard. Rodney hadn't even formed the next question in his head before Ronon beat him to it. "Or what?"

"Or you must leave the ZPM that you have now so that I can install it here." Nabu pointed outside, in the direction of the jumpers. "I can adjust the matrix to function without the ZPM that has already been taken, and we will have no need of the exogenesis machine. The little water that has escaped will soon evaporate and become stored as ice in our poles."

"What of Atlantis?" Teyla asked. "As we stand here, our world is being destroyed from within."

"I am aware." Nabu held up the machine, small and seemingly innocuous, in his large hand. "I can program this to restore Lantea in a very short time."

"And we're supposed to believe it's that easy?" Ronon demanded.

Rodney fixed him with an irritated look. What did the Satedan know about it? What did any of them know? "Trust me. He can do it"

"Amazing," Radek said quietly. When Rodney turned toward him, the other scientist was focused on his life signs detector. "This man is as much Ancient as he is human."

Turpi's statement rang in Rodney's mind. Choose…

"Twelve ZPMs," he murmured. A vision of Atlantis rising into the sky beckoned like a siren's call.

"The city is not ready, Rodney," Radek warned. "We have tried. There are too many problems, too much damage. Atlantis cannot become a starship, not for quite some time-if ever."

Radek had to be wrong. He might have attempted to prepare the city for flight, but he'd had to do it without Rodney's expertise. No one knew the systems the way Rodney did. Wouldn't it be far better to have Atlantis as a ship rather than sitting, crippled, out in the open like a target?

All of Rodney's innate self-confidence was telling him that he could make the city fly. It occurred to him that some assistance might be useful, but before he could swallow his pride enough to ask, Nabu spoke again. "This is something I cannot help you do. My understanding of the exogenesis machine comes from many generations of research with Atlas's own records to assist. Atlantis is beyond my knowledge"

Turpi's voice brushed through Rodney's mind with the gentleness of a wind chime. "Choose wisely."

In that moment, he recognized that his arrogance could destroy everything.

With all the possibilities of what Atlantis could be still fresh in his mind's eye, he relented. "Teyla, go get the ZPM "

"Hold on a second." The objection came from Sheppard. "Are you sure about that? I know the first ZPM should have bought us some time, but-"

"Of course I'm not sure," Rodney snapped at him. "I mean, I'm not sure about what's best for Atlantis. But overall, for everyone, this is the best we can do."

Without a word, Teyla started toward the door.

"Stop!" At some point, Vene had recovered from his paralyzed shock, and his voice was commanding. "These Wraithspawn want to keep Polrusso from becoming the world it was meant to be," he claimed, trying to rally his villagers. "Stop the off-worlder!"

The cliff-dwellers traded uncertain glances, plainly over whelmed by what they'd seen and heard. No one moved to stop Teyla, who soon disappeared through the door.

From within Nabu's group, a little girl stepped forward. Her features angelic and unscarred, she searched the throng of villagers for a familiar face.

Rodney heard a cry from within the crowd, and recognized the grieving mother they'd seen shortly after their first arrival. The woman rushed forward to take the girl into her arms, touching the child's cheek while wonder and guilt warred on her own face.

While the strange glow still surrounded them, others from Nabu's group, children and adults alike, began to pull back the hoods they wore. Some were deformed, others normal-whatever that word meant anymore-but all of them drew gasps from the villagers, who slowly started to recognize the children they had abandoned to the storms.

In the few seconds that passed before Teyla reappeared with the ZPM cradled in her arms, the terrible truth of their misconceptions froze the cliff-dwellers into inaction. Nabu took the ZPM from Teyla and moved to a grid on the wall, which Rodney had seen during his first visit but hadn't been able to identify while the lab was unpowered. Having placed the ZPM into the grid, Nabu went to the computer and entered a series of commands.

"Power to the matrix is increasing "" Radek immediately glanced up from another terminal he had been monitoring.

The bright aura surrounding Turpi and the others began to fade and shrink, until it was once again focused on her alone. As they were released from the light, her people staggered a little, recovering from the strain. When the light at last had gone completely, Turpi crumpled to the floor.

Running to her, Rodney pulled up short, hesitating. Turpi gathered her robes with feeble hands, attempting to cover herself. "Don't see me this way," she begged, her voice sounding weak even inside his mind. "Remember me as you first saw me, in your dreams."

The memory of Nabu's words struck him. Turpi had already given too much of herself to heal him. In a terrible flash of understanding, he knew that channeling her people's powers had quenched her life. Turpi was dying.

"No!" Clinging to hope, he spun around to Nabu but found only a wrenching sorrow in the other man's eyes. Behind him, Ronon wore an expression of disgust. Jarred, Rodney looked around at his teammates, and then the villagers. Each concealed his or her reaction to varying degrees, but all of their gazes held some combination of pity and revulsion.

Somehow that sealed it. Rodney fell to his knees and gathered Turpi in his arms. "Don't you dare look at her like that!" he shouted at the others. "What gives you the right`? You have no idea… God, can't you see her mind? Can't you see how beautiful she is?"

Even as he sensed her joy at his declaration, he also felt her trying to make him understand. She was dying, and nothing either of them might do would change that.

His eyes burned with tears as he lifted his head to glare at Vend. "You have no idea," he repeated fiercely, accusing all of them, even his friends. "She's a better person than any of us. Even after everything you've seen these people do, you still think of them as rejects. How cold-blooded are you?"

Teyla opened her mouth to speak, but Rodney turned away to look down at Turpi, hearing only her faltering voice. "Please… remember what you feel, not what you see."

He closed his eyes, both because she wished it and because the tears were threatening to overtake him. "This is what I'll remember," he vowed, pressing her soft, misshapen fingers to his cheek.

"I love you." Her words faded, and her body went limp in his arms.

Holding her close, Rodney was paralyzed by loss and shame. In spite of his tirade, he couldn't fault his teammates or even Vend for their reactions when he'd held those same preconceptions himself. Actually, that wasn't true. He did blame them, and he blamed himself right along with them. Knowing as he did what it felt like to be rejected, how could he have judged her, even for a second?

Throughout the room, many of the cliff-dwellers were discovering their lost children. Seeing families reunite all around him, Vend still looked fearful and, to Rodney's way of thinking, sickeningly ignorant. "These wretched creatures should not hold such power," he protested, turning to accuse Nabu. "It was you who denied us the Ancestors' plans for this world. You stole our birthright!"

Nabu rounded on him, tears streaming down his scarred face. "And you have blinded yourself so completely that you no longer recognize the child of your loins!" His hand shook as he pointed at Turpi. "You cast her out into the desert when she was but a baby. Born already understanding who and what she was, she begged you to keep her, promising never to harm you. But your closed mind would not hear her! And yet she loved you to this day. Turpi, and many of our people, would have survived the poison that the waters would have released. Still, she chose to sacrifice herself to save you and the future of this world." He stabbed a finger at the other man's chest.

Vend inhaled sharply, comprehension dawning at last.

His gaze moving from Nabu to Vene to Rodney, Sheppard finally found his voice. "I, uh, think maybe we'd better leave these people to their reunions and get that machine back to Atlantis."

Rodney couldn't find the energy to care about any of it. He eased Turpi's body to the floor with exquisite care. Kneeling on the ground with his arms wrapped around her, he let his head sink to her chest, utterly lost inside.