Exogenesis

Chapter Five

"Well, Rodney, what have we got?" Elizabeth's nose wrinkled in distaste as soon as she stepped into the room.

"Besides the overpowering stench of decaying sea life?" Rodney's eyes were watering, and he was certain that the tingling in his fingertips was due to an allergic reaction provoked by the weird orange gunk he'd had to fight through in order to set up an interface between his computer and that of the stasis unit. He stood and stared down at the marine-encrusted pod, now thankfully empty of its resident. "Judging by the Ancient design, this is obviously a portable stasis unit similar to the module we discovered with your"-he glanced at Elizabeth-"older self."

"Except it didn't operate quite the same way," Carson put in.

"Yes, Carson, I'm getting to that, and shouldn't you still be in a hospital bed or something? Or poking around the insides of our Ancient friend?" He gestured toward the glass window, behind which Atlas lay awaiting an autopsy.

Carson didn't reply, but instead stared at the pod as if he could divine something from it. The two armed guards at the door-only one door this time, a lesson they'd learned well from Phoebus and Thalen-moved aside to let Sheppard and Ronon enter the already cramped room.

"I've asked Carson to wait until we're absolutely certain that Atlas is in fact dead," Elizabeth said. When the doctor still didn't comment, she added, "SG-1 revived an Ancient in Antarctica after being frozen for what they estimated was several million years. Atlas may yet be able to provide us with some information."

Rodney felt a stab of panic. No matter how many nightmare scenarios his hyper-cautious mind could conjure up, there was always one more that hadn't occurred to him.

Apparently reading his expression, Elizabeth reassured him. "We're keeping the body under twenty-four-hour guard."

"Oh, in that case, there's obviously nothing to worry about. Never mind the fact that this is an Ancient who had the brains to design planet-shaping devices. I'm sure a couple of Marines will be able to handle him just fine."

"Quit knocking my guys," Sheppard told him. "And remind me why you called us all here."

"According to the data log that I've been able to retrieve, it wasn't the removal from the jumper that damaged the pod. The avalanche ruptured the hull and flooded the compartment. In order to maintain the memory module, power was diverted from the stasis pod's life support, resulting in the occupant's death-well, presumable death." He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the body. "The memory module was the piece that snapped off during retrieval."

The lifeless panel now sat on the lab bench nearby, smooth and unblemished on one side, and encrusted with growth on the other. A year ago it would have been inconceivable to Rodney that the entire consciousness of an Ancient could be contained in the coin- plex matrix. A year ago, however, he hadn't yet had the experience of being stored in a similar matrix inside a Wraith Dart. "Once power to it was severed, Atlas was effectively brain-dead."

Sheppard glanced away, looking uneasy. Rodney decided to head off the Colonel's train of thought immediately. "It wasn't anything our teams did. The module wasn't attached all that securely. It looks like it was intended to be removed and plugged in to a separate power unit, much like a USB port. Abysmal design, really. Something so critical should have been much more robust. Anyway, it's likely that Ea's pod was damaged in the same way. It was just… luck, I suppose, that the memory module remained connected to the main power supply long enough for her memory to be transferred to Carson."

Walking to the pod and glancing inside, Elizabeth said, "Radek speculated that, once the unit detected a viable atmosphere and nearby host, it acted in a manner similar to the Cohall pods."

Not a bad theory, Rodney admitted to himself, especially from someone whose head no doubt hurt like hell.

"That's nice," Sheppard responded, apparently channeling his earlier remorse into impatience. "How does it help us stop the exogenesis machine?"

"It doesn't. But like the Cohall pods it acted as the equivalent of a biological black box. Just before the power completely died in this stasis chamber"-Rodney typed a command into the com- puter-"I managed to extract some basic information from the matrix. Unfortunately nothing of Atlas's memory, which is what I was hoping for. It actually contains flight data information from the transport they took to escape back to Atlantis. The module must have been connected to the transport ship's main log at some point and later to the log of the jumper. I've written a basic decryption program, but so far all I've managed to decode is the raw data on various ship systems. Atlas and Ea were the only two passengers on their jumper. I may be able to get access to recordings of their conversations, but refining the decryption program that much could take more time than we've got."

"Perhaps something in the logs will jog Carson's memory," Elizabeth suggested.

Carson seemed to shrink back a little from the sudden scrutiny of the group. "I don't know," he said hesitantly. "I'm trying to remember more, but it's terribly confusing."

"I've got the program set up to work backward through the logs" The code scrolled rapidly across Rodney's screen. "The jumper's course suggests that they approached Atlantis and failed to gain entry through the city shield."

"We knew that much already," Sheppard pointed out.

"Yes. Give me a few minutes, would you please?" Rodney snapped back. "The heading of the jumpers and the time en route should give us a good idea of where the main transport ship was destroyed… there." The computer helpfully plotted the coordinates. "Anything, Carson?"

The doctor stared at the map on the screen, but shook his head.

"Okay, moving on. Back on the main transport now. Damage reports from the battle… boring. Casualty list by hour, both boring and unnecessarily depressing. Unless any of these names look familiar?" Rodney took Carson's lack of response as a negative and turned fully back to the computer. "All right, now we're getting somewhere. The navigational data from the transport suggests that its flight originated from a planet in this system. There's a name-at least, I think that's the planet's name. Pol-"

"Polrusso!" All eyes went to Carson, suddenly pale and distantlooking. When Ronon's hand flew to his weapon, Rodney wondered for a moment if maybe the Satedan hadn't been wrong about Ea loitering around after all.

"Carson?" Elizabeth prompted. "Are you all right?"

"The planet, Polrusso," replied the doctor slowly, with increasing assurance. "When she woke, part of Ea's shock came from the realization that Atlas hadn't had time to activate the exogenesis machine that they left behind there."

The possibilities contained in that statement instantly sent Rodney's mental processes into overdrive. For the first time in the current crisis, he felt a surge of hope. "Perfect," he breathed. "That's it. That's our best shot."

"What?" Ronon spoke up, still keeping a wary eye on Carson.

"If there's a second machine on that planet, one that hasn't been used, we could learn an immense amount from it. Best-case scenario: if we can recover that machine and bring it here, I might be able to configure it to counteract the one Ea programmed."

"Is that really possible?" Elizabeth demanded.

"It should be mostly a matter of determining the order of chemical and biological processes. If one machine has the power to implement such massive change, the other will as well." Assuming the machine is still there and intact after ten thousand years. Rodney kept that thought to himself, though he knew the rest of the group must have shared it. A slim chance was better than none, and slim chances seemed to be all that this galaxy ever offered.

"Do we know if this Polrusso has a Stargate?" Sheppard asked. "Doc?"

In response, Carson held out his hand for Rodney's datapad. Noting the glazed look in the physician's eyes, Rodney balked. There was a lot of critical information on that pad, and if Carson wasn't entirely himself..

"Give it to me," Carson ordered with unusual intensity. "For God's sake, man, I have seven symbols bouncing around in my brain, and if I forget one of them because you refuse me a writing implement-"

Never mind. Rodney thrust the datapad at him, and Carson wrote down the address. Ronon examined it, but after a moment he shook his head.

"All right, this is a start." Elizabeth appeared to have regained some of her confidence. "I'll brief Caldwell and get an update on Daedalus's status. Colonel, get your team ready to go to Polrusso. Finding Atlas's machine may be a long shot, but it's all we have. Meanwhile, we'll activate the city shield… and begin preparing for a possible evacuation."

Sheppard gave a brisk nod. "Fifteen minutes," he told Rodney and Ronon. "We need to nip this planetary version of `Extreme Makeover' in the bud."

Rising from her desk chair, Elizabeth rolled her shoulders in a vain attempt to loosen tense muscles. Colonel Caldwell had listened to her explanation of the current situation with little comment and had left quickly to check in with his ship. He clearly didn't like relying on such shaky odds, but he understood that they had no real choice in the matter.

She stepped out of her office and crossed the walkway into the control room, finding Rodney and Carson in the middle of a heated conversation. Both were outfitted for the mission, which caught her off-guard. "Is this a good idea so soon, Carson?" she interrupted them.

"I think I'm uniquely qualified to self-diagnose," Carson replied with a half-smile. When it failed to sway her, he continued in a more solemn vein. "Ea's memories aren't fading the way I might have expected. Perhaps it's because she was an Ancient that they're so clear, but in any case, I think I may yet have some knowledge that could be important once we get to Polrusso." He glanced at Rodney, who had turned back to the computer.

A sudden thought struck Elizabeth. "Are you sure we can trust whatever information Ea left behind?"

"Just before she died, Ea made a conscious choice to heal me," Carson said. "I don't think she was a bad person, simply traumatized beyond her limits. I think she had reservations about what she'd done, or at least a part of her did. It's hard to say exactly what she most regretted, her actions on Atlantis or Polrusso… or perhaps it was something else entirely. I can't tell, and I…I really need to know." He started to say more, but paused, uncertain.

Aware that he hadn't answered her question, Elizabeth studied Carson's determined stance with concern. The doctor loathed going through the Stargate, and she felt certain his desire to do so now was driven by a misplaced sense of responsibility for Ea's actions. From the way he was talking, it also seemed that Ea's possession had impacted him somewhat differently than Phoebus's possession had her. While she'd known what Phoebus had planned and had been helpless to stop it, she hadn't had access to the pilot's memories. Recalling another SGC file, Elizabeth wondered if the effect on Carson might be more similar to Colonel Carter's encounter with the Tok'ra, Jolinar.

Before she could respond, however, Rodney's newfound exuberance figuratively trampled her. "Things are looking up," he announced, tapping his fingers against the computer screen. "The Ancient database indicates that ten thousand years ago, Polmsso was in the early stages of a sanctioned terraforming, with all the associated equipment that implies. Presumably the process is now complete. Even if we can't locate Atlas's experimental exogenesis machine right away, a collection of three or four ZPMs with even a small percentage of power opens up our options considerably."

"How's that?" John entered the control room, Ronon not far behind. Like Rodney and Carson, they were mission-ready.

"Well, for one thing, it would buy us more shield time, which would be best used to search whatever records exist on Polrusso for the experimental machine or at least a blueprint of the thing"

"More time might help Atlantis, but not Teyla's people," Ronon pointed out.

"Right, so obviously it's not our first choice, but can everyone please cut me a little slack here? Considering what we have to work with, the idea that any additional ZPM power might be available is something we all ought to be turning cartwheels over."

Celebration was clearly not on Carson's mind, for he was frowning, seemingly lost in thought. "Were you going to say something else earlier, Carson?" Elizabeth pressed.

Troubled, the doctor shook his head. "I can't grasp the details, but something about the terraforming of Polrusso bothered Ea. I think it may have been associated with her feelings of guilt."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "After ten millennia, I hardly think we need to worry about whatever neighbors the Ancients may have ticked off."

"That's pretty much what we said before the super-Wraith took out Gall and Abrams," John reminded him quietly.

Rodney's haughty expression faltered.

"So we go prepared," Ronon said in his usual forthright fashion.

As prepared as possible, Elizabeth corrected mentally. There wasn't time for a proper survey of the planet or its possible inhabitants. As always, they'd simply have to do the best they could. "Good luck," she told the team. "Stay safe"