Homecoming

Chapter One Maneuvers

“She doesn’t look like an alien.” Carson Beckett winced, and hoped the comment didn’t carry. He glanced around quickly to identify the speaker. Aurelia Dixon-Smythe, just as he feared. She was seated at the conference table next to Shen Xiaoyi, who pursed her lips primly. Shen had already met Teyla on her trip to Atlantis for Mr. Woolsey’s evaluation, but Dixon-Smythe was new to the IOA since the representative hanging on from the last ministry had resigned.

On the other side of Dixon-Smythe, Konstantin Nechayev, the Russian representative chuckled. “I’d like all my aliens to look like that!”

Teyla stood at the head of the conference table next to Woolsey, who was winding down a lengthy introduction. She wore the Atlantis uniform, BDUs and a uniform jacket, rather than anything more attractive or revealing, but there was no denying that Teyla was a beautiful woman. Carson had certainly never doubted it.

“The Asgard are not so pretty,” Nechayev said a little too loudly. “Short, little gray men. They look like aliens ought to look. Like they were done by Hollywood!”

Shen pursed her lips again, her eyes on Woolsey, but Dixon-Smythe tilted her perfectly coiffed head to Nechayev. “I have not met the Asgard,” she said.

Nechayev shrugged expressively, his florid face agreeable. “I have. But let us hear what the prettier alien has to say!”

I’m going to kill someone, Carson thought, making his way carefully around the conference table to the door as Woolsey ended and Teyla stepped up.

“It is a great pleasure to meet with all of you,” Teyla said, her eyes moving from one to another, “And to bring you greetings on behalf of the peoples of the Pegasus Galaxy. As Dr. Beckett has explained, we share a common genetic heritage. There is no medical means by which any of us could be differentiated from any of you, so rather than aliens let us consider one another foreigners, kindred long separated by the borders of interstellar space, now confronted with our similarities as much as our differences.”

Carson stood with his back to the door and gave her an encouraging nod as her eyes swept over his. She seemed perfectly at ease with her trader’s smile, but then he supposed that Teyla had presented many a case in the past. Certainly she’d brokered most of their food and supplies in the last two years.

“And it is our similarities that confront us. The Wraith require human beings to feed upon. If we were very different from you, it would be likely that you would not satisfy their requirements as prey animals. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Wraith find your lives as satisfying as ours.”

Teyla paused for effect, and for a moment Carson was forcibly reminded of Elizabeth. Dr. Elizabeth Weir had been the master of a moment like this. She would have convinced the IOA to let them take Atlantis home. He could not imagine a universe in which Elizabeth would not have prevailed. But Elizabeth had been lost to them for two years, and no one had ever truly taken her place.

Carson had liked Colonel Carter, but there was no denying that she was not the diplomat and administrator Elizabeth had been. He was not unsympathetic to Woolsey, though he’d worked with him only sparingly, but in his opinion Woolsey didn’t hold a candle to Elizabeth. Elizabeth had been their moral compass, their guiding star, and the expedition had never really recovered from her loss.

“But our similarities also bring us opportunities,” Teyla continued. “Despite the differences in our long-sundered cultures, we retain much in common.”

Someone nudged the door behind him, and Carson turned around to see Sheppard opening it a crack. Quietly, Carson edged out, pulling it shut behind him.

It was a good thing he closed the door, because he nearly burst out in laughter.

“Yeah, it’s very funny,” Sheppard whispered. He was wearing his usual uniform, with the addition of a harness around his neck from which dangled Torren, who appeared to be sound asleep. “Have a good laugh, Carson. Teyla has to do this meeting, and I said I’d watch him but I needed to go to the gateroom.”

“It lends you a certain something,” Carson said. “A certain ineffable dashing charm. There’s nothing like wearing a baby as a necktie to make women ovulate when they see you.”

“There’s something seriously wrong with you, Carson,” Sheppard said. He peered around the corner of the door, trying to see in the room. “Better her than me. How is she doing?”

“She’s doing very well. But whether or not that’s going to do any good, I couldn’t tell you. It’s a tough crowd.” Carson peered in at the faces ranged around the table as Teyla turned to point to something on the projection screen Woolsey had networked to his laptop.

“Who’s the guy checking out Teyla’s butt?”

“Nechayev, the Russian representative,” Carson said. “Nobody can do a thing with him. He’s a complete contrarian.” Carson put his hands in his pockets. “Of course, our representative just called Teyla an alien, so I suppose the UK has no leg to stand on here.”

“Our reps haven’t been stellar either,” John said with a frown. “I suppose politicians are alike all over the world.”

“Teyla’s doing a good job,” Carson said. “Elizabeth would be proud.”

“How’s it going?” Colonel Carter had come up behind them, peeking around Carson’s shoulder toward the door.

“Fairly well, I think,” Carson said.

Sheppard turned and Carter had to cover her mouth with her hands to keep from laughing out loud.

“Yes, I’m wearing a baby,” Sheppard said. “It’s very funny. Can we get past that?”

Torren stirred, and all three of them froze.

Sheppard paced carefully back away from the door. “What are you doing back here, Sam? I thought you were fitting out the George Hammond for her launch.”

“I am,” she said, “But Atlantis has some repair issues that needed second eyes, and I’ve spent a good deal of time with Ancient technology, so I came to pinch hit.”

“Rodney will have a cow,” Sheppard said.

“Actually, it was Rodney who invited me,” Carter replied with a smile.

“Good God!” Carson said. He exchanged a glance with Sheppard. “Rodney asked you to come help him?”

“That’s right.” Carter said pleasantly. “Some of the issues with the damaged components in the engines. I’m afraid that wormhole drive is pretty much out of the question in the near future. There are burned out components we don’t even have names for. It’s the old problem with Ancient technology — we may be able to do some maintenance, but we can’t actually reconstruct the things they built. We’re like fifteenth century people with P90s. We can point and shoot, but build one? It’s centuries ahead of us.”

“What about the hyperdrive?” Sheppard asked urgently. “Can you fix that?”

Carter nodded. “We can fix the hyperdrive. It’s not too bad, and the Asgard drives use comparable technology. It’s a matter of customizing components, not inventing them from scratch in a technology we’re only beginning to understand. With work, we should have the hyperdrive repaired in several weeks.” She looked at Sheppard keenly. “Going somewhere?”

“I hope so,” Sheppard said.

“So do we all,” Carson said. He glanced back toward the closed conference room doors. “Teyla’s doing what Woolsey calls ‘putting a face on the issues’, but I’m not sanguine.”

“We need Atlantis back in Pegasus,” Carter said. “I’m supposed to take the Hammond out on her first run, and then Steven Caldwell and I will alternate patrols with the Hammond and the Daedalus. I can’t begin to tell you how many times Steven says he’d have lost the ship if he hadn’t had Atlantis to return to. If we don’t have a base closer than eighteen days away, it’s going to make our job nearly impossible.”

“Your job?” Carson asked.

Carter gave him a hard look. “Defeating the Wraith. It’s not like we can afford to just forget about them.” She looked at Sheppard. “Or about the people who live there.”

Sheppard nodded, and there was a tone of respect in his voice he didn’t usually have for anyone in authority. “I know you’ll do your best.”

“That’s not the part that matters right now,” Carter said. She glanced toward the door. “It’s what happens in there. Since we lost the Korolev, we’ve been running on three functional starships. The George Hammond will make four, but there are no additional keels laid.”

Carson frowned. “What precisely does that mean?”

Carter’s eyes were grave. “It means there’s no money, doctor. With so many needs at home and a global economic crisis, construction on the next ship after the George Hammond has been suspended. The Russians aren’t in a hurry to replace the Korolev, either. Seven billion dollars, and she lasted less than two years in service? It doesn’t seem like a very good return on their investment. The Sun Tzu was badly damaged in the battle with the hive ship and still has to be salvaged, if she can be. Ariane’s Austerlitz class is still on the drawing board, and with our construction halted, that’s all of Earth’s spacecraft. It’s an incredibly expensive investment, and even the wealthiest nations are feeling the pinch.” She glanced back toward the conference room door. “At dinner last night Mr. Desai was making noises about Indian investment in a scientific vessel, but that’s further down the road than the Austerlitz, three to five years at best. We’re going to be alone out there.”

Sheppard’s brows knit. “More reason to take Atlantis home.”

“That’s what I think.” Carter put her head to the side. “But they don’t let me run the world.”

The conference room door opened again and General O’Neill slipped out, closing it carefully behind him. “Beckett. Carter.” His face changed when he saw Sheppard. “Sheppard, you’re out of uniform.”

“I realize the baby’s not regulation, sir,” Sheppard said, wincing as though he were ready for it.

“He’s asleep,” Carter whispered. “Don’t wake him up.”

“I see he’s asleep.” O’Neill bent down to take a closer look. Torren had his fist in his mouth, his plump face turned to the side against Sheppard’s chest. “Oh my goodness he’s big. He’s such a big boy. Aren’t you a big boy?”

Carson gave Sheppard a look of utter horror, while Carter seemed to be fighting another fit of laughter. She cleared her throat loudly. “Don’t you think we should take this conversation away from the door, sir?”

“Absolutely,” Carson agreed fervently.

Teyla smiled pleasantly as the IOA representatives reached for briefcases and jackets, gathering up their things to move on to the reception on the gateroom balcony that Mr. Woolsey had prepared for them, just some light hors d’oeuvres and cocktails in the fading sunset of a San Francisco evening. Though it was cool outside, Woolsey had assured her they would be warm enough with the addition of some heaters brought across the bay to make outdoor events more pleasant.

“A very informative presentation,” S.R. Desai said in his accented English. “You make your points with great lucidity.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Desai,” Teyla said politely.

“I wonder, have you trained as a diplomat in your place?” he asked. “Or did I understand that you are a soldier?”

“I am neither soldier nor diplomat,” Teyla replied. “In my own world I am a trader. I have represented my people for many years in matters of commerce, arranging the most advantageous sales of our goods on other worlds, and attempting to import the things we need at fair prices. We are a poor people, we Athosians, compared to many in the galaxy, and we have never been able to produce many of the medical or technical things that we use.”

Desai nodded gravely, his close cropped white hair in sharp contrast to his dark skin and dark eyes. “A very understandable circumstance.”

“This work is a change.” Teyla looked around the emptying conference room. “I was never trained to represent millions of people in matters of life and death.”

“And yet you are rising to it,” Desai said. “The world sometimes changes in unpredictable ways. Power shifts.” His eyes flicked to Shen Xiaoyi, who passed them with a sniff.

There was something to that, Teyla thought, some rivalry or bad feeling that she knew as yet too little of the history of their world to understand. There were so many stories, and she had only begun to scratch the surface of them. She could not yet put the pieces together as she did at home, all the nuances of politeness and shades of meaning that held deadly intention.

“Tell me,” Desai asked, “If your Atlantis were in the Pegasus Galaxy once more, would it be an open port?”

“I do not quite know what you mean by that,” Teyla replied. The others had almost all left the room. Presumably Mr. Woolsey had gone ahead to welcome people to the reception.

“Would ships of other nations be able to call there, other than only ships of the American military?”

“I would expect that all of our friends would be welcome at any time,” Teyla said. “The journey is hazardous, and we should never turn an ally from our door. At the moment, with the Sun Tzu badly damaged, only the American military possesses ships with the Asgard drive necessary to reach our galaxy.”

Desai’s eyes searched her face. “As it stands, yes. But no technological secret remains a secret forever. Once we know you are there, we will come. It is a matter of human nature.” He smiled, and it was not an unkind expression. “You must get your Mr. Woolsey to give you a book about the demarcation line set between Spain and Portugal at the Treaty of Tordesillas. And how well it worked.” He nodded to her gracefully. “I give you good evening.”

“Good evening, Mr. Desai.” Teyla reached back to pick up her laptop, letting him precede her from the room.

John and Sam were talking in the hallway, their heads bent together, and Teyla went to join them.

“Where is Torren?” she asked.

“General O’Neill has him,” Sam said. “Torren’s awake, so he took him to the reception.”

John shrugged. “It’s ok. It’s not like he’ll drop him off the balcony or something.”

“He’s a responsible person. Really,” Sam said, looking like the entire idea amused her tremendously. “How did the meeting go?”

Teyla spread her hands. “Truthfully, I do not know. They listened. At least most of them did. Mr. Nechayev did not, though he asked me at the break if I were married and if my husband were here.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “You know he’s hitting on you, right? And that you can punch him in the chops, IOA member or not?”

“I can handle Mr. Nechayev,” Teyla said. “Believe me, I have seen many like him when arranging trade agreements.”

“I’ll handle Nechayev,” John said with a dark look.

“John. There is no need for that,” she said, though she softened it with a smile. “And I thought you had said that you would have no part in the diplomacy, aside from the military briefing on the Wraith that Mr. Woolsey is having you give tomorrow morning before they leave.”

John glanced sideways at Sam, half a smile on his face. “For some reason Woolsey thought he’d better keep me away from the diplomatic parts.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Sam said with a grin. “But you do have to put in an appearance at the reception, and so do I, like it or not.”

“And I should retrieve Torren,” Teyla said. “I should not like for him to bother General O’Neill.”

Together, they walked through the gateroom and out onto the exterior balcony. The tables had been covered with white cloths and a buffet table ranged along one end, a bar along the other. Most of the senior members of the expedition were there looking uncommonly scrubbed, though Teyla thought that Carson must have done something unfortunate to his hair. It was standing up as strangely as John’s.

O’Neill was holding forth to Mr. Okuda and Ms. Blegan, Torren perched on his shoulder cheerfully, one arm around the back of his neck while the other tried to intercept the hors d’oeuvre in the general’s gesturing hand. Teyla made a speedy approach, John and Sam on her heels.

“Thank you so much for watching Torren,” she said, as O’Neill bent and handed him back to her, Torren making one last try for the fancy food. He giggled, curling onto her, grabbing a handful of her hair.

“He’s a good kid,” O’Neill said easily. “I know you’ve both met Teyla Emmagan, but I don’t know if you’ve met Colonel Carter and Lt. Colonel Sheppard. She’s in command of our new battlecruiser, the George Hammond, and Sheppard is the military commander of the Atlantis expedition.”

There were the usual greetings all around, and it was a few moments before Teyla could disengage with Torren, who seemed on his sunniest best behavior. Amazingly. “You are a trader,” she whispered in his ear. “You are the son of a trader and the grandson of a trader, and you have a trader’s smile.”

Torren giggled, his eyes bright.

“He’s the face of the Pegasus Galaxy,” O’Neill observed. Sam was deep in conversation with the two IOA members. He peered down his nose at Torren, who giggled again. “A very charming face.”

“That is what Mr. Woolsey suggested,” Teyla said.

“You don’t have a problem with that?”

Teyla shook her head. “If the sight of my child will convince them to assist the millions of children they do not see, I have no complaints.” O’Neill was frowning. “You think I am being used.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I know I am being used,” Teyla said. “And what of it? My people are not here to speak. If they are moved to the good by a pretty face, then do I not owe it to my people to use whatever means are necessary? I assure you, I am quite comfortable with being a cynical ploy.”

O’Neill’s eyebrows rose. “As long as you’re ok with that.”

“I do have limits,” Teyla said. Her eyes sought Nechayev, who must assuredly be here. Alarmingly, he was standing by the bar with a glass in his hand talking to John. “Oh no.”

O’Neill followed her gaze. “What?”

“I am afraid John is going to give Mr. Nechayev a piece of his mind for hitting on me,” Teyla said. “That would not be wise.”

“Into the fray,” O’Neill said, gesturing her and Torren forward and following them.

“I have been many places,” Nechayev was saying loudly, gesturing with his drink. “But it was unique.”

John laughed, a beer in his hand. “That it was.”

“We are in complete accord,” Nechayev said to O’Neill as he approached. “The Colonel and I have a great deal in common. Many common places, many common experiences. But there is nothing more true than this.” He lifted his glass and touched it to John’s beer bottle, as they said in unison, “Kandahar sucks!”

“Colonel, could you come with me a moment?” Teyla asked politely. “There is someone I have promised I shall introduce to you.”

“Sure,” he said. “Later, Konstantin?”

“Later, John,” Nechayev said cheerfully. “We must cover more ground together, yes?”

“Absolutely.” He waved his beer bottle at him as Teyla towed him away. “What’s up? Who do you need to introduce me to?”

“No one. I did not want you to antagonize Nechayev.” Teyla glanced back at the IOA member, who was now talking to O’Neill.

“We were getting along fine.” John shrugged. “He was in Afghanistan with the Russian Air Force in the 80s. It turned out we had a lot in common.”

“Kandahar sucks?”

“It’s common ground.” John shrugged again, putting the bottle down on the table behind him as Torren made a lunge for him, swinging Torren up onto his shoulder. “He was ok.”

“What did you say to him?” Torren grabbed the back of John’s hair, grinning out over the crowd like a benevolent monarch.

John shifted from foot to foot. “He was fine once I told him you were my wife.”

Teyla blinked. “I suppose that would do it,” she managed. Annoyance and fondness warred within her. He should not misrepresent her so, and yet it did no damage. It was not as though she intended for Nechayev to court her.

“It just seemed like the easiest solution,” John said sheepishly. “He’d seen me walking around with Torren earlier.”

“I am not angry,” she said. “Should I be?”

“I don’t know.” He looked off toward the railing and the sea beyond.

Teyla came and put her hand on the rail beside him, carefully keeping Torren inside. “I am not Sam, who has spent her life proving she can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

He looked at her sideways with a little smile. “You can walk and chew gum?”

“Except that I do not like gum. So I do not chew it to prove a point.”

She glanced past him at Sam, her hair swept up from her collar, wearing her beribboned service dress, talking to the IOA members. Dixon-Smythe was talking to Carson while looking around him to see who of more importance was available, while a very combed Radek was chatting up Blegan and Okuda with Sam. Woolsey had Shen to himself over by the refreshment table, with her maneuvered into a corner with her back to the rail. Desai was filling his plate a foot away, he and Shen completely ignoring one another. Beyond them, the lights of the Bay Bridge hung like pearls on a thread against the dark sky. A cool wind off the sea lifted her hair even in the shadow of the standing heaters. The towers of Atlantis glittered against the stars.

So many currents, so many conflicts, their shadows dancing over every moment of beauty.

“Your world is a very complicated place,” Teyla said.

“You can say that again,” John replied.