The Chosen

Chapter Fourteen

“There’s got to be a way to divert it.” Rodney stood with his hands on his hips, watching the oil slurp uselessly at the protrusions of rock and bits of Wraith Dart, before it veered off down the South Channel. “We don’t need to force the entire volume of water north, just the oil on the surface.”

The engineers nodded agreeably, which, while a pleasant change to some of his fellow scientists on Atlantis, wasn’t exactly contributing to a solution. He racked his brain. What they needed was a boom, some kind of floating barrier. More than one, preferably. If they could haul something like that across the entrance to the South Channel, it would force the oil to flow north while allowing the majority of the water to continue south.

This was an industrial town. There had to be something lying around that they could co-opt. A series of boats or barges would be ideal, but he’d be willing to settle for anything that floated while staying partially submerged, was rigid but flexible, and could extend across the width of the channel. Oh, and something that was at least as thick as, say, his thigh.

How could that possibly be too much to ask?

He started scanning the area for a suitable item. Artos frowned. “What do you seek?”

Good question. Vindication? Some kind of payment on his karmic debt? Not that he believed in that sort of thing. “We need to stretch something across the river that’ll divert the blackwater. Are there barges on the river anywhere?”

Comprehension was swift, but the engineer’s shoulders slumped. “There were once wooden rafts used in cleaning the bridges and weirs of blackwater, but they have fallen into disrepair.”

Another sign of the times. Still, it gave Rodney an idea. “What about wooden poles?” He drummed his fingers against one of the nearby pine-looking trees. “Didn’t I see a stack of these near the foundry? All we have to do is fasten them together end to end. Short metal hooks and eyes would do. The current will force the whole structure to curve, which will close up the gaps between the logs.”

“There are logs here.” One of the Nemst engineers pointed to what looked like a long, open work shed. “Cut and being readied for the building of houses.”

A warrior growled in contempt. “You people of Nemst. You know it violates Dalera’s laws to cut trees from this place.”

“And is it not also Dalera’s law that the warriors are to patrol outside the Citadel?”

“Whoa, whoa!” Mediator was one of the few roles in which Rodney did not excel. “You want to stand here and argue or help me save your enchanting little civilization? Generations of your kind haven’t been terribly successful in resolving that dispute, but if you think you can pull it off in a couple of hours, then by all means, go for it.”

The practical-minded engineer broke the tension. “We will need to take one end of such a contraption to the far side of the South Channel, to the shores of the Citadel. How can this be done?”

No boats, apparently. Directing a tight but tolerant smile at the belligerent warrior, Rodney replied. “Someone will have to swim it across.”

“Who among you can swim?” demanded the warrior.

Every man there shook his head. Oh, crap. Rodney’s smile faltered, and he stared across the oil-covered waterway. Didn’t that just figure. Swallowing back a new rush of apprehension, he reluctantly raised his hand.

“I swear on Dalera’s name that I had no knowledge of this.” Ushat stood stoically at attention before John.

“You mean you were close to Kesun all these years and you never once touched his Shield?” There was something a little weird about the way he’d worded that. Maybe that was why the warrior frowned in confusion. “Not even tempted? Y’know, just a little tap, just to see?”

Ushat responded with a look that plainly questioned John’s sanity. “It is against our laws.”

“The Shields were sacred, Major,” Teyla explained. At least he supposed Teyla thought she was explaining, but it seemed kind of hard to believe. Still, at this point none of them needed to be reminded of the power of faith.

“The only reason he caught it, sir,” Ford added, “was because Balzar was going psycho, shouting and screaming at Yann that we were all dead anyway, so why not have a little…” The Lieutenant’s voice trailed off.

John got the picture. He was just relieved to know that Lisera was okay. Positioning her in the Station had seemed like a good idea, and it still was, but maybe it was time they moved their entire Command Center into the same building. Protected from the Darts, it would offer them their best vantage point during the coming assault, and it could, with well-placed warriors, be readily defended from roaming mobs.

“Balzar withdrew the inactive Shield from his pocket,” Teyla continued, “and threw it at Yann.”

“Who ducked,” Ford finished with a broad grin. “It was just a natural reflex that Ushat caught it. And that’s when it started glowing.”

Looking at the warrior, John could sympathize. He remembered exactly how he’d felt when he’d sat in that screwball chair in Antarctica. Except he’d understood that it was a random gene. Ushat’s entire belief structure had already undergone a severe pounding in the last few days, but this latest incident took a left turn into the bizarre.

For once, the bizarre was a good thing. Every minute John spent playing General was another minute that he couldn’t be operating the transport. Currently they had only six people, himself included, to help evacuate villages. It was also fast becoming obvious that they needed a lot more than eight Genes in the Stations to deter the Darts from all sections of the Citadel. The damned Wraith seemed to almost enjoy playing aerial dodgem in order to make their culling runs across the city. Come morning, or when the Wraith attacks took a sharp upturn, presumably signaling the arrival of the hive ship, he’d have to order the villages abandoned and all Genes to man the Stations and perimeter of the Citadel. That would force the Wraith to cull only the outlying villages, or to attack the fortified walls on foot. Or both. Either way, an awful lot of people were going to die.

“This could explain why some Darts were crashing in the Citadel even after Yann’s rebel Genes ditched their Shields,” ventured Ford.

“People were ransacking the supplies of Shields when the Enclave was destroyed,” Teyla added. “Then many people do indeed possess the gene.”

That was when the penny dropped. John took a good look at Ushat. He could have been Lisera’s big brother. The familial connection to Kesun, who probably had been in his fifties, was now obvious. It seemed Kesun had been doing a little gene therapy of his own. He must have realized years earlier that the Chosen were a dying breed. Caught between an entrenched set of religious laws and a genuine desire to help his people, Kesun had depended on his absolute faith in Dalera, and taken the same path that the Ancient had forged ten thousand years earlier. He’d no doubt been waiting for the elderly Chosen to die off before reintroducing the ritual of touching the Shields. Then Ushat, Lisera, and who knew how many others could be revealed as long-lost descendants. It must have sorely tested Kesun’s faith when the Wraith turned up fifty years ahead of schedule.

In a perverse way, the team’s arrival from Atlantis really had been the answer to Kesun’s prayers, because their mere existence had substantiated the man’s belief in what he’d done. Unfortunately, it had also triggered a revolution. Faith in divine guidance versus free will. John wondered how many times Kesun had flipped the proverbial coin before deciding to take control of his people’s fate, relying on faith as his guide.

John caught Teyla’s eye. He wasn’t entirely certain what was going through her mind, but he suspected that her thoughts and his were running along the same lines. “You know,” he said to Ushat. “This confirms that Kesun was right. Everyone, beginning with the warriors and their family members, needs to touch the Shields to find out if they have the gene.”

“Why begin with the warriors?” Yann’s face took on a dubious look. He was obviously worried that a new form of imperialism could grow in place of the old regime. Tough to blame him.

Not about to explain that Kesun had doubtless been smart enough to sow his wild oats close to home, John replied, “Because they’ll take orders, which saves you and Lieutenant Ford from having to persuade Genes to run evacuation missions to the villages.”

“Do not feel the need to be circumspect on my account, Major,” Ushat said with a sad smile. “The mirror tells me much.”

That acknowledgment surprised John. But then, Ushat was no fool. Having seen Kesun’s likeness in himself, he’d clearly figured out where the additional Genes had come from. Now he was doing his best to assimilate that knowledge into his long-held beliefs.

Before Yann could come up with another objection, John pointed to the map and added, “Ford, Teyla, get the word out that every man, woman and child in the Citadel needs to be tested. Anyone with the active gene should transport here so that we can slot them into the grid, and maximize the distribution of the EM fields. Lieutenant Ford will be in charge of designating who goes where.” He picked up his P-90 and headed for the transport, glancing over his shoulder at Yann and Ushat. “Meanwhile, you two pair up and assist with evacuating villages.”

His own faith, such as it was, still lay in Rodney’s plan, because even if Kesun really had salted away a few Gene offspring, by morning the Wraith would be grounded, and pounding their frustrated claws at the gates. Without the oil fire, given what the engineers had said about the state of the eastern wall, it wouldn’t take long for everything to hit the fan.

At least this time he was up to his eyeballs in something other than human effluent. Instead of methane and other less than pleasant organic waste molecules, Rodney was instead breathing in doubtless lethal quantities of considerably more volatile organic compounds, like benzene — a known human carcinogen — toluene, xylene, hexane, and…and…hell, he couldn’t remember the entire list, which meant his faculties were already being affected. That he was pushing the tree stump ahead of him with splinter-coated fingers, staying upwind of the worst of the oil, was beside the point. The chances of finding a decent oil-stripping detergent in this hellhole that didn’t scour off most of his skin with caustic compounds were remote to nonexistent. How any rational person could classify crude oil as ‘sweet’ or ‘light’ like some vintage wine was beyond him.

In formulating this aspect of the plan, Rodney had assumed that the prevailing wind would help push him across the channel. However, he hadn’t banked on how effective the boom would be. The current, fed by the force of the oil, was instead pushing the entire kit and caboodle downstream until it was now almost parallel to the shore that he’d stepped from. There was absolutely no way he would be able to swim the end of the boom across the channel.

Rodney glanced back at the shore. The men were chopping down more trees — breaking more of Dalera’s damned laws — in order to extend the boom. The very fact that he could see them working meant the shadow cast by the Citadel was retreating. The twin planets were almost directly overhead, from which he concluded that they had perhaps six hours until dawn.

The crunch of gravel underfoot amplified Rodney’s complete and utter failure. He staggered up the beach, dropping the end of the boom in the thick black goo that covered absolutely everything. While he’d made more than his fair share of errors when it came to dealing with people, he’d never failed at actually doing anything in his life. This was a maddeningly inopportune moment for a first time.

Teyla’s words to Lisera, that releasing her and Lieutenant Ford had been the only way to save the Dalerans, had not been entirely true. And the hollowness of that assurance had greatly disturbed Teyla. Yet as she had stood atop the wreckage of the Dart and called the mob to set aside their arguments and work together, her appeal had not been directed exclusively at the crowd. She wondered if her team had realized this. They were her team, above all else. Despite their differences, they shared a common goal, and their foundation of common experiences grew with each day that dawned.

Her emergence as a leader of those Dalerans who would fight the Wraith face to face had first been met with uncertainty. She was not their blessed goddess, Dalera, and she was neither of the Chosen nor one of Dalera’s warriors. Acceptance had come quickly, though, for the two warriors whom she had disarmed in the Sanctuary Hall had requested to be assigned to her and given her the title of Atlantean warrior.

With these men’s assistance, Teyla had quickly discovered that the Dalerans’ skills with nets and bolas were not limited to warriors and hunters. One-on-one, few could match the fighting skills of a Wraith. But the nets were an effective way to disable the Wraith long enough to kill the creatures with axes.

As the night wore on and their ranks had been swelled by more and more arrivals, the large square at the base of Lisera’s Station, which had become their new Command Center, filled with the sounds of clanking steel. In their shops, blacksmiths were working overtime to fashion or adjust chest armor, while their apprentices sat without rest at grinding wheels, sharpening axes and other blades. Women brought pots of soup and jugs of weak ale to everyone, or sat around fires braiding nets and fashioning bolas. Every so often, someone would break into song: haunting melodies and sad love songs, including ballads that tolf of Dalera, who had been cast aside by the Ancestors for loving a man.

Amid all of it, there was a sense of renewed hope, for the Shields had been passed around and word was spreading fast. More and more Genes were being discovered each hour. Perhaps they would be enough.

Before long, though, the mood began to shift. In a gathering of this type, any information, good or bad, diffused quickly. Teyla could sense the tone of this news before it reached her. “What is it?” she asked one of the two warriors who now stayed faithfully by her side.

“Reports from the northwest wall,” the young man replied. “The lookouts there have seen the blackwater flowing downstream in unimaginable amounts.”

“That is what we wished to happen.” She was already anticipating the fall of the ‘other shoe,’ as the Major might have said.

The warrior bowed his head. “The blackwater flows down the wrong channel.”

Really, there was no excuse for not having seen the solution sooner. It had to have been all the xylene fumes. Or maybe the toluene.

“Almost there,” came the reassuring voice of the warrior.

“We had better damn well be,” Rodney growled. They’d half-dragged and half-floated the entire boom contraption upstream past the truly obnoxious cascade of oil, which fortunately had the grace to spurt out far enough for them to walk between it and the base of the cliff. Supposedly the water across the shallowest part of the river, a short rapid, had only been waist deep. Because of the spring melt, it had turned out to be chest deep but between them, they’d managed to get the boom across the river, then down the northern bank to where the channels divided.

Rodney released his end of the oil-slicked timber pole, flexed his aching shoulders, and looked out. The men began walking the other end of the boom across the now shallow neck of the North Channel to the beach on the outside of the Citadel’s walls. Then they carried it a few meters south along the embankment to the point that Rodney had been trying to reach an hour earlier. Once the men had tied off their end, the current should grab the end that Rodney held, and push it at an angle across the entrance to the other side of the South Channel, just like shutting a gate. Unless his luck changed drastically, though, there was a chance that the chain of logs was too flexible and would need help. The men waiting on the southern shore couldn’t swim out to retrieve his end if it didn’t quite reach. Rodney glanced up at the planets. They had maybe five hours until dawn.

He had to do this. It wasn’t about self-absolution or self-survival. Well, okay, maybe that was a part of it, because if this failed the chances of him — any of them — surviving… On second thought, what good would come from knowing the odds? Forget it. This was about the fact that the arrogance he’d carried around with him most of his life really wasn’t based on some deep-seated insecurity. He was right, dammit! And the sheer frustration that resulted from people’s inability to see that he was right tended to aggravate the small but persistent kernel of doubt that had dogged him ever since his father had made very certain he understood the depths of his worthlessness.

“If he’d just told me that he’d never wanted me to have a dog in the first place—”

“What?”

“Cats are better, anyway. Here, take this.” Rodney handed the engineer — Artos? Amos? Whatever — his backpack, which was somehow still marginally free of oil. “Meet me on the other side.”

However unwittingly, he’d made some sort of emotional investment in these people, and he’d be damned if he was going to write them off just because the odds against them were so low that they no longer factored into the equation. That had never stopped Sam Carter. “If you could see me now, Colonel,” he muttered, and with a grim smile, grabbed his end of the boom and stepped out with into the river of oil.