Unascended

Chapter Thirteen

John bent over Teyla’s shoulder at the communications board in the gateroom, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably as he looked at the incoming video transmission through the Stargate. “Oh, hi, Larrin,” he said.

The woman looked amused. “Hello Sheppard.”

“Long time, no see,” John said. “Everything OK on your end?”

“Yes.” Her smile widened. “The only reason I’m calling is because your friend Mr. Woolsey asked for anyone to let him know if there were any reports of a woman with no memory.”

John straightened up as Teyla felt her breath catch in her throat. “A woman with no memory?”

“A couple of our ships were trading recently on a world called Mazatla. One of them just rendezvoused with me and they said that the Mazatla had a woman that they were asking around about. They’d found her wandering around a field and she had no memory. They were asking if anyone knew her.”

“What did she look like?” Teyla put in, forestalling John’s question.

Larrin shrugged. “Dark haired, pale skinned, average height. Nothing remarkable.”

“Mazatla,” John said. “Where is that?”

“I’ll send you the gate coordinates. It’s an underpopulated world with subsistence farming and hunter/gatherers. We trade for food there.” She leaned forward to transmit the gate address. “It only has an orbital Stargate.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” John said. “I appreciate it, Larrin. I’ll buy you a drink next time.”

“You wish,” Larrin said, and cut the transmission.

Teyla looked up at John, one eyebrow rising. “Buy you a drink?”

“Just being friendly,” he said. “Friends. As in people who tell you important things you want to know.”

“Do you think it is Elizabeth?” Teyla asked.

“I think we need to go find out.” John headed briskly to the office, where his jacket lay over the chair.

“You mean we should go find out,” Teyla said, following him. “Mr. Woolsey left you in charge in Atlantis.”

“It’s just a quick fact-finding mission,” John said. “Asking friendly people a few questions. Tell Ronon to get up here. We’re checking out a jumper.” He stopped, that quirky smile at the corner of his mouth, and she knew he’d just been looking for a reason. “It’ll take an hour, tops.”

“If you say so,” Teyla said.

The gate was indeed orbital, high above a planet roughly half water and half land, the land lush with green forests and plains. Massive river systems snaked through low lying areas, and white clouds swirled above.

“I’m taking us down at the coordinates Larrin gave us,” John said. “Let’s see what they can tell us. Teyla…”

“I know,” Teyla said. “I will do the talking.”

“You always do,” Ronon said from behind her, but there was no heat in it. He was back to his teasing little brother tones, a good sign.

“That’s because she’s good at it,” John said.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Ronon asked.

“Look out for trouble.”

“Perhaps it would be best if you discreetly circulate and see if you can find Elizabeth,” Teyla suggested.

“That’s a thought,” John said. “You negotiate. We’ll just have a nice, casual look around.”

Through the front windscreen Teyla could see golden plains unfolding, grasslands with grazing herds which startled at the jumper’s passage. They slowed, a settlement of tents emerging, two characteristic bare spots in the grass where Travelers’ ships had landed. At that altitude it was possible to see people, many of them clustered around stalls and cook fires. They looked upward at the jumper curiously, but since it looked nothing like a Wraith ship there was no panic. After all, they traded with the Travelers.

“I’m going to set down there where the Travelers did,” John said, bringing the puddle-jumper around in a wide bank.

“They will be less alarmed that way,” Teyla said. “Let us keep this as normal as possible. We are Lanteans who also hope to trade.”

“That’s a plan,” John said.

Teyla was pleased by the greeting they received. Though Mazatla had only an orbital gate, clearly the inhabitants had extensive trade with the Travelers, and were not, as so many populations of isolated worlds were, suspicious or frightened of strangers. Indeed, her explanation that they had been told of good trading by the Travelers was accepted with little discussion. That they were Lantean was a matter of some note, but their ship was not so different from those of the Travelers, except that it was smaller.

“Can’t carry much in that,” one of the headmen said skeptically.

“It passes through the orbital Ring,” Teyla explained. “And as we live on a very cold world, we are eager to trade for fresh food.”

John shifted behind her, his P90 slung across his chest. It was, after all, a very plausible reason for their presence, and an arrangement they had with various allies across the galaxy.

Consequently she was shown samples of various vegetables, which Teyla spent a great deal of time examining at length, and then spent another hour at least bartering the contents of the jumper’s first aid kit for six bushels of grain and two of kammar.

John turned one of the green, spiky kammar around in his hand. “Like some kind of prickly pear,” he said.

“They are very tasty,” Teyla said. “And I believe they taste more like your artichokes.”

“OK.” John picked up one of the bushels and carried it toward the jumper. “We could have some artichokes.”

The negotiation had reached the point where their hosts were breaking out the drinks and insisting they stay as spectators for some kind of game, which meant it was time for her question. “Oh, by the way,” Teyla began, as though it had just occurred to her. “Our friends said there was a woman here who had lost her memory? We have a friend we are looking for.”

“The Forgetting Woman!” the headman said. “She was here. She came with the group from Pina. They’ve already gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Back to their homes, I think.” He shrugged. “The Gathering is nearly over.”

“And if we wanted to see if she is our friend, where would we go?” Teyla asked.

A younger man leaned in. “The Forgetting Woman didn’t go with them. She went with the Travelers. She went on Lesko’s ship.”

“Not Larrin’s?”

“I don’t know Larrin,” the headman said. “Lesko was the one who was here. She went with Lesko’s people.”

“Where did they go?” Teyla asked.

The younger man shrugged. “Who knows? The Travelers go where they want. I think they said she was going to find her home.”

Teyla suppressed a sigh of frustration. “Do you know anything else about her? Did she say anything? Did she give a name?”

The younger man nodded. “She said she was from a city. And that her name was Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth was changing the dressing on one of the wounded men when Dekaas returned to the aid station. She looked up at him and he shook his head.

“She didn’t make it,” he said quietly. “Intracranial bleeding.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment. No matter how many dead, no matter if she’d known them or not, it was never easy, never possible to simply dismiss.

There was a sudden rumble, and the inner wheel of the Ring began to turn. Someone screamed, and there were voices shouting out orders, the sounds of people running.

“Evacuate to the back caves!” Fenna yelled. “Get back! It may be the Genii again!”

Of course Elizabeth ran the other way, toward the gate. Why would it be the Genii? They had already taken everything worthwhile. Sora wouldn’t return for what was here. Elizabeth didn’t even pause a moment to wonder how she knew that. She simply hurried into the large chamber with the Ring.

The last chevron locked and light exploded out. Five or six miners had taken refuge behind boxes, two of them with Genii bolt action rifles and the rest with mining tools. One was Fenna.

“Hold your fire,” she said grimly. “Wait until you’ve got a good shot.”

Three figures stepped through the pool of light, dark against the brightness behind. They were not Genii.

“Wraith,” Dekaas said at Elizabeth’s elbow.

The one in the center wore a long black coat and his hands were empty and held to the sides. He was smooth faced, a tattoo like a sweep of leaves and tendrils up the side of his face, his hair pulled back with a single bronze clasp. The other pair were masked drones holding their stunners at port arms. “People of Lorvine,” the middle Wraith said loudly, “I have come to speak with you.”

“Obviously,” Dekaas muttered, “Or you’d have come through with stunners blazing.”

Fenna got up from behind the makeshift barricade. “What do you want?”

“You are their queen?”

“I’m the quartermaster,” she said, which seemed to satisfy him.

The gate deactivated behind him. “I have come to tell you that according to treaties recently concluded Lorvine lies within the mandate of my hive.”

“You want us to be filthy worshippers?” a man called out.

The young Wraith, for he was young, Elizabeth thought, from the way he hesitated, turned to face the speaker. “You are too few to Cull and we do not need your ore. Fortunately for you, you have fallen inside our mandate instead of some other. We will allow you to live in peace.”

“What treaty recently concluded?” Fenna asked with a frown.

“Between the members of the alliance that defeated Queen Death,” he replied.

“I thought the Genii defeated Queen Death.”

“So they say.” He lifted his chin. “But it was my queen who defeated her mind to mind in single combat, not the Genii.”

“Who is your queen and what’s her lineage?” That was Dekaas, his voice cutting unexpectedly through the hubbub.

The Wraith turned to face him. “Waterlight of the line of Osprey,” he said proudly. “And what would you know of such matters?”

Dekaas shrugged.

“What does she want?” Fenna cut in. “What’s the price of our lives?”

“She asks that you acknowledge her sovereignty. She asks me to pledge in her name that we will not feed on Lorvine except upon those who have agreed to be part of the trial of a retrovirus, and who have volunteered to do so.”

A babble of voices broke out. Dekaas’ brows knit. “A retrovirus? Why would we do that?”

“It strengthens the human body so that feeding upon a human doesn’t kill them,” the Wraith said.

“You mean like that enzyme?” Dekaas demanded. “We’ve seen the results of that. It’s as deadly as the feeding, just slower.”

“This is not the same,” the Wraith said. “It has been tested on many humans so far with no lasting ill effects. It does indeed allow feeding without death.”

“And why would we allow that?” Fenna asked. “That’s crazy.”

“We will feed in return for providing assistance,” the Wraith said. His eyes swept over the crowd. “I see that you have injured among you. We could heal your injured for a price.”

“That’s impossible,” someone said.

“It’s not,” Dekaas replied. His eyes never left the Wraith. “But life must be taken from one to give to another.”

“No longer,” the Wraith said. “Our scientists have rendered that unnecessary. A treated human may be fed upon with no ill effects, and thus life may be given to another.”

“And what do you get out of it?” Fenna demanded.

“Food, of course.” The Wraith looked over them again. “We will return. If any of you have chosen to participate in the trial, you may come with us then.” He gestured to one of the drones, who stepped forward to dial the gate.

One of the men with bolt action rifles rose to oppose him, but Fenna gestured him back. “Let them go,” she said. “No sense calling trouble down on us.”

“A wise choice,” the Wraith said.