Unascended

Chapter Sixteen

Atlantis’ Stargate opened in a flare of blue fire, then subsided to a rippling pool of light inside the circle of naquadah. John lifted his P90 and prepared to walk through, Teyla and Ronon behind him.

“Oh, no no no!” Rodney came tearing out of one of the side doors, Dr. Jackson following him much more sedately. “You are not going to chase down this lead without me!”

“Rodney,” John began, acutely aware of the entire gate room staff watching. “You and Jackson were going…”

“Jackson is right here,” Rodney said. “You are not going to go hunt for Elizabeth on Manaria without me.”

“We’re checking out a lead,” John said. “That’s all. A place where this other ship is expected to make a port of call. We don’t even know if they’re there.”

“Which is why you can’t go,” Rodney said triumphantly. “And I can. If this is going to involve sitting around for hours or days waiting for a ship to turn up, you can’t leave Atlantis that long. Who are you going to leave in charge? Zelenka?”

“Zelenka’s offworld,” John said uncomfortably. It was certainly true that the IOA wouldn’t like for him to be gone from Atlantis for an extended period, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

“Lorne?” Rodney asked.

John had the infuriated feeling that Rodney already knew the answer to that. “Lorne’s with Zelenka. They went with Dr. Lynn on a regular trade mission.”

“Then who’s in charge?” Rodney asked. “Carson? Airman Salawi? Ember? Who do you think is going to pick up the phone if the SGC calls? Who do you think is going to deal with a crisis? And don’t tell me that can’t happen because it happens all the time.”

Jackson looked up at the ceiling as if suddenly noticing something very interesting up there.

Rodney poked Sheppard in the chest with a sharp forefinger. “No, you need to stay here, and I need to go.”

Ronon and Teyla were looking at him, and John suppressed a sigh. Rodney was right that he ought to stay in Atlantis. Something could happen. Something did happen way too often. And even if what happened was a surprise call from General Landry, Landry wouldn’t be happy to find out that this was like that Star Trek joke where the entire crew of the Enterprise D beams down to the planet leaving Wesley in charge. John dropped his voice. “OK, you’ve made your point. I’ll stay and you and Jackson will go. But this is not your mission, understand?”

“But I…”

“Rodney, you’re nuts on the subject of Elizabeth. There are not going to be any stupid risks in this picture. Teyla’s in charge.”

Teyla’s eyebrows rose but she said nothing.

“You listen to Teyla. When she says it’s time to leave, it’s time to leave. Got that?” He looked at Ronon, who was watching with a grin on his face. “And you’re backing Teyla up. If you have to carry McKay out kicking and screaming, you will. We are not going to have any unnecessary risks or piss off the Manarians or do any other stupid thing that seems like a good idea at the time. You are going to go, wait for the ship, and talk to the people. If, and this is a really big if, you find someone who resembles or claims to be Elizabeth, you will call in. At that point we’ll arrange for Alpha site quarantine.”

“We’re talking about Elizabeth,” Rodney said. “We don’t need…”

“Rodney, shut up,” John snapped. “We are talking about a key person who was in the hands of the enemy for months and infected with nanites, even if it is Elizabeth. Surely you, of all people, understand why we’d need quarantine? Or if you don’t, how about you ask Lorne?”

Rodney turned red, and he did have the good grace to look away. After all, when he’d been compromised by the Wraith he’d led an attack on this very gate room which had cost lives and left Major Lorne seriously injured. Fortunately Lorne had recovered and he didn’t seem to hold a grudge against Rodney, but the reasons why they had to be careful ought to be obvious. “OK, I get it,” Rodney mumbled.

Enough said. “Teyla, if you get a whiff of trouble or anything that makes you or Ronon think it’s a trap, get the hell out.”

She nodded sharply. “We will do that. And Rodney will do as I ask.” She gave Rodney a sideways glance full of that Wraithy expression that meant business.

“We’ll be careful,” Ronon said.

John took a step back. “Jackson, listen to Teyla.”

“Absolutely,” Jackson said.

“Then you’ve got a go,” John said. He watched regretfully as the four of them walked through the Stargate.

Daniel peered out the viewscreen as Rodney landed the jumper next to the much bigger ship that had to be the Durant. About the best he could say for the other ship was that it was big; with its mismatched nose and stern, and its odd protrusions at various angles, it looked like something cobbled together in a junkyard. Which it probably had been, he reflected, and it was impressive enough that it actually flew.

“What a piece of junk,” Rodney said.

Teyla shook her head at him. “They cannot all be Ancient warships.”

“Who cares,” Ronon said. There was a general hesitation, as if everyone was thinking that once they crossed the field outside to the other ship, they would have an answer to their question whether it turned out to be an answer they liked or not.

“We have to find out, you know,” Daniel said. “If there’s any chance that it might be Dr. Weir… ”

“Of course we have to find out,” Rodney said. He still hesitated.

Ronon was the one who finally stood. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

They walked across the landing field, which from the close-cropped grass was probably more usually occupied by sheep. A ladder led up to an open hatch, and Teyla stopped beneath it. “Hello?” she called.

A teenage girl wearing coveralls eventually stuck her head out the hatch. “You’re never Manarian,” she said.

“We are from Atlantis,” Teyla said.

“Right, you can come up, we heard about you,” she said. “Vyk and Annais have gone to trade with the dirtsiders. Locals, I should say, because I’m supposed to be polite. You want to talk to Dekaas, though, he’s the one who talked to the woman with no memory.”

“She was here?” Teyla said quickly. “A woman who knew nothing of where she came from?”

“Sure,” the girl said without much interest, backing up to make room for them to ascend the rickety metal stairs. “Probably had all her family killed in some Culling. It happens.”

“So it does,” Teyla said. She didn’t look dismayed by the girl’s matter-of-fact tone. Probably it was a fact of life here in Pegasus, like natural disasters or fighting in war-torn regions back on Earth.

“She knew something about medicine, so she was helping Dekaas.”

Daniel glanced at Teyla, who looked unwilling to commit herself to either hope or disappointment. “Our friend was not a doctor, but she would have known something about medicines, particularly Lantean medicine.”

“It’s down this way,” the girl said. “Follow the green signs, see? And that’ll take you to the infirmary.”

“Thank you,” Teyla said gravely.

“You’d think they’d guard the ship better,” Daniel said.

Ronon shook his head. “The girl was wearing an energy pistol,” he said. “The Manarians don’t have anything like that. She could cut them down without breaking a sweat.”

“Besides, the Manarians are hardly likely to anger their trading partners,” Teyla said. “Certainly not when they need the metal they have brought to trade.”

The infirmary was small, with only three beds, but neat and uncluttered compared to the corridor outside, where coils of wire and crates that smelled of fresh food had been left haphazardly lying. The doctor turned from his workbench where he was sorting pills into smaller bottles, and nodded to them in greeting.

Daniel couldn’t help staring. He had assumed the name was a coincidence, a common one in the Pegasus galaxy, but now that he was face to face with the man, he knew he’d seen him before. Or, at least, he’d seen his counterpart in the alternate universe he’d visited using the Ouroboros device. He was a Wraith worshipper, the trusted pet of the same Wraith who’d been so interested in finding out what made Daniel tick, even if he had to take him apart to do it.

This man looked older, though, his hair graying and wrinkles beginning at the corners of his eyes. But then the Wraith could keep their pets artificially youthful, feed them life as well as take it away. “You’re the Lanteans?” he said.

“We are,” Teyla said. “We are hoping that you can tell us of the woman who has lost her memory.”

Dekaas nodded. “Elizabeth.”

Teyla’s breath caught, and Ronon stiffened. Next to them, Rodney looked suddenly very calm, as if he’d worked out an elegant solution to a problem.

“Elizabeth’s alive,” he said.

“Is she here?” Teyla asked.

Dekaas shook his head. “We left her on Lorvine. She said she was going on to Sateda.”

“If she’s on Sateda, we’ll find her,” Ronon said.

Teyla held up a hand to quiet him, clearly more reluctant to believe yet. “Her name was Elizabeth Weir?”

“She couldn’t remember any other name but Elizabeth,” Dekaas said. “She was medium height, a little taller than you and I expect a couple of years older. Fair skin, dark hair, blue eyes. She said she couldn’t remember her home world. I assumed that she was a survivor of a Culling. Possibly of the Culling on Sateda.” His eyes flicked to Ronon.

Teyla frowned in concern. “She remembers nothing?”

“It happens,” Daniel said. “When I… went through what we think she went through, I didn’t even remember my own name for a while. It took months for most of my memories to come back.”

“She remembered a few things,” Dekaas said. “She had some medical knowledge. She read Lantean — it shouldn’t surprise me that she’s one of your people.”

“You know that she read Lantean?”

Dekaas reached into one of the metal drawers and held up a packet of sterile bandages, very clearly American military issue. “She could read the writing on this.”

“How do they have our supplies?” Daniel asked.

“We gave medical supplies to the Genii,” Teyla said. “And to various other worlds.”

“And we pay well for them,” Dekaas said. “But probably not as much as we’d have to pay if we traded directly with you.” He shrugged. “They’re being put to good use.”

“What else did Elizabeth tell you?” Rodney asked impatiently.

“She had been involved in a war on her homeworld. Some conflict in which she was not a soldier, but was helping refugees. From what she said, the war was fought with technology far beyond any I have seen used except in fighting the Wraith. She spoke of… ” He reached for a notebook and flipped back through its pages. “The Red Cross, Vietnam, Bosnia. And a man called O’Neill.”

“That’s Elizabeth,” Rodney said, as if daring anyone to contradict him.

“It certainly sounds like it,” Daniel said.

“Come on, it has to be her.”

“Or someone with her memories. Last time you saw Elizabeth, she was in a Replicator body.”

“Do you have a photograph of her?” Teyla asked.

“That won’t tell us whether she’s a Replicator,” Ronon said.

“Even so.”

“I didn’t think to take one,” Dekaas said.

“The Wraith don’t use photographs the way we do,” Daniel said, making the connection.

Ronon looked at him sharply. “The Wraith?”

Teyla turned to look at him. “Please explain,” she said, and he was reminded abruptly of Jack O’Neill’s least friendly moods. He was already regretting speaking the thought aloud, but there seemed nothing to do at this point but answer.

“I know you’ve spent some time living with the Wraith,” Daniel said.

Dekaas’s face went very still. “I can’t say that I remember you.”

“You wouldn’t. Dekaas was one of the humans on the hive I visited in the alternate universe,” Daniel said, for the benefit of the rest of the team.

“That was in an alternate universe,” Teyla said. “We do not know that the same events transpired here.”

“No, of course we don’t, but… I think I’m right.”

Dekaas considered them cautiously. “Alternate universe?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You are making guesses,” Teyla said. “And this is not why we are here.”

“No, I’m… well, yes, but it’s an educated guess. Alabaster and Guide did say that this universe’s version of Seeker also had human worshippers.”

“What they said was that he kept pets,” Ronon said.

Dekaas seemed to be struggling to decide whether to speak or not. “Alabaster,” he said finally. “The Young Queen. She survived?”

“She did,” Teyla said. “Guide sent her to safety, and was nearly killed himself.”

Dekaas let out a humorless laugh. “Guide. You’ve seen Guide.”

“Oh, we’ve seen him,” Ronon said. “He nearly killed one of our people.”

“And has been an ally more recently,” Teyla said firmly.

“We’re not exactly friends,” Dekaas said. “Guide used to tell Seeker that he ought to either eat me or let me go, because I was too dangerous to keep as a pet. I think he inclined toward eating me.”

“But Seeker didn’t.”

“No. He taught me most of what I know about science and medicine. I think at first he wanted to find out how much I could understand. And I think the answer disturbed him as much as it fascinated him.”

“You said Guide wasn’t your friend. Was Seeker a friend?”

“My captor. My teacher. I… with all due respect, it’s really none of your business how I feel about the fact that he’s dead.”

“I’m sorry. I’d be interested in hearing more about your experiences, though, if you—”

“Why would you want to? And why are we even trusting this person?” Ronon said. “Why do we keep trusting information that came from the Wraith?” His voice was rising, and he took a menacing step toward Dekaas, who returned his gaze calmly. It couldn’t be the first time he’d faced down someone who would have liked to kill him.

“I’m not Wraith,” Dekaas said.

“No, you’re just a Wraith worshipper.”

“Okay, let’s calm down,” Daniel said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rodney said. “We need to find out what’s happened to Elizabeth.”

“That is right,” Teyla said. “We are not here to judge anyone for having cooperated with the Wraith in the past.”

Ronon scowled. “We’re the ones cooperating with the Wraith right now.”

“We are here to find Elizabeth,” Teyla said. “And we will not discuss the Wraith any further.” Her voice cracked like a whip on the last words.

Ronon took a deep breath, looking as though it actually steadied him to be given an order. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Daniel opened his mouth, saw Teyla’s expression, and closed it again.

“I was about to say,” Dekaas said evenly, “that I ran several tests to determine whether Elizabeth was human. I’ve done a sonic scan and looked at her blood under a microscope. She appeared to be completely human, in perfect health. Unusually perfect, as if she’d never had any injuries or major illnesses in her life.”

“Well, you’re obviously woefully under equipped to actually do genetic testing here, but everything you’re saying would fit,” Rodney said.

“Would it?” Dekaas tilted his head to one side. “I’d very much like to know what you think happened to her.”

“What made you suspect she might not be human?” Teyla asked instead of answering.

“She said she was afraid she might be a robot or a Replicator. I assumed it was trauma-related. Sometimes people who have been through traumatic events—”

“Like being attacked by the Wraith,” Ronon said.

“—feel detached, like their bodies don’t really belong to them.” He considered them. “But you are also worried that she might be a Replicator.”

“When the Replicators—” Daniel began.

“Our friend was a prisoner of the Replicators before they were destroyed,” Teyla interrupted. “It is a long story. But we had long since given up hope that she had survived.”

“Every test I could run showed that she was human. As you’ve pointed out, I don’t have the facilities to run a genetic scan, but I saw no evidence of anomalies in her blood. As far as I can tell, she’s a human being.”

“And she’s on her way to Sateda,” Rodney said.

“She should have reached Sateda by now. She planned to travel there through the gate from Lorvine, not by ship. I hope you can find her.”

“Thank you,” Teyla said. “We appreciate your help.”

“The captain’s gone to trade with the locals. I’m sure he’ll want to get the news from Atlantis if you can stay a little longer. All we can pick up here is third-hand news from the Genii, and they don’t exactly tell the Manarians everything they know.”

“I have matters to discuss with my team first,” Teyla said. “If you will excuse us for a few minutes?”

“Of course,” Dekaas said. He frowned. “That other one of me,” he said to Daniel. “The one in what you call an alternate universe. He’s still aboard the hive?”

“As far as I know.”

Dekaas nodded. Whether he was glad or sorry, whether he wished he could save his counterpart or would rather have exchanged places with him, Daniel had no idea. “Give Guide my regards,” he said, a flicker of amusement crossing his face. “It ought to annoy him to hear that I’m not dead yet.”

“I’ll do that,” Daniel said, and then had to quicken his pace to keep up with the others as they left the room.

They assembled outside the ship. “We need to get to Sateda, not waste time chatting with the Travelers,” Rodney said. “We can send them an email or something later.”

“We will discuss that in a minute,” Teyla said. “First, we are going to discuss how we conduct ourselves in conversations with our allies.”

“Some allies,” Ronon said.

“I realize that might not have been the tactful moment—” Daniel began.

“Are you even capable of being quiet?”

“I’ve been asked that before,” Daniel said after a moment’s pause. “So, all right, shutting up for the moment.”

Teyla let out a frustrated breath. “Ronon. We are no longer at war with the Wraith. I know that was not your decision, and I understand how hard that is for you. But at least for now, they are our allies, and we will be dealing with more and more people who have made peace with the Wraith.” She looked up into Ronon’s face. “You are my friend, and I would trust you with my life. But if you cannot be civil to our allies, I do not want you on my team.”

“It’s Sheppard’s team.”

“Not while Colonel Sheppard is in command in Atlantis. Do you question his judgment in placing me in command in his absence?”

There was a pause. “No,” Ronon said. “You’re in charge. If you order me to be polite to Wraith worshippers—”

“I am asking you to refrain from giving direct insults to our allies, whether they are Wraith worshippers or Wraith,” Teyla said. “If you can say nothing civil, at least be silent.”

“Asking isn’t ordering.”

“Then it is an order.”

Ronon nodded, not happy, but accepting.

Teyla turned to Daniel. “Dr. Jackson. I have heard a great deal about you from Colonel Carter, and I believe you respect her as much as she respects you. I assume then that you do not respect my authority because I am Athosian, rather than because I am a woman.”

“I… no, that’s not true.”

“I warned you off that line of questioning, and yet you persisted, even when it jeopardized our mission. You held your own idle curiosity to be more important than my authority. Or are you going to tell me that you do not know what I meant?”

“No, I knew you didn’t want me to ask him about his time with the Wraith. But it could be important to understanding how the Wraith treat their human worshippers, and how they’re likely to interact with humans now that they’re administering the retrovirus to them. They need a model for how to deal with humans that’s not based on treating them like livestock, and their relationships with their human worshippers are the closest thing they have to equal relationships with humans—”

“That is not our mission.”

“You can’t just put everything into little boxes and say, we’re only going to find out about one tiny thing and not try to fit it into some kind of broader context. If we want to understand the story of the Pegasus galaxy—”

“And you are uniquely suited to doing so, despite the fact that you have only just arrived here?”

“I’m just trying to understand. Like everybody else in Atlantis.”

“The members of the Atlantis expedition have shared knowledge of their culture with us as we have shared ours with them,” Teyla said. “They have fought the Wraith and the Replicators with us, and many of them have died. They are part of our story, and we are part of theirs. But you are not even part of the Atlantis expedition. You are here at your pleasure, and you are on this team at mine. And I have seen nothing to persuade me that you have any skills at working as part of a team.”

“I don’t take orders well,” Daniel said. “I admit that—”

“Then I will only give you one. Go back to the jumper, and wait there until we have spoken with the captain of the Travelers’ ship. That is not a request, and I am not asking you for your opinion about my decision. Is that clear enough?”

“Crystal clear,” Daniel said from between gritted teeth.

“I am glad we understand each other,” Teyla said.

Elizabeth woke. She lay in a bedroll on the floor of one of the rooms of the Paiden Regional Clinic, the other members of the salvage team sleeping nearby. In the doorway one of the men was keeping watch, looking out over the empty street and the stars paling with the coming dawn.

Already the dream seemed to fade. There had been a woman, an alien woman and a danger. To her? To Elizabeth? It was hard to remember. But she was certain of one thing the woman had said. She would soon be home.

Their packs were heavy when they left the Regional Clinic. Elizabeth’s held three piece of handheld electrical equipment and two manual blood pressure cuffs. They’d left the electric ones behind on the theory that you could take blood pressure just as well with the manual ones, and anything that didn’t waste power was good. Her pack also held two dozen metal implements, mostly surgical clamps and scissors, things that were beyond what the Satedans could make today, but which had been commonplace before. She also had two heavy half empty bottles of disinfectant, another thing that used to be dirt cheap but which was now incredibly valuable.

Margin Bri said as much as Elizabeth hoisted her pack onto her back.

“I understand,” Elizabeth said absently, adjusting the straps to distribute the load better. “It’s the same thing I saw in Bosnia. Everyday things become incredibly valuable when suddenly there’s no way to replace them.”

Margin put her head to the side. “Where is Bosnia? I haven’t heard of that Culling.”

“I have no idea,” Elizabeth said. The words had just come into her head, but she thought about them as they walked back to the rail station. She was remembering more. There were more pieces to the puzzle she was assembling. “I don’t remember a lot of places I’ve been since I left home.”

Margin nodded. “Some don’t,” she said. “It takes everyone differently. But you’re here and that’s what matters. You survived.”

“I did,” Elizabeth said. What she had survived might not be what Margin thought it was, but it was horror enough. Whatever it was, she had completely forgotten it.

The rail station was just as they’d left it and they passed through, turning south to follow the tracks. Suddenly there was a noise behind them, a scattering of stones and the low whine that Elizabeth recognized as the sound of a Satedan energy pistol powering up. They were standing in the middle of the tracks with little cover.

“Get down!” Margin Bri yelled, pulling one of the others off to the side.

There was almost nowhere to go. Elizabeth crouched, dodging back to the edge of the station platform. It only rose a couple of feet at the corner, but at least it was concrete. She reached for her side, for a weapon that wasn’t there. She was unarmed. They were all unarmed except for some knives.

“Stand where you are,” Margin Bri called out. “Show yourself or we’ll return fire.”

Nice bluff, Elizabeth thought.

“We’ve got you in our sights,” a man called back. “Identify yourselves!”

Elizabeth didn’t hesitate. “If you’ve got us in your sights, you know we’re not Wraith,” she said, standing up with her hands well to the sides.

There was a noise at the other end of the platform where a short flight of concrete steps led down to the tracks. An old man with a grizzled beard stood up, holding an energy pistol pointed straight at her. “Who are you then?” he demanded.

“A salvage party from the city,” Elizabeth said. “Satedan. Now put the gun away.”

“Why should I believe you?” he asked.

“Do we look like Wraith to you?” Elizabeth beckoned to Margin, who stood up, her heavy pack on her back. “We came looking for medical supplies. Which I bet you did too.” The old man was wearing a bulky pack, but it looked mostly empty. “Let’s talk about this.”

“From the city?” the old man said. “That’s impossible. They were all killed.”

“Some Satedans have returned,” Elizabeth said. Her eyes didn’t waver. “Put the gun away and let’s talk.”

“Dad, put the gun away.” A young woman stood up from the shelter of the steps, and after a moment a second did too. They were so alike as to be almost twins, but the one who had spoken had hair a shade darker and stood an inch shorter than her sister. “Come on, Dad.”

After a moment he wavered, returning the energy pistol to a holster at his belt. “OK.” He drew himself up. “I’m Beron Eze. These are my daughters Jana and Vetra.”

“This is Margin Bri,” Elizabeth said. “And I’m Elizabeth Weir. We’re friends.”

“How could you have come from the city?” the taller young woman, Vetra, asked. “There was nobody left. The Wraith were using it for their hunting games.”

“Not anymore,” Margin said.

“There are several hundred people there now,” Elizabeth said. “Ushan Cai is their elected leader. The Stargate is open and they are trading with other worlds.”

The other woman, Jana, shook her head in wonder. “What happened to the Wraith?”

“There’s a treaty,” Elizabeth said. “Among hives. They’re leaving Sateda alone.”

“For now,” Margin said. “But that’s something. Where did you come from? We haven’t found any people from outside the city, though Ushan Cai thinks there must have been survivors.”

“Escavera,” Beron said. “I have a farm near Escavera, up in mining country. The first Cullings didn’t bother with it because we’re way out in the country, and then we used the old mine shafts when they came back. They’re too deep to detect life signs from a Dart. There are a couple of dozen of us, a few families from remote farms and some miners. Me and my girls here, we’re getting by.”

“But we needed medical supplies,” Jana said. “So I talked Dad into this trip.”

“We had no idea there were any people here,” Vetra said. “We thought maybe we could salvage some things to take back with us.”

“Come to the city with us,” Elizabeth said. “It’s only another day’s walk. We will be there by nightfall. You can talk to Ushan Cai and work out supplies to take back. I know he’ll want to talk to you about where survivors are.”

Vetra looked at her father. “Dad?”

He nodded slowly. “OK. That seems reasonable.”

“I want to see what’s happened,” Jana said. “We need news. Let’s go.”