Unascended

Chapter Eight

Daniel watched as John brought the jumper down through the orbital gate toward the planet hanging round and blue beneath them. Even after all these years in the SGC, there was still something magical about seeing planets from space, something that walking through a Stargate didn’t entirely capture.

The jumper began to dive down through the atmosphere, a map scrolling across the heads-up display and showing coastline and a river. The ground rose up beneath them, resolving into the patchwork of fields and coastline that Daniel was more used to seeing from an airplane, and then into a broad river wending its way toward the sea and branching into meandering tributaries. John followed the course of the river, skimming over an expanse of green marshland.

“Alabaster has agreed to meet us at Pilgrim House,” Teyla said.

“Where she used to suck life out of her worshippers,” Ronon said.

Teyla appeared unruffled. “In exchange for healing those who were sick and dying.”

“We’re not going to argue about whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing right now,” John said firmly. “We’re just going to have a little chat and try to find out what she and her people know about the Asgard.”

John set the jumper down at the edge of the marsh near what appeared to be a fishing village. A couple of small boats bobbed at anchor, and Daniel could see white sails flashing farther out to sea. Birds wheeled in the air and settled to roost on the ledges of sea cliffs above the waves.

“Not in the marsh again,” Rodney muttered as John headed for the back hatch.

“Well, they haven’t built us a nice, flat, dry landing pad since last time, so, yes.”

“I bet the Wraith used transport beams to get down here.”

“You mean culling beams,” Ronon said.

John had his hand on the hatch controls, but he turned, his face stone. “We are not doing this here,” he said. “Anyone who doesn’t want to play nice with the Wraith can stay in the jumper. But we are not arguing about the Wraith in front of the Wraith.”

“I hear you,” Ronon said after a moment.

“Good.” John palmed the controls, and the rear hatchway of the jumper opened, squelching as the end of the ramp sank into marsh grass. “Let’s go meet the Wraith.”

Daniel would have preferred not to have to be introduced to the Wraith wet to the knees and smelling of marsh, but it didn’t seem to be a tactful moment to point that out. He stayed close to Teyla, who seemed to have a better knack than John for sticking to mostly dry ground, and tried to step where she stepped. She was using one of her bantos sticks to sound uncertain footing, and he wished he’d had the foresight to bring a stick himself.

“Is this your first time dealing with the Wraith?” Teyla asked.

“Not exactly my first time, no. A few years back my team and I were accidentally transported to an alternate version of Atlantis — it’s kind of a long story. While we were stuck in that universe, I was taken prisoner aboard a Wraith hive.”

“And lived to tell about it?” Teyla asked. “You are very fortunate.”

“I know I am. I think in retrospect that the Wraith who was my main captor was keeping me as … something between a pet and a biological specimen. He didn’t know what to make of humans who didn’t already know about the Wraith. It was an interesting experience.”

“I am sure it was.”

“That was back in the first year of the Atlantis expedition, so we just filed the report and didn’t think about it much. But now that I’ve looked over your records — and seen the Wraith delegation that came to Atlantis when we were fighting Queen Death — it’s interesting, because I think one of the Wraith aboard that ship was the same one that you call Guide. Todd.”

“Guide,” Teyla said. She looked genuinely interested. “Was he the leader of the hive that captured you?”

“I thought Wraith hives always had queens.”

“Usually they do. But it is not unheard of for Wraith to live in hives where the queen has died, or where the survivors of defeated hives have gathered together without a queen. It is a precarious existence, but some prefer it to submitting themselves to a strange queen’s authority. Guide was in command of one of those hives for several years.”

“This one had a Wraith Queen. Believe me, I met her.” He remembered all too vividly being the focus of her cool curiosity, her mind pressing heavily on his own. It wasn’t an experience he particularly cared to repeat.

“That universe’s version of Alabaster, perhaps.”

“That will be a little disturbing. I guess we’ll see.”

They came out of the marsh onto a path that led toward the village. Several girls who were apparently cutting grasses at the edge of the path stopped to stare at them, and the oldest stepped out a little protectively in front of the others, tucking wayward strands of red hair behind her ear.

“We don’t mean you any harm,” John said, spreading out his hands in reassurance. “We’re looking for Pilgrim House.”

The girl relaxed a little, although she still eyed their clothing with some suspicion. “I can show you the way to Pilgrim House. I don’t know how much room there is left for you, though. Pilgrims have been coming for days and days. You’re come awfully late.”

“Is it a special celebration?” Daniel asked.

The girl frowned at him. “The Bride is here again,” she said, as if that ought to be obvious.

“Our friend has been sick,” Teyla said, putting her hand protectively on Daniel’s arm as if she didn’t trust him not to wander off.

“Oh,” the girl said, nodding in sudden tactful understanding. She spoke to Daniel in the carefully loud tones of someone addressing a senile centenarian. “Come with me.”

“She’s expecting us,” John said. “We’re friends of… the Bride.”

Ronon’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t argue.

“I’m sure that’s a great honor,” the girl said, although she looked as if she didn’t really believe him.

“Let’s just do this,” Ronon said.

“This way,” the girl beckoned. The team followed, and the other girls followed as well, now apparently more interested in the odd strangers than they were shy. The path was little more than a beaten track, although here and there unshaped stones had been set to mark its boundaries, probably to prevent travelers from straying into the marsh. “There’s a road, you know,” the girl said as if following his thought, looking them up and down with the superiority of a teenager who couldn’t imagine being silly enough to go wading in the marsh.

“I’m afraid that we strayed from the road,” Teyla said.

“It’s hard to miss if you watch where you’re going.”

“You’re being rude, Vannie,” one of the other girls said. “They’re strangers, like. Anyone could fall in the marsh. My little brother falls in up to his armpits all the time. He does it just to vex my mam, I expect.”

“Your little brother is five years old,” Vannie said.

“Vannie.”

“We are grateful for your help in finding our way. We have only been here once before, and are not used to following the path,” Teyla said.

“Then how do you know the Bride?”

“That’s kind of complicated,” John said. “And I’m not sure you’d believe me if I explained.”

“Some people said she went away to the stars,” Vannie said, in a highly skeptical tone.

“My mam says she did,” one of the younger girls said.

“And how would your mam know?”

“Because the Bride said, before she went away. And her handmaiden that came with her this time, she said, too.”

“Some people say all kinds of things,” Vannie said, shaking her head.

“Anyway, the important thing is that the Bride came back,” a third girl said, in the tones of a peacemaker.

“Of course she came back,” Vannie said.

“Of course?” Daniel couldn’t help asking.

“She’s our Bride,” Vannie said, as if that were something anyone ought to know.

Pilgrim House was a long, low building that looked more than anything like a barn. Smoke rose from a chimney at one end of the stone building, and the broad doors they faced could have admitted a team of oxen. Behind the building, a tent appeared to have been pitched, maybe to house those who wouldn’t fit inside.

The long building might have once been a barn, but inside, it was clearly a cross between an inn and an infirmary. People had spread blankets at one end of a long, low room, making little camps around the hearth. Bundles of their possessions lay on the blankets, and several of them were passing around bowls of some kind of stew that was simmering over the fire.

At the other end of the room, the ill and infirm lay on low beds, most with family members sitting nearby to tend them. A girl who couldn’t have been more than ten moaned, and her mother stroked her hair to quiet her. Next to her, an old man with swollen joints shifted as if to ease pain, his expression one of resignation rather than alarm. A woman just as old sat by his bedside with a drop spindle, playing out lengths of undyed wool into a lengthening thread and then winding the thread round the spindle with swift, practiced hands.

A bustling woman with a shawl around her shoulders came up to them and looked them over critically. “You’re certainly from far away.”

“We are here to see the Bride,” Teyla said.

The woman snorted. “So is everyone here, young lady. You’ll wait your turn like the rest. I don’t see any of you dropping dead on the spot.”

“That’s Mala,” Vannie said. “She’ll tell you what to do.” She and the other girls hovered around the entrance of Pilgrim House as if hoping that something exciting involving the odd strangers would happen now.

“I see you’ve shown them the way,” Mala said. “Not over well, if they’ve been bathing in the marsh.”

“That was before we found them!” Vannie protested indignantly. “We wouldn’t let pilgrims fall in the marsh.”

“Not on purpose,” one of the other girls said.

“I should hope you were old enough to have that much sense. Now, what’s become of those reeds you were cutting?”

There was a general shuffling of feet among the girls, and Mala nodded sharply. “Go and get them, then,” she said, and waved the girls off. “Now, as to you, let’s find you a place where you can rest while you wait your turn.” The last was said in an extremely firm tone.

“I think the Bride will want to talk to us,” John said. “We’re from Atlantis, and she’s expecting us.”

The woman’s expression changed. “More Lanteans. I should have known from the leather you wear. It’s true, the Bride told her handmaiden that she would speak with you when you arrived.”

“More Lanteans?” Rodney said quickly. “Is there a Lantean with them?”

“The Bride’s new handmaiden,” Mala said. “She’s outside with the Bride and the other holy ones. I’ll go and get her.”

She wove her way around pilgrims and bundles of possessions, and ducked outside through a side door. A moment later, Jennifer Keller came in through the same door. She smiled when she saw them, her eyes on Rodney’s face, and Rodney lit up at the sight of her. They hurried toward each other, and then checked awkwardly at the last minute, as if not sure whether to hug or not.

Jennifer seemed to settle on an awkward sort of hand-patting gesture. Rodney cleared his throat and turned it into an even more awkward handshake. John and Teyla looked at each other in obvious sympathetic embarrassment.

“Hi, Rodney,” Jennifer said.

“Hi, Jennifer. Dr. Keller. Jennifer.”

“It’s good to see you in one piece, Dr. Keller,” John said.

“You mean uneaten?” Jennifer said dryly. “I’m fine. Alabaster and her men are outside in the tent they’ve set up. Every time she comes in here, people swarm around her, and it was getting to be a bit much.”

“Can you fill us in before we go out there?” John said.

Jennifer looked around at the limited privacy available, and then drew them over into the least crowded patch of space she could find. One of the local women offered her a cup of tea, which she took with a nod of thanks.

“We’re here testing the retrovirus,” Jennifer said, cradling the cup of tea between her hands. “This is our second round of tests on this world. There are three other research sites, and we’re making repeat visits to each one. Some of the locals have been keeping an eye on the people who took the retrovirus, checking for any sign of side effects.”

“Any problems so far?”

“Nothing unexpected. The same temporary illness when the virus is first administered. Most of the reactions have been mild, but we’ve had a few cases of seizures. Not the kind of side effect that would be acceptable in a drug being tested on Earth.”

“You’re still doing it, though,” Ronon said.

“We’re working on altering the retrovirus to reduce the risk of serious side effects. Alabaster’s clevermen are spending a lot of time on that problem in the lab. But Alabaster is determined to go ahead with the testing, and it’s either help her or go home.”

Ronon shook his head. “You think she’d let you go home if you wanted to?”

“I’m not her prisoner,” Jennifer said. “And she’s pretty determined to maintain good relations with Atlantis, so she’s probably not going to kill me even if I told her I wanted to leave. I don’t know how long it would take her to actually get around to dropping me off somewhere with a gate, though.”

“We have a jumper right here,” Rodney said.

“Thank you,” Jennifer said. “But I’m doing okay. I’d rather be here where I can see for myself what the retrovirus is doing.” She shrugged. “Besides the initial side effects, we haven’t been seeing any long-term problems emerging. Nothing like the Hoffan drug. There have been some people who got sick in the weeks after they took the retrovirus, but no more than in the control group of people who didn’t get the injection.”

“And the retrovirus works?”

“It works,” Jennifer said. “At least, so far it does. All the initial experimental subjects survived being fed on with no apparent long-term side effects. That’s one thing we’re checking for on this visit. Alabaster and her people are also feeding on some of the same people to see if there are any harmful side effects of repeated feeding.”

“Are we sure the people are okay with this?” John asked.

“They say they are.”

“They think she’s a god,” Ronon said. “That’s not exactly ‘informed consent,’ right?” Rodney looked at Ronon sideways, and Ronon met his eyes with a little shrug. “Your people say that a lot.”

“I’ve explained what we’re doing and why we’re doing it as best as I can,” Jennifer said. “Believe me, I know this is all ethically questionable. But so is letting people lose years of their lives or die preventable deaths when we can help them.”

“Okay,” John said, looking around at his team as if to forestall further discussion. “Dr. Keller is going to go on doing what she’s doing. That’s not actually up for debate, because it’s not actually our mission or our call. We’re going to go talk to Alabaster about the Asgard.”

“I’ll take you to her,” Jennifer said.

They followed Jennifer out the side door of the building into a tent, its woolen flaps lowered despite the warmth of the day. It was dim inside, and Daniel blinked to accustom himself to the light.

“I’ll let you talk,” Jennifer said, and ducked back through the door into Pilgrim House. Daniel turned, and got his first good look at the Wraith they were here to see.

A scarlet-haired Wraith queen was sitting in a woven reed chair across the tent, white-haired males standing by her chair or standing about the tent in attitudes of what Daniel suspected was boredom. One of them he recognized at once, both from photographs and from his sojourn in the alternate universe.

“Hello, Guide,” John drawled. “We always love to see you.”

“Sheppard.” The tall Wraith bared his teeth. Daniel wasn’t sure whether to interpret that as a smile or not.

The Wraith queen stood, inclining her head, and both Teyla and Rodney looked up as if she had spoken.

“Hello, Alabaster,” John said.

“Welcome,” Alabaster said, but addressing Teyla rather than John.

“It is good to see you again,” Teyla said, sounding more like she meant it.

The Wraith were a matriarchal society, Daniel remembered from the few cultural notes on the Wraith they’d managed to collect. A few queens ruling over many males, who were themselves divided into castes: warriors, scientists, and the non-sentient drones who served as manual labor and cannon fodder. They had been resistant to attempts to explain that human society wasn’t set up the same way; it wasn’t clear to Daniel whether they didn’t understand, or understood but still couldn’t bring themselves to treat human males as equal to females. When they acknowledged that humans were people at all.

“Our test of the retrovirus goes well,” Alabaster said. “We have fed on the same humans again, only months after the first experiment. It weakened them, but they will live.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” John said. Despite the casual words, Daniel wasn’t fooled into thinking he was relaxed.

“You’d hate to have to train new pets,” Ronon said.

“Ronon,” John said firmly.

“I’ve always thought it was unwise to become too attached to pets,” Guide said. “They never live long.”

Alabaster looked quellingly at Guide.

“You look very familiar,” Daniel said to Guide, because it seemed like they were sliding into a conversational abyss that desperately needed filling. “I wonder if the hive I visited in a parallel universe was a version of yours.”

Guide looked at Alabaster. Alabaster put her head to one side and looked at Daniel as if she weren’t sure she had understood him correctly. “Tell me about this other universe.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” John said.

Daniel glanced sideways at him. “How can it hurt anything? We were sent there by accident and we don’t know how to get back, so it’s not like we’re giving away valuable information. And if I understand the theory, there are an infinite number of parallel universes, so basically anything that can possibly happen did happen somewhere. So whatever I say about that universe can’t possibly be a surprise.”

“You’re going to tell them no matter what I say, aren’t you?”

Daniel shrugged one shoulder, not feeling the need to answer that question directly. “We accidentally wound up displaced in our quantum state so that we were in an alternate reality,” he said. “Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

“I have heard of such things,” Alabaster said.

“Okay, good. I can’t tell you how it worked, well, I wouldn’t tell you how it worked if I could, but I also genuinely don’t understand how it worked. I’m not that kind of scientist. Anyway, in the other reality, the Atlantis mission wasn’t doing so well—”

“How unfortunate,” Guide said mildly.

“—and I was taken captive by a Wraith hive. You were one of the ship’s officers, I think,” he said to Guide. “But the queen wasn’t Alabaster. She looked a lot like her, but… older, I think. It wasn’t the same person.”

“So you have met another Osprey queen,” Alabaster said. He wasn’t sure what to make of her tone. “There are few of that line left. I suppose she did not favor you with her name?”

“No. I don’t think she was used to having long conversations with her human prisoners, frankly. The only Wraith who actually introduced himself to me was called Seeker.” He could see both Guide and Alabaster react, although he wasn’t certain why. It pricked his curiosity. “You know that name.”

“He was one of the lords of my mother’s zenana,” Alabaster said after a moment. “Her Master of Sciences Biological.”

“He kept pets,” Guide said. “I always told him that one of them would stab him in his sleep someday.” He sounded more nostalgic than annoyed.

“Perhaps one might have, had he lived so long,” Alabaster said. “He was killed when my mother’s hive was destroyed by her rivals. I escaped, only to be trapped on this planet without a gate for many years.” She raised her chin to look at Guide, who bent his head at her expression. “Besides my son, my human ‘pets’ were my only company.”

“There was a younger queen aboard the hive, but I don’t think that she was you,” Daniel said.

Alabaster shrugged. She circled him as she spoke; it might have been only an unconsciously threatening gesture, but it made him glad he had submitted to the retrovirus injection and endured an uncomfortable afternoon’s illness as a result. “Perhaps a sister. Or perhaps in a different universe, my mother had different priorities about what sort of daughter to give to our lineage. We do not leave breeding as much to chance as humans do. “

“How exactly… ” Daniel began, and then noticed John’s look of impatience. “That’s probably not important right now. I’d be very interested in talking to you at some point about Wraith society, though.”

“Your new cleverman is curious,” Alabaster said to Teyla.

“He is visiting from our home world,” Teyla said.

Alabaster looked him up and down. “A pallax of She Who Carries Many Things?”

“Daniel Jackson is a colleague of Colonel Carter,” Teyla said. Daniel wasn’t sure if that constituted agreement with Alabaster or not.

“Her consort’s son,” Alabaster said, as if putting pieces together. She nodded slightly more respectfully to Daniel.

It took him a moment to put that one together himself. “Oh, no,” he said. “No, no. That’s not, Jack is actually a very common name—”

“The Asgard,” John said doggedly. “We’re here to find out what you know about the Asgard.”

“And I wouldn’t say that Jack is her—”

“We are very interested in any information you can share,” Teyla said smoothly.

Alabaster stopped circling Daniel, to his relief, and settled herself back in her chair. She looked up at them, considering. “My people took little notice of the Vanir, the ones you call the Asgard when they first appeared in this galaxy. We thought at first they were some misbegotten experiment of the Lanteans. As they did not attack us, we paid them little mind. We had enough trouble with the Lanteans.”

“Only then you won the war and the Lanteans abandoned the Pegasus Galaxy,” Daniel said.

“And the Vanir began expanding their territory. They began experimenting on humans on worlds that were within our feeding territories. We investigated, and it became clear that we had encountered a new and technologically advanced species.”

“More advanced than you,” Rodney said.

Alabaster didn’t seem to take offense, although Daniel felt that had lacked tact. “In some ways, they were more advanced even than the Lanteans, although their ships proved more fragile than the Lantean vessels. There were clevermen among them who were continuing to improve their technology even as we observed them. It became clear that we could not risk letting them live.”

“Of course not,” Ronon said.

Alabaster looked up at him, meeting his eyes calmly. “I might have argued for a different choice, had I lived in those times,” she said. “But my people were vulnerable, after our long war with the Lanteans. And the Vanir were not even our distant kin, as the Lanteans were. We did not think of them as people, and they were too dangerous to hunt for food.” Alabaster shrugged, as if that led to a foregone conclusion.

“We’re looking for any of their early settlement sites,” Daniel said. “Places they may have lived before the Wraith pushed them back to the single planet they inhabit now, or where they may have conducted their experiments on humans.”

“It was long before my time,” Alabaster said, looking up at Guide.

“Not before mine,” Guide said. “But Snow’s hive never fought the Vanir, or paid them any attention. They did not infest any worlds within our feeding territory.”

“You said you knew something about them, though,” Daniel said.

“One of my clevermen does,” Alabaster says. “He is called Ember, and he was born on a hive that fought against the Vanir long ago. He says he remembers the location of some of their outposts, and may have learned something of their technology from the devices they left behind.”

“He’s one of Guide’s men,” John said. “He did some work with Zelenka when we were dealing with Queen Death.”

“He is now one of my men,” Alabaster said, her tone sharp. “My father does not rule in my hive. Much as I value his counsel.”

Daniel couldn’t help glancing at Guide to see how he’d taken that; he wasn’t sure himself whether it worked out to a compliment or to being put in his place. Guide bared his teeth. Was that a smile? — and then sketched an elaborate bow.

“As my queen says.”

He was itching to understand the context for that bit of byplay better. Guide was Alabaster’s father, which had given him status, and probably the role of supervising her as a child, but as an adult Wraith queen, she was, had to be, in charge. It couldn’t be an easy transition, though, under the best of circumstances, and Guide had been in command of his own queenless hive for years.

Alabaster’s eyes met Guide’s for a moment, and he had the sense of silent communication. He wondered if it amounted to we are not arguing in front of the humans.

“Is your cleverman Ember here?” Teyla asked Alabaster. “May we speak to him?”

Alabaster rested her hands on the armrests of the chair, her long claws dark against the woven reeds. “I have not yet heard what you offer in exchange for this information.”

“I don’t suppose our friendship is enough, here.” John said.

Alabaster tilted her head to one side. “Do you threaten that our people will not be friends if we do not share this information with you?”

“We aren’t friends now,” Ronon said.

“Ronon,” John growled.

“What do you want in return for the information?” Teyla asked.

Alabaster leaned back in her chair. “Make me an offer,” she said.

“We’d be willing to share the information we learn with you,” Daniel said.

“Whoa, wait,” John said. “We haven’t actually been authorized to do that.”

“No one said we couldn’t do that.”

“We try not to operate on the basis of ‘everything that’s not expressly forbidden is permitted’ around here.”

“I don’t know, a lot of the time… ” Rodney began, and John shot him a sharp look. “Okay, no. We can’t just hand over Asgard technology without permission.”

“Are you expecting to find examples of their technology?” Alabaster asked with interest.

“Mainly we’re hoping to understand more about early Asgard settlement of this galaxy,” Daniel said. “Which may or may not include finding any technology they left behind.”

“It seems to me that if you will not share your discoveries, we would be making a poor bargain,” Alabaster said. “It would be better to send our own men to investigate the sites Ember remembers, if you believe there is useful technology to be found there.”

“I am sure we can come to some agreement,” Teyla said, looking as if she wished she could hit with a stick the next person on her team who spoke. “We are willing to make the effort to search these sites, with no guarantee that we will find anything of interest. And we will accept any risks involved.”

“Like being chased by dinosaurs who set fires,” Rodney said.

“They were just big birds,” Ronon said.

“The best-preserved sites are likely to be on worlds that are uninhabited by humans,” Teyla went on. “We are both aware that those worlds are usually uninhabited for a reason. We are willing to do the work of investigating with all its attendant dangers, and to share any information about the history of the Asgard that we learn with you.”

“We are uninterested in the history of these creatures,” Alabaster said. “But not entirely uninterested in their technology. We will share our information with you if you are willing to share your discoveries with us.”

“We need to talk about this,” John said. “Can you give us a few minutes?”

“We are not going anywhere,” Alabaster said, leaning back in her chair. She glanced at one of her male attendants, who hurried to bring her a cup of water.

They stepped back into Pilgrim House, where Jennifer was bending over the bed of a man with an injured leg, checking his bandages. She patted his hand reassuringly and spoke quietly to his family before coming over to join them.

“Well?” she said.

“We can’t give the Wraith Asgard technology,” John said bluntly.

“Oh,” Jennifer said. “Yeah, probably not.”

“Why not?” Daniel asked. “What we have is a weather machine. Part of a weather machine. And what we’re looking for is more climate control technology, right? The Wraith don’t live on planets. They need a weather machine like a fish needs a bicycle.”

“They could use it to improve their shipboard life support systems.”

“Sure, maybe, but under what circumstances is that going to give them a serious tactical advantage, especially if we have the same technology? I’m just saying, this isn’t something they’re likely to find useful or interesting when they see it.”

“And what if we find something else?” Rodney said. He glanced at Jennifer for support, probably unconsciously, and Jennifer nodded.

“Which you might.”

Daniel shrugged. “What if they go looking themselves and find something else? I mean, now that we’ve put the idea in their heads.”

“Which was your idea,” John pointed out grimly.

“I know. I’m just saying, I think we’re all better off if we’re the ones who investigate the sites, even if that means sending the Wraith some information about what we find. Because if the Wraith find something interesting on their own, they’re not going to come running to share it with us.”

John gritted his teeth. “Okay. I see your point. But if we find a cache of Asgard weapons—”

“Doctor Jackson has said that is highly unlikely,” Teyla said. She gave them all a pointed look, which Daniel tentatively translated as let’s not plan to double-cross the telepathic aliens in front of the telepathic aliens.

“It is,” Daniel said. “Highly unlikely.”

“All right,” John said grudgingly. “Let’s go make a deal.”

Alabaster looked up as they came back into the tent. “Have you consulted with your men to your satisfaction?”

“Indeed I have,” Teyla said. “We are willing to share anything we learn from the Asgard sites with you, including information about their technology. That said, as we are the ones investigating the sites, any actual artifacts that we find will of course remain with us.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Alabaster said. She glanced up at Guide, who met her eyes for a long moment without speaking aloud. “This is acceptable to us,” she said. “I will send Ember with you to show you the location of the worlds he remembers.”

“We only need to speak with him,” Teyla said.

Alabaster smiled, and he did think that was a smile. She looked like someone enjoying a well-played game of chess. “And yet if none of my men goes with you to the sites, how will I know that you are not holding back information about your best discoveries?”

“Would we do that?” John said.

“We would in your place,” Alabaster said. “It would be foolish not to, and surely you do not take me for a fool.”

“All right,” John said. “He can come back with us to Atlantis. We’ll talk to Woolsey about it and see what we can work out.”

“And I will instruct Ember that he is not to share information with you unless he is permitted to accompany you to investigate the settlement sites.”

“I think we understand each other,” John said.

Alabaster looked amused. “So we do.” She looked up at Jennifer. “If we are finished with this matter, you may send in the next of the pilgrims.”

Jennifer’s eyes went to Ronon, who had stiffened visibly at the words. “I don’t think you’re going to want to see this,” she said.

“I don’t,” Ronon said, and walked out.

“I’m not sure any of us want to see this,” John said. “I’ll go with Ronon.”

“Well, it’s my job, so here I am,” Jennifer said.

“Actually, I’d like to observe if that’s appropriate,” Daniel said. “I assume there’s some kind of ritual around the process?”

“Perhaps another time,” Teyla said, looking at Rodney, whose expression was hard for Daniel to read. “I think it is best if we wait outside.”

“As you like,” Alabaster said, as the man with the injured leg came in, supported by his wife and a younger man who looked like his son. The two of them began helping him to kneel in front of Alabaster.

“This is Edric,” Jennifer said, checking a mark on the younger man’s arm circled in black Sharpie. One of the Wraith made notes on a handheld device. “In experimental group two. Retrovirus administered three days ago.”

As they went out, the younger man knelt beside his father, and Alabaster stood. Daniel had time to see that her claws were very sharp indeed, and the mouth-like slit on her feeding hand very dark against her pale blue skin, before Teyla drew the door firmly closed between them.