“No, not entirely.” Teyla’s eyes met hers. “But we will live with that, you and I.” She knew too much, had seen too much in those awful moments when Jennifer was dying at Guide’s hand, had seen too much before and after. A dark passage, like a tunnel leading down into darkness, into places she did not want to go. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. Just of the creatures that lived there. Some of them were way too interesting.
Bits of a fairy tale came to mind, something in one of her books when she was a kid, about a princess who ate a pomegranate seed. Just one seed, red as blood, her life mingled with Guide’s, fed back to her. If that wasn’t a pomegranate seed, she wasn’t sure what was.
I don’t want to change, Jennifer thought, thrusting the story away from her. I know who I am.
“You shouldn’t overdo it, right?” Sheppard asked Teyla, frowning. “You should take it easy.”
“She should,” Jennifer said briskly. “And she should eat as normally as possible. That’s what will get her strength back.”
“You heard the doctor,” Sheppard said, but he didn’t look at her. He was looking at Teyla, the corners of his eyes crinkling when he smiled.
“I promise I will rest,” Teyla said. She slid down off the side of the examining table. “And I will see you day after tomorrow, Doctor?”
“That sounds fine,” Jennifer said. “I’ll clear you for duty if you’re in good shape then.”
She watched them leave together, Sheppard protectively one step behind through the doorway like a consort with his queen.
Guide had swept her up like nothing when she had fallen, her knees giving out though her life was restored, had carried her through the hive. It should have been terrifying, going in and out of consciousness like that, carried into darkness against a Wraith’s chest. But it wasn’t. He had already restored her. If he had meant her ill he would never have done that. Teyla followed after, a light in her hand burning unbearably bright…
Jennifer shook her head, putting the probe in the used instruments caddy to be sterilized. There was no reason for her to go aboard the hive again. Teyla was back to normal, and if Guide needed to, he could come here. She was the Chief of Medicine in Atlantis, and that was exactly where she was staying.
Jennifer went over to the narrow window, looking out across the towers of Atlantis glittering with ice from the rain that had frozen, sparkling with dazzling brightness in the sunshine. Rodney would get better, and then everything would be back to normal.
Chapter Fourteen
Osprey
In the City of the Ancestors, Teyla Emmagan dreamed.
In her dream, she once had a name and a past. She had walked in springtime beneath the cool blue sky of Athos, leaves budding on the trees in the uplands, though the valleys were already green with spring. She had a name, though it was gone from her now. So much was gone. There had been a man with a beard who pulled the cart she rode in, a red beard and a wide smile, but she could not remember his name. There had been a boy older than she. He walked beside the cart, ranging back and forth, filled with energy. He had dark hair and a square face. And she did not remember his name.
No one named her here, not even Kairos, the assistant who bent over her, only human as she was, his homely face a study in concern. She could feel his concern, feel it touch her like water falling from the sky.
She remembered rain. It had rained on the morning that marked her seventeenth year, and she remembered no mornings after.
“Vital signs are stable,” someone said. One of the Ancestors. One of the gods. She must have been badly injured somehow, she thought. So badly that they had petitioned the Ancestors to save her. She did not remember it. But there had been people who would have done so. The red bearded man. The boy. Even Kairos. Perhaps that was how she knew his name. He had brought her here to save her.
She closed her eyes against the brightness, the lamps that never flickered and never died, the lights of the Ancestors. She closed her eyes and dreamed. She dreamed of home and springtime, of the lake with its still water and a soft mist rising, a white waterbird taking flight.
“That is the ninety-first of the females,” one of the Ancestors said, and he did not even draw the sheet over her still face, distorted by purpling blotches beneath the skin.
“The other nine are stable,” another said.
Indifference. No sense of loss. What terrible thing had happened that so many died? She turned her head, but there was only the quiet of the room, white draped beds with patients, the two Ancestors standing by the bed at the end of the room. Too far away for her to have heard. She had thought they stood close at hand.
One of them shrugged. “We’ve only lost one of the males. The Y chromosome is acting as some protection against the most radical changes brought about by the retrovirus. Perhaps…”
A surge of anger. She felt it as though it were within her, but it was not. Kairos stood nearby, and his hands closed at his sides. It was him. The anger came from him, brought forth by their words that she did not understand. But he did. And it filled him with despairing rage.
“Kairos,” she tried to whisper, but nothing came out. Not a sound escaped her.
And yet he turned unerringly, his eyes filled with tears. “I am so sorry,” he said.
“Little one.” The voice was a whisper in her mind. No words were spoken, but she heard them anyway. A woman’s voice, older, softer.
“Yes?”
“Can you hear me?” Soft, urgent.
“Yes.” She waited in darkness. She had woken in darkness. Only the fitful lights of a few machines winked here and there, like the stars she half remembered. “Who are you?”
A momentary picture in her mind, a woman’s distorted reflection in a mirror. Forty, perhaps. Black haired, with olive skin, a round face and brown eyes, tall and full breasted, a white cloth holding back her pinned up hair. And then, sadly, “I don’t remember.”
Her voice was like the comforting dark itself, like waking from a bad dream to find that your mother is waiting, that she is safe and so are you…
…like tucking your child safe in her blankets, whispering her back to sleep… An answering picture of starlight, of night through a window, a sleeping child.
“You are Night,” she said. “I will call you Night, and we will be together in the dark.”
A hesitation, as though there were something she were keeping back, as from a child who has been very ill. “Do not let them know you can hear me,” she said. “Little one, please be safe. If they know we can speak like this they will kill us.”
“It is only a blood draw,” Kairos said. “I will be quick and try not to hurt you.” His hands were gentle on her arm. It was not because of him that she screamed.
When he lifted her arm into the light she saw it rightly for the first time, mottled green skin like something long dead, dark emerald veins twining around the back of her wrist, the back of her hand. Her palm was opened, turned up, purpled tormented flesh surrounding a long gash across her hand, lips open and straining like a second mouth.
She screamed. She screamed until the second needle slid into her flesh, returning her to oblivion.
The sky was blue above the ice. When she was well enough they moved her to another room, one with a window that looked out on the sea. Storm clouds blew across and left thick snow behind them, glittering crystal in the morning.
She sat in a chair beside the window wearing nothing but the white shift they had given her. It was they who were offended by her nakedness, even though she was not made in their image anymore. Her body was as hairless as a child’s, shaded from palest green to the dark emerald tint of her nipples. Her black hair had gone shocking white, like a grandmother of eighty summers. And yet it still fell all the way down her back, just as she had brushed it before… Before things she could not remember.
“Are you warm enough?” Kairos asked.
Of course she was. There were no drafts, and inside was the same temperature all the time,
even beside the windows onto snow. Everything was perfect.
*Little one.* This time when she heard the voice in her mind she was not surprised, only turned to see who had spoken.
She did not look like the image of the woman in the night, but the voice was the same. Tall, yes. Full breasted. Black haired still. But her skin was green as a lizard’s, her yellow eyes slitted like a cat’s.
*Night.*
She wore the same white shift, sat in one of the gravity chairs used by the very sick. It slid across the floor so that she might sit beside the window, looking out on the sea. *I am glad you are not dead,* she said.
*So am I,* she replied.
*There are seven besides us,* she said. *The rest are dead.*
*I don’t understand.*
She turned her head, yellow eyes hard though her voice was sad. *Little one, I wish that you did not have to.*
One day, Kairos was gone.
She asked one of the other attendants. Her voice worked now, though it was low as a man’s.
“He volunteered for the second trial,” the attendant said, and did not meet her eyes before he hurried away.
The gods jested. Sometimes they laughed. When she washed, standing in the basin with the spray in her hand the guards made rude remarks about her, talked about her in ways that no one ever had in her hearing, the way that no man of her people would have permitted. She said nothing, eyes cast down. Perhaps the retrovirus had affected her mind and she did not understand.
*They are not gods,* she whispered in the darkness, in her bunk in the bare room with three other women.
*No,* another said. She was plump and young, shorter by a head, her red hair scarlet as fresh blood over ashen skin. Cloud, like a mountain of clouds seen from the sea, billowing and distant, with the sun rising behind them. Red sky at morning.
They did not speak with words, except to say excuse me, or to move something. There were microphones and cameras. They were observed by the medical staff night and day. They did not seem to need to eat or excrete normally, though they drank water. It was fascinating.
*I do not understand.*
*They are not gods,* Night said. *Now speak of what you remember. We must remember together. We are not witless.* Her voice was soft but resolute. *We must use our minds if we are to go home.*
*Home,* Cloud said, and spun the picture of a city for them, of white towers against the sea. *I dwelled in the City of the Ancestors, where I served the gods as my parents and grandparents did. I served in their crèche. I cared for their children.* Her voice was wondering. A picture then, a plump, blonde young woman, blue eyes too wide apart for beauty. *I dwelled in the City of the Ancestors. Once.”
Expelled from paradise to the nether regions, she thought. There was some story about that, about those banished by the gods, but she did not remember.
*What has happened to us?* Cloud asked.
*I do not know,* said Night.
*Kairos knew,* she thought. *Kairos knew.*
It was eight days before she saw him, and she hardly recognized him. His flat, homely face was transformed, grooves beside his nose making his face seem narrower, his hair gone white and his skin pale instead of the rich brown it had always been, just as hers had.
*Kairos?* She spoke his name to his mind and he did not know it, only cringed and put his hands over his eyes. There was nothing but confusion there, huddled in the corner of one of the common areas wearing naught but a white shift. He did not know his name anymore.
She went to him and sat beside him, and at last he let her take his hand. *You wanted to know,* she said. *You wanted to know everything the Ancestors had to teach.* She remembered that much. He had gone to the City of the Ancestors to learn. He had become a healer. They were proud of him. Now the taste of his mind was like ashes in her mouth, bitter and tainted, like scraps of burned bark turning on the wind.
*Who am I?* he whispered.
*You are Ashes,* she said.
The day after they were locked away, each in her own place, each by herself. Alarms blared and yet she did nothing, only sat with her back to the wall, her arms around her knees.
*What has happened?* she said.
Gryphon answered. Her mind voice was very soft, even when they were not separated by stone and glass. *One of the men has killed someone.*
*Who?*
*A god.* Gryphon’s voice was quiet. *They are saying that he killed a god and drank his blood.*
It was a small thing. She did not like that guard. She did not like the way he looked at her. And so when he came past she willed that he would not see her.
He didn’t. He blinked, examined the bars and the locking panel, and then he sounded the alarm.
The other guards laughed at him. “She’s right there,” they said as she sat against the wall. “Right in front of your nose. Been hitting the off duty fun early?” And the guard, the one she hated, looked silly and shook his head. Of course she was right there. She’d been there all along. The camera logs showed that. She hadn’t moved the entire time he’d been searching for her, not though he came within arm’s length of her.
Somehow he had not seen her.
*I can touch their minds,* she said. *I can make them see what I wish.*
*Test it,* Night said. *See what you can do.*
“I hate this damned base,” one of the attendants said. “The weather’s always terrible.”
The other one frowned, glancing at the window beyond the laboratory where she sat, patient and mute. “What are you talking about? It’s fine.”
“You don’t see those clouds rolling in?”
“You’re crazy. It’s clear.”
Clouds and mist, rising up like memory, a thick fog hiding the sea and snow…
“Oh,” the second attendant said, perplexed. “Boy, that fog rolled in fast.”
*Gryphon?*
*I burn,* Gryphon said. *My legs are weak and my hand throbs all the time. I eat and I eat, but it comes right back up. They have put the nutrients into my veins but it does no good.*
*Where are you?* Cloud asked.
*In the laboratory,* Gryphon said. Her mind voice was thready. *They think I will die. And then they will cut me open and see what failed.*
*We will not let that happen,* she said.
*And how will you prevent it?* Gryphon said. *Little One, you are powerless.*
*Not so much as they think,* she said.
*I am Wind,* he said, and his voice was strong.
*I did not know the men could speak.*
*Some of us,* he said, and he showed her a picture. A red sailed ship leaped over the sea and he stood at its tiller, a golden skinned man with long black hair, glorying in the play of air. It moved the ship, lifted it, and he sang with it, one with the joy of the sail. *I was a ship’s master,* he said. *And a soldier.* A naked sword in his hand, the sweet curve of its blade like silver as they prepared to repel boarders…
*Blade,* she said, seeing it in his mind. *Soldier of the queen.*
*Who are you?* His mind voice was curious, and so she showed him what she remembered, a slender girl just out of childhood, honey skin and dancing brown eyes, a girl who loved music and the green places. The lake came back suddenly in memory — morning, and a fog rising from the lake beside the Ring of the Ancestors, a white bird lifting from the water.
“I am Osprey,” she said.
*She is dying,* Cloud said, soft so that none besides Osprey might hear. *Gryphon is dying. They say three men are too. It is not only that we do not take sustenance. It is that we cannot. We cannot metabolize food. And so in time we will all starve.*
*You know this?*
*I took it from the mind of one of the doctors,* Cloud said, and her mind voice was tinged with embarrassment.
*You can read the minds of the gods?* Osprey let her astonishment creep into her tone.
*Yes. Some.* She stopped, then began again. *But I cannot make them see things as you can. I’ve tried.*
*H
ow long?* Osprey asked. *How long do we have?*
*I don’t know,* Cloud said regretfully. *They do not know. Weeks? But I do not think Gryphon and the men who are already ill have so long.*
We will starve. Already she could feel it when her mind touched Gryphon’s, a long burn like a pain in the bones. And Gryphon was not the only one. It rested on some of the others, even Wind…
*If I go I will take some of them with me,* he said, and there was steel in his voice. *They can only kill me sooner, and better weapons than starvation. I’ll take some of the bastards down to the shades with me.*
*We all will,* Night said. Her voice was even and steady. *Better to die together if we must die.*
Osprey’s voice was quiet. *Better not to die at all. What would it take to get to the Ring?*
*And go where?* Cloud demanded.
*Anywhere,* Wind said. *Anywhere is better than here.*
Midnight and snow. Outside, the winds kicked the snow to a whiteout. Inside it was warm and nice.
Cloud waited, her red hair falling free around her face, lips as red as cherries. She lounged against the bars, waiting, her mind open to her sisters’.
The guard stopped on his way downstairs. There was no reason to. Except that she was strangely beautiful. “What do you want?” he asked.
“You,” Cloud said, and smiled. “I want you.”
He stepped nearer, his eyes on hers, unblinking.
“I want you to open the door so that I can touch you,” she said. “Open the door, beautiful man.”
He ran his hand over the lockplate, one that only the gods could open, and the bars sprang apart.
“Thank you,” Cloud said, raising one long finger to brush along his cheek. “Now come with me back to the control room and turn off the cameras.”
“Why?” he whispered, though his eyes never left hers.
STARGATE ATLANTIS: Secrets (Book 5 in the Legacy series) Page 15
