“The Colonel is right,” Teyla said. “You do not need us for that. Perhaps there is some better way to make your point.”
Coyt gave her a level stare. “We are merely fulfilling our current obligations —”
“Yes, we’re making a point,” Devor interrupted. “It’s not us who want to change the terms, it’s the Wraith. We are content with things as they are.”
“But why?” That was Keller, the words sharp as through ripped from her throat. “We’ve made it so nobody has to die —”
“And does that erase all the deaths that have gone before?” Devor glared at her, and Coyt stepped forward, putting himself deliberately between them.
“Enough. This is a matter to be discussed after we have eaten.”
“And we thank you,” Ice said, “but your kindness is unnecessary.”
Alabaster nodded with her. Someone in the crowd gave a gasp of relief, and Gemmion saw the women’s hands tighten for just an instant. Even Coyt looked momentarily grateful, though he controlled himself instantly. “Then will you join us at the tables? We’ve brought wines that you have liked before.”
“Thank you.” Ice bent her head in agreement.
Teyla said, “Indeed. Let us… eat.”
The crowd thawed into motion, servers deftly guiding the off-worlders to their seats, the Elders retreating toward their own section of the tables. Gemmion looked back as she followed Ice’s household, but the tribute had disappeared, vanished into the crowd. Only a single bell-flower was left, lost from a wreath and trampled into the stones of the floor.
She found herself at the edge of Ice’s group, with Keller on her right hand and Teyla and Sheppard beyond her. Surely Keller should have been seated with Alabaster’s party, she thought, and in the same moment one of the servers said the same thing, bowing apologetically.
Keller blinked innocently. “I was told I could sit with the other Lanteans.”
Not likely, Gemmion thought, as the server backed away. It would be more like Alabaster to keep her human cleverman close at hand, not quite a hostage, but a reminder. Although now that it was done, it would be hard for Alabaster to reclaim her without losing face. And perhaps she was merely homesick after all. “I think you were expected elsewhere.”
“And if she was, are you going to tell?” That was Sheppard, leaning forward to glare at her around the other women.
Gemmion felt herself flush. She had not really meant to speak aloud, but the appearance of the tribute had unsettled her. She managed to shrug. “Why should I care where she sits?”
“Because your queen might?” Sheppard’s smile was oddly feral.
“Colonel,” Teyla said.
In the same moment, Keller said, “I told Guide I was going to sit with you. Besides, I wanted to talk to her.” She nodded toward Gemmion. “I thought she might have some idea why the Tanatori are acting like this.”
Gemmion shook her head. “I do not. Though they have always hated the tribute —” She stopped abruptly, not wanting to betray herself, but Teyla tipped her head to one side.
“You know this planet. You are from here?”
“I was. But that was long ago.” Gemmion leaned back to allow a server to fill her glass, grateful for the soft smell of fruit instead of flowers.
Teyla went on as though they were old friends. “I do not understand why, if they asked us for help leaving the Wraith sphere, that they would be willing to provide humans for your queen to feed upon.”
“And if they’re going to do that,” Sheppard said, “why would we want them?”
Beside him, Lorne grunted in agreement, but Teyla pointedly ignored them both.
“No more do we,” Gemmion answered. “My queen chose them for the test because we have always had good relations with them.” It was not exactly a lie, but the words were ashes on her tongue. “They have always provided a tribute without complaint — it’s a symbiotic relationship, almost.”
“But that’s no reason not to take the retrovirus.” Keller sounded frustrated, her ponytail lashing like the tail of some angry animal. “It’s more of a reason to want it! I don’t get it —”
“Neither do I —” Gemmion broke off as a server stumbled on the far side of the table. A mere misstep, she thought, but then the man leaned forward, his platter spilling an avalanche of little cakes and then shattering on the stones. He sagged to his knees, one hand dragging blindly at the tablecloth, and then collapsed into the wreckage of cakes and pottery. Someone shouted something, perhaps a call for help, but another server was falling, and then a third, and among the Tanatori one of the Elders’ escorts rose to her feet and then pitched forward among the dishes. A pitcher fell and broke, splashing the stones with wine like watered blood.
“Don’t touch anything!” Keller called. “Did anybody eat — drink?”
Gemion could hear the same call spreading among the Wraith, the queens already on their feet, snarling, the blades of their escort pressing close. Sheppard was on his feet, too, the Marines and Lorne copying him, and Gemmion heard the heavy snap of their weapons arming.
“What is this?” Teyla called. “Elder Coyt!”
“I don’t understand!” Coyt was on his feet at last, staring bewildered at the chaos around him.
Keller ducked under the table, evading Sheppard’s one-handed attempt to grab her, and dropped to her knees beside the nearest server. She felt at his neck, grimacing, then rolled him onto his side as he began to heave, retching uncontrollably.
“Anybody eat anything?” Lorne demanded, and Gemmion saw the Marines shake their heads.
“I had maybe a swallow of the wine,” the older one said. “But I feel fine.”
“Colonel? Teyla?”
“We are both unscathed, Major,” Teyla answered. “Quickly, Colonel.” She ducked under the table, following Keller, and Sheppard followed without grace. For an instant, Gemmion considering following them, but knew her place was with her queen. She turned to find Ice braced between blades, Flame himself in front of her to shield her from attack, Jewel at her off hand, both with teeth bared and weapons drawn. Beyond them Alabaster was equally surrounded, though from the look she was giving Guide she did not entirely appreciate the protection.
“Elder Coyt.” Ice laid her off hand on Flame’s shoulder and the cleverman moved reluctantly aside. “If this is how you bargain, I don’t think much of it.”
“Lady, I swear, I don’t understand!” Coyt was sweating and afraid, looking over his shoulders as though he expected someone to come at him with a knife. “This is not our doing —”
“This is your feast,” Ice said, and Teyla pushed her way through the crowd. There were at least a dozen bodies sprawled across the floor, and at least as many more doubled over clutching their bellies. Most were servers, Gemmion saw — probably they had seized the chance to taste one of the treats before they carried them to the tables.
“The queen has a point,” Teyla said. “You arranged all of this.”
“But why would we poison you?” Coyt wailed.
“Teyla.” That was Sheppard, shouldering up to stand at her side. “Looks like it was the wine. Ramos is starting to feel queasy, though he says he’s ok for action.”
“Of course it would be the wine,” Gemmion began, and Ice nodded.
“If it was intended for us, you mean?”
“Yes, Lady.”
Teyla nodded in agreement. “That is the only item that all of us would have consumed.”
“But why —” Coyt began again, and stopped abruptly.
Jewel lifted his feeding hand, ready to seize him, to drag answers from him, but Ice stopped him with a look. “Well, Eldest? Have you an answer after all?”
“To end these negotiations,” Devor said. “To be sure no one will force us to betray our
people.” He stepped past the other Elders, spreading his hands to the Lanteans. “No one will die, or be harmed permanently. This is an emetic, a sickener, nothing more. But. Now we have defied the Wraith — worse, we’ve made them look foolish before their greatest rival — and they will never forget it. You have to take us in, have to protect us, or one day they will come back and cull us so deeply that we will never be a people again.”
Coyt glared at him. “Fool. You’ve doomed us all.”
Sheppard had both hands folded on the butt of his P90, his mouth twisting as though he’d like to use it. “Is that right, Ice?”
“We came in good faith to offer a favor to a people who have served us well,” Ice countered. “So well that we saw no need for them to die in our service.” She bared teeth at Devor. “Our offer was made in honor: we offered you the chance to ally yourselves more closely with us, and instead you have tried to poison us. I admit it’s tempting to cull here and walk away!”
Coyt drew himself up, squaring his shoulders under the gray silk coat. “Lady, this renegade does not speak for anyone but himself —”
Devor spoke over him. “The offer dishonors those who had been taken, those whose lives have already been consumed in service to the Wraith. How can we take the easy path, and call ourselves worthy of our ancestors’ sacrifices?”
Ice lifted her head, her feeding hand flexing involuntarily. “And yet — the tribute you bring us, it’s drawn from those you already wish to be rid of. Criminals, vagrants, those whose blood you call tainted, who can hear our mind speech: they make up your tribute, not your honored kin.”
“That’s not true!” Devor glared as though he would strike her.
“I have heard it from the lips of one taken here,” Ice answered implacably.
“That was true once,” Coyt said. “To our shame. But we changed those laws. It took rebellion, revolution, but now everyone’s name is placed into the great lottery, and the tribute is drawn from there. Those with the taint are permitted to volunteer, and often do, but everyone shares in the danger.” He paused. “Devor’s own daughter was taken in the last tribute, and we honor her memory.”
Gemmion stood frozen, trying to make sense of what she was hearing. “How?” she said, and saw both Ice and Teyla slant glances in her direction. “How did it happen?”
Ice repeated the question without hesitation. “How did this happen? Tell us the tale, so that we can understand you.”
“I don’t see —” Coyt began, and Devor interrupted again.
“Of course it matters, and I will gladly tell it. Though it is a long story —”
“I’d say we’ve got time,” Sheppard said, still with that crooked smile, and Teyla inclined her head.
“We are also curious, if it has driven you to these extremes.”
“It’s a matter of pride,” Devor said. “For all of us, for all Tanator.”
“Enough,” Coyt said. “I am Eldest, it’s my place to speak. We all know the story, after all.” He paused, frowning, and Gemmion felt a shiver almost of anticipation ripple through the room, as though the Tanatori who were not tending the sick had all stopped to listen, to remember.
“Long ago, we on Tanator made a bargain with the Wraith,” Coyt said. “They would refrain from culling us at random, and in turn we would pay a tribute of lives, of bodies, gathered and held waiting for their arrival. Their deaths bought life for the rest of us. In the past, as the Lady has said, the tribute was chosen from criminals and those who carry the Wraith taint, but over time, more and more crimes were exempted from the tribute. After all, should a starving man be sentenced to certain death for stealing bread for his children? Some argued that such a man bought his family’s freedom with his own life, and that was tried, but there were few who’d volunteer even to save others, and the number of the tribute remained the same. Next we tried seeking out those with the taint, testing for it at every opportunity, and that was generally held to be fair, though the numbers of the tainted waned as a result, and there were always ways for the powerful and the wealthy to avoid being tested.”
A dry voice — another of the Elders? Gemmion wondered — interjected. “There was… considerable discontent.”
“Just so.” Coyt drew a careful breath. “And then at last, in the middle of this unstable situation, three young people fell into the most ordinary of troubles: a girl loved a boy who loved a different girl. The couple sought to marry, and both parties had to be tested for the taint. The boy passed, but the girl did not. Terrified, she tried to bribe the testing technician, but her friend — who also loved the boy — told the boy what she had done, and the boy turned her over to the authorities. She was taken for tribute, and disappeared. The two who were left could not find peace, knowing what they had done. They quarreled and argued and finally decided that they could not live with each other or with themselves if they did not act to make sure that this could never happen again. They gathered supporters — there were many who agreed with them, given the chance — and on Midwinter Day they stormed the Old Hall here in the capital and demanded a change to the tribute. There was a battle, short and sharp, and the girl was killed, but the boy went on to be elected an Elder and then Eldest. And so the world changed. There is now a lottery, impartial, unavoidable; all take the same chances.”
There was more, but Gemmion was no longer listening. Surely that couldn’t be her story, couldn’t be Edoric and Elya — Elya had never been in love with Edoric, except that those words, once spoke, explained so much that she herself had never understood. If Elya had been in love with him, too — there had been a shadow over her, those last months, as Gemmion babbled about plans and travel. She had taken it for simple regret, the knowledge that Elya had another year of study, perhaps even two, before she could seek her own future. She saw Ice glance in her direction, frowning as though she was wondering the same thing, and fought to keep face and mind without expression. This was nothing to do with her, couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her…
“And it is because of those deaths — the death that was the tipping point, all the ones that came before, and most especially the ones that came after, that were chosen at random and yet gladly gave their lives for others — it’s because of them that we can’t accept this retrovirus.” Devor shook his head violently. “It makes a mockery of everything they’ve given.”
Gemmion could feel Ice’s eyes on her, could feel, too, the Lantean Teyla looking at her, her attention drawn by Ice’s sidelong stare and startled expression. Was it possible? After what they had done, after that betrayal, could Edoric have changed his mind? She ran her hands through her hair, heedless of the arrangement she had so carefully made. She would have said it was more like him than the betrayal, except that she had had two centuries to accept what he had done.
“Are you all right?” Keller asked, and she forced a smile and a nod.
“You know something,” Teyla said, soft and fierce.
*Little River?* Ice’s mental touch was gentle, worried.
Gemmion shook her head, felt a pin fly loose, her hair coming down in frizzy strands. “Names.” She stepped forward, shouldering through the line of people between her and the milling Elders. “What were their names, these heroes?”
Most of them looked at her in shock, a few shifting to disapproval as they realized who and what she was, but to her surprise, it was Devor who answered. “Edoric Almoragen. Elya Tyil. And the girl who died was Gemmion Saer.”
Gemmion laughed aloud at that — it was that or cry, weep for a past she had thought long dead — and she felt Teyla move next to her, Sheppard at her shoulder, felt Ice’s shock and pity roll past her. “Gemmion Saer never died. She was given to the Wraith, yes, but she was — tainted. And so she was valued — I was valued. And I live still, servant to my queen.”
“You can’t be.” Devor’s voice bro
ke in horror, but he rallied. “Even if she wasn’t killed outright — fed upon, let’s say the words — she’d have died of old age long ago.”
“I have been given many gifts for my long service,” Gemmion answered. “Long life is one of them.”
She could feel at least half the hall recoil, shock, disbelief, and then horrified acceptance.
“How is this possible?” someone shouted. “It has to be a trick.”
“I have made her my chatelaine,” Ice answered, baring teeth. “There is no trick in it.”
“And here I am,” Gemmion said, and caught her breath in a strangled sound between laughter and a sob. “Edoric — Elya. Oh, my dears.”
Teyla lifted a hand. “And indeed, is this not a sign that things have changed already? Perhaps, instead of dishonoring the sacrifices of those who have gone before, this is truly a chance to take another step away from death.”
Coyt took a step forward, his hands outstretched as though he would embrace her, and then at the last minute he let them fall again. “Is this true?”
Gemmion nodded, suddenly utterly weary. “It is. Make of it what you will.”
“And you have served the Wraith all these years.”
“I have.”
“And what do you say to this offer?”
Gemmion sighed. “I say you’d be a fool to refuse it. No one taken in tribute would have refused it. Let the world change.” She felt, from a distance, Ice’s approval, a warmth along her spine, and saw Teyla nod.
“That is indeed wisdom. Everything changes in the end.”
Gemmion took a step backward, her knees suddenly weak. The blade Torrent steadied her with his off hand, and, at Ice’s nod, shifted to take some of her weight.
“I’m all right,” she said, and heard her voice waver as though with tears. I wish I had not come. She couldn’t say the words aloud, not without undoing the good she had done — and it was better, surely, to accept the retrovirus, to let everyone live rather than leave survival to the accidents of genetics and the interest of the Wraith. Ice and Coyt were deep in conversation, Coyt nodding as though in agreement, then Ice cocking her head to listen to some request. And yet she would still rather be anywhere else, where the memories could reach only her dreams — Edoric, smiling across the table on the day of their engagement, heedless of the elegance surrounding them, the most expensive restaurant in town; Elya dragging her from her books to see a traveling puppet-show, sharing laughter and soft new cider beneath the brilliant autumn sky. And still and always the betrayal, the look on Elya’s face when Gemmion sobbed out her story, the pity in Edoric’s words that did not match his eyes.
STARGATE SG-1 ATLANTIS: Homeworlds : Volume three of the Travelers' Tales (SGX Book 5) Page 11
