by Graham, Jo
“No, but he will wait four or five days,” John said grimly. “I told him we’d be nursing an Ancient warship back to the Genii homeworld. He wouldn’t be surprised if repairs took a day or two, and the trip back took two or three days in hyperspace. He won’t get worried until Radim says we haven’t showed up in four or five days.” He looked at Teyla as if expecting her to say something about Radek Zelenka. As though she would undermine him that way before Dahlia Radim!
Teyla frowned. “Is there any chance of fixing the jumper?”
Dahlia shook her head. “I don’t believe so. Not that I can do. I’m familiar enough with Ancient technology to see that the main control crystals to the engines, the DHD and the stabilizers are burned out. Two of the three of them are actually broken, one completely and one with a long lateral crack that will shatter the minute we put any current into it. We would need replacement crystals and some means of repatterning them. Dr. Beckett says that the ships’ locker does not contain replacement crystals, and I have no tools to repattern them if it did. That’s not something we’ve ever succeeded at doing.” Dahlia spread her hands. “I’ve pulled damaged crystals from the warship, but the warship carried labeled replacements. It was a matter of switching them out correctly.”
Rodney always carried replacement crystals. The thought hung in the air between them. Ever since the time they’d been stranded on Pelagia, he’d carried a couple in his pocket just in case, to good effect on Manaria. And Zelenka had been the one who had come up with the method of repatterning the jumper’s control crystals more than five years ago, on the mission where John had been attacked by the Iratus bug.
“Can’t we…” Carson began, then lapsed into silence.
“No. We can’t,” John said. “If we start messing around in the control panels doing stuff when we don’t know what we’re doing, we may short out the cloak. And then we’re really screwed.” His eyes avoided Teyla’s. “We’re not going to figure out how Zelenka did it. I’m not an engineer, and neither are you. If Dr. Radim says she can’t do it, we’ll take her word as the expert.”
Dahlia blinked, as though surprised by the vote of confidence. And also perhaps by the honorary title, Teyla thought. She had not heard doctor used as an honorific among the Genii. It was solely reserved for healers.
“Where does that leave us?” Carson said. “Just sitting here until the Wraith get bored?”
“Pretty much,” John said. “Sooner or later they’ll have to conclude that either we’re all dead and that accounts for the absence of life signs, or that we’ve escaped into space, which is more likely. If we can’t repair the jumper, our best shot is to wait until the Wraith leave and then walk out.” He looked as though he didn’t like the idea much.
Carson put his head to the side. “It could be worse,” he said. “None of us are hurt, and we’ve plenty of supplies.”
“What if the Wraith simply hide?” Dahlia asked. “That’s what I would do. Take the hive ship around to the other side of the planet and wait.”
John glanced at Teyla and she nodded almost imperceptibly.
“We have sensors that would pick them up,” he said. “Even at that kind of range.”
I would know, Teyla thought. An entire hive ship close at hand would never escape her attention, not as her Gift was now, strengthened by Todd’s tutelage. But there was no need to speak of that to Dahlia, and certainly not now while they must work together in close quarters. If she took Teyla’s Gift as pollution it would make things very awkward, not only for Teyla personally but possibly for their alliance with the Genii as well.
Dahlia nodded. She had no idea what the capabilities of the puddle jumper’s sensors were, after all. “There is another option,” she said.
“What’s that?” Carson asked.
“Rather than walk back to the Stargate, we are less than twenty of your miles from the wreck now,” she said. “We are more or less along the line that my repair parties trekked from the gate to the wreck. I can easily find it from here. And it would take much less time than going three times further to the Stargate.”
“But if it’s inoperable then we have to walk back to the gate anyhow,” Carson said. “And besides, if we walk back to the gate it will take a couple of days. It will take longer than that to get the ship in the air and return to the Genii homeworld. From the gate we can just dial Atlantis directly.”
“And then we will be back in Atlantis, with nothing to show for our journey,” Teyla said. “Four days or more gone, and just as we were.” She looked at John. “If time is of the essence, we should continue on directly to the wreck and hope to get it in the air. We are already here.”
John nodded. “And complete the mission.” The idea of returning to Atlantis with nothing to show for it save a lost puddle jumper clearly rankled. “That’s the best plan.”
“Then we wait like cornered mousies,” Carson said, glancing out the front window as though he could see the patrolling Darts above. “For the cat to go away.”
* * *
Seven more hours stuck in the limited confines of the jumper was making everyone jumpy. Carson prowled around looking for something to do, and Dahlia Radim was inventorying the emergency equipment, though they already knew perfectly well what they had. Teyla went from front to back again, pacing. Parceling out MREs and eating a belated dinner or an early breakfast or whatever it was did not take more than three quarters of an hour. And then she was back to pacing again.
John was the only one who seemed calm, sticking to the pilot’s chair as if glued there, his eyes on the sensors as though he could will the Wraith away.
Teyla slid into the copilot’s chair. “Has anything changed?”
“The hive ship has recovered Darts,” he said, his eyes still on the display. “I can’t tell if that’s because they’re powering up to leave, or because the patrol is out of fuel and they need to switch off.”
“We will see,” Teyla said quietly. Using the Gift in a more active way, to feel out the minds of the Wraith above looking for more specific information, would almost certainly alert the Wraith to their presence. And if they were trying to convince the Wraith that they had gone that would be a bad idea. Better to wait and see what the Wraith did.
“Yeah.” John radiated tension in every line of his body, strung tight to the board. He was blaming himself for the delay, she thought. And how not? It really was his fault. If they had returned to Atlantis for Radek before coming here, the jumper would be repaired by now.
But the Wraith would still be here.
“Even if we had Dr. Zelenka,” Teyla said, “We should still have to wait until the Wraith departed. We cannot challenge a hive ship.”
“That’s true.” He took a breath and the set of his shoulders eased somewhat.
They waited what seemed an interminable time.
“You must be worried about Torren,” he said.
“Not really.” Teyla looked out at the same stretch of canyon wall they had been staring at for seven hours. “He is safe in Atlantis. Dr. Kusanagi is watching him, though I imagine she has traded with someone else by now.”
“That doesn’t worry you? That somebody or other has Torren?” He looked at her sideways.
“That is how we do it at home,” she said. “Everyone must hunt or farm or trade, and once a child is weaned and is too big to carry everywhere they are watched by whoever is available and willing. Since Torren is the only child in Atlantis, there are many people who do not mind.” She shrugged. “He is coming up on two years old, John. He is not a tiny infant. Children are part of the life of the city, not something kept locked away so that they will not disturb anyone. I know this is not how you do things, but I am not of you.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.” His eyes didn’t leave the sensor display. “Guys aren’t supposed to want anything to do with kids. It’s girly.”
“How can being a father be girly?” Teyla blinked. “Is not fatherhood by definition masculine?”
“And who does all this judging and measuring?”
“Other guys.” John shrugged. “Maybe it’s a generational thing. I don’t know. But it’s not like my dad was a great father.” His hands moved over the board, never looking at her.
“It is not like my mother was a great mother,” Teyla said. “She left when I was Torren’s age and never returned. But I never lacked for people who cared for me. Charin was my mother.” She could think with warmth of her now, and only a little sorrow.
“Charin was really super,” John said, and his voice sounded like he meant it. “She seemed like such a kind person.”
“She was,” Teyla said. It was right to tell the stories of those who were gone. “She had a grown daughter who had a baby sixteen days old when she and the baby were taken by the Wraith in the same Culling where my father was taken. That was all her family, all there was.”
John was looking at her as though cold had touched his spine, but she went on. “We are shaped by the Wraith, John. They shape who we are, the way that we live and what we value. I had no one, and neither did she. Rather than turn to bitterness, she gave her love to an orphaned child and taught me to live. But that is who we are because we have been Culled to the bone. If we were safe or even safer, perhaps we could afford to be different.”
He nodded seriously. “I’ve seen that,” he said. “It seems like there are two ways people deal with it, societies deal with it. Either they come together and differences stop mattering, or they tear each other apart. They give what they have, or they start shooting each other. That’s why civilizations fall.”
“It is one reason,” Teyla said. “But I do not know how you can tell which a society will do beforehand, why some worlds that have been Culled help each other and others devolve into banditry, where the strong prey upon the weak until there is nothing left but chaos and starvation.”
“I don’t know either,” he said, and she thought he was thinking of something unvoiced, some place he had been or people he had known. “The only thing you can control is what kind of person you are.”
“Never leave one of your own behind. Never prey on the weak,” she said. Teyla’s mouth twitched. “The strong are a different matter.”
“I wish I could say I was that guy,” John said, toggling between sensor displays for the hundredth time.
“At least you think you ought to be,” she said. “That is worth something.”
“Hang on.” His voice sharpened. “Look at that.”
On the heads up display the marker for the hive ship accelerated, numbers flashing beneath it too fast to read. And then it vanished.
“The hive ship’s gone,” John said loudly enough to carry to the back where Carson and Dahlia were talking. “It opened a hyperspace window.”
Teyla felt as though a weight she did not know she carried had lifted. “I think they are really gone,” she whispered. “I do not sense the Wraith anymore.”
Carson stuck his head around the doors to the back. “They’re gone?”
“Yes,” John said. He almost jumped out of his chair. “So let’s pack up the survival gear and get going.”
“I did that three hours ago,” Teyla said. “The packs are waiting by the tailgate.”
John grinned at her. “Ok then! Let’s move.”
Chapter Nine: Desert Trek
Even in the shade of the rocks it was about a hundred and five degrees. John winced. “Death Valley.”
“That sounds encouraging,” Teyla said in a tone that he wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be ironic or not.
“It’s a place on Earth,” John said. He looked up at the sides of the canyon, the lambent deep blue sky above. “A lot like this, unfortunately.”
“We will have to get down there,” Teyla said.
Twenty five or thirty feet below where the jumper had come to rest was the bottom of the canyon, a nearly dry stream bed marked by some spiny grayish plants. It would be possible to walk along the stream bed. He thought. John glanced up and winced again. Eighty feet or so to the top, broken rock all the way. Rock climbing was not his favorite thing, and he knew for sure it wasn’t Carson’s. Dahlia Radim aside, the idea of trying to get Carson up that cliff was daunting. He was a doctor, not special forces. “Yeah, down. Not up,” he said.
“We came along the top of the cliffs before,” Dahlia said, shouldering her pack. “We followed the line of this canyon but we didn’t come down here. It was much easier walking along the plateau above.” She looked up at the bright sky. “Though there is much more shade here.”
“Well, let’s get down then,” John said. “Teyla, you go left and I’ll go right. Let’s see if we can find a place that’s easier to get down. Carson, hang out here with Radim until we find a place.”
The ledge thinned out about a hundred feet along, but it did slope downward gently, until it was only about fifteen feet from the bottom of the canyon. A rough fifteen feet, but if they put down guide ropes it was probably doable. “Teyla?”
“Yes?” she replied, his headset crackling.
“You got anything? I’ve got a fairly easy fifteen foot drop.”
“I have nothing, Colonel,” she said. “The canyon deepens and the drop is steeper here than beside the jumper.”
“Ok, everybody down here then,” he said. “Carson, you got that?”
“We’re coming,” Carson said.
A few moments later he and Dahlia Radim walked up, followed momentarily by Teyla. She looked at the drop. “I will get the rope from the jumper,” she said.
“I’m not sure…” Carson began.
“It’s easy,” John said. “Teyla will climb down while I hold the rope, and then she’ll belay the rest of us down. We’ve got a harness and everything.”
“Teyla’s going to hold me?” Carson looked dubious. “She’s a tiny little thing.”
“It’s on belay, Carson,” John said soothingly. “It’s all pulleys. Teyla could hold Ronon that way.”
Letting Teyla down was fairly easy. John didn’t actually need Carson and Dahlia to help, but they wanted to so they held the end of the rope behind him while he let Teyla down hand over hand. Teyla with all her gear and weapons probably didn’t top out over 150. She was, as Carson said, a tiny little thing a good ten inches shorter than he was, and fairly slightly built. It was just that Teyla always seemed to take up so much space in a room.
Once down she went about setting up the belay in a methodical fashion, and it didn’t take long to let Dahlia down beside her, going cautiously as the scientist was no more of an experienced climber than the doctor was.
Carson looked doubtful as John clipped off the harness around him. “You’re sure I’m not too heavy?”
“Not a bit,” John said. “Just relax and lean back. You can put your feet on the canyon wall if it’s more comfortable and just walk them down.” Lots of people found that helpful, even if they weren’t actually doing any of the climbing.
“How are you going to get down?” Carson asked as his head dipped down to the edge of the ledge.
“I’ll tie the rope off through the pin up here and Teyla will let me down too.”
Carson looked skeptical.
“It’s ok. Just relax.”
“I’ve a bit of a problem with heights, you know,” Carson said.
“Then just look at me and keep talking,” John said. Beyond Carson he could see Teyla belaying him down slowly, hand over hand. Carson’s head was two feet below the ledge, so already his feet were only seven or eight feet from the ground. If Teyla dropped him that second he’d probably do no worse than break an ankle. “How are the new medical personnel working out?”
“Well, that’s really Jennifer’s department more than mine,” Carson replied, not looking down. “She’s Chief of Medicine now. I’m not sure what I am, except along for the ride.”
“How’s the optometrist working out?” Two more feet. Three.
> “We haven’t got an optometrist,” Carson said. “I wish we did. We’ve got a PA who knows a bit, which is better than we had.” Carson looked surprised when his feet touched the ground.
“There you are,” Teyla said. “Let me unclip you, Carson.” She smiled at him. “You see? Just as you say, easy peasy.”
“Right.”
His own descent was easy and fast, unclipping himself at the bottom while Teyla looked up at the dangling ropes. “We are going to have to leave them,” she said.
John nodded. “Yeah. But it’s just as well if we wind up having to get back up to the jumper this way for some reason. All right, people. Let’s walk.”
He took the point, Teyla on six with Carson and Dahlia between them without a word spoken. The late afternoon shadows had deepened. Even on a planet with forty hour days, sunset would eventually come. Maybe that’s why he was so tired. The movement of the sun told him that it had only been a few hours since they landed, but… John checked his watch. Four in the morning, Atlantis time. They’d been twenty hours on this mission already, and he’d been up for twenty two. No wonder he was tired. They should have napped in the jumper while they were waiting for the Wraith to leave, but it had seemed impossible to sleep then, cornered like a mouse.
John looked up at the sun again, or rather at the sky above the canyon walls. The sun was already behind the walls, out of sight from its meridian. He hated to call a halt when they’d just gotten started. Better to put a few miles behind them first. He wasn’t sure how long the daylight would last, but they might even make the Ancient ship before it got completely dark. Eighteen miles as the crow flies, or as the jumper flies. No. They wouldn’t make that in one march. But they’d feel better stopping if they were a bit closer. Three six mile treks would probably do it with Carson and Dahlia, with some breaks between each one.
Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something move and whipped around, raising the P90 as he did. Behind him he heard Teyla flicking off her safety.
