Her hand touched his shoulder, but the ever-soothing sense of her presence was absent from his mind. He found he missed it terribly.
"You no longer fear me?" she asked.
"No. Before, when I, you know-" He was lousy at apologies. Probably due to a distinct lack of practice. "It was just a lot to take in.,,
Although he couldn't see her, he sensed her shy pleasure, as if he'd presented her with a sonnet. "I am relieved," she said softly. "Are you hungry? I have brought a meal."
As it turned out, the soup he'd eaten before had only hinted at the culinary talents of this community. Turpi lifted each delicate bite to his lips, occasionally offering sips of a sweet wine. She was easily the most selfless being ever created, and he had trouble believing he'd ever been obtuse enough to doubt her.
"You are recovering well," she said approvingly.
"You insisted on it, daughter," Nabu commented, a mild rebuke in his tone. When Rodney frowned, he explained. "Your healing is due to Turpi alone, for her gift is almost as strong as that of the Ancients. She gave so much of herself-too much, really-to ensure that you would live."
The food was too good to curdle in his stomach, but he felt a momentary spasm. "I take it I had a close call?"
"You were a heartbeat away from death when I beamed you aboard my Dart. The skin had been stripped from your body, your eyes, ears and lips gone. The sand had begun to eat into your brain-"
"I get the idea." Now feeling distinctly ill, he swallowed, but he had to ask the next question. "Will I really be able to see again`? Or are we talking about light and dark blurs from now on?"
"The eyes and fingers have the most complex nerve endings. They will take the longest time to heal, but heal they will." Her lips brushed his temple before she raised the wine glass again. "In a few more days, you will be as beautiful as you once were"
Rodney considered himself fortunate to have avoided choking on the wine. Of all the words that had been used to describe him in the past, `beautiful' had never cracked the list. She'd seen him literally in pieces, and she'd seen inside his mind, and somehow she still was attracted to him. The concept amazed and touched him. He wanted to say something, but demonstrating gratitude wasn't one of his better-honed skills, either.
Thankfully, she didn't need to hear the words. "I was pleased to do it."
Feeling more secure than he had in some time, Rodney figured now was as good a moment as any to get some answers. "Nabu, how is it that you managed to steal and operate a Wraith Dart?"
"The tale is complicated. You must understand our history." The clink of eating implements being placed on a plate told him that Nabu had finished his own meal and settled back in his chair. "You know that some of us have the ability to see into the minds of others. To varying degrees, this includes the minds of the Wraith. When I was a young man, I was aware of being different, but had no understanding of how. Then, not long before I came of age, my village fell under attack by a group of Darts." His voice changed, taking on a darker tone that Rodney might not have detected if he'd been able to see. "When my family was among those taken, I was filled with an overpowering rage that I focused on the pilot of a Dart. The force of my anger caused the machine to crash. I realized only later that it had also killed my family and several others."
Rodney drew in a sharp breath. There was emotional baggage, and then there was emotional baggage...
"Other villagers witnessed what I had done," Nabu continued. "They saw my body glow with energy, and they were terrified."
Rodney clearly saw the images projected into his mind. He didn't try to fight them; there was nothing invasive about it, more like a movie that he could choose to watch or not. Except this was no movie but a heart-wrenching account of loss and betrayal. The images were shocking. Rejection alone would have been bad enough, but this was a witch-hunt. Dozens, hundreds of villagers screaming at a terrified kid, already distraught beyond measure after having inadvertently killed his family, driving him away from their homes with sticks and fistfuls of sand and fear-torn, ugly faces.
"They fled into their homes ahead of a sand storm. I was little more than a child, but no one would grant me shelter. Only after the sand had caused me disfiguring bums did I harness my ability well enough to force a second Dart to land. I had not intended to kill the pilot, nevertheless he was dead, so I took shelter inside his machine. When the other Darts left and the storm abated, the frightened villagers came out to attack me."
"So you used the Dart to escape," Rodney saw.
"It was not difficult, since the machine responds to mental commands. I fled to a village that had been decimated by a prior Wraith attack, and survived by using the Dart during storms to steal food and supplies from other villages."
The entire situation now became alarmingly clear. "Which propagated the myth of Wraith raids during storms."
"A misunderstanding I very much regret. At the time, there was little choice. Today we have no need to steal, but the fear persists." Resignation was heavy in Nabu's voice. "During one of my early forays, I heard the mind-cries of five children left to die in the sand and sensed a kinship with them. I beamed them onto the Dart and brought them back with me, but their injuries were too grave. Only one survived the ordeal. In time, though, I was able to save others. Slowly we began to learn and teach each other how to control our abilities. Many died in the process: some because I arrived too late to save them from the sands, others because they could not control their powers. Still more were driven truly mad by the torment of listening to a thousand minds flinging hatred and fear at them. However, over generations-"
"Whoa, back up," Rodney broke in. "Generations? How old are you?"
"I have seen many generations pass. My longevity is my physical abnormality"
Thrown for a loop, Rodney could only gape in the other man's general direction. What he could do with a few extra years... "Are you kidding? If anyone asked-and no one has-I'd take that burden gladly. For one thing, all those experiences must be an incredible weapon against the Wraith."
"We rarely have a need to engage the Wraith," Nabu said, "unless it is to take additional Darts for the purpose of rescuing more abandoned children. Though the cliff-dwellers may believe the Wraith continue to terrorize this world, we have long been able to protect it through deception. Recently, a group of our strongest telepaths convinced a hive ship that Polrusso was a barren wasteland, home to only a few sickly inhabitants unworthy of the hive's attention."
Ideas were coming to Rodney faster than he could process them. Overwhelmed, he stammered, "Do you realize what incred ible potential your people have? If it only takes a few minds to create a planet-wide subterfuge, the number of worlds that could be protected-"
"The notion has occurred to us." And there was the resignation again. "But there are obstacles. Although the toxic sand is a normal byproduct of the terraforming process, on other planets it was only present in the initial stages, and never this destructive. Even so, the Ancestors never lived on worlds still undergoing terraforming. Based on what I have learned, I have come to believe that the Ancestors initiated an experiment on Polrusso."
Rodney had three multifaceted questions formed before he decided to wait for a change and listen to the full explanation.
Nabu presented his theory as skillfully as any Earthbound academic. "During the terraforming process, Polrusso was seeded with a massive dose of the caustic toxin, ensuring that it penetrated the biosphere on all levels. Then experimental subjects-humans-were introduced. All life forms must adapt to reach a stable relationship with their environment, and so the toxin was incorporated into the human genetic code. After five hundred generations, the effects are now rather apparent." There was a glimmer of a rueful smile in his voice. "While we may be a bit odd-looking, the abilities we possess must undoubtedly render the experiment a success. And it appears that the situation is stabilizing in newer generations. Not all among us are able to bear children, but the offspring who survive infancy are
physically better suited to Polrusso's harsh environment. They are less deformed, more mentally adept, and able to cope with the sand from a young age. Our people are at last adjusting to this world, but I believe many more generations will pass before the process is complete."
"I still don't see why leaving to help other planets should present a problem." Rodney tried not to sound too eager to return to the topic at hand.
"The genetic alteration is ongoing. There are many thousands of my people now-far more than there are cliff-dwellers-most of whom have profound deformities. Some would call them gro tesque. The cliff-dwellers are terrified of us, as others would certainly be."
To Rodney's way of thinking, the whole thing smacked of lousy experimental design. Granted, `let's see what happens' was a fundamental tenet of science, but with human subjects? Any reputable university's ethics board would have a conniption. "With all their technology and knowledge, the Ancients couldn't have improved on this evolutionary process`? Say, speed it up to something short of ten thousand years?"
"In fact they did. Experiments were conducted on many other planets as well. Some humans have developed an immunity to the Wraith."
Had he never set foot on Hoff a year ago, Rodney would have been apoplectic with enthusiasm over that possibility. But he'd seen the tradeoff the Hoffans had had to make to achieve their immunity, and he was inclined to believe that there was no such thing as a free lunch.
"Evolution can be guided, just as humans crossbreed plants and animals to create healthier strains," Nabu continued. "This habitat in which we are seated is one such example: it is filled with many varieties of grass. Some are better suited to light, while others are stunted by the sun and prefer shade. This is the reason Atlas and Ea were forbidden to experiment on Polrusso with their exogenesis machine."
His mention of the names caused Rodney to sit forward. "You know about that, too? How-?"
"Although the cliff-dwellers cannot access the laboratory, I have the required gene," Nabu replied simply. "One of our people beams me into the lab near the Stargate for a time and then returns to beam me out again. Over the generations I have gathered information from the Ancestors' records."
It occurred to Rodney to wonder how Nabu had come by the ATA gene, but any theories he might construct on that front would wait for another time. "I don't suppose the sight of a Wraith Dart flying around does much to keep the cliff-dwellers calm."
"I have tried to reason with many of their Elders in the past, to convince them that their deformed offspring are not Wraithspawn. But their prejudices run deep. My cause is not aided by the fact that my white hair and the long scars on my face make me resemble a Wraith."
Rodney was beginning to suspect that seeing Nabu when they first met might have been as frightening as not seeing him. "So if the population is stabilizing in a genetic sense, the villages must be finding that more and more of their children are, ah, affected."
"That is true. In this latest generation, fully two thirds of live births in the villages have resulted in deformities or late-onset symptoms of madness. Even as we speak, my people are flying the Darts. They will return with many more children abandoned by the cliff-dweller villages."
It was hard to avoid some contempt for the cliff-dwellers. How could a bunch of otherwise civilized, cultured people turn every piece of evidence they'd been shown into some warped horror story? Wraithspawn? A hive ship at the bottom of the oceanic basin?
Abruptly, Rodney was gripped by a sense of panic. He pushed the chair back and rose to begin pacing, vaguely aware that Turpi was still at his side, supporting and guiding him. The cliff-dwellers believed that Nabu's home was a hive ship. He and his team had been all set to flood the place. "Where exactly on the planet are we located right now?" he demanded.
"You need not concern yourself," Nabu told him. "While the program to create and store water is complete, the oceans will not be released until the last of the toxin has broken down. Despite your belief that the machine need only be turned off, safety protocols would have prevented you from shutting down the shields."
Rodney stopped and swung around to face the direction he was relatively certain Nabu was sitting. "Yes, well, I appreciate that reassurance, but unfortunately that's not what I'm worried about. The idea I had pretty much determined to implement was to remove the ZPMs that hold back the water." He went on to describe the sequencing scheme to distribute the power load until the first shield failed, aware that the other man had become conspicuously silent.
At last, in a voice that held shock and not a little alarm, Nabu said, "I see." By the sound of it, he'd risen from his chair. "A resourceful plan... and quite achievable."
And that was the textbook definition of `backhanded compliment.' Rodney sensed a flash of worry from Turpi as well, and hoped that she understood his reasons. "We didn't know what was here, obviously, or we never would have..." Tentatively, he asked, "Can you evacuate your people?"
"We have many Darts, but most are a great distance away, patrolling the sand storms on the far side of the planet. Even so, we have several hundred thousand people now living in scattered communities throughout the basins."
Though the sheer numbers staggered Rodney, they made sense. The Wraith were being held at bay, and the percentage of `deformed' births was rising, so naturally the population would swell. That knowledge did nothing to quell the churning in his stomach at the idea of how many homes would be reduced to rubble at the bottom of a new ocean. The children's voices made their way into his thoughts again, confronting him with a harsh reminder of exactly what was at stake.
Turpi spoke up at last. "We can mentally communicate with enough of our people to advise them to flee. But it will take weeks of difficult travel on foot to reach safe grounds."
"The water itself is not the greatest threat, daughter." Nabu now sounded positively chilled. "The source of the caustic sand, the highest concentration of the toxin, lies in the massive mountain chains that cross the planet, far away from the areas where the water is stored. The sand storms result from the slow erosion by the ceaseless winds. Once exposed to rain, however, the mountains will virtually dissolve within a short space of time. In water, the toxin becomes many times more corrosive-and many times more deadly."
Acid rain to the nth degree, Rodney realized, his throat con stricting painfully. All bodies of water, and the precipitation itself, would be infinitely deadlier than the dry sand. When I set out to do something, I really do it all the way.
"The water must not be released." Nabu's voice took on a note of what Rodney considered to be extremely warranted urgency. "If it is, nothing on this world will survive."
s soon as Jumper One emerged from the event horizon, John .figured out why Beckett had warned him against 'gate travel. The wormhole had scrambled his senses but good, and the jumper lurched drunkenly when the transit-sequence autopilot disengaged.
"Pull up!" Ronon yelled, and John obeyed on instinct. After another oscillation or two, the jumper settled onto a stable course, but not before John heard a couple of the more obscure Satedan epithets from the right seat.
Feeling a little more secure, he commented, "You need to teach me those sometime. I've already learned all the Earth curse words I can from the rest of the expedition."
Ronon glared at him, uncurling his hand from around the armrest, which now looked a bit deformed. "You sure you can do this?"
"I'm sure. It was just the 'gate that messed me up." John didn't add that he had no idea how long the antihistamines Beckett had given him would last, or that the packet came with a warning about not driving or operating heavy machinery.
A click from the radio interrupted them. "Last jumper, please identify," said one of the Marines-John's diminished hearing kept him from recognizing the voice.
"This is Jumper One," he replied calmly, imagining the surprise and confusion on the other jumpers.
"Sir- sorry, sir," the Marine said hastily. "We didn't know you were coming along."
"Don't worry, I'm not here to ride herd over you guys. Ronon and I are going after McKay."
"Colonel Sheppard!" Teyla's warm voice joined the conversation. "It is good to hear your voice. Dr. Weir-"
"Was misinformed," John finished smoothly. "I'm okay, and we have a job to do. Jumpers Four and Five, take your cues from Dr. Zelenka."
If Teyla thought a two-person rescue team was unusual, she didn't say so. "We will meet you back at the 'gate."
"Negative. Atlantis needs those ZPMs. As soon as you've got em, head for home."
Radek broke in next. "Colonel, if the Wraith are alerted to you-"
"Then it'd be too much of a risk for any of you to come help us anyway. I'm not debating this, folks." It was a borderline hypocritical stance, but John didn't particularly care. "Get the ZPMs and get back."
"Yes, sir," responded the well-trained jumper pilots. Teyla and Radek said nothing.
"Hey, Dr. Zelenka," one pilot added-John finally identified the voice as Sergeant Witner's. "If the land's going to collapse when the water pours out, what are the chances that the 'gate will take a tumble, too?"
"Not to worry, Sergeant," answered Radek. "The furthest parts of the village will be destroyed as the cliffs fall, but the lab and the Stargate are located on solid rock. In my many simulations, it has remained perfectly stable."
"Simulations, huh?" Witner sounded less than convinced.
"To be certain," Radek continued, a hint of amusement in his voice, "I am extending the range of the lab's force field."
"That's more like it."
Now that his balance was more or less behaving itself, John broke the focus he'd locked on the horizon and looked down at the clusters of villagers standing near the Stargate. They were staring up at the jumpers and waving. Presumably these were the people who had elected to stay behind to watch what would doubtless be the deluge to end all deluges. The jumper climbed, and across the dune sea towards the mountains he saw a massive caravan trekking inland to the new homesteads. He'd expected the procession of animal-drawn carts to form a kind of Wild West wagon train, but apparently the creatures were a lot faster than they looked. "Nobody told me we were filming Ben-Hur out here," he commented.
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