Lorne stretched uncomfortably in his office chair, wishing there were some way to sit that didn’t make his leg hurt. Just then, there didn’t seem to be any way to do anything that didn’t make his leg hurt, so he figured that was a lost cause. Still, he wished the Ancients had dedicated just a little of their technological know-how to figuring out how to make really good adjustable chairs.
Somebody knocked on the door, and he called, “Come in,” trying to shift into something resembling a work-like posture as the door opened. “Colonel Carter.”
“Hi, Major,” she said, with a smile that looked genuine. “I see you’re up and around.”
“More or less,” he said. “Sorry, ma’am, I would…” He gestured apologetically in the direction of standing. “It’ll just take me a minute.”
“God, no, don’t get up,” Carter said. “I was on crutches once, I know what a pain that is.” She glanced ruefully at his cast. “Same leg as last time, huh?”
“Yep. I should get some kind of a discount this time.”
“I don’t know. Janet always used to threaten to charge extra if we came in with the same injury more than once. She said she was getting awfully tired of the Colonel’s knees.”
“I remember that,” Lorne said. “She kept everybody in line.”
“She did,” Carter said. Her smile was sad. She and Dr. Fraiser had been friends, Lorne remembered, until Dr. Fraiser was killed on a rescue mission gone bad. He’d been with SG-11 then, the third SG-11. The first two teams with that designation had been lost in action, killed to a man. He suspected her thoughts were running along the same lines, because she added, “Hey, any one you walk away from, right?”
“I’m not complaining,” Lorne said, although he thought ‘limp away from’ might be more accurate at the moment. And maybe for longer than that, but he was trying very hard not to think like that. It was probably going to heal fine, although he was pretty sure this time he had the fun of physiotherapy waiting for him once the cast came off. “I just wish I could be out there doing more.”
“You should take it easy,” Carter said. “Under normal circumstances, you’d have earned yourself a trip home to recuperate for a while, but unfortunately that’s not very practical right now.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, even if we could dial Earth, there’s a lot that needs to get done right here,” Lorne said. “Dr. Keller cleared me for light duty.”
“I know,” Carter said. “It’s just that we do like to give people who’ve been wounded in action a chance to rest up somewhere where they’re not in constant danger of being attacked by aliens.”
“And so you’re suggesting Colorado Springs?”
She smiled. “You have a point there.”
“Thanks for checking up on me,” he said.
“Actually that’s not the only reason I came by,” she said. “Colonel Sheppard asked me to keep an eye on things in Atlantis while he and his team go mediate these negotiations between the Satedans and the Genii. I just wanted to touch base with you, since you’re the acting military commander.”
He thought that translated as, ‘I hope you haven’t got your feathers ruffled by Sheppard leaving me in charge instead of you.’ He hadn’t, particularly — at the moment, all he really wanted was to be lying down with some stronger painkillers than the Tylenol Keller had prescribed. And with three colonels currently on the station, he hadn’t expected to be running the show.
“We’ll hold down the fort,” he said. He was tempted to say that he wished they could have her back in Atlantis on a permanent basis instead of Woolsey, but it wouldn’t make him look good to criticize his current boss, even to his previous boss who he thought had been entirely unfairly screwed out of her job. “What about Colonel Caldwell?”
“He offered to help Colonel Sheppard with the negotiations,” Carter said. “He thinks the rank might carry some weight with the Genii.”
“Great,” Lorne said, trying to sound like he meant it. Personally he thought that Colonel Sheppard and Colonel Caldwell working together on diplomatic negotiations really couldn’t be good, but he suspected that Carter was well aware of that. So either there hadn’t been any way to get out of it, or they thought it really was going to be useful enough to make up for the fact that Sheppard and Caldwell did not exactly play well together as a team.
“Should be interesting,” Carter said, another one of those good all-purpose remarks that could mean anything. “Oh, and we’re almost ready to put the new iris into place. I was just down in the lab, and they’re testing the control mechanism now.”
“I know everybody’s going to feel better once that’s done,” Lorne said.
“I know I will,” Carter said. “I would really rather not rely on Rodney not breaking into our computer system.”
“Dr. Zelenka and Mrs. Miller have been working on that, right? So we’re in better shape?”
“Well, better, yes,” Carter said. “It’s entirely possible that they’ve found most of Rodney’s back doors into the system.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’,” Lorne said.
“Maybe not,” Carter said. “It’s just that he’s been working with these computers for five years, and I have some idea how being in this kind of job makes you think.”
“And?” Lorne said when she hesitated.
“I’m just saying that if I were locked out of the SGC’s computers, I’m not sure what odds I’d give anybody trying to keep me from breaking back in.” She shrugged. “It was always a problem. The only way to make it perfectly safe if one of us were compromised was to make sure there weren’t any back doors into the system, but if there weren’t any back doors, we wouldn’t be able to get back in if there were a foothold situation. I’m not saying that we had unauthorized means of access into the computer system — ”
“No, ma’am,” Lorne said. She certainly was not saying that, in so many words.
“I’m just saying that from everything I know about Rodney, I think he worried a lot less about being compromised than about being locked out of Atlantis’s computers and not being able to get back in.”
“So what do we do?”
Carter shrugged again. “What we’re doing. If we can even just make it more of a challenge for him to break in, it means we’ll have more time to react if he tries it again. And we need to get the mechanical iris ready as soon as we can.”
“I’ll just be here with these supply forms,” Lorne said. “If the Wraith attack, I figure you’ll let me know.”
“I’ll be sure to do that,” Carter said. “Take it easy, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lorne said, but he found that somehow the conversation hadn’t exactly eased his mind.
William hoisted his laptop bag higher onto his shoulder and tried to look as though he’d been ordered to join the Atlantis delegation rather than just attaching himself to it. And it wasn’t as though he’d been told not to join the group. He simply hadn’t asked, just shown up as though it was his business to be there, which was a skill he had honed at the SGC, when there was a lot more competition for the really interesting jobs. Besides, this was exactly the sort of mission that called for — well, it called for an anthropologist, really, but he was the closest they had. He took his place at the back of the group waiting for the control room to dial the gate, out of Sheppard’s line of sight. Sheppard was busy with Lorne anyway, the latter leaning heavily on his crutches and nodding at some last minute instruction…
“I didn’t know you were coming.”
Of course that was Radek. He had paused to check on the progress of the mechanical iris — which was, William noted, looking almost complete, only the gearing that would let it open and close still to install — and that had brought them almost face to face.
“Team archeologist,” William said.
“These people are alive,” Radek said.
“And kicking, some of them,” William murmured, in spite of himself, and Radek gave him the look that deserved.
“Now I am trying to remember how many times you told me you were not an anthropologist.”
“I’m what you’ve got,” William said.
To his surprise, Radek gave a crooked little smile. “There is that, too.”
“Dialing!” a Marine called, and everyone took a few steps backward as the first symbol lit and locked. The gate turned, turned again, and locked, and the great plume of the unstable wormhole lanced out into the gate room. There were few things as beautiful, William thought. Even the lambent pool of the open Stargate was not as astonishing as that first burst of blue. At the head of the group, Sheppard looked over his shoulder, frowning slightly, almost unconsciously, and waved for them to follow.
They emerged into the now-familiar gate square, more crowded, though, than William had seen before. He recognized Cai, and the stocky woman, Arden, who had owned a string of tea-shops and now fed the settlement, but there was a second group, standing a little apart, who had to be un-returned Satedans. Some of those were wearing what looked like military uniform, black trousers and indigo jackets badged with knots of black and silver cord, discreet but elegant. There were four of them, standing together, subtly apart from both the returned and the expatriate, and William slanted a glance toward Ronon, wondering who they were. The big man was carefully not looking in their direction, but from that very care, William thought he was very aware of their presence. An elite unit? Some civilian authority? They carried sidearms, though, in holsters wound with silver filigree. He filed the question for later.
The Stargate lit again, and the first of the Genii delegation came through. He recognized Ladon Radim from Atlantis’s files, short, dapper, neatly bearded — quite handsome, really — and guessed that the taller blond woman at his side was the sister, Dahlia, who was also Chief of Sciences. None of the others were in the files, and their drab, gray-green uniforms gave no clue even to relative rank. And that, William thought, was interesting. The uniforms proclaimed a radical equality that was entirely lacking in the society: another indication, perhaps, of intrinsic instability.
“There is trouble,” Radek said under his breath, and William followed his gaze to see Sora and a couple of soldiers emerging from between two of the collapsed buildings. She had chosen an oblique approach, one that emphasized she and her people were already here, and William thought he saw the faintest of frowns cross Radim’s face. Cai glared openly, and the other Satedans muttered among themselves. Sheppard bit his lip, and moved to intercept her and Radim, so that visually, at least, he was the arbiter.
“What is her problem?” William said softly, under the introductions, and Radek rolled his eyes.
“Teyla was responsible — indirectly and unintentionally, but responsible — for her father’s death. She hasn’t forgiven that.”
“One wouldn’t, I suppose,” William murmured. She and Dahlia were the only women among the Genii delegation: also an interesting contrast to the Satedans, and to what he’d seen of the Athosians. “Who are the ones in blue, do you know?”
Radek shook his head. “Ronon does not talk about Sateda. We thought they were all dead.”
There were several answers to that, none of them appropriate. William peered over the top of his glasses at the open-sided pavilion that had been set up toward the far end of the square. Long narrow banners hung like streamers from the corner poles, and the canopy was a dusty burgundy; he wondered where they’d found it, and what traditions it represented. Cai gestured broadly, waving them all toward it, and William trailed behind the others, the sun warm on his back.
There weren’t enough chairs at the three-sided table for everyone, of course, just for the leaders and a pair of aides apiece. Sheppard took the middle chair, flanked by Caldwell and Ronon; Cai and Arden and one of the blue-coated men took the Satedan side, and Radim was joined by an older man, bald and scowling, and a fair-haired, nondescript man with a bandaged hand. The rest of their parties clustered half in and half out of the shade, milling quietly behind their principals.
“Right,” Sheppard said. “Glad everyone’s here. Introductions first, for the record.” He took a breath. “Lt. Col. John Sheppard, commander of Atlantis. Colonel Stephen Caldwell, of the Daedalus; Ronon Dex.”
“Mr. Woolsey will not be joining us?” Radim said, with a lifted eyebrow.
“He had to return to Earth,” Sheppard said. “This didn’t seem like it could wait.”
Radim’s eyebrows rose even higher, but he nodded. “Ladon Radim, Chief of the Genii. Commander Carel Sar, Speaker Reiter Telez.”
The commander was the one with the bandaged hand. That title was no surprise, but William wondered exactly what the Speaker’s role was in their government. Sheppard nodded once, and looked at Cai.
“Ushan Cai, head of the Satedan provisional government — ”
Radim leaned forward, folding his hands on the tabletop. “Surely that’s part of what we’re discussing here. Not a given.”
“And if you’re not willing to acknowledge that,” Cai retorted, “there’s no point in these discussions.”
Out of the corner of his eye, William saw Teyla shift slightly, as though she would have liked to answer. Sheppard said, “Let’s stipulate that nobody’s agreeing to anything right at this point.” Deliberately or not, he had used the same tone he used with Torren, and a smile flickered across Teyla’s face.
Radim’s expression didn’t change, but he leaned back. “As long as that’s clearly understood,” he said.
Cai snorted, but gestured to the woman at his right. “Arden Mai, second-in-charge, and Colonel Kashek Yan, senior commander of the Satedan Band.”
“And is the Band taking an official interest?” Radim asked.
“We hold a watching brief,” Yan answered. “On behalf of those Satedans who wait to return.”
“Then I’m not sure we can agree to your presence,” Radim said.
William barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. It was obvious what Radim was trying to do, derail the talks before they could get started, and equally obvious that these weren’t serious protests. Under cover of the rising voices, he leaned forward to speak in Radek’s ear.
“What’s the Satedan Band?”
Radek shrugged, and to William’s surprise, Teyla glanced over her shoulder. “They are a famous elite unit among the Satedans, oath-bound to each other and to their service.”
William lifted his own eyebrows at that, wondering if he was reading in more than was intended, and Sheppard tapped on the table.
“OK. Then Colonel Yan stays.”
“This speaks to the basic question under discussion,” Radim said. “Sateda was abandoned — with good cause, no world Culled as deeply as Sateda was can survive. Her people scattered and found new lives. Colonel Yan is an excellent example of this, and he himself says he’s not returning. Sateda as we knew it is no more. Now we are — as Colonel Sheppard, and indeed everyone, is aware — in need of every scrap of Ancient technology that we can salvage to try to make some stand against Queen Death. A group of scavengers squatting in the wreckage — who cannot even use the technology they’re denying to others — is not Sateda.”
“We are Sateda,” Cai said. “This is our world, our home. Neither the Genii nor anyone else have any right to our resources.”
“You can’t use what you have,” Telez blurted.
“Then why not trade for it?” Sheppard asked. “It seems to me you’ve both got some opportunities here — ”
“Meaning no offense,” Radim said, in the tone that meant precisely the opposite, “but I see no reason we should withdraw and leave Atlantis in charge.”
“We’re here to trade,” Sheppard said, firmly. “And no offense taken.”
“That’s what they all say.”
William couldn’t see who had said that, but there was a murmur of laughter from among the Genii. It was going to be a very long day.