"Surely Dr. McKay would."
Rodney gave them a superior smile. "It's amusing when you plot against me. Oh, I want to show you something." He headed off toward the rear of the gallery.
John hesitated. Teyla had been trying to avoid what had happened to her by avoiding him, and John had just realized he was avoiding something too. But realizing it wasn't enough to make him stop doing it, and he followed Rodney and Teyla over to a laptop set up on one of the consoles.
Rodney sat down and typed rapidly, bringing up a video program. "Zelenka managed to pull this off the memory core while he was reconstructing the data."
Teyla took one of the other seats, scooting over to see the screen, and John leaned on the back of Rodney's chair.
A video clip started to play, and Rodney tipped the screen back so John could see it. "It's too badly damaged to be significant and we have much better visual images of actual Ancients. The best ones, aside from the photos of the Ancient woman they found frozen in Antarctica, are probably the holographic recordings we've found here. But this is interesting for one key factor."
John frowned at the screen, not sure what he was looking for. He recognized the poorly lit underground corridor leading toward Dorane's shielded lab area. Then three people came into view, a woman with two men flanking her. They were dressed in black and between that, the bad lighting, and the fact that the image hadn't been meant to display in this format, it was hard to make out much detail. The man closest to the camera looked directly at it and Rodney hit a keystroke, freezing the picture. John started to say, "So what's the key factor we're- What the hell?" The image was grainy but John could see that the man looked like him. For an instant the resemblance was uncanny, then he realized part of that was the light and shadow. It was still a little spooky.
Rodney said, "Because of the poor quality of the image, the resemblance seems closer than it actually is. Fortunately he looks directly at the recording device so I was able to do a point by point comparison with the photo in your personnel file-"
"Oh, well, good to know that's not actually me." John dropped into the chair next to Rodney and stared at him, incredulous and indignant. "It's not like you could take my word for it that I'm not a ten thousand year old Ancient who thought it would be fun to hang out here playing tag with the Wraith and watching you guys scramble for answers. And how many times have I asked you to stay out of my personnel file?"
"I did not think it was actually you," McKay said witheringly. Under John's suspicious scrutiny, he admitted reluctantly, "Well, not after the first few minutes or so."
John put his head down on the console. Kavanagh and McKay, with Dr. Heightmeyer and the hand puppets. I am so going to find a way to arrange that.
"Your resemblance to him is obviously a genetic throwback, like the gene itself. But the point is," Rodney continued blithely, "that it explains a lot."
"It does not," John muttered.
"It does." Teyla sat up straight, staring at Rodney in startled comprehension. "When Dorane first woke from the stasis container, he looked at the Major, and said, `you're human."'
"Exactly," Rodney told her. "We thought he was reacting in surprise at seeing us, but he must have been talking specifically to the Major." He turned to John. "Even though he was tracking our movements, that must have been the first time he got a good look at you. He may have thought, just for an instant, that he was looking at the man from this recording. Or that you were an Ascendant. According to Dr. Jackson's experiences, they can appear in their original corporeal forms. Then he realized you were human."
"It must have brought back the memories of his battle with the Ancestors," Teyla said thoughtfully.
"It explains why he wanted to kill you at first sight," McKay added. "As opposed to the usual reasons why people want to kill you at first sight."
John sat up, admitting reluctantly, "Okay, it does explain that. Is there anything else on the recording?"
"No, it fuzzes out right after this." Rodney frowned at the screen. "I think he must have blown up the camera with his mind, or something."
John looked at the screen again, wondering at the motives of those people, so long dead. Or Ascended, or whatever. Maybe part of Dorane's desire for revenge had come from the fact that the Ancients had left him to rot in the repository. Faced with the Wraith advance, they had just filed him away as not important enough to bother with. Unless making it clear to Dorane that he was a minor irritant at best had been some Ancient's idea of the ultimate punishment. Considering the effect it had evidently had on him, it just might have been.
John left Rodney and Teyla still searching through the few damaged images from the core's display. It was time to stop avoiding this.
He went up to the jumper bay. It was quiet and unoccupied, which was perfect. He wanted to do this alone, just in case Beckett was wrong. Half the expedition either didn't have the Ancient gene or the ATA therapy, and losing it wouldn't mean he couldn't do his job. But it would mean he couldn't fly the jumpers. If they weren't able to contact Earth, it might mean he could never fly again. It would mean a lot of things he wasn't willing to give up.
He picked Jumper One for luck; it was the one he had first tried to fly, the one that had gotten him to the hive ship and back when he had barely known what he was doing with it.
But when he stepped into the cockpit and sat down, it happily powered up, adjusted the seat and the lighting for him, popped up several sensor screens when he thought about them and then tried to hand him a life sign detector. It was in its way as big a relief as Jumper Five carrying the bioweapon away through the `gate; Atlantis still knew him, and everything was all right.
About the author
Martha Wells is the author of seven fantasy novels, including Wheel of the Infinite, City of Bones, The Element of Fire, and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer. Her most recent novels are a fantasy trilogy: The Wizard Hunters, The Ships of Air, and The Gate of Gods, published in hardcover by HarperCollins Fos in November 2005. She has had short stories in the magazines Realms of Fantasy , Black Gate, and Stargate Magazine, and in the anthology Elemental by Steven Savile and Alethea Kontis. She also has essays in the nonfiction anthologies Farscape Forever and Mapping the World of Harry Potter from BenBella Books. Her books have been published in eight languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Polish, and Dutch, and her web site is www.marthawells.com.
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SNEAK PREVIEW
STARGATE SGI : RELATIVITY
by James Swallow
aniel reached the top of the stairs and looked up. And up. And up. He felt his head swim a little and his balance fluttered. A firm hand pressed into his shoulder and he glanced back to see Teal'c providing the support. "Thanks," he said lamely. "That last step is a doozy."
To be honest, Jackson hadn't really known what to expect. He'd been inside lots of big spaceships before, and one set of corridors looked pretty much like another, right? Granted, the mix-and-match tunnels-and-technology look of the Wanderer's passageways was something new, but this space, this atrium... For a moment, it took his breath away. Daniel had imagined they would come out in some sort of room, maybe like a reception chamber or a hall for audiences. He had not expected to find himself standing in the middle of what
looked like parkland, having emerged from the side of a shallow hill. For long moments his brain registered a kind of disconnect. The scenery was one of sparse grasses and low, wide trees. The first Earth-like analogy that sprang to mind was the African veldt, a savannah that went off to the horizon - or at least, it would have if there had actually been a horizon. Jackson swallowed hard and let his eyes follow the line of the landscape, over the gentle, rolling hills, finding roads and regular, oval lakes, the patchwork of what looked like farmland and clusters of buildings that were bright white stone in the even daylight.
But where the view should have gone to the vanishing point, the land did something very different. It folded up and away, and Daniel tried not to get dizzy as he walked his gaze up it, around and along until he saw the curvature coming together miles over his head. "Whoa."
Suddenly, like one of those weird optical illusion pictures, the sight popped in his brain and Jackson's sense of perception caught up to what it was he was actually seeing. "On the inside," he said to himself. "It's inside out. An inside out planet."
"Is that what it is?" said O'Neill. "Oh good. That makes a lot more sense than trees stuck to the ceiling."
Suj, still smiling in faint amusement, held her hands palms up in front of her. "Imagine a map, flat on a table. Then take it and fold it into a tube." She put her hands together. "We are inside that tube, standing on the map. Look up," and she pointed into the air, "and you see the rest of the map arching overhead." Suj inclined her head. "Do not the Tau'ri have similar colonies in their star system?"
"Only in theory," admitted Carter. "I'm familiar with the concept, though." Sam glanced at Daniel and the others. "Back in the Sixties, a scientist called Gerard O'Neill posited the idea of building a huge cylinder in space, or hollowing out an asteroid and setting it to spin along the longest axis." She made a turning motion with her fingers. "The centrifugal force created on the inside surface of the cylinder mimics Earth-normal gravity..." Her voice tailed off. "Never thought I'd ever see one, though."
"O'Neill, huh?" said Jack. "Cool." He gave Suj a look. "No relation, in case you were wondering."
"It's incredible," Daniel took in the scope of the construction. He made out the forms of thin steel towers rising up from the surface like the spokes on a wheel, to meet at a series of spheres along the midline of the massive open chamber. "What are those?"
"The effect of gravity lessens the closer you get to the center of the Wanderer," explained Suj. "At the hub there is no effect at all. We maintain artificial solar generators up there to create the illusion of a night and day cycle."
"It's a hell of a lot of real estate to keep in a can," noted Jack.
"The Wanderer has been the heart of the Pack since the day of the first escape," said Suj, a little defensively. "Please, if you'll walk with me."
They followed a path down to the nearest of the townships, which lay clustered around the base of one of the steel towers. Close up, Daniel saw that the buildings had an organic feel to them, as if they were made of coral. He wondered if they were grown rather than assembled.
The locals matched the look of Suj and the Pack from the planet. Clothing, technology and the people themselves were an eclectic mixture. This was a magpie culture, he reasoned, tribes of people who had lost their worlds and their identities in the wake of Goa'uld oppression, and then come together to forge a new whole from the fragments. Jackson felt the same rush of excitement as he had on the planet with the stone orbs, the promise of studying something strange and undiscovered; and these were living, breathing people with a vital, ongoing culture, not simply the memorials of a civilization long dead.
In the central square of the township they came upon Vix and Ryn, along with a handful of other men and women who all wore patient and vigilant expressions.
"Hey," said Jack, giving them a jaunty wave. "Nice digs you have here. Love what you've done with the place."
Vix accepted the greeting with a nod. "O'Neill." He turned to his companions. "These are the Tau'ri of Earth. I have brought them to parley."
Ryn said nothing, but an older, dark-skinned man in a heavy tunic and robes stepped closer. "Not what we expected, Vix. Not what we expected at all. Where is the salvage our scouts spoke of?"
"Yeah, about that," offered the colonel. "If I can field that one, I'm thinking that your folks and ours were led on a wild goose chase in that regard."
"There are only war machines down there," explained Vix. "Guardians, I suspect, placed there to protect the stone monoliths. Our sweeps detected nothing that we could use."
The other man frowned. "Our needs-"
"Are known to me," finished Vix bluntly. "Do not question that. This is why I have brought these people to our home. They talk of trade."
"Words cost little," grumbled Ryn.
"Damn right they do," O'Neill broke in. "So, what do you say we see if there's something more tangible we can chat about?" He spread his hands. "We're not the snakeheads, kids. We're here to, uh..." Jack glanced at Sam. "Carter, what was that phrase?"
"Make in-roads, sir," she replied, pulling up the expression from a dull briefing document from the International Oversight Advisory that all of them had been forced to read. The world governments who knew about the Stargate were forever applying pressure for concrete rewards from the program.
"In-roads, right." Jack nodded sagely, and Daniel was struck by the fact that he gave a good impression of knowing what he was doing. "You guys saved our butts back on that pool-table planet. Helluva good way to make new friends."
For the first time, Vix cracked something like a smile. He was warming to them. "You and I will talk, Colonel." He beckoned him closer. "I have chambers where there is food and refreshment.'
Ryn sniffed. "Where you can create secret deals with the Tau'ri to strengthen your own position?"
The other man's outburst made the moment turn awkward. "I will seek only what is best for the Pack," said Vix, at length.
"Then there will be no impediment to my presence as well," retorted the other pilot, darting a look at Suj.
"Ryn is correct," said the historian. "The codes of conduct allow it. One of the Pack for each visitor. But this means O'Neill must have a companion as well."
"Oh, I getcha." Jack nodded. "Teal'c? Come with. We can get a snack."
"What about us, sir?" said Sam.
"Make nice," replied the colonel. "But don't wander too far."
As they departed, the dark-skinned man gave Sam a small bow. "Forgive me, I am remiss. I am Koe, and the Pack's welfare is my remit. Perhaps you and your associate would join me while our leaders talk? I would be pleased to show you some of the Wanderer."
"If it pleases you, healer," Suj broke in. "Might I speak with Doctor Jackson? It appears we have some common interests."
The two members of the Pack exchanged glances and Daniel saw a subtle communication pass between them. "Of course," said Koe.
Sam gave him a nod as they parted company and tapped the radio on her gear vest; the message was clear. Stay in touch -just in case. Daniel nodded back, and for a moment he felt a slight tinge of disappointment. They'd barely met these people and already they had defaulted to the assumption that the Pack were untrustworthy. It made Jackson feel glum; but then SG-1 had learned through bitter experience that seemingly-friendly faces were often far from it. The Shavadai, the Eurondans, the Aschen, the Bedrosians... We've had more of our fair share of knives hidden behind smiles. He sighed and gave Suj a weak grin. For once, he hoped, it would be nice to find the reverse was true.
STARGATE SG-1: Relativity
Available October 2007
For more information, visit www.stargatenovels.com
Martha Wells, Reliquary
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