That was unusual. From what Teyla knew about the technical assignments on Atlantis, there seemed to be considerable leeway in who ended up with any particular task. She had seldom heard of anyone protesting an assignment, and never being refused in the way she had just observed.
“So, your friend does not wish to work with Angelus?”
Franklyn shook his head. “She’s won’t tell me why. But I swear, something that she’s seen down there has scared the living… Er, daylights out of her. I told her to see Carter, get reassigned. But it doesn’t look like she’s buying it.”
Teyla looked over towards the office, and saw Carter beckoning her in. “I am due to see the Colonel now. Perhaps I could ask on your friend’s behalf?”
He thought about that for a moment. “Let me talk to her again first. I don’t want to speak for her, you know?”
“I understand. Thank you for being candid, Mr Franklyn.”
She got up, and walked across the gangway to join Carter, pausing at the doorway. “Colonel?”
“Teyla, please come in.” Carter was sitting behind her desk, and she gestured at the seat opposite her. Teyla moved it slightly away from the desk and sat, keeping her posture alert but neutral, hands folded in her lap. After what she had seen here, and heard from Franklyn, the atmosphere in the office was less than comfortable.
Carter seemed to sense this. “Staffing problems.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“You and me both. Anyway, the Malan situation. I guess it went badly.”
“I will submit a full report, Colonel. Suffice to say that I do not believe we should return anytime soon.”
“From what I heard, if you hadn’t been on the ball things might have been a lot worse.”
Teyla understood the expression, but she couldn’t help wondering where it stemmed from. How could one be on a ball and yet alert for danger? The language of Earth people, she had decided some time ago, was a stew of words. How they understood each other was a mystery, much of the time. “Thankfully, there were no injuries. All we lost was some pride and some time.”
“Right…” Carter nodded absently. She seemed lost in thought, her fingertips tapping at the desktop nervously. Teyla, slightly disturbed but not wanting to break into Carter’s thoughts, simply waited.
Finally: “Teyla, you’ve spoken to Angelus, right?”
“Once, yes.”
“How did he strike you?”
Strike? Oh. “He was… Polite.”
Carter raised an eyebrow. “Anything else?”
“Intelligent. Extremely so. He seemed…” Teyla scrunched her face in thought, trying to put into words how Angelus had seemed when she had been with him. How could she effectively talk about the immeasurable sense of pain emanating from him? Or the regret, the loneliness? She had been talking to a man who had slept ten thousand years while his children built cities under mountains, and had seen them die in fire. Where were the words for that?
“He was sad,” she said quietly.
Carter sighed. “I know what you mean. But listen, there’s something else. When you talked, it was about the location of his homeworld, is that right?”
“It is. Ronon and I found no information about the Eraavi or their home, so I asked Angelus to help me locate it in our database.”
“And he was okay with that? He didn’t try to hide it, or give you the runaround at all…”
Teyla didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “Colonel, what is this about?”
Carter looked at her hard for a moment. “I’ve got reason to believe Angelus might have been lying about Eraavis.”
“Lying? To me?”
“To all of us. McKay is sure that Angelus couldn’t have made the trip across Replicator space in that ship of his — it’s just too far.”
“That is… I mean, I am very surprised. I had no sense he was being dishonest with me. Just the opposite. Colonel Carter, I would swear that he was telling me the truth.”
Carter shrugged. “Maybe there’s been some kind of mistake. If Rodney’s figures are wrong… All I’m saying is, we have to be open to the possibility that Angelus lied.”
“In which case, we should confront him.”
Carter snorted. “Oh, I’d love to. But that man who was in here earlier? He’s an observer from the IOA.”
“The group on Earth that tells you what to do.”
“Yeah, them. Well, the Advisory want anything Angelus is selling, and they’ve sent that observer here to make sure we play ball. If I start accusing Angelus of screwing with us now, they’ll hear about it and drag him right back to Earth. My hands are tied.”
Teyla sorted out the stew of words in her head. People were afraid Angelus would accidentally summon the Replicators if he began building his weapon again, she was quite aware of that. So of course he couldn’t be allowed to be taken to what was, by all accounts, a very populous world. The Advisory had made a highly effective threat. No wonder Carter had deferred to the observer.
The Colonel’s hands were, metaphorically, tied. Her own were not. “I understand. This must be very difficult for you.”
“I’ll get by.”
“I am sure you will, with help.” She stood up. “I may have made an error when I located Eraavis. I think it would be useful if I did some… Research on the matter.”
Carter smiled softly. “Thank you. Let me know as soon as you find anything. Personally.”
The languages of Earth people were complex, it was true. And yes, sometimes it was hard to determine what they were saying. On the other hand, occasionally they could make themselves very clear indeed.
Colonel Carter was being spied on. To what degree, Teyla couldn’t be sure, but given that Carter didn’t feel able to speak freely even when the IOA man was out of the room, she must know that he was watching her very closely indeed. Which meant that although she didn’t trust Angelus, she couldn’t investigate him herself — the danger of having the IOA step in was too great.
But if someone else were to undertake such an investigation; someone, perhaps, with motives separate from Carter’s… Someone who had been lied to, expertly and directly, by the Ancient, and wanted to prove it? Well, in that case, the Colonel could not be held responsible.
Teyla had heard Sheppard speak of such things in the past. He used phrases like ‘plausible deniability.’
Whatever the concept was called, Teyla understood it perfectly. She also understood that she was being used, played quite effectively by Colonel Carter. She was quite aware that some people considered her proud, although she preferred to think of herself as simply confident in her own abilities. And when it looked as though those abilities had failed her, it was only natural that she would feel driven to learn all she could from her failure.
Carter, in only three weeks and with so many other things on her mind, had already learned that about Teyla Emmagan.
Later on, Teyla might get angry about that. But for the moment, Carter’s plans and her own meshed well. She would play the new Colonel’s games, for her own benefit. If Angelus was able to lie so effortlessly to her, and make her believe his lies so conclusively, then she needed to know how he had done it.
She spent some time writing and submitting her report on the Malan debacle, which also gave her time to mull over the situation with Angelus. It was a puzzle knowing what to do, at first. Her immediate thought had been to march down to the lab and confront the man, but she quickly realized that would solve nothing other than to alert Angelus — and his IOA guardian — to the fact he had been caught in a lie. If there was a quick way of having the Ancient taken to Earth and getting Carter into serious trouble, it would be the direct approach. Teyla, after giving the matter some thought, decided that caution would be better.
Her next idea was to ask McKay about his calculations, and exactly what he thought about the location of Eraavis, but the man was off-world, on some kind of mission with Ronon and John Sheppard. So instead, Teyla called Franklyn again, and asked his friend’s name.