“We are not going anywhere,” Alabaster said, leaning back in her chair. She glanced at one of her male attendants, who hurried to bring her a cup of water.
They stepped back into Pilgrim House, where Jennifer was bending over the bed of a man with an injured leg, checking his bandages. She patted his hand reassuringly and spoke quietly to his family before coming over to join them.
“Well?” she said.
“We can’t give the Wraith Asgard technology,” John said bluntly.
“Oh,” Jennifer said. “Yeah, probably not.”
“Why not?” Daniel asked. “What we have is a weather machine. Part of a weather machine. And what we’re looking for is more climate control technology, right? The Wraith don’t live on planets. They need a weather machine like a fish needs a bicycle.”
“They could use it to improve their shipboard life support systems.”
“Sure, maybe, but under what circumstances is that going to give them a serious tactical advantage, especially if we have the same technology? I’m just saying, this isn’t something they’re likely to find useful or interesting when they see it.”
“And what if we find something else?” Rodney said. He glanced at Jennifer for support, probably unconsciously, and Jennifer nodded.
“Which you might.”
Daniel shrugged. “What if they go looking themselves and find something else? I mean, now that we’ve put the idea in their heads.”
“Which was your idea,” John pointed out grimly.
“I know. I’m just saying, I think we’re all better off if we’re the ones who investigate the sites, even if that means sending the Wraith some information about what we find. Because if the Wraith find something interesting on their own, they’re not going to come running to share it with us.”
John gritted his teeth. “Okay. I see your point. But if we find a cache of Asgard weapons—”
“Doctor Jackson has said that is highly unlikely,” Teyla said. She gave them all a pointed look, which Daniel tentatively translated as let’s not plan to double-cross the telepathic aliens in front of the telepathic aliens.
“It is,” Daniel said. “Highly unlikely.”
“All right,” John said grudgingly. “Let’s go make a deal.”
Alabaster looked up as they came back into the tent. “Have you consulted with your men to your satisfaction?”
“Indeed I have,” Teyla said. “We are willing to share anything we learn from the Asgard sites with you, including information about their technology. That said, as we are the ones investigating the sites, any actual artifacts that we find will of course remain with us.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” Alabaster said. She glanced up at Guide, who met her eyes for a long moment without speaking aloud. “This is acceptable to us,” she said. “I will send Ember with you to show you the location of the worlds he remembers.”
“We only need to speak with him,” Teyla said.
Alabaster smiled, and he did think that was a smile. She looked like someone enjoying a well-played game of chess. “And yet if none of my men goes with you to the sites, how will I know that you are not holding back information about your best discoveries?”
“Would we do that?” John said.
“We would in your place,” Alabaster said. “It would be foolish not to, and surely you do not take me for a fool.”
“All right,” John said. “He can come back with us to Atlantis. We’ll talk to Woolsey about it and see what we can work out.”
“And I will instruct Ember that he is not to share information with you unless he is permitted to accompany you to investigate the settlement sites.”
“I think we understand each other,” John said.
Alabaster looked amused. “So we do.” She looked up at Jennifer. “If we are finished with this matter, you may send in the next of the pilgrims.”
Jennifer’s eyes went to Ronon, who had stiffened visibly at the words. “I don’t think you’re going to want to see this,” she said.
“I don’t,” Ronon said, and walked out.
“I’m not sure any of us want to see this,” John said. “I’ll go with Ronon.”
“Well, it’s my job, so here I am,” Jennifer said.
“Actually, I’d like to observe if that’s appropriate,” Daniel said. “I assume there’s some kind of ritual around the process?”
“Perhaps another time,” Teyla said, looking at Rodney, whose expression was hard for Daniel to read. “I think it is best if we wait outside.”
“As you like,” Alabaster said, as the man with the injured leg came in, supported by his wife and a younger man who looked like his son. The two of them began helping him to kneel in front of Alabaster.
“This is Edric,” Jennifer said, checking a mark on the younger man’s arm circled in black Sharpie. One of the Wraith made notes on a handheld device. “In experimental group two. Retrovirus administered three days ago.”
As they went out, the younger man knelt beside his father, and Alabaster stood. Daniel had time to see that her claws were very sharp indeed, and the mouth-like slit on her feeding hand very dark against her pale blue skin, before Teyla drew the door firmly closed between them.
Chapter Nine
While they waited for Ember to arrive, Rodney took the opportunity to say goodbye to Jennifer. He wasn’t sure what there was to say that they hadn’t said already when she left Atlantis, but he also couldn’t just walk away without a word. The rest of the team were politely pretending to be interested in examining the other end of the long room, with the exception of Ronon, who was still nowhere to be seen.
“You’re really all right,” Rodney said.
“I’m really all right. Living on a Wraith hive is… interesting.”
“I would think disturbing. Maybe bordering on traumatic.”
“Well, I’ve had the retrovirus, so there’s that,” Jennifer said. “And I stay away from the feeding cells.”
The memory was intense and overwhelming: standing in the feeding cells, consumed by hunger, every instinct telling him that the humans hanging there were food. For a moment his feeding hand cramped with hunger, even though when he looked down, his palm was entirely human, the skin unmarked.
“Rodney?” Jennifer said in concern.
“I’m fine.”
“I know it’s disturbing. Believe me, I’m disturbed. But at least while we’re running these trials, every person who’s had the retrovirus who gets fed on is one fewer person who gets eaten. And it gives me the opportunity to make a case for having humans aboard under relatively humane conditions.”
“Voluntarily, or… ”
Jennifer shrugged. “Is Newton in Atlantis voluntarily?”
“Newton is a cat. We couldn’t exactly have him sign a consent form.”
“The Wraith think we’re animals. Because otherwise eating us would be too disturbing for them. The advantage of having worshippers rather than prisoners is that you can train them to do useful things, and if they get out of their cage they won’t wreck your house. That’s the angle I’ve got to work with here.”
“Some of them know we’re not cats.”
“And some of us know they’re not monsters. But there’s an entire galaxy full of Wraith and humans who don’t think that way. The thing I can do about it is the thing I’m doing.” She shook her head. “Besides, Alabaster really is helping these people.”
“Not exactly for altruistic reasons.”
“I won’t say the Wraith don’t get anything out of it. But… ” She turned to look at the end of the room where the more seriously ill and injured pilgrims were resting on their beds. “That little girl’s leg was caught under an overturned cart. Her ankle is basically crushed. I’ve given her all the painkillers I can, but even if I tried putting a cast on her ankle, she’d probably never walk normally again. I could take her back to Atlantis, get our best orthopedic surgeons to piece her leg together like a jigsaw puzzle, and hope we’re in time to preserve a reasonable amount of function in the joint. Or Alabaster could heal her in five minutes.”