“I’m coming,” Woolsey said. He put the coffee cup down on the conference table and left it there.
It was several hours before they had seen all the injured, including a man who had been shot in the leg and lost a lot of blood. He wasn’t the worst injured, though. That went to a woman who had been hit in the head with a rifle butt and hadn’t regained consciousness since. Dekaas arranged to transport her onto the Durant where he had more equipment, shaking his head as he did so. He had no words of comfort for her kin, only that he’d try. Elizabeth watched them go up the elevator to the airlock, the woman wrapped in a blanket on a pallet, Dekaas and her two teenage daughters, their faces pale and pinched with worry.
“She tried to fight back,” Fenna said. “Always a mistake.”
Elizabeth didn’t reply. She took a deep breath, warming her hands against her sleeves.
“So you wanted to use our gate to dial out?” Fenna asked.
“If you’ll permit it,” Elizabeth said. “But Dekaas asked me to keep an eye on the injured down here while he tends to her, so I’m not leaving just yet.”
“Fair enough,” Fenna said. “You can trade your help for the use of our gate.”
“That’s a deal,” Elizabeth said, putting out her hand.
After a moment Fenna shook it. “We’re going to end this thing deep in the Travelers’ debt, but I see no alternative. It’s a bad business.”
“It seems so,” Elizabeth said.
“But now you’re welcome to a bite to eat,” Fenna said.
“That would be great.” Elizabeth walked with her through several corridors and out into the largest cavern she’d yet seen. At the other end of it was a vast ring of dark metal with a pedestal before it. Elizabeth frowned, a shiver running through her. “The Ring,” she said. “It’s different.” There was an inner circle of symbols on a band rather than lights.
“Aye,” Fenna said. “It’s different from most I’ve seen. But it works just the same.”
“How did it get here?” She had the feeling that there was something wrong about that, something important.
“How did any Ring get anywhere?” Fenna asked. “We found it here when we first came here. These caverns were already hollowed out, but I guess the ore wasn’t good enough to be worth the effort, or maybe troubles came and everyone went home. It was all shut down tidily. No bones, no signs of a fight, just abandoned. I reckon somebody pulled out long ago.”
“I suppose,” Elizabeth said. She frowned. There was something about the gate that was wrong, something she should remember. When had she seen one like it before?
Two figures were silhouetted for a moment against the brightness of the Stargate as they walked through, one with a cap of golden hair, the other tall and muscular. They stepped through, and for a moment the puddle of blue light remained before it faded. The circle of red lit symbols around the gate went dark.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” she said.
The man beside her at the window shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “It’s our best shot,” he said. “If anybody can do it, Sam and Teal’c can.”
“Frankly, I’m less worried about them than us.” Elizabeth turned away from the gate room window, pacing around the conference room table. “That modified ship is the most advanced piece of technology Earth has.”
The man pushed his glasses up on his nose with one hand. “Think about it this way. That ship exists because of what’s in Jack’s head. Right now, nobody can access that, including Jack. But if the Asgard can help him, then maybe we can find out how he modified the ship. And everything else he knows but can’t tell us.”
Elizabeth stopped at the far end of the table. “You have a point,” she said.
“I often do.” He gave her a boyish smile. “You know, it’s not necessary to have an adversarial relationship.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Dr. Jackson, I had nothing to do with the President relieving General Hammond. I didn’t even know the Stargate program existed! This job was not my idea. But I’m going to see it through, and I’m going to make the best decisions I possibly can.”
He perched on the other end of the table, the tension in his body belying his carefully diffident demeanor. “Look, it’s not to your advantage or to ours for this to be adversarial. But I can’t help wondering exactly who does benefit. Progressive activist given command of an Air Force project, disarmament negotiator given control of Earth’s most advanced weapons, DC insider relieving beloved commander somebody’s set up for failure here and I’m not sure if it’s you or us.”
It was time to trust him, time to take that leap of faith that’s always the most deadly in politics. “I know exactly who,” Elizabeth said. “And it’s both of us set up to fail. This is supposed to discredit both the Stargate program and me. Unless I’m simply a convenient pawn as far as he’s concerned.”
“Kinsey,” Jackson said.
“Got it in one.”
“Color me surprised.” Jackson smiled again. “Then you know there’s one way for both of us to win.”
“For us not to fail,” Elizabeth said. She came around the table again and offered her hand. “How about it?”
“It’s a deal,” Jackson said.
Chapter Thirteen
John bent over Teyla’s shoulder at the communications board in the gateroom, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably as he looked at the incoming video transmission through the Stargate. “Oh, hi, Larrin,” he said.
The woman looked amused. “Hello Sheppard.”
“Long time, no see,” John said. “Everything OK on your end?”
“Yes.” Her smile widened. “The only reason I’m calling is because your friend Mr. Woolsey asked for anyone to let him know if there were any reports of a woman with no memory.”
John straightened up as Teyla felt her breath catch in her throat. “A woman with no memory?”
“A couple of our ships were trading recently on a world called Mazatla. One of them just rendezvoused with me and they said that the Mazatla had a woman that they were asking around about. They’d found her wandering around a field and she had no memory. They were asking if anyone knew her.”
“What did she look like?” Teyla put in, forestalling John’s question.
Larrin shrugged. “Dark haired, pale skinned, average height. Nothing remarkable.”
“Mazatla,” John said. “Where is that?”
“I’ll send you the gate coordinates. It’s an underpopulated world with subsistence farming and hunter/gatherers. We trade for food there.” She leaned forward to transmit the gate address. “It only has an orbital Stargate.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” John said. “I appreciate it, Larrin. I’ll buy you a drink next time.”
“You wish,” Larrin said, and cut the transmission.
Teyla looked up at John, one eyebrow rising. “Buy you a drink?”
“Just being friendly,” he said. “Friends. As in people who tell you important things you want to know.”
“Do you think it is Elizabeth?” Teyla asked.
“I think we need to go find out.” John headed briskly to the office, where his jacket lay over the chair.
“You mean we should go find out,” Teyla said, following him. “Mr. Woolsey left you in charge in Atlantis.”
“It’s just a quick fact-finding mission,” John said. “Asking friendly people a few questions. Tell Ronon to get up here. We’re checking out a jumper.” He stopped, that quirky smile at the corner of his mouth, and she knew he’d just been looking for a reason. “It’ll take an hour, tops.”
“If you say so,” Teyla said.
The gate was indeed orbital, high above a planet roughly half water and half land, the land lush with green forests and plains. Massive river systems snaked through low lying areas, and white clouds swirled above.