STARGATE ATLANTIS: The Furies (Book 4 in the Legacy series) (22 page)

No one spoke. No one said a word. Not anybody in the McDonalds. Everyone stood as though turned to stone, listening to this geek with his walkman, repeating word for word what he was hearing, his voice f
irm and unshaken as Edgar R. Murrow reporting from London.

“We have to see.” They went straight back to the hotel. Sam ran through the lobby as fast as her summer heels would allow, Sib right behind her, through the silent Edwardian lobby with its chande
liers and parquet floors, past rooms where people had danced for Teddy Roosevelt’s inaugural ball. Up the elevator. So slow. All up and down the hotel halls doors were banging open, televisions going on.

She sat on the bed, watching the clip replaying over
and over, booster rockets looping wildly in the bright blue sky, the anchor’s voice going again and again to shock and dismay.

And then back to the beginning again. “Good roll program confirmed. Challenger heading downrange. Engines beginning throttling d
own now. At 94%.”

Sib reached over and squeezed her hand. “Oh my God,” Sam whispered.

“Altitude 4.3 nautical miles.”

“Roger, go at throttle up.”

And then silence.

Rockets streaking soundlessly across a blue sky. Over and over and over.

“This is the end,” S
am whispered.

Sib shifted on the bed, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I mean, maybe not. You know, for them. If you believe in God…”

“Not for them. For us.” Sam felt her face flaring with shame even as she said it. “It’
s the end of space. This is the end. It will be years before we go back into space. We may never go again in our lifetimes. People won’t risk it. We won’t take the chance, not with more lives. Even if there are plenty of people who would do it.”

“Would you
?”

Sam nodded, her jaw hard. “Yes. I’d get out there tomorrow and say light the candle. But I’ll never get a chance now.” She lifted her arms, the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I’ll never get the chance.” Tears were choking in her throat, but she w
asn’t going to cry. She never cried.

There was the sound of Sib shifting on the bed, hunting through her bag. Sam took her hands away. “What are you doing?”

Sib pulled out the blue notebook, scrubbing the tears off her face with one hand. “We have to work
on our SDI presentation.”

“There is no SDI,” Sam snapped. “There is no space. Don’t you get it? We’re done. We’re through. The shuttle program is over. There won’t be any national will for it. You can forget about a missile shield or an international space
station or any of that stuff. It’s like my dad says about Vietnam. Once we lose the national will to do something, it doesn’t matter if we could do it.”

“Who makes the national will?” Sib lifted her chin. “Who besides us?”

“We’re kids.”

“No, we’re not,” S
ib said gently. “In six months you’ll be in the Air Force and I’ll be at college. We haven’t been kids for a long time. We just didn’t know it. We make the national will.” She looked out the window at the trees in Rock Creek Park below, the city somewhere
beyond. “That’s the real debate that’s going to be going on all over town. What does this do to everything? We have to hold up our end of it.”

“Nothing hinges on this stupid debate tonight,” Sam said. “It’s just a bunch of kids arguing abstractions. And li
ke we can convince anybody that we need space based systems? Today?”

“We have to learn to,” Sib said. “It’s just a different kind of impossible fight. You want that future in space? Then we’ve got to sell it. We’ve got to sell it to the people who matter,
the people here who are going to remember this day for the rest of their lives, who are going to be the voters and the decision makers. We don’t get but one shot. It may not be the big one yet, but we can’t know that. We can’t know that it isn’t. We can’t
know that we’re not convincing somebody who will be president. This might be the big thing, the thing we’re meant to do, the whole point of our lives.”

“You think?”

“Why not?” Sib shrugged, opening her notebook. “Maybe you’re the one who will convince peop
le that the price tag is worth it.”

John Sheppard bent his head over his coffee, a rueful smile on his face. “Yeah, I see that,” he said. “I remember that day. Though I never thought I was going to another planet. I figured I was going to law school.”

“I didn’t dream this was possible in 1986,” Sam said, looking up again at Atlantis’ soaring windows. “If you’d told me then I’d be here, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Me neither,” John said. “How’d we get here, anyhow?”

“One step at a time,” Sam said. “A lot of luck and a little faith.”

“And a whole ton of hard work,” John said. He touched his mug to hers in a mock toast. “Which I should get back to.”

“Me too,” Sam said, pushing back from the table.

John picked up his tray, half turned to leave. “Nice pep talk, Carter.”

“I aim to please,” Sam said.

Teyla
dreamed, and in her dream she stood in the woods of Athos. It was early spring, and frost silvered the morning grass, clouds of mist rising where the sun struck ice, transpiring in a gray, soft blanket that clung to the hollows around the trees. In her dream she passed through the woods, insubstantial as fog herself. Her heart pounded tight in her chest. They were coming.

And then it was not the woods of Athos, but that planet where Ellia had dwelled with the man she called father. They hunted her through the woods. She could hear them coming. She could hear them coming as she fled, alone and on silent feet. She could hear them coming after, the faint whine of the puddle jumper, the voices of the hunters behind. They were coming.

Mist wreathed her. It surrounded her. It hid her. She vanished, insubstantial as a dream. One passed close by, gun in hand, his black boots leaving footprints in the dew, his head bent forward over his weapon, dark hair and muddy green eyes, intent upon his prey. He did not see her. She was a pale shadow, a trace of cloud across the moon.

Closer. Closer. There was the rattle of gunfire, and he ran toward it, toward the shore of the lake. It was only a water bird startled from its nest, white wings beating against the morning sky.

Osprey.

And then she sat in the tents of Athos, her fingers stabbing at a difficult piece of handwork by the fire, while Charin’s hands moved smoothly, her voice weaving in and out of an old tale. “Once there was a girl who was transformed into a white bird, and the Ancestors hunted her because she was a changeling…” She sat by Charin’s knee, bright patterns of thread shimmering in the firelight, half dozing. “She had become a revenant, and she returned at night to drink the life from her kin, but by day no man could find her, because they sought a girl, not an osprey.”

The flap of the tent stirred in a cold wind, the flames wavering. Teyla looked up. Elizabeth Weir stood in the doorway, the flap stirring behind her between the doorposts. She wore a red shirt and dark pants, and her eyes met Teyla’s firmly. “Once, in the City of the Ancestors,” she said.

“Once in Emege,” Charin said serenely.

“I was in this village once,” John said, looking up from beside the fire. “I was drinking tea with this guy, and he had exactly your eyes.”

“Exactly your eyes,” Todd echoed, moving the gaming piece on the board between him and John. “She had exactly your eyes. The Osprey queens are the strongest.”

“Cordelia,” Elizabeth said. “It all came from Lear’s cruelty.”

“I do not know this story,” Teyla said, stretching out her hands to Elizabeth, but she smiled and stepped away. “Tell me.”

“I’ll need a blood sample,” Jennifer said, putting on her latex gloves.

“You know the story,” Elizabeth said. Her eyes slid to John and back. “You are the story.”

“Once, when Arda ruled in Emege,” Charin began. “Long ago and far away.”

“Do you need that much?” John asked, holding up his right arm where blood ran in long rivulets from claw slashes. Jennifer bent to catch them in a vial, his blood dripping on the floor with a sound like thunder.

“I need all of your blood,” Jennifer said. “I need it all.”

“Don’t be greedy,” Todd said. “If you drink it all today there will be none tomorrow. There will be none for Osprey.”

John’s eyes met hers over Jennifer’s head. “It’s for you,” he said.

“No,” she said, and took a step back in horror. Her hands were a Wraith queen’s, Steelflower’s hands. Only the feeding slit was open. She could feel her pulse pounding in it, lips engorged with hunger, aching with need.

“They fed upon the children of Emege,” Charin said.

“Once in the City of the Ancients,” Elizabeth said. “Once, in the Lost City.”

Teyla’s hand stretched out, reaching for him, and John lifted his chin but didn’t flinch.

Todd smiled. “White ghost,” he said. “Wraith.”

Teyla wrenched awake, her heart pounding. Around her, the soft shiplight of Todd’s hive ship came up, adjusting to a rosy daylight glow. She lay in her chamber, in the queen’s chamber. There were no sounds other than the soft purr of the ship’s systems. No alarms sounded, and the merest mental touch assured her all was well. Guide and Jennifer were at work in one of the labs.

Teyla clasped her hands together, trying to still them.

“Elizabeth,” she whispered. “I do not understand…”

Jennifer closed her eyes against the glare of her laptop screen, still seeing formulas and graphs swimming behind her eyelids. She sat back, releasing shoulders sore from being hunched for hours, and reached up to cup the back of her neck, trying to knead out some of the knots.

It felt every bit as late as it was which, a glance at her watch told her, was almost three in the morning, Atlantis time. She vaguely remembered Teyla saying goodnight several hours ago before heading to her quarters, but at the time she’d been busy fiddling with the Wraith version of a microscope and some slides and, after that, setting up another round of cultures, hoping that this time one of them would do something.

At least they were making some progress, she thought, even if it wasn’t as fast as she would have hoped. But she did think — finally — that they were getting somewhere. With a yawn, she sat up a little straighter and put her fingers back on the keyboard, trying to focus.

Twenty minutes later, notes finished, she leaned over one of the workbenches, watching behind plastic goggles as the newest biochemical compound turned blackish purple in the vial. Once its color was uniform, she carefully measured out three drops onto the waiting culture dish.

She yawned again and tried to cover it with her sleeve, then stood there for a moment with one hand braced on the workbench, hoping for a second wind. Across the room, Todd looked up from his own workstation and took her in at a glance, seeming amused.

“I would not advise falling asleep so near the prototypes,” he said mildly. “If you require rest, go.”

Jennifer had to swallow before she could speak. “No, I’m fine,” she said, trying to ignore how good the word ‘rest’ sounded. “Just need a minute.”

Todd rose smoothly and crossed the room with long, purposeful strides, looking as fresh as ever. Absently, Jennifer noted his good color, the sheen of his skin and the way his hair gleamed in the soft light. He looked like the picture of health, for a Wraith anyway, and she tried hard not to think about what that meant. Tried not to wonder who his last meal had been. The thought made her lips press together with distaste, and she looked down at the cultures, willing the retrovirus to work.

“Come, then,” he said, at her shoulder, and Jennifer was proud of herself for not jumping. She looked up, and he gestured elegantly, inclining his head and turning over one long-fingered hand. He could have been a character from a romantic novel, some dangerous and courtly gentleman with his carriage waiting outside. It was that that left her so off-balance, she thought. It was hard to remember that he thought of her as food.

“I need to stay at this.”

“If you are to function, you will need food and drink,” he said, shrugging and not quite meeting her gaze. Maybe this was weird for him too, dealing with humans as something other than meals. She wondered if he pretended that they were Wraith, if that was easier than admitting to himself that all humans had personalities and interesting ideas and got tired when they’d been working too long.