Even if I had offered to throw open the doors to the Council Chamber, it wouldn't have lessened the tension in here.
"Have you lost your mind?" Panic was written all over Chaya's face.
"Cooperating with Wraiths," Teyla looked dismayed. "On Athos, they'd kill you for that. And being accused of it is the gravest insult."
Which sounded like, "In our ghetto, they'd put you on a shiv for less, snowflake."
"As on most planets in the galaxy," Kirik agreed.
"I'm not particularly fond of it either," Alvar admitted. "Wraiths can't be trusted."
"And you offered to feed him our Genii prisoners," Chaya shook her head. "That's immoral!"
"If the Genii find out about this, there will be war," Teyla warned. "And they have atom bombs!"
"Is everyone done?" I asked. Seeing no one had anything to add, I continued:
"I'm well aware that Wraiths can't be trusted. This guy," I waved my hand toward the Atlantis Brig, "might be trying to show willingness to cooperate, but right now he's planning how to hoodwink us."
"Hood-... what kind of word is that?" Alvar grimaced.
"It means 'to deceive,'" I explained.
"So why not just say that?" the Ermen was surprised.
"Leave linguistics alone," Chaya acknowledged. "You promised him so much that we'll be working for the Wraiths' benefit for ten years. Why?"
"Do you actually believe he wants to cooperate?" I smirked. "Sure, at first he'll answer our questions — but only until he figures out how to escape and get back to his own kind."
"And he'll take knowledge about us with him," Kirik added. "About our defenses, numbers, capabilities."
"That would be enough for the Wraiths to destroy us," Teyla said.
"Which is exactly why we installed hidden sensors in his cell," I explained. "While he's in there, we're studying him. His abilities, behavior, analyzing how he reacts to different proposals. I think if you review the recording of our conversation, you'll see that none of them — not promises of power, help, or anything like that — particularly interest him."
"Because other Wraiths would kill him for cooperating with us against his own kind," Teyla said.
"Exactly," I nodded. "So his only chance at salvation is to give us just the minimum that won't seriously harm Wraith interests. But he also can't refuse concrete actions."
"You're talking about reviving the Aurora's crew," Chaya understood. "Restoring bodies after stasis."
"Exactly that," I nodded in agreement. "In reality, everything that currently interests us about their physiology, biochemistry, mental capabilities, hierarchy, and much more — we'll get from him without him even knowing..."
"But you removed the scanners from his cell," Kirik reminded.
"That was a decoy," Chaya admitted. "All the real sensors are built into the walls and invisible to him."
"I suspect he assumes they exist," Kirik suggested.
"I don't care what he assumes," I interrupted. "It seems like it was time for questions already, wasn't it? So first hear me out, and then ask your questions. Deal?"
Everyone present demonstrated their disagreement with the plan through their body language, but no one butted in with their own brilliant thought.
"As I already said, there's no hope for this Wraith's reasonableness or for cooperation with any other — it was just bait to show him we're willing to trust on our end," I explained. "As long as we need him, he has to believe we intend to make him our ally. I deliberately put him in a position where long-term cooperation with us would be disadvantageous to him. From his perspective, we're too weak right now, and cooperating with us makes no sense. He'll try to get rid of us with maximum benefit to himself no matter what, so it's better to know that in advance and prepare. While he's in that cell, he's a source of information. And yes, with his help, I intend to revive the Aurora's crew. That's the full extent of my plans for this Wraith. I have no intention of destroying some Wraiths to elevate another. But I need knowledge, and I need the Ancients he can bring back to life. After that, you can cut him up for analysis or samples. But only after he's done his job."
"But you proposed that we could cooperate with Wraiths," Chaya noted.
"I'm not opposed to pitting Wraiths against each other and finishing off the weakened victor. This guy could help. Any other Wraith would do, it doesn't matter which," I explained. "But as long as there are only half a dozen of us, including a child, as long as we have only one engineer capable of handling Lantean technology — we're weak. And the strong always beat up the weak."
"You think restoring the Aurora's crew will make us stronger?" Chaya clarified. "Specifically restoring them through Wraith Reverse Feeding?"
"Got any other options?" I asked.
But as expected, I got no answer.
"For a Wraith to give life to someone, they have to take it from someone else," Teyla said.
"If Koschei is to be believed..."
Everyone looked at me in surprise.
"You expect me to call our prisoner 'hey you, green-face'?" I explained. "He didn't give his name, so I had to come up with one. He doesn't mind."
"I'll bet," Alvar snorted.
"Anyway, for now he's our source of information," I said. "And according to him, to restore one Lantian, he'll need to feed on several humans."
"He's misleading us," Teyla said.
"I agree," Kirik spoke up. "We don't know if that's true or not. What if he just wants more strength to escape?"
"Then why are we scanning him?" I asked. "Hello? He's in a cell, we'll deliver food to him in the cell too. The sensors will record how his condition changes after feeding. We'll work from that data."
"I hadn't thought of that," Chaya admitted. "But yes, it might work. It's possible he's not even lying. The Ancients — both Lantians and younger races — are more advanced physiologically than ordinary humans. Longer lifespans, reinforced skeletons, more developed brains..."
"That sounded like an insult," Kirik grumbled.
"We can't bring them back with our technology," I reminded them. "But the Wraiths — one specific Wraith — can help. In the short term, we could revive dozens, if not hundreds, of Ancients. People who know Lantean technology no less than Chaya. Capable of repairing the city, helping us secure ourselves and our allies. That would make us stronger."
"And we'd become a much bigger threat to the Wraiths," Alvar noted. "And then they definitely won't overlook us."
Hard to argue with that logic.
The sight of ruined Ermen was still fresh in my memory.
"We'll deal with problems as they come," I said. "You've heard the general plan. We'll stick to it for now. Questions?"
"None," Jensen answered for everyone. "But you must understand that plans are only good until implementation begins. After that... complete anarchy and chaos."
"The alternative is to sit here and silently watch the city slowly fall apart while we age and die," I countered. "I have a different vision for my future. Does anyone else have similar retirement plans?"
Silence indicated no.
"In that case, the meeting is over," I concluded. "Back to work. Teyla, you mentioned the Athosians needed help at the camp? I think Alvar and Kirik wouldn't mind. They can show the local militia a few new tricks for fighting Wraiths."
* * *
A couple of hours spent alone in the cafeteria later, I found what I was looking for. More precisely — who.
Wrapped in a warm blanket with an Ancient laptop on her knees, the girl sat on a small couch, her legs tucked under her. The piece of furniture was on the observation balcony adjacent to the control center. From here, there was a breathtaking view of the city at night.
At night, because light barely penetrated through the water's thickness. Still, if you ignored the multi-ton layer of ocean overhead and the city lights reflecting off the shield's surface, it really could seem like night outside. Like we were on the surface.
Atlantis at night — a shot from the series, when the city was already on the ocean's surface.
"I thought you never left your lab," I said to Chaya. The girl was staring thoughtfully into the distance, but I was sure she wasn't interested in the architecture or the oddly arranged lighting in the unpopulated parts of the city.
"I did everything I could to cut unnecessary power consumption in Atlantis," the Proculucian said without looking away. "But thousands of compartments are still draining the battery..."
"I thought we agreed to call it a ZPM," I said, settling down next to her and shivering from the cold. Inside the city, the life support system maintained a comfortable temperature, humidity, and air circulation. But outside... Even without wind or changing seasons, the fact remained — the freezing temperature at the ocean floor had an effect.
"Is there a difference?" the girl asked. "I think when we find the Aurora's crew and bring them back, you'll need to negotiate with the Lantians, not with me."
"Are you sure the crew consisted of them rather than younger races?" I clarified.
"The database says very little about starship crews during the war," Chaya said. "Only the initial complement. The longer the war went on, the more fragmentary the records became. The most typical phrase about a crew is something like: 'Before departure, seventy personnel lost in the previous battle were replaced.' No specifics, no names... But by the end of the war, the Lantians had lost practically all their allies among the younger races. So it's most likely them in stasis."
"We'll see," I said conciliatorily. "And yes, if you're interested, I'm also worried that we might have to step aside when the Lantians arrive. I think the Ascended won't mind talking to their friends and explaining that you and I don't have much influence here."
"I don't have influence," the girl corrected. "You, though a big thorn in their side, still — your genetics are hard to ignore. You're a Lantian — their flesh, blood, and mental development. General Hippaforalkus was a smart man. He probably anticipated something like this, which is why he gave you this body."
"If he was that foresighted, he would have sent me here earlier so city malfunctions wouldn't keep making me swim and sink while you had to leave the Ascended," I noted.
"The city starting to sink isn't his fault," Chaya sighed, showing me some diagrams on her screen. "It's yours. See these graphs?"
"Yes. And no, don't ask if I understand them. I'm probably the most useless Lantian in the galaxy."
The girl smirked, then looked upward.
"I've known more useless ones," she said. "But even they wouldn't have opened a Stargate through the city's systems knowing there was an energy shortage."
"Excuse me?"
"When you went to Sudaria, you dialed the address using the city's Dialing Device," Chaya said. "That activated a number of additional systems."
"And I was praised for activating so few systems while I made my way to the control center," I lamented. "Did one dialing really drain that much energy?"
I recalled that the human expedition, upon arriving in the city, had turned on everything they could... and survived. Well, the second time around.
"Do you want an honest answer or one close to the truth?" Chaya asked.
"Of all people, I didn't expect you to offer such options," I admitted. "Give it to me straight. Now and always."
I added the last part in case she'd forgotten — we'd already had this conversation.
"I checked the city computer's logs," Chaya said. "All three ZPMs were connected in parallel."
"Which means we're in the time period when the first version of the expedition was supposed to arrive, the city sank, the time travel happened, and so on," I concluded. "Tell me something I don't know."
"With parallel connection, all three ZPMs consumed more power than with sequential," the girl said. "The result is that you had less reserve power from the start."
"Still not news."
"Furthermore, General Hippaforalkus used the city's power to create your body."
"And... was the expenditure large?" I hadn't even thought about that.
"Large enough to drain the lion's share of the remaining energy," Chaya explained. "So despite your economizing, the shield began to shrink and the city started to sink."
"You mean creating my body consumed more energy than an entire research team from Earth spent turning everything in the city on and dialing addresses indiscriminately?"
When the Earth team arrived in Atlantis the second time (after the time travel), they had gone to Athos. There, some of the humans were captured by Wraiths and left through the Stargate with them. The humans remembered the symbols on the Dialing Device but not the order of activation. So they had to brute-force the right combination that would lead to the Wraiths' planet. One out of seven hundred and twenty, I think.
I suspect they opened the gate several times, so...
"Exactly," Chaya said. "Also, you didn't turn off the device, and it kept consuming power. As did everything you didn't think to turn off before you left. So they drained the ZPMs until the shields shrank to the central spire, and then even smaller."
"So the city's flooding was my fault?"
"As you can see. But if you had raised the city to the surface by pulsing the engines, you would have had enough reserve to travel to Sudaria — I did the calculations specifically."
"I don't recall there being any hints on the control panel saying, 'Press here to surface the city.'"
"But there were," Chaya sighed. "Apparently, the General managed to rearrange some of the crystals on the main consoles. All you had to do was press a couple of buttons... They were blinking, by the way."
"Awkward," I admitted. "I think the Ascended facepalmed themselves black and blue at that moment."
"Maybe," Chaya shrugged. "There is only one truth — the universe is infinite."
Something familiar scratched at my mind.
"Proverb?"
"An old scientific axiom that became a proverb among the Ancients," Chaya said. "No matter how hard we try, because of its expansion, we can never reach its edge. Same with us — no matter how hard we try, we can't have everything. I've already checked seventy addresses of Lantean outposts across the galaxy — the destinations are either destroyed or there's nothing left."
"Worried we won't be able to collect large numbers of Ancient artifacts first?" I smirked.
"I'm afraid that by the time the Lantians kick us out of Atlantis, the only refuge we'll find will be on New Athos or Ermen," Chaya sighed.
"Aren't you being too pessimistic, my friend?" I asked. "Looking at you, I see that the closer we get to having new Ancients in our city, the less joy you have."
"I already told you what I'm afraid of."
"I don't think that after ten thousand years in stasis, the Ancients would be so stupid as to thank us for saving them by kicking us out the door," I admitted.
"Is that how you're comforting yourself?"
"And I have Lantean genetics," I reminded her. "And they probably have their tricks — like healing with my hands, telepathy, telekinesis, and all sorts of phantasmagoria."
"No. If that were the case, they'd have already manifested," Chaya said.
"What makes you so sure?"
"Because I know a little about Ascension. The powers you're talking about manifest when your body is in a state close to Ascension," Chaya explained. "And you're not as close to it as you might hope."
"Well, there you go," I sighed heavily. "So I won't have supernatural powers, won't be the Supreme Mage of Earth and all that."
"This isn't magic," Chaya said, still staring at a single spot. "It's just an evolution of the brain and body that allows you to control… Oh." She caught herself, looked at my smiling face, and smiled timidly herself. "That was a joke. Sorry, I didn't catch it right away."
"I'm used to my jokes not being in high demand around me."
"We represent five levels of human development," Chaya said, resting her head on my shoulder. "No wonder we struggle to find common ground."
And she's right. Her, me, Kirik, Teyla, Alvar — we all have completely different cultures. And if in the Milky Way you can find something in common with Earth culture on different planets — after all, most humans were seeded across the galaxy from Earth — then Pegasus… Here there's more of a cultural chasm between all of us than unity based on shared origin. After all, in this reality, it was the Ancients who created humanity in all the galaxies they inhabit… Yeah, what a mess…
"You know," I decided to comfort the girl, who had fallen into some strange melancholy, "it's not even certain we'll succeed in bringing them back to life. When I turned on the ZPM, the Aurora sent out a signal. The Wraiths could have picked it up…"
"I already told you — that's unlikely," Chaya repeated. "Wraith activity in the galaxy is minimal. Plus, I reconfigured the long-range scanners and illuminated that region of the galaxy. There are no Wraith ships near the Aurora."
Wow… It seems the appearance of the Lanteans bothers her a lot more than I think. I wonder what else she's been doing in secret?
"Besides, we don't have a ship to get there, and even if we did, we don't have spare parts to fix it. I've told you about all the Ancient battleships in the galaxy. They're all damaged."
"I reviewed data from the Atlantis database on Lantea-2," Chaya said, pressing against me so closely she was practically lying on my chest. What's gotten into her?! What's going on with her?! "I also took readings from your Puddle Jumper. There are minerals on the planet we could use to power the workshops. Silicon, for example. We could make a large supply of simple crystals from it. There's a diamond mine on Ermen, so we can find higher-quality raw materials too. As for metals… There are problems, but nothing critical. If we had the time and the will to extract them… We could produce some spare parts…"
And she's only telling me this now?! The woman must really be down in the dumps if she didn't share this news right away. It seems she's so worried about her place after the Lanteans return that she decided to be honest only on the verge of total despair.
And what does it matter to her if they kick us out? They won't be able to do it right away, since we'll be reviving them one at a time. Besides, we have somewhere to go — Athos is already abandoned, and it has Ancient technology. We'll make it!
The longer I listen to her, the more I'm gnawed by the doubt that Chaya isn't worried about the return of the Lanteans per se. Maybe she thinks I'll forget about her once I get "new friends"? What nonsense.
I told her as much.
"Thank you," she said. "It's always nice to be needed by someone as a technical specialist…"
She said it with so much pain. It really reeks of emotional trauma. What happened to you, girl, that makes you so sad?
"After all," I stroked her head, "you said it yourself — you searched seventy outpost planets. And there wasn't a single interstellar ship in any hangar. Did you check the dwarf stars too?"
The thing is, one Ancient ship was found abandoned on the volcanic planet Taranis, in an old outpost powered — like Athos — by geothermal energy from a supervolcano.
And another was drifting abandoned in orbit around a dwarf star. It was found by an interesting race… A third ship was in flight at near-light speed far beyond the Pegasus Galaxy. But those are details.
"I found several hundred dwarf stars," Chaya said in that same colorless, sad tone. "I started a parallel search through the mission logs of Ancient ships near them. No matches so far. And besides, in systems with dwarf stars, you can barely find a Stargate to fly to the star's orbit in a Puddle Jumper…"
"Well, see, that means we have no ships. And the Lanteans' return is postponed. We searched, but we didn't find anything…"
"That's not what I said," Chaya said after a moment's pause.
"Sorry?"
"I searched the dwarf stars. I looked among the outposts with geothermal reactors and just among the outposts in general," the Proculucian woman listed. "But if you had told me there was a hangar there for ship repairs…"
Everything inside me tightened into a hard knot.
"Are you saying…?"
"Yes, Misha." The girl stood up and looked at me with sad eyes. "I most likely found Taranis. And the Hippaforalkus battleship…"