*Come and sit by me,* the Old One said, and Guide moved reluctantly to join him. He would have preferred to keep his distance — he had not gotten the measure of the Old One’s strength of mind — but he did not wish to make an enemy of him. Instead, he gathered the skirts of his coat and sat, a careful hand’s-breadth away.
*You’re no young blade,* the Old One said, after a while.
*I am not,* Guide agreed, and the Old One made a sound of creaking laughter.
*And you are thinking I am older still, and you would be right. But I have a reason for asking.*
Guide waited, and the Old One sighed, resting his head against the chamber wall. He was very old indeed, Guide thought, vigorous enough, but so old that he had not been bred to any of the familiar types. Even young, his face had not been as strongly modeled as most blades; it had an archaic look, like the foremost mothers of Snow’s hive.
*You fought against the Ancients,” the Old One said.
*I did.*
*And before that?*
Guide shook his head. *I was born at the beginning of that war, for that war. I came of age not long before our victory.*
*Our war with the Ancients is far older than that,* the Old One said sharply. *From our first beginnings, we were at war. But no matter. You saw Atlantis fall.*
*Yes.* Guide paused. *And I have seen it risen again.*
*To our grave discredit,* the Old One said. *It must be destroyed completely this time, so that it can never threaten us again.*
Guide hesitated, choosing his words with care. *Granting that it can be done — because I do not see it as an easy or inevitable thing — what then? We will still be hungry.*
The Old One nodded. *We need new feeding grounds. Even if we sleep, turn and turn about, and no one breaks our queen’s law, still it will be too long before the kine rebound. If they can.* He paused, his eyes on the game, watching as the counters collapsed under an injudicious move. *That is why I have supported this plan of Dust’s, for all that the abomination makes my very bones ache. We must have a way to leave this galaxy.*
*And if we find it,* Guide said, *if all goes as we hope, and the humans there are more easily cowed than they have been here, on strange ground — what then? You will remember as well as I what happened once the Ancients were defeated. There were too many of us, drones and even blades bred in anticipation of loss, and no queen then living would be first to sacrifice even her drones. That will happen again, and if there is another galaxy beyond this one, still it will happen each time. We cannot go on like this.*
*No.* The Old One did not look at him, the touch of his mind soft and fading. *That is why we need one queen over us all, one queen to hold us safe under her rule, so that no one starves. Death will do that for us, Guide. And the bones of the Ancients will be ground to dust beneath our feet.*
*The Ancients are dust already,* Guide said. *They were dust ten thousand years ago.*
*Their city remains.*
*But not its builders.*
*Their children live,* the Old One answered, and there was a bitterness in his tone that struck Guide silent.
Chapter Twelve
Sateda
It was their usual morning meeting, but it was still strange for John to sit down at what he thought of as Woolsey’s end of the table. Teyla, Ronon, and Radek were already waiting when he came in, Teyla and Radek holding steaming cups of coffee.
“This is still a little weird,” John admitted after a moment. He felt he probably ought to put a better face on it than that, but there wasn’t anyone there but the team.
“You are telling me,” Radek said.
“How are we doing on the iris?” John asked.
“With Colonel Carter’s assistance, I think we have a workable design,” Radek said. “Our current plan is for essentially manual operation.”
“I take it you don’t mean the Marines will have to get out there and push it open and shut,” John said.
“Not quite, but almost. The process of opening and closing the iris will be powered by a generator, but we are talking about wiring the iris directly to the generator, and to nothing else. No computer control.”
“Someone’s going to have to stand there and push a button?” Ronon said skeptically.
“Or pull a lever, or — that part is not important. But, yes, it will require that someone operate the control mechanism by hand. If we build any automatic control system that is connected to the DHD or the city’s computers — ”
“Then we’re right back where we started,” John said. “All right, that’s not a problem. We’re posting a security detail in the gateroom around the clock anyway.”
“The problem is the materials,” Radek said. “The towers in Atlantis contain mainly steel, with small amounts of other metals used for decorative purposes. That would be better than nothing, but would still leave the iris extremely vulnerable to explosives. The iris on Earth uses a trinium-titanium alloy, but for now I would be satisfied with titanium.”
“There is none in the city?” Teyla asked.
“There are some titanium components in the city’s hyperdrive. Removing them will render the hyperdrive temporarily inoperable, although since we have no ZPM, that may not matter. The big problem is that it would not be nearly enough material for the iris. We could use titanium plating over steel and hope for the best.”
“I have a problem with any plan that involves the words ‘hope for the best’ when we’re talking about explosives,” John said.
Radek shrugged. “So did Colonel Carter.”
“I think Sam’s right on this one,” John said. “What about finding the titanium somewhere else in Pegasus?”
“We have tried to contact the Travellers, but we have had no success so far,” Teyla said. “It is likely to take some time for us to get a message to them, and even then, they are likely to charge a high price for the material we need.”
“I think right now we’d be willing to pay, but we can’t do much if they won’t pick up the phone. What about the Genii? Not that we’re likely to be their favorite people right now, since Dahlia Radim probably told her brother we’re scary people who tried to steal his ship.”
“As far as we can tell, titanium is very rare on the Genii homeworld, even more so than it is on Earth,” Radek said. “They have been using steel alloys in their experiments in aviation. Their most likely source of the material we need would be their salvaged Ancient warship, but…”
“But they’re not exactly about to take it apart for us. Great.” John ran a hand through his hair. “We may be back to ‘hope for the best’. At least then we’d have an anti-personnel shield.”
“I know where you can get the titanium,” Ronon said. He looked as if he didn’t like his own idea much.
“Where?” John asked, after it became clear he was going to have to.
“It wasn’t that rare on Sateda. They used it in buildings, and in a bunch of different kinds of machines. There must be tons of the stuff still there. It’s not valuable enough to most people to be worth salvaging.”
Teyla raised her eyebrows. “The idea of taking it from the ruins of Sateda does not bother you?” Her people had left their own ruined cities on Athos alone, although in Teyla’s encampment when he’d first seen it, they’d certainly been using scrap metal that must have come from at least the outskirts of the city.
“Yeah, it bothers me,” Ronon said shortly. “But it’s better than letting the Wraith blow up Atlantis.”
“You’ve been there before since the Wraith trashed the place,” John said. “I know you brought some things back.”