“Just when you were getting to the good part,” Dex said grimly. “John, what do you think?”
“Sounds crazy enough to be true. Just don’t ask me to believe a word of it.” He turned back to Carter. “We need the rest of the story. Once we’ve got that, maybe we can start checking it out.”
“Agreed.” She stood up. “Rodney, I need you back with the ship. Anything you can tell me about it, even from the outside, could help. If you can figure out a way to get back into it that’d be great too, but start off with the broad strokes. Teyla?”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“Get together with Ronon. See if you can’t get a lead on the Eraavi. Somebody must have heard of them. And John? You’re with me. It’ll take two of us to get past Keller.”
There was a series of self-contained living spaces a couple of levels under the infirmary, not entirely unlike the kind of rooms one might find in a small hotel. Like most of the city’s components, their original function remained a mystery, but Doctor Keller had recently extended the medical team’s territory downwards to included them. Since then, the rooms had proven very effective quarters for those who might need quick access to medical facilities, but yet didn’t warrant a bed in the infirmary. Or, in the case of Angelus, people who required a comfortable and closely-monitored form of house arrest.
There were two marines posted on the door. Sheppard knew them; Kaplan and DeSalle. Perhaps not the pair Sheppard would have chosen, but competent enough.
They snapped to attention as he and Carter arrived, but Sheppard gestured at them to relax. “At ease, guys,” he said, then nodded at the door. “How’s he been?”
“Quiet, sir,” Kaplan told him, pushing his cap back on his head. “Really quiet.”
“Yeah?”
Concern must have shown on his face, because Kaplan immediately tried to reassure him. “It’s okay, sir. He’s wearing biomonitors, so if there was anything wrong Doctor Keller would know about it. But no, so far he’s not caused any trouble.”
“Glad to hear it.” He looked over to Carter. “Shall we?”
In response, she waved her hand over the lock control. The door sighed open, and Sheppard saw Angelus for the first time.
There was a big window in the far wall of the apartment, an asymmetrical panel of something that wasn’t quite glass, with a sprawl of the city’s towers and spines rearing behind it. The Ancient stood silhouetted there, a tall, slender figure, his back to the door. He had one hand raised, the long fingers pressed flat against the window, and if he heard the door open he didn’t respond to it.
Carter went in first. “Angelus?”
“I had forgotten what it was like,” he breathed. “The city. I never thought I would forget this, of all things…” He turned, a lost expression on his face. “How could I have forgotten?”
“You’ve been away,” she replied, sounding wary.
“I have. But still…” He looked back over his shoulder, as if to get one last glimpse of the towers ranged out behind him, then seemed to steady himself. “Forgive me, Colonel. I’m proving a poor guest.”
“Angelus, I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard.”
The Ancient bowed slightly. “So many new faces. Welcome, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Nice to finally meet you,” said Sheppard. He kept his voice neutral, and didn’t move any closer to the Ancient than he had to. It was easier to gain an initial impression of someone, he always found, from a slight distance.
Angelus was very still; that was Sheppard’s first thought. Even when he had turned around he had done so with the minimum of effort — not so much a grace, but a kind of efficiency, as though he was unwilling to waste even the slightest movement. He wore a long robe of what looked like pale gold, and the reflections from this seemed to pull all the color from his skin. That, and his stillness, gave Sheppard the unnerving impression he was speaking not to a man but to a statue, all white gold and ivory.
His dark hair and eyes were the only contrast about him.
“I’m sure you have many questions,” said Angelus. He gestured to a set of padded forms nearby. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Not right now.”
A brief smile crossed the Ancient’s lips. “Of course. Doing so would restrict access to your sidearm.”
“Hey,” started Carter. “He didn’t mean —”
“Please, Colonel. I fully understand, and I bear John Sheppard no malice for his mistrust.” Angelus spread his hands. “No physical test you could subject me to will be exhaustive. My story cannot be verified. I am sure there are many species in this galaxy capable of pretending to be something they are not. In all truth, why should I be trusted?”
Clever, thought Sheppard. “Look, either we find a way of proving you are who you say you are, or we’re just gonna be doing this dance forever.”
“Agreed. So, how can I assist you?”
“Well, let’s start with the rest of your story. What happened when you woke up?”
“Ah,” said Angelus. “That.”
There was a period of silence. The Ancient was simply standing, outlined in light from the window, his gaze seemingly fixed on a point midway to the floor. It wasn’t until Sheppard looked over at Carter, hoping for some signal as how to proceed, that he spoke again.
“You understand,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper, “that this is… Difficult. During my time with the Eraavi, I…” He paused, took a breath. “I became very fond of them.”
“Your children,” Sheppard prompted.
“Yes, that is how I began to think of them. More and more as my time with them went on. I must admit, when the experiment began, that is all they were to me… An experiment. A complex system on which to test my theories. But it didn’t take me too many years before they became something far, far more.”
He half-turned back to the window, and stood gazing over his shoulder at the city’s spires. “I think that was, partly, why my guiding hand became known. My intention was to remain completely hidden from the test subjects — to do anything other would have compromised the purity of the experiment. Over the years, however… As I guided them through the earliest algorithms, I found I could not keep such a distance.”
“How did they regard you?” Carter asked him. “Did they resent you?”
He turned his haunted eyes to her. “They called me Father.”
“Okay,” said Sheppard, slowly. “So you realized your experiment wasn’t valid anymore, but you stayed around anyway. Did you think they needed you that badly, or did you just get used to the adoration?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I do not. I had begun to ask myself the same question… My own motives had become a mystery to me, and there is no comfort in that. I had decided to resolve that question when I was next roused from stasis, but of course I never got the opportunity. The Wraith robbed me of it.”
“They must have hit the Eraavi pretty hard.”
Angelus smiled grimly. “It is a matter of some pride to me that they survived at all. Suffice to say that when I finally escaped my stasis chamber, things on Eraavis were very different.”
“We’ve seen some post-Wraith cultures,” Carter began. “I know —”
“Colonel, you know nothing!” the Ancient snapped. He spun to face her, his face dark with sudden rage. “You have seen cultures beaten into submission by the Wraith, not steeled against them. You have seen primitives, no better than cattle, not a surge in art and culture and technology… You were not there, Colonel Samantha Carter, and you do not know!”
Sheppard had taken a step back, and his hand, unconsciously, had dropped to the butt of his pistol. “Easy, tiger,” he warned, keeping his voice flat and calm. “You’re right, we weren’t there. We need you to tell us.”
Angelus glared at him, dark eyes flashing beneath his brows. And then, abruptly, he was still again. “I apologize,” he said, bowing to Carter very slightly. “That was unforgivable.
“John Sheppard, I will tell you. Ah, if only I could have shown you… There were cities, you see, cities to rival Atlantis itself.” He closed his eyes, raised his face to some unseen wonder. “The Wraith had blasted the Eraavi back to the invention of the mud brick, but over the millennia they had recovered, and used what I had taught them. Cities, the like of which you have never witnessed, and every tower and garden and library and home built utterly below ground. They had extended existing cave systems, digging deep and far… When I awoke, there was barely a mountain on Eraavis that didn’t hide a city beneath its peak.”