"Unbelievable," Sheppard said in a low voice, awed.
Barely hearing him, Rodney tried to put what he was seeing into context. How was she doing this? It couldn't possibly be sustainable. How would they-
Turpi's voice floated clearly through his cluttered thoughts. "You must choose, my dearest."
He swung around again. "Choose what?" Desperate to understand, he searched the light for some sign of her face.
Tears barely contained, Nabu nodded once, as if in reply to something Turpi was saying to him, and withdrew a long object from inside his robes. With a jolt, Rodney realized why they'd been unable to find Atlas's exogenesis machine in the lab. It had been somewhere else all along.
"With Turpi to lead them, my people's minds will be able to hold back the water, but only for a short time," said Nabu, firmly in control of his emotions once more. "I can use Atlas's machine to reverse what has been done, and allow Polrusso to continue on as it once was, without need of the ZPMs. You will have time to collect all of these ZPMs and take them back to Atlantis, so that the great city of the Ancients will become a starship once more."
Gasps could be heard from many of the villagers as the truth was laid bare. Vend's shock was evident, and he turned an angry gaze on an unrepentant Sheppard. Rodney hadn't even formed the next question in his head before Ronon beat him to it. "Or what?"
"Or you must leave the ZPM that you have now so that I can install it here." Nabu pointed outside, in the direction of the jumpers. "I can adjust the matrix to function without the ZPM that has already been taken, and we will have no need of the exogenesis machine. The little water that has escaped will soon evaporate and become stored as ice in our poles."
"What of Atlantis?" Teyla asked. "As we stand here, our world is being destroyed from within."
"I am aware." Nabu held up the machine, small and seemingly innocuous, in his large hand. "I can program this to restore Lantea in a very short time."
"And we're supposed to believe it's that easy?" Ronon demanded.
Rodney fixed him with an irritated look. What did the Satedan know about it? What did any of them know? "Trust me. He can do it"
"Amazing," Radek said quietly. When Rodney turned toward him, the other scientist was focused on his life signs detector. "This man is as much Ancient as he is human."
Turpi's statement rang in Rodney's mind. Choose…
"Twelve ZPMs," he murmured. A vision of Atlantis rising into the sky beckoned like a siren's call.
"The city is not ready, Rodney," Radek warned. "We have tried. There are too many problems, too much damage. Atlantis cannot become a starship, not for quite some time-if ever."
Radek had to be wrong. He might have attempted to prepare the city for flight, but he'd had to do it without Rodney's expertise. No one knew the systems the way Rodney did. Wouldn't it be far better to have Atlantis as a ship rather than sitting, crippled, out in the open like a target?
All of Rodney's innate self-confidence was telling him that he could make the city fly. It occurred to him that some assistance might be useful, but before he could swallow his pride enough to ask, Nabu spoke again. "This is something I cannot help you do. My understanding of the exogenesis machine comes from many generations of research with Atlas's own records to assist. Atlantis is beyond my knowledge"
Turpi's voice brushed through Rodney's mind with the gentleness of a wind chime. "Choose wisely."
In that moment, he recognized that his arrogance could destroy everything.
With all the possibilities of what Atlantis could be still fresh in his mind's eye, he relented. "Teyla, go get the ZPM "
"Hold on a second." The objection came from Sheppard. "Are you sure about that? I know the first ZPM should have bought us some time, but-"
"Of course I'm not sure," Rodney snapped at him. "I mean, I'm not sure about what's best for Atlantis. But overall, for everyone, this is the best we can do."
Without a word, Teyla started toward the door.
"Stop!" At some point, Vene had recovered from his paralyzed shock, and his voice was commanding. "These Wraithspawn want to keep Polrusso from becoming the world it was meant to be," he claimed, trying to rally his villagers. "Stop the off-worlder!"
The cliff-dwellers traded uncertain glances, plainly over whelmed by what they'd seen and heard. No one moved to stop Teyla, who soon disappeared through the door.
From within Nabu's group, a little girl stepped forward. Her features angelic and unscarred, she searched the throng of villagers for a familiar face.
Rodney heard a cry from within the crowd, and recognized the grieving mother they'd seen shortly after their first arrival. The woman rushed forward to take the girl into her arms, touching the child's cheek while wonder and guilt warred on her own face.
While the strange glow still surrounded them, others from Nabu's group, children and adults alike, began to pull back the hoods they wore. Some were deformed, others normal-whatever that word meant anymore-but all of them drew gasps from the villagers, who slowly started to recognize the children they had abandoned to the storms.
In the few seconds that passed before Teyla reappeared with the ZPM cradled in her arms, the terrible truth of their misconceptions froze the cliff-dwellers into inaction. Nabu took the ZPM from Teyla and moved to a grid on the wall, which Rodney had seen during his first visit but hadn't been able to identify while the lab was unpowered. Having placed the ZPM into the grid, Nabu went to the computer and entered a series of commands.
"Power to the matrix is increasing "" Radek immediately glanced up from another terminal he had been monitoring.
The bright aura surrounding Turpi and the others began to fade and shrink, until it was once again focused on her alone. As they were released from the light, her people staggered a little, recovering from the strain. When the light at last had gone completely, Turpi crumpled to the floor.
Running to her, Rodney pulled up short, hesitating. Turpi gathered her robes with feeble hands, attempting to cover herself. "Don't see me this way," she begged, her voice sounding weak even inside his mind. "Remember me as you first saw me, in your dreams."
The memory of Nabu's words struck him. Turpi had already given too much of herself to heal him. In a terrible flash of understanding, he knew that channeling her people's powers had quenched her life. Turpi was dying.
"No!" Clinging to hope, he spun around to Nabu but found only a wrenching sorrow in the other man's eyes. Behind him, Ronon wore an expression of disgust. Jarred, Rodney looked around at his teammates, and then the villagers. Each concealed his or her reaction to varying degrees, but all of their gazes held some combination of pity and revulsion.
Somehow that sealed it. Rodney fell to his knees and gathered Turpi in his arms. "Don't you dare look at her like that!" he shouted at the others. "What gives you the right`? You have no idea… God, can't you see her mind? Can't you see how beautiful she is?"
Even as he sensed her joy at his declaration, he also felt her trying to make him understand. She was dying, and nothing either of them might do would change that.
His eyes burned with tears as he lifted his head to glare at Vend. "You have no idea," he repeated fiercely, accusing all of them, even his friends. "She's a better person than any of us. Even after everything you've seen these people do, you still think of them as rejects. How cold-blooded are you?"
Teyla opened her mouth to speak, but Rodney turned away to look down at Turpi, hearing only her faltering voice. "Please… remember what you feel, not what you see."
He closed his eyes, both because she wished it and because the tears were threatening to overtake him. "This is what I'll remember," he vowed, pressing her soft, misshapen fingers to his cheek.