Sheppard continued to guide the jumper down through a darkness made absolute by the storm over Atlantis. "Well, I think all of us understood going in that this might be a one-way trip."
Teyla had already prepared herself for that. It pained her to be separated from her people, to risk leaving them to fend for themselves in a new galaxy if this mission failed. But she was doing this in the hope of preventing just such a possibility. She could not have lived comfortably with her people in a new land, knowing that her absence from this mission might have doomed it to failure. Nor could she have lived comfortably with the loss of the thousands of other people in this galaxy-many of whom she had come to know as friends-because she had chosen to desert them.
She glanced around at the others in the jumper. Ronon, who carried deeper wounds than perhaps any of them truly understood, had refused to remain hunted and instead became the hunter. Colonel Sheppard, for whom the term loyalty was not a word, but an etching on his soul. And Rodney, whose loss of Turpi had revealed a lonely spirit that craved acceptance. These men were also her family, and there could be no greater honor than to die in their company. "Do you believe the nanites will attempt to stop our passage?" she asked.
"They are not conscious in that sense." Nabu had lifted the exogenesis machine in his hands and was manipulating one end, as if he were fashioning a piece of clay. "But the time differential they are now employing will impact this ship's shield in the same way that it will Atlantis's." Under his fingers, the strange material moved across the surface, as if imbued with a life of its own. The ocher colors within changed hue, becoming yellow, then shifting to turquoise.
"Coming up on the city shield," Sheppard stated.
"Setting our shield to match…now." Rodney's eyes narrowed in concentration, and he stared intently at the HUD.
The transition was uneventful, the oceanic world outside the jumper's force field remaining dark and without apparent form. The only indication of their movement was the route track displayed on the HUD. "So if we come into contact with nanites," Sheppard asked, "that means our power will be drained faster than normal?"
"On the order of several hundred thousand times faster, yes," McKay answered, swiveling around in his seat to watch Nabu. "Which is why I wanted so many power cells."
"Is anyone going to explain exactly what's going on?" Ronon demanded.
Rodney's incipient reply was cut short when Nabu informed them, "Ea and Atlas were my grandparents."
Having been caught in the storm on the mainland, Teyla was not fully conversant with everything that had come to pass on Polrusso, and while she had some understanding of the situation, this was a most unexpected development. Apparently Rodney and Colonel Sheppard were of the same mind, for now they both stared at the Polrusson.
Nabu's fingers continued to gently work the surface of the exogenesis machine, as if he were tuning a delicate musical instrument. "I have had many lifetimes in which to understand the truth." He glanced at Teyla, his gaze suggesting that full honesty was wise. "One I suspect that you may not take comfort in hearing."
If he believed that his words might erode her faith in the virtue of the Ancestors, he had crossed her path far too late. Meeting his eyes, Teyla said, "I am not averse to the truth."
He held her gaze for a moment, and, apparently satisfied, put the exogenesis machine aside. "Then perhaps much of what I can tell you is already known to you."
"That's okay," the Colonel said, peering out into the featureless abyss. "We've got a little time, and it'd make for a better diversion than playing `I Spy "'
"As you wish." Nabu's glance skimmed over the HUD. "Atlas believed that the Wraith were an experiment gone wrong. It angered him that the Atlantean Council was quick to sanction genetic experiments in humans to foil the Wraith, and experiments on themselves to expedite Ascension, while denying his and Janus's request to test the exogenesis machine. Worse, Moros ordered Atlas and Janus to destroy their work in preparation for the return to Earth.
"Such hypocrisy greatly angered Atlas, for temporal distortion fields had been employed elsewhere in this galaxy in order for people to be given time to Ascend."
Sheppard winced. "Been there, done that, lost the six months to prove it."
After a moment's close scrutiny of him, Nabu observed, "You were given the opportunity to Ascend, yet you chose not to take it."
The pilot's expression tensed almost imperceptibly, and Teyla did not require Nabu's telepathy to discern that this was uncomfortable territory. "Yeah, well, I don't think it would have lasted long. Unlike the Ancients, I tend to err on the side of action rather than inaction. Probably would have ended up banished some place-not that that would be anything new."
Ronon brought the conversation back. "So what exactly happened on Polrusso?"
"Atlas's machine terraformed worlds by installing the same program as is currently used; except to power the process it employed the planet's internal heat rather than ZPMs. More innovative was its use of a temporal field. While a planet still required approximately ten thousand years to be terraformed, by using the machine, from an outside observer's point of view only a week would have elapsed. Those living on the planet during terraforming would also be subject to the passage of ten thousand years."
"So let me get this straight," said the Colonel. "If Atlas had used the machine on Polrusso, people there could have evolved over the required millennia, while the rest of the galaxy aged only a week or so." His look turned thoughtful. "Cool. Instant Wraith repellant-just add water. Except, you know, don't add it right away."
Nabu picked up the exogenesis machine and examined the lights within, which had now turned a brilliant aquamarine. "While the experiment to breed a group of humans with special abilities might succeed, Atlas believed that this in no way mitigated the Wraith threat. For just as humans would evolve to accommodate the toxin, so too would the Wraith ultimately evolve to accommodate these changes in their food source. Consequently, he developed the program that Ea implemented here on Atlantis. Their intent, you see, was to prove to the Council that another galaxy could be prepared for settlement within a very short space of relative time, while this galaxy could be cleansed of the threat posed by the Wraith. In Ea's words, the Wraith were a mess of their own making, one they should clean up."
"How charitable," Rodney muttered. "Let's not worry about everyone else living in the galaxy at the time."
"Do not judge Ea too harshly. Both she and Atlas believed that it was better to sever a diseased limb rather than allow it to infect the entire universe. Before they could implement this plan on Polrusso, however, the Wraith arrived through the Stargate in great numbers, cutting off their access to the laboratory. During the many days the attack lasted, hundreds were killed, including Atlas and Ea's son. Those who survived had been badly injured, but they were able to heal themselves and each other. Eventually, they fought their way back into the laboratory and fled by jumpers to an orbiting ship. Ea left with the first group, while Atlas, determined to initiate the exogenesis machine, remained. The hologram records do not show what happened next, but it is not difficult to guess. The final image shows a technician helping Atlas, barely alive, staggering into the last jumper, with only one exogenesis machine in hand. After viewing the records, I searched for the second machine, the one you see here, and located it a short distance away."
"Atlas was unable to trigger the device," Teyla deduced, "but he allowed Ea to believe otherwise."