Woolsey gave her a grim look. “You aren’t wishing you’d stayed on Earth?”
“That was not an option under the circumstances,” Teyla said.
Chapter One
Maneuvers
“She doesn’t look like an alien.” Carson Beckett winced, and hoped the comment didn’t carry. He glanced around quickly to identify the speaker. Aurelia Dixon-Smythe, just as he feared. She was seated at the conference table next to Shen Xiaoyi, who pursed her lips primly. Shen had already met Teyla on her trip to Atlantis for Mr. Woolsey’s evaluation, but Dixon-Smythe was new to the IOA since the representative hanging on from the last ministry had resigned.
On the other side of Dixon-Smythe, Konstantin Nechayev, the Russian representative chuckled. “I’d like all my aliens to look like that!”
Teyla stood at the head of the conference table next to Woolsey, who was winding down a lengthy introduction. She wore the Atlantis uniform, BDUs and a uniform jacket, rather than anything more attractive or revealing, but there was no denying that Teyla was a beautiful woman. Carson had certainly never doubted it.
“The Asgard are not so pretty,” Nechayev said a little too loudly. “Short, little gray men. They look like aliens ought to look. Like they were done by Hollywood!”
Shen pursed her lips again, her eyes on Woolsey, but Dixon-Smythe tilted her perfectly coiffed head to Nechayev. “I have not met the Asgard,” she said.
Nechayev shrugged expressively, his florid face agreeable. “I have. But let us hear what the prettier alien has to say!”
I’m going to kill someone, Carson thought, making his way carefully around the conference table to the door as Woolsey ended and Teyla stepped up.
“It is a great pleasure to meet with all of you,” Teyla said, her eyes moving from one to another, “And to bring you greetings on behalf of the peoples of the Pegasus Galaxy. As Dr. Beckett has explained, we share a common genetic heritage. There is no medical means by which any of us could be differentiated from any of you, so rather than aliens let us consider one another foreigners, kindred long separated by the borders of interstellar space, now confronted with our similarities as much as our differences.”
Carson stood with his back to the door and gave her an encouraging nod as her eyes swept over his. She seemed perfectly at ease with her trader’s smile, but then he supposed that Teyla had presented many a case in the past. Certainly she’d brokered most of their food and supplies in the last two years.
“And it is our similarities that confront us. The Wraith require human beings to feed upon. If we were very different from you, it would be likely that you would not satisfy their requirements as prey animals. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Wraith find your lives as satisfying as ours.”
Teyla paused for effect, and for a moment Carson was forcibly reminded of Elizabeth. Dr. Elizabeth Weir had been the master of a moment like this. She would have convinced the IOA to let them take Atlantis home. He could not imagine a universe in which Elizabeth would not have prevailed. But Elizabeth had been lost to them for two years, and no one had ever truly taken her place.
Carson had liked Colonel Carter, but there was no denying that she was not the diplomat and administrator Elizabeth had been. He was not unsympathetic to Woolsey, though he’d worked with him only sparingly, but in his opinion Woolsey didn’t hold a candle to Elizabeth. Elizabeth had been their moral compass, their guiding star, and the expedition had never really recovered from her loss.
“But our similarities also bring us opportunities,” Teyla continued. “Despite the differences in our long-sundered cultures, we retain much in common.”
Someone nudged the door behind him, and Carson turned around to see Sheppard opening it a crack. Quietly, Carson edged out, pulling it shut behind him.
It was a good thing he closed the door, because he nearly burst out in laughter.
“Yeah, it’s very funny,” Sheppard whispered. He was wearing his usual uniform, with the addition of a harness around his neck from which dangled Torren, who appeared to be sound asleep. “Have a good laugh, Carson. Teyla has to do this meeting, and I said I’d watch him but I needed to go to the gateroom.”
“It lends you a certain something,” Carson said. “A certain ineffable dashing charm. There’s nothing like wearing a baby as a necktie to make women ovulate when they see you.”
“There’s something seriously wrong with you, Carson,” Sheppard said. He peered around the corner of the door, trying to see in the room. “Better her than me. How is she doing?”
“She’s doing very well. But whether or not that’s going to do any good, I couldn’t tell you. It’s a tough crowd.” Carson peered in at the faces ranged around the table as Teyla turned to point to something on the projection screen Woolsey had networked to his laptop.
“Who’s the guy checking out Teyla’s butt?”
“Nechayev, the Russian representative,” Carson said. “Nobody can do a thing with him. He’s a complete contrarian.” Carson put his hands in his pockets. “Of course, our representative just called Teyla an alien, so I suppose the UK has no leg to stand on here.”
“Our reps haven’t been stellar either,” John said with a frown. “I suppose politicians are alike all over the world.”
“Teyla’s doing a good job,” Carson said. “Elizabeth would be proud.”
“How’s it going?” Colonel Carter had come up behind them, peeking around Carson’s shoulder toward the door.
“Fairly well, I think,” Carson said.
Sheppard turned and Carter had to cover her mouth with her hands to keep from laughing out loud.
“Yes, I’m wearing a baby,” Sheppard said. “It’s very funny. Can we get past that?”
Torren stirred, and all three of them froze.
Sheppard paced carefully back away from the door. “What are you doing back here, Sam? I thought you were fitting out the George Hammond for her launch.”
“I am,” she said, “But Atlantis has some repair issues that needed second eyes, and I’ve spent a good deal of time with Ancient technology, so I came to pinch hit.”
“Rodney will have a cow,” Sheppard said.
“Actually, it was Rodney who invited me,” Carter replied with a smile.
“Good God!” Carson said. He exchanged a glance with Sheppard. “Rodney asked you to come help him?”
“That’s right.” Carter said pleasantly. “Some of the issues with the damaged components in the engines. I’m afraid that wormhole drive is pretty much out of the question in the near future. There are burned out components we don’t even have names for. It’s the old problem with Ancient technology — we may be able to do some maintenance, but we can’t actually reconstruct the things they built. We’re like fifteenth century people with P90s. We can point and shoot, but build one? It’s centuries ahead of us.”
“What about the hyperdrive?” Sheppard asked urgently. “Can you fix that?”
Carter nodded. “We can fix the hyperdrive. It’s not too bad, and the Asgard drives use comparable technology. It’s a matter of customizing components, not inventing them from scratch in a technology we’re only beginning to understand. With work, we should have the hyperdrive repaired in several weeks.” She looked at Sheppard keenly. “Going somewhere?”
“I hope so,” Sheppard said.
“So do we all,” Carson said. He glanced back toward the closed conference room doors. “Teyla’s doing what Woolsey calls ‘putting a face on the issues’, but I’m not sanguine.”
“We need Atlantis back in Pegasus,” Carter said. “I’m supposed to take the Hammond out on her first run, and then Steven Caldwell and I will alternate patrols with the Hammond and the Daedalus. I can’t begin to tell you how many times Steven says he’d have lost the ship if he hadn’t had Atlantis to return to. If we don’t have a base closer than eighteen days away, it’s going to make our job nearly impossible.”