“Hi, Todd. Keeping busy?”
The Wraith bared his teeth in what Sheppard thought was amusement. “Oh, I keep myself occupied.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“The space is somewhat — lacking in amenities,” Todd said.
“No hot tub?” Sheppard asked.
“No food.”
“Sorry.” Sheppard had been expecting a verbal attack, managed to answer with patent insincerity. “For some reason, there’s a shortage of volunteers just now.”
“Pity.” Todd’s gaze wandered sideways, fixed speculatively on the Marine in the doorway.
“You wouldn’t enjoy them,” Sheppard said. Marines taste terrible: he bit back the words before they could be misconstrued.
“You were very persuasive before,” Todd said, and in spite of himself Sheppard flinched.
“That was a one time only deal,” he said. “You haven’t got anything to offer.”
“You haven’t asked,” Todd said.
Sheppard shook his head. “You’re out of power, have been for a while. You’ve got nothing. Sorry.”
“I’m sure we could come to some sort of accord.”
“You wouldn’t like the price,” Sheppard said, and this time it was Todd who flinched. “Some of our scientists are — quite curious — about the Wraith.” He paused, wondering if he needed to say more, but Todd’s eyes flickered in comprehension.
“I have already spent far too much time with your doctors Beckett and Keller.”
“Sorry you feel that way,” Sheppard said.
Todd’s feeding hand contracted into a tight fist, but he managed a creditable shrug. “But then, perhaps new doctors will provide new — opportunities.”
“Only for them.”
There was a heartbeat of silence between them, and something changed in Todd’s face. “Sheppard—”
“But—” Sheppard spoke before Todd could finish whatever he had been going to say. There were places they did not need to go, not today. “Seeing as we don’t really want you making any more new — opportunities — Dr. Beckett’s come up with an alternative. We happen to have a stasis chamber to spare. You might even find it cozy.”
Todd blinked once and began to laugh, head thrown back, the white hair flying.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are an optimist, John Sheppard. Only you would come up with such a solution.”
“You’re too kind.”
“I had thought—”
Todd stopped abruptly, but Sheppard thought he could guess what the Wraith would have said. He’d been prepared to ask — not to beg, but to ask, as of right — for mercy, and that was something Sheppard wasn’t prepared to hear because he didn’t intend to have to give it.
Todd bared teeth in something between a snarl and a smile. “And once I am in hibernation — forgive me, stasis — why should I trust you to wake me?”
Sheppard matched him tooth for tooth. “Because you don’t have a choice.”
This time, Sheppard was reasonably sure the expression was a smile. “I don’t suppose I could have my own clothes back, instead of these—” Todd plucked at the front of the gray jumpsuit he’d been given in place of his fine leathers. “—ridiculous things?”
“Unlikely,” Sheppard said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
Todd nodded gravely. “When?”
“No time like the present.”
The Wraith snarled again, but quietly — more comment than complaint, Sheppard thought.
“Your people are in a hurry, Sheppard.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Sheppard asked. “The chance to figure out what makes your kind tick—” The words rang hollow, his imagination betraying him again. Not even the Wraith deserved to become medical experiments — it was too close to horrors that he didn’t want to see Earth repeat.
“Whereas we already know much about you,” Todd said, but the words lacked force. “Very well. I accept your offer.”
“Good.” Sheppard touched his earpiece. “Dr. Beckett.”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“You can go ahead and get that stasis chamber ready. Todd’s willing.”
Even in the radio’s tinny reproduction, he could hear Beckett’s relief. “Right, then. We’ll get on it, Dr. Keller and I.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Sheppard looked back at the Wraith, safe behind the forcefield. He wanted to say something more, something to acknowledge what he was giving — and what he was asking, too — but the words weren’t there. And maybe they didn’t need to be. “I’ll ask about the clothes. No promises.”
Chapter Three
The Art of the Possible
The office was different. That was the first thing Dick noticed. Not that he’d spent enough time in the Oval Office for it to feel like home. The sunburst rug was the same, and so were the paired cream colored couches, but the heavy draperies that had covered the windows were gone. The Remington bronzes of cowboys on pitching horses had been replaced by white china containers with subdued ivy topiaries. And the desk was different. It was a mess. Papers, books, a laptop, a blackberry, and a half-empty cup of coffee littered its usually pristine walnut surface.
“Mr. President,” Dick said.
“Richard.” The president got to his feet and came around the desk to shake hands, his long, lean form looking even thinner in person than it did on TV. His collar was loosened and his sleeves rolled up, though his shirt was starched enough that even around his elbows the creases stayed crisp. “It’s good to see you again.” He perched on the edge of the desk, one leg in the air. “I’ve been reading some pretty incredible stuff.”
“It is pretty incredible, Mr. President,” Dick said. “I realize that in your former committees you never had access to these documents…”
“No.” The President smiled as though the joke were on him. “I’m not sure I would have run if anyone had said, ‘By the way, aliens are real, and they’re planning to attack Earth the week after the Inauguration. Oh, and there’s a huge shiny alien city off California!’”
“Yes, about that,” Dick began. “Mr. President, Atlantis can’t stay there.”
The President’s eyebrows rose and fell. “Come and sit down and tell me why you say that,” he said.
He led the way to one of the cream couches, and Dick settled onto the other. It was always very hard to look professional on these couches, he remembered, but not nearly as bad for him as for a woman in a skirt. The former Secretary of State had always opted for one of the upholstered straight chairs.
Dick took a deep breath. Now was his chance to make his case or break it. “The presence of Atlantis on Earth is essentially destabilizing, sir. Atlantis’ weapons are far more deadly than any ICBM ever built, far more accurate, and there are no known countermeasures. A single drone could take out the Kremlin and leave the rest of Moscow intact, flying in less than six minutes and almost entirely invisible to radar. Atlantis currently has more than two hundred drones remaining, even after our encounter with the hive ship. On top of that, Atlantis’ shield is impenetrable to any human devised weapon. It has already proven that it can withstand a direct nuclear strike with no structural damage and no harm to the occupants.” He paused, waiting for that to all sink in.
The President nodded slowly. “Go on.”