“Then you will return for them. With the potion.”
Frustration boiling just under the surface, John knew he was in no position to intimidate these people. The fact that he halfway sympathized with them didn’t help matters.
“I will stay,” Teyla offered, her dark eyes hooded. “I spoke before of appreciating all viewpoints. Clearly there is more left to understand.”
“I’ll stay too, sir,” Ford volunteered. “I mean, I should keep an eye on Lisera.”
John hated this with a ferocity that physically burned. He didn’t want Teyla punishing herself for her misjudgment, and although he preferred having a military person stick around, leaving a subordinate in a hostile situation while he himself slunk home with his tail between his legs was intolerable.
Some sign of the conflict must have shown on his face, because Teyla stepped closer and forced him to look at her. “We will be all right,” she told him. “They have no wish to harm us, and they are in need of help we can provide.”
He set his jaw and nodded. “All right. We’ll back by morning at the latest.” Every ounce of conviction he possessed was funneled into that vow, in the hope that his teammates would take some assurance in it.
They were separated almost immediately, Ford and Teyla pulled toward a soot-stained doorway while he and Rodney were escorted back to the Sanctuary Hall. At the entrance to the transport, their Shields were confiscated and given to a confused and upset Lisera. The ropes were untied, and then they were on their own.
After negotiating their way through an increasingly surly bunch of villagers on the way back to the clearing where they’d parked the jumper, John was ready to snap. No matter which way he spun the situation, there were very few options available, and exactly none that would let him sleep at night. To make matters worse, Rodney hadn’t uttered a word since this hideous ‘deal’ had been struck. Somehow that was worse than the crowing he’d come to expect from the scientist.
At last, the conversational void got the better of him, and he growled, “What, no victory march? Or did you run out of creative ways to say ‘I told you so’?”
To his dismay, Rodney looked hurt for a split-second, before his expression hardened. “What kind of sociopath do you take me for, to think I’d be happy about what we just saw?”
John instantly felt like a complete and total ass. “You’re right — I’m sorry. That was a low blow.”
After an uncomfortable pause, Rodney spoke up again. “That said, I hope we’ve all learned a valuable lesson about listening to each other, or more specifically listening to me.”
“On second thought, let’s go back to brooding in silence.”
“Fine by me.”
Unfortunately, the renewed quiet only served to magnify John’s frustration and sense of failure. Now he’d have to face Dr Weir and explain why he’d returned without two of his people. There weren’t many things that felt worse than that.
The room had clearly not been intended for detention, which lent weight to Yann’s assertions that they did not wish to harm their…visitors. It was relatively well-lit, it had chairs — such as they were — and a small opening high in the wall served as a window. There even was a plate with a loaf of hard bread and some fruit sitting on the table.
Nonetheless, Lieutenant Ford was sitting in a chair, his spine rigid and his expression blank. If Yann and his rebels did not view him as a prisoner, the young Marine certainly behaved as one.
Teyla stood underneath the crude window and stared out at the evening sky, trying vainly to give order to her thoughts. A great many of her convictions had been tested of late, forcing her to question herself more strongly each time.
It had seemed simpler, once. The peoples she had encountered were fellow traders, willing and often eager to assist each other. Perhaps the shared menace of the Wraith had colored her viewpoint, but she had considered almost all of her acquaintances to be kindred. Only when she began to journey with the Earth Atlantis team had she come to recognize greater differences between worlds.
The deception practiced so expertly by Sora still troubled Teyla. Was her trust so easily manipulated? When had the Genii traded compassion for self-preservation? What of the Hoffans, who had abandoned their morality with respect even to their own kind? No one could deny that the Wraith ignited desperation in their victims. But rather than bond together to face a common foe, so many seemed prone to battle among themselves. In that way, the people of this planet were no different from many others.
The Dalerans’ plight touched her, more so perhaps because of her earlier misjudgment. Still, the providing them with the gene therapy alone would not offer a solution to their social inequities.
That, of course, presupposed that she and Lieutenant Ford would be freed according to the rebels’ demands. Her faith in her teammates ran deep. Major Sheppard would sooner cut off his own arm than leave his comrades at risk, and while Dr McKay was decidedly less intrepid, his intellect could very well prove useful. She only hoped that in resolving the situation, they would also, somehow, find a way to free these people from their current fate.
Clearly sharing her thoughts, Ford finally spoke up. “Think Dr Weir will agree to give these guys what they want?”
“I believe you to be better qualified than me to answer that.”
He chewed on his lip. “If we were on Earth, I’d say no way. That’s not how we do things. But sometimes, even though it’s obvious, I have to remind myself to stop thinking like I’m back there. We’re a long way from Earth, in more ways than one.”
They lapsed into silence again, and Teyla wondered if the Lieutenant’s home could possibly feel as distant to him as Athos now did to her.
“Absolutely not.”
Predictably, Rodney didn’t react all that well to her answer. “I see. What a relief it is to know that all matters get such careful consideration. That took you all of three seconds to decide.”
A flare of white-hot anger surged up, and Elizabeth pinned him in place with her stare. “After your unilateral decision to tell the Dalerans about the gene therapy, you have the nerve to accuse me of going off half-cocked?”
They faced each other down across her desk. Off to the side, Carson and John wisely kept their mouths shut.
“I didn’t exactly have the opportunity to form a committee to discuss it,” Rodney argued. “Also — and you may think this a minor point — this further proves my previous assertion about the utility of the gene therapy.”
Elizabeth rubbed her temple wearily. The moment the jumper had returned carrying only half her team, she’d felt an all-too-familiar sense of dread. Somehow, no matter what they did in this galaxy, nothing came without a price. Could they — could she—have done something to prevent this? Had they failed yet again under noble intentions? “I understand your point, Rodney, and I agree that genetic inequality is at the heart of the problem. But the circumstances are shifting quickly right now. If we give in to terror tactics, we’re setting ourselves up to be continually manipulated. I won’t allow that.”
The scientist scowled. “Like so many things, it’s a matter of perspective,” he said. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s revolutionary. How did your country come by its independence, by the way?”
“It’s hardly the same—”
“It’s exactly the same. And not only is the ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ mantra both trite and unreasonably inflexible, it also happens to be counterproductive in this situation. They’re asking us for something we intended to give them already.”
Rodney stalked across the office. “Let’s also bear in mind our diminishing options here. Aside from leaving Ford and Teyla to their aromatic paradise, what else do you suggest we do?”