“I thought you might think so,” Jack O’Neill said.
“He is one of the best of the best,” Konstantin Nechayev said, nodding seriously. “I must say that my government would strongly support Dr. Jackson as head of the Atlantis expedition. We have worked with him for many years, and he impressed us a great deal when he assisted us in the matter of our development of gate technology some years ago. A man of towering intellect!”
Jack gave him a look as if to say, don’t overdo it.
“That he is,” Desai agreed. “With the kind of broad humanist perspective the job demands. Which,” he shrugged, “has been sadly lacking since Dr. Weir’s death. I think Dr. Jackson is an excellent candidate.”
Shen and Strom alike looked speechless.
“I do not know Dr. Jackson personally,” Aurelia Dixon-Smythe said, glancing over the curriculum vitae before her. “But unless the PM has some objection, he seems a reasonable choice.”
“SG-1,” Strom said, making it seem like some sort of epithet. “Dr. Jackson has a long history.”
Nechayev beamed. “He does indeed. If I understand your position correctly, Mr. Strom, it is the position of your president that the head of the Atlantis position must go to an American. Understandable. You are paying the bills, and so you expect to call the shots, to put it bluntly. Some of our other esteemed colleagues are determined that it should not be a member of the military. I, myself, had no objection to Colonel Carter, and voted against her replacement as you may recall. So. Name me an American more qualified than Dr. Daniel Jackson.” He looked around the table with a smile.
“Jackson is…” Shen began, and then lapsed into silence. Whatever he was, it could not be summed up immediately.
Dick Woolsey opened and closed his mouth. He didn’t look at Jack, and for a second Jack felt sorry for him. But this was just like the business with the Replicators. Dick had to play this naturally.
Nechayev was doing the heavy lifting as he’d promised. “I am very pleased with this suggestion,” he said into the silence. “Very pleased indeed. I know that the President had the warmest possible feelings toward Dr. Jackson after the incident where he assisted Dr. Markova. His personal thanks, as I recall.”
Desai’s brows twitched. He knew this was a set up, but he also knew Jackson. “I think this is certainly an avenue we should explore,” he said.
LaPierre looked entirely blindsided and glanced at Nechayev with scarcely concealed astonishment. “I thought a few years ago you wanted to execute him?”
Nechayev shrugged. “That was when he had been compromised by the Ori. Obviously that situation resolved itself.”
“You mean I resolved it,” Woolsey said.
“If you consider allowing yourself to be overpowered and transported away while the prisoner stole a starship to be resolving it? Yes,” Nechayev said. “Come now, Mr. Woolsey. Your interactions have not always been successful, or in fact competent. Allowing yourself to be captured by the Replicators?”
“That was…”
“Unavoidable, yes.” Nechayev waved a hand. “And yet the fact remains that you, and Mr. Strom, and Ms. Shen, and some of our predecessors who are no longer part of this body, decided on a disastrous course that nearly lost us not only Atlantis but also nearly caused a Replicator invasion of Earth. Had Atlantis remained under military control…”
“Now also recall I opposed that decision bitterly,” LaPierre put in. “As did Mr. Desai.”
“Yes, it was the three of us,” Nechayev agreed. “I do not recall, what was your role in that, General O’Neill?” He all but winked at Jack.
Jack looked as innocent as possible. “Me? I nearly got nuked. Oh, and then we defeated the Replicators and took back the city.”
Roy Martin, the new American representative, choked on his coffee. “You, personally, General?”
“Me, Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard and his team,” Jack said. “With the invaluable contributions of Mr. Woolsey, who volunteered to be interrogated by the Replicators in order to give them false information.”
Woolsey looked at him sharply, and Jack saw understanding dawn. Daniel Jackson was a poison pill, and a sufficiently plausible one that Woolsey’s detractors would panic.
“Very admirable, Mr. Woolsey,” Martin said.
Woolsey did his best to look modest. “Thank you, Senator.”
“Dick never asks someone under his command to do something he wouldn’t do himself,” Jack said smoothly. “He’s a hands on kind of guy.”
“Even when that means being interrogated by the enemy?” Martin’s eyebrows rose.
“I, um,” Woolsey began.
“He’s very modest about his role in it,” Jack said. “But I can’t say there is anybody in the world I would rather have had in that cell with me.” A lot of people he would rather have had out of it, but that was beside the point. Why Sheppard couldn’t have brought Sam and Daniel and Teal’c along was beyond him. The more the merrier.
“I see that it’s nearly two o’clock,” Shen said. “And unfortunately I have another meeting this afternoon. If we might try to end on time?”
Bingo, Jack thought. Poison pill swallowed. Let’s pull the plug.
Desai frowned. “It’s only quarter till…”
“We must respect Ms. Shen’s time constraints,” Strom said quickly. “I think that we should go ahead and recess on that note rather than moving on to the next agenda item. Does next Thursday suit you all?”
“I don’t know yet,” Dixon-Smythe said. “I’ll have my assistant contact you.”
“I don’t know either,” LaPierre said.
Nechayev smiled expansively. “I am at your disposal at any time.”
Chapter Nineteen
Snow
He was beginning to think he should plan his own rescue — maybe steal a Dart, or, since he wasn’t sure he could actually fly one, maybe a lifepod, they were designed for incapacitated passengers. He was fairly sure he’d located the ones nearest his own lab, and he kept track of when the hive came into orbit around a habitable planet. Like now: they had stopped to Cull, on a world with a Stargate and a reasonably large population — except he could imagine himself landing, and then what? He’d have to dial out — not to Atlantis directly, that would be too risky, because he’d have to spend time convincing them he was himself, and not a trick, so to some safer world where Sheppard could meet him — if he’d go for that again, after the last time. Not to mention all the people who’d be trying to kill a lone Wraith… Maybe New Athos? He could dial that address in his sleep, and he could probably convince Halling not to kill him right away. Maybe he could say he had a message from Todd? There was a certain perverse irony in that.
Except that he was never alone. Not that Ember had ever left him for very long, and why he hadn’t noticed that until now, he couldn’t have said, but now either Nighthaze or Heedless was in constant attendance. Heedless was Nighthaze’s chief assistant, whose tone of mind was strangely sober for such a name — but then Rodney overheard some of the other clevermen joking about the number of times Heedless had regrown fingers in the wake of his experiments, and thought he understood. Wraith humor wasn’t all that different from, say, Marine humor, when you came right down to it. If one of them had ever left him, he might have been tempted to try it, although he knew that failure meant not only that he’d be killed, but that in the process the Wraith would learn everything he’d been trying to keep from them. And that, he realized, was the key. If Sheppard didn’t come, he would not only have to escape, but he would have to do it perfectly the first time. Or die trying.
The thought was like a blow, and he glared at his screen, at the golden waterfall of data, as though it could somehow help. Succeed or make sure he died: that was the sort of thing Sheppard would say, or Ronon. He was the one who found ways to survive…