And yet he had no desire to feed. He told himself it was because she was too useful too him at the moment, but he could not quite believe that it would be any different if he came upon her trussed for feeding. That was what came of knowing their names, he thought, with bitter amusement at his own foolishness, but it was not only that.
Unbidden he remembered a young queen at his side, gazing up at him raptly as he explained his work. Her hair had been the color of the sun, crimson as the blood of humans, exactly like her mother’s. Guide remembered her mental voice racing as she demanded answers, sought them with an understanding as quick as any cleverman’s.
“Guide?” Jennifer said, and he blinked. She was frowning at him, concerned. “I said, are you all right?”
He felt very old, suddenly, the memory like the ache of a long-healed wound. “I…sired a daughter, once,” he said, looking at the workbench as his fingers shifted slides, their glass edges sliding together with precise, faint clicks. “It is a great honor to be chosen to father any child, but to father a queen…” He trailed off, not sure she could grasp such a thing. Humans bred like animals, with no care taken in the choosing.
“I didn’t know you guys actually— I mean, I suppose new Wraith have to come from somewhere, but—” Obviously discomfited, she fumbled with a slide. “What’s her name?” she asked, in an entirely different tone.
“Her name was Alabaster,” he said after a moment. “Pale and strong as stone. Very much like our idea of you.”
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said. It sounded like sympathy, but he told himself it was only that humans were softhearted toward the young of any kind, even nurturing baby animals as though they were their own kind. Their young were born so helpless, coming forth to shiver in the air when Wraith young would still be cradled in the shipwomb, coming forth only when they were ready to be weaned and to learn more than what the constant hum of the hive taught them.
“It was long ago,” he said.
Keller nodded, looking away. “Right,” she said. “Okay. I want to get these set up, and then I’m going to bed.”
“Very well,” he replied, and set to work. In his mind, however, as his hands kept busy, he kept remembering the touch of that young mind, as bright and unscarred as ice, or stone, or snow.
Chapter Twenty
Croatoan
It was good to be home, Steven Caldwell thought, back to the Mountain where the guys on the guardpost didn’t even blink when you and three or four other people appeared out of thin air. Of course, they were expecting him. He’d called in and been ordered to Cheyenne Mountain, but since there were now precautions against beaming down through twenty six levels of substructure, he had to beam to the outside guardpost.
“Colonel Caldwell, sir,” the sergeant on duty said, snapping to attention. “General Landry requests that you report immediately.”
“On my way,” Caldwell said, making his way inside and toward the elevator, followed by his exec. Their Daedalus flight suits were a badge of honor and got quite a few glances among the blue-clad SGC personnel.
He wasn’t surprised that the moment he stepped out of the elevator the first person he saw was Richard Woolsey. Nor was he surprised that right behind him was Lieutenant General O’Neill. And Major General Landry. And Brigadier General Pellegrino.
“Welcome back, Colonel,” O’Neill said.
“Glad to be back, sir,” Caldwell said. He hadn’t expected all the brass from Homeworld Command, but he supposed that he ought to have, even though he’d sent his report ahead. No one with the IOA except maybe technically Woolsey. That would account for debriefing at Cheyenne Mountain. Whatever was going on in Atlantis, O’Neill wanted to keep it a purely Air Force matter as long as he could. Which said something right there.
“If you gentlemen will come this way,” Landry said, shaking his hand, “I’ve got a nice comfortable conference room just over here. Steven, I see your exec there is waving hard copies of your report, but I think it’s safe to say we’ve already read it. I think we’d like to go straight to the Q and A, if that’s ok with you.”
“Of course, sir,” Caldwell said. As though he’d say, no, that’s not ok. I can’t actually answer questions to my boss and my bosses’ boss.
There was the usual muddle as everyone tried to sort themselves out in an unfamiliar conference room by rank, with Landry bumping someone else down the table because O’Neill was standing in front of the end seat like he owned it, and there was a civilian who wouldn’t budge, Dr. Daniel Jackson. Caldwell wondered what the hell Jackson was doing here, but it wasn’t his call.
Eventually everybody settled. Caldwell wished somebody would offer coffee, but nobody did.
“So.” O’Neill steepled his hands on top of the hard copy of the report. “Tell me about Queen Death.” He glanced down the table. “Catchy name. How do they come up with these things?”
Jackson looked over the top of his glasses. “I’ve been saying for years we should rename ourselves Infinitely Evil Space Superiority Command, but nobody listens to me.”
Woolsey cleared his throat. He wasn’t driving the conversation, and that said something important about how things had been going politically on Earth. “Colonel Caldwell?”
“I think we have a serious problem,” Caldwell began.
Jack had come straight from Peterson Air Force Base to Stargate Command, but Daniel hadn’t been needed until Caldwell’s briefing, so he had his car there. Jack thought Daniel waited with admirable patience through the pleasantries afterwards, waited all the way through the familiar ride up in the elevator and the check out through the guardposts. He waited until Jack actually closed the car door.
“When were you planning on telling me?” Daniel said.
“Telling you what?”
“That you’d put my name in to replace Woolsey in Atlantis.” Daniel gave him a sideways glance as he craned his neck to pull out of the narrow parking place.
Jack spread his arms on the broad leather armrests. “Never thought you’d get an SUV. I thought you cared about saving the Earth and all.”
“It’s a hybrid.” Daniel hauled the steering wheel around expertly, managing to get out with at least an inch to spare on Jack’s side. “And you’re not going to get me off topic that easily. What were you thinking, Jack? The IOA hates me about as much as they do…”
“Carter?”
“I was going to say you,” Daniel said. “And she has a first name. You could use it.”
“Force of habit,” Jack said. “And now who’s getting off topic? Look, I know you hate the IOA…”
“What? Because they tried to have me executed a couple of years ago?” Daniel threaded his SUV through the parking lot.
“And you just hold a grudge over a little thing like that.”
“Where to start?” Daniel put on the brake and stopped in the middle of the row. “Janet’s death? Sending agents to dig up dirt on Sam’s private life? Wanting to leave you frozen in stasis forever? Turning a blind eye to Kinsey’s bullying?” He looked at Jack sideways. “I’m a poison pill, aren’t I?”
“Not to Desai,” Jack said. “He loves you. So does Nechayev. For that matter Dixon-Smythe could care less.”
“But you think the rest of them will panic and want Woolsey back.” Daniel shook his head. “Because they think they can’t push me around.”
“They know they can’t push you around,” Jack clarified. “If you were in Atlantis they’d have Elizabeth all over again.”
“She did a fine job,” Daniel said quietly.
“I know.”
Daniel started the car moving again. “It’s not that I mind you using me in your game with the IOA. But I wish you’d tell me first. I’d rather not hear about it from Landry.”